Universe Today

July 3, 2024July 6, 2024 by Carolyn Collins Petersen

More Evidence that the Kuiper Belt is Bigger Than We Thought

The Kuiper Belt was named in honor of Dutch-American astronomer Gerard Kuiper, who postulated a reservoir of icy bodies beyond Neptune. The first Kuiper Belt object was discovered in 1992. We now know of more than a thousand objects there, and it's estimated it's home to more than 100,000 asteroids and comets there over 62 miles (100 km) across. Credit: JHUAPL

As the New Horizons spacecraft continues its epic journey to explore the Kuiper Belt, it has a study partner back here on Earth. The Subaru Telescope on the Big Island of Hawaii is deploying its Hyper Suprime-Cam imager to look at the Kuiper Belt along the spacecraft’s trajectory. Its observations show that the Kuiper Belt extends farther than scientists thought.

July 3, 2024July 3, 2024 by Andy Tomaswick

A Concentrated Beam of Particles and Photons Could Push Us to Proxima Centauri

Getting to Proxima Centauri b will take a lot of new technologies, but there are increasingly exciting reasons to do so. Both public and private efforts have started seriously looking at ways to make it happen, but so far, there has been one significant roadblock to the journey – propulsion. To solve that problem, Christopher Limbach, now a professor at the University of Michigan, received a grant from NASA’s Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) to work on a novel type of beamed propulsion that utilizes both a particle beam and a laser to overcome that technology’s biggest weakness.

July 2, 2024July 2, 2024 by Scott Alan Johnston

Plate Tectonics Might Only Occur on 0.003% of Planets. That Makes Earth Very Special Indeed.

Plate tectonics: Image Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio

Plate tectonics, oceans, and continents might just be the secret ingredients for complex life on Earth. And if these geological features are rare elsewhere in the universe, then perhaps that explains why we haven’t yet discovered intelligent alien life. New research from American and Swiss Earth scientists suggests that these ingredients represent missing variables in the famous Drake equation, devised more than half a century ago to estimate the chances of finding advanced civilizations in our galaxy. Including these new variables could completely rewrite the probability of detecting intelligent life in the Milky Way.

July 2, 2024July 2, 2024 by Evan Gough

Alpha Centauri Could Have a Super Jupiter in Orbit

This image of the sky around the bright star Alpha Centauri AB also shows the much fainter red dwarf star, Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Solar System. The picture was created from pictures forming part of the Digitized Sky Survey 2. The blue halo around Alpha Centauri AB is an artifact of the photographic process, the star is really pale yellow in colour like the Sun. Image Credit: Digitized Sky Survey 2 Acknowledgement: Davide De Martin/Mahdi Zamani

The three-body problem is one of Nature’s thorniest problems. The gravitational interactions and resulting movements of three bodies are notoriously difficult to predict because of instability. A planet orbiting two stars is an example of the three-body problem, but it’s sometimes called a “restricted three-body problem.” In that case, there are some potential stable orbits for a planet.

A new study shows that the nearby Alpha Centauri AB pair could host a Super Jupiter in a stable orbit.

July 2, 2024July 2, 2024 by Andy Tomaswick

Could We Replace Ingenuity With a Swarm of Robotic Bees?

Humans finally achieved controlled flight on another planet for the first time just a few years ago. Ingenuity, the helicopter NASA sent to Mars, performed that difficult task admirably. It is now taking a well-deserved rest until some intrepid human explorer someday comes by to pick it up and hopefully put it in a museum somewhere. But what if, instead of a quadcopter, NASA used a series of flexible-wing robots akin to bees to explore the Martian terrain? That was the idea behind the Marsbee proposal by Chang-Kwon Kang and his colleagues at the University of Alabama at Huntsville. The project was supported by a NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) grant back in 2018 – let’s see what they did with it.

July 2, 2024July 2, 2024 by Carolyn Collins Petersen

Mysterious Swirls on the Moon Could Be Explained by Underground Magma

This is an image of the Reiner Gamma lunar swirl on the Moon, supplied by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Credits: NASA LRO WAC science team

In the latest chapter of “The Mystery of the Lunar Swirls,” planetary scientists have a new theory to explain these odd markings on the Moon’s surface. It invokes underground magmas and strange magnetic anomalies.

July 1, 2024July 1, 2024 by Andy Tomaswick

Robotic Rover Could Support Astronauts on Moonwalks

Robotic companions are a mainstay of sci-fi series everywhere. From R2D2 to Johnny 5, these characters typically have a supporting role in the story and are helpful to their human companions. But what if they were integral to the humans in the story? So much so that they couldn’t live without their robotic compatriots? That’s the idea behind Biobot, which was given a NIAC grant in 2018 – why not use a robotic companion to carry supporting equipment on human extravehicular activities (EVAs) on other planets?

June 30, 2024July 5, 2024 by Laurence Tognetti

Exomoons: Why study them? What can they teach us about finding life beyond Earth?

Artist's depiction of an exomoon orbiting a gas giant within the star's habitable zone. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

Universe Today has had the recent privilege of investigating a multitude of scientific disciplines, including impact craters, planetary surfaces, exoplanets, astrobiology, solar physics, comets, planetary atmospheres, planetary geophysics, cosmochemistry, meteorites, radio astronomy, extremophiles, organic chemistry, black holes, cryovolcanism, planetary protection, dark matter, supernovae, and neutron stars, and how they both individually and collectively contribute to our greater understanding of our place in the universe.

Here, Universe Today discusses the growing field of exomoons with Dr. David Kipping, who is an assistant professor in the Astronomy Department at Columbia University, along with his PhD students, Benjamin Cassese and Daniel Yahalomi, regarding the importance of studying exomoons, the benefits and challenges, potential exomoon candidates, how exomoons can teach us about finding life beyond Earth, and advice for upcoming students who wish to pursue studying exomoons. Therefore, what is the importance of studying exomoons?

June 30, 2024June 30, 2024 by Mark Thompson

What’s Next for the Event Horizon Telescope? Twelve Possible New Targets

Both the Milky Way and a galaxy known as M87 have supermassive black holes at their core. These are the two largest black holes we know about and the Event Horizon Telescope has just captured stunning images of their event horizons. A new paper looks at what we might expect from a next generation EHT and highlights twelve targets that should be top of the list.

June 30, 2024June 30, 2024 by Laurence Tognetti

Neutron Stars: Why study them? What makes them so fascinating?

Artist’s rendition of a neutron star. (Credit: ESO / L. Calçada)

Over the last several months, Universe Today has explored a plethora of scientific disciplines, including impact craters, planetary surfaces, exoplanets, astrobiology, solar physics, comets, planetary atmospheres, planetary geophysics, cosmochemistry, meteorites, radio astronomy, extremophiles, organic chemistry, black holes, cryovolcanism, planetary protection, dark matter, and supernovae, and how each of these unique disciplines continue to teach is about the cosmos and our place throughout its vastness.

Here, Universe Today discusses the field of neutron stars with Dr. Stuart Shapiro, who is a Professor of Physics and Astronomy and NCSA Senior Research Scientist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, regarding the importance of studying neutron stars, the benefits and challenges, the most intriguing aspect about neutron stars he’s studied throughout his career, and any advice he can offer upcoming students who wish to pursue studying neutron stars. Therefore, what is the importance of studying neutron stars?