Universe Today

July 9, 2021July 9, 2021 by Andy Tomaswick

Chinese Astronauts Take Their First Spacewalk Outside the new Station

Spacewalks are a relatively rare occurrence, and they normally draw at least a moderate amount of media coverage. So when a team of Chinese astronauts performed a spacewalk outside of their newly launched space station for the first time, it was bound to attract some notice. The successful walk installed equipment, including cameras, outside of the new Tiangong (“Heavenly Palace”) station.

July 8, 2021July 8, 2021 by Matt Williams

There are Probably Many More Earth-Sized Worlds Than Previously Believed

This illustration depicts a planet partially hidden in the glare of its host star and a nearby companion star. After examining a number of binary stars, astronomers have concluded that Earth-sized planets in many two-star systems might be going unnoticed by transit searches, which look for changes in the light from a star when a planet passes in front of it. The light from the second star makes it more difficult to detect the changes in the host star’s light when the planet passes in front of it. Credit: International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/J. da Silva (Spaceengine)

In the past decade, the discovery of extrasolar planets has accelerated immensely. To date, 4,424 exoplanets have been confirmed in 3,280 star systems, with another 7,453 awaiting confirmation. So far, most of these planets have been gas giants, with about 66% being similar to Jupiter or Neptune, while another 30% have been giant rocky planets (aka. “Super-Earths). Only a small fraction of confirmed exoplanets (less than 4%) have been similar in size to Earth.

However, according to new research by astronomers working at NASA Ames Research Center, it is possible that Earth-sized exoplanets are more common than previously thought. As they indicated in a recent study, there could be twice as many rocky exoplanets in binary systems that are obscured by the glare of their parent stars. These findings could have drastic implications in the search for potentially habitable worlds since roughly half of all stars are binary systems.

July 8, 2021July 8, 2021 by Andy Tomaswick

The Streetlights in an Entire County Were Swapped to LEDs. Light Pollution got Worse

“The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry” – this famous paraphrase of Scottish poet Robert Burns sometimes sums up human ingenuity. That is exactly what happened when a county in Washington State decided to replace all of its county-owned streetlights with LEDs at least partially in an effort to combat light pollution. New research shows that they actually made the light pollution worse.

July 8, 2021July 8, 2021 by Andy Tomaswick

Multiple Earth-Mass Rogue Planets Have Been Discovered Drifting Through the Milky Way

Last year we reported on how the Roman Space Telescope’s backers hoped it would be able to detect rogue planets using a technique called “microlensing”. Now, a team led by Iain McDonald, then at the University of Manchester, beat them to the punch by finding a few examples of Earth-sized rogue planets using data from an already aging space telescope – Kepler.

July 8, 2021July 8, 2021 by Nancy Atkinson

Cassini Saw Methane in Enceladus’ Plumes. Scientists Don’t Know How it Could be There Without Life

Icy water vapor geysers erupting from fissures on Enceladus. Credit: NASA/JPL

Even though the Cassini mission at Saturn ended nearly four years ago, data from the spacecraft still keeps scientists busy. And the latest research using Cassini’s wealth of data might be the most enticing yet.

Researchers say they’ve detected methane in the plumes of Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus. The process for how the methane is produced is not known at this time, but the study suggests that the surprisingly large amount of methane found are likely coming from activity at hydrothermal vents present on Enceladus’s interior seafloor. These vents could be very similar those found in Earth’s oceans, where microorganisms live, feed on the energy from the vents and produce methane in a process called methanogenesis.

July 8, 2021July 8, 2021 by David Dickinson

Tales of a ‘Drunken Comet’- Astronomers Detect Alcohol Leaking From 46P/Wirtanen into Space

A close pass of Comet Wirtanen in 2018 offered researchers an unprecedented opportunity.

Comets are full of surprises. Not only do they often under- or very occasionally over- perform versus expectations, but they also offer a glimpse of the remnants of the very early solar system. In December 2018, astronomers had an unprecedented opportunity to study one of these relics of the early solar system up close as Comet 46P/Wirtanen sped by Earth just 30 times the Earth-Moon distance (7.1 million miles away) on its closest passage for this century.

July 8, 2021July 8, 2021 by Nancy Atkinson

Researchers Have Taught a Drone to Recognize and Hunt Down Meteorites Autonomously

Almahata Sitta 15. The black fragment of Almahata Sitta meteorite number 15 shows up black against the lighter coloured rocks of the Nubian desert in Northern Sudan. Image credit: Peter Jenniskens (SETI Institute/NASA Ames)

Planetary scientists estimate that each year, about 500 meteorites survive the fiery trip through Earth’s atmosphere and fall to our planet’s surface. Most are quite small, and less than 2% of them are ever recovered. While the majority of rocks from space may not be recoverable due to ending up in oceans or remote, inaccessible areas, other meteorite falls are just not witnessed or known about.

But new technology has upped the number known falls in recent years. Doppler radar has detected meteorite falls, as well as all-sky camera networks specifically on the lookout for meteors. Additionally, increased use of dashcams and security cameras have allowed for more serendipitous sightings and data on fireballs and potential meteorite falls.

A team of researchers is now taking advantage of additional technology advances by testing out drones and machine learning for automated searches for small meteorites. The drones are programmed to fly a grid search pattern in a projected ‘strewn field’ for a recent meteorite fall, taking systematic pictures of the ground over a large survey area. Artificial intelligence is then used to search through the pictures to identify potential meteorites.

July 7, 2021July 7, 2021 by Matt Williams

After Just 6 Weeks of Construction, Super Heavy is Built and Ready to Move

As usual, the SpaceX South Texas Launch Facility, located near the village of Boca Chica, is the focal point of a lot of attention. Almost two months ago, crews at the facility began working on the first true Super Heavy prototype, the launch stage of SpaceX’s Starship. After six weeks of assembly, SpaceX rolled the Super Heavy Booster 3 (B3) out of the “High Bay” (where it was assembled) and installed it onto the launch pad.

July 7, 2021July 7, 2021 by Brian Koberlein

The "Crisis in Cosmology" Might not be a Crisis After all

Climbing the cosmic distance ladder. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt (IPAC)

The standard model of cosmology is known as the LCDM model. Here, CDM stands for Cold Dark Matter, which makes up most of the matter in the universe, and L stands for Lambda, which is the symbol used in general relativity to represent dark energy or cosmic expansion. While the observational evidence we have largely supports the LCDM model, there are some issues with it. One of the most bothersome is known as cosmic tension.

July 7, 2021July 7, 2021 by Andy Tomaswick

Satellites can Track Microplastics From Space

Sometimes simple and elegant solutions are all that is needed to solve a problem. One problem that was searching for a solution was how to track microplastics. These small particles of plastics are what results after the sun and friction (such as ocean waves) break down larger plastic objects. They have become a huge problem in the ocean, wreaking havoc on ecosystems and their constituent organisms. Now, a team from the University of Michigan have used data originally collected to monitor hurricanes to try to track microplastics, potentially helping to reign in a problem that threatens to engulf the world’s oceans.