Universe Today

March 31, 2021March 31, 2021 by Ralph Crewe

Seen From Space, Iceland’s new Volcano Lights up the Island at Night

You’ve probably seen stunning images of the night side of the Earth from space. Most people have seen the veritable constellations of city lights scattered familiarly across the continents, separated by wide oceans of darkness. You very well may have seen some stunning videos from the ISS showing the dynamic and mesmerizing ribbons of the polar aurorae and the even more frenetic flashes of nighttime lightning storms. If you’re a frequent reader of this site, you’ve likely even seen the effects of rolling blackouts during the catastrophic winter storms of February 2021 in Houston, as seen from space. Add another explosively extraordinary phenomenon to the list of nighttime space views; the March 2021 volcanic eruption in Iceland!.

March 31, 2021March 31, 2021 by Matt Williams

Maybe Mars Didn’t Lose its Water After All. It’s Still Trapped on the Planet

Roughly 4 billion years ago, Mars looked a lot different than it does today. For starters, its atmosphere was thicker and warmer, and liquid water flowed across its surface. This included rivers, standing lakes, and even a deep ocean that covered much of the northern hemisphere. Evidence of this warm, watery past has been preserved all over the planet in the form of lakebeds, river valleys, and river deltas.

For some time, scientists have been trying to answer a simple question: where did all that water go? Did it escape into space after Mars lost its atmosphere, or retreat somewhere? According to new research from Caltech and the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), between 30% and 90% of Mars’ water went underground. These findings contradict the widely-accepted theory that Mars lost its water to space over the course of eons.

March 30, 2021March 30, 2021 by Matt Williams

Latest Starship Prototype SN11 Explodes in mid-air, Raining Debris on the Launch Site

Space exploration sure is hard, huh? Luckily, it’s an iterative process, where engineers test and test and test again to work out all the bugs in advance. At least, that’s what we remind ourselves when the prototype goes “kaboom!” Earlier today, the SN11 joins its predecessors by being the fourth Starship prototype to conduct a successful flight test and then explode while attempting to make a landing (or shortly thereafter).

March 30, 2021March 30, 2021 by Andy Tomaswick

One Idea for a Lunar Lava Tube Explorer

Lava tubes on the moon are some of the most interesting, and difficult, places to explore in the solar system. But if humanity plans to eventually have a permanent presence on the moon, the more knowledge we have about the cave systems created by those lava tubes the better.

That’s why ESA’s current focus on lunar cave exploration is so important, and another good reason to take note when it releases more information about some of the technologies leading that push. Recently, it released an update on a project known as DAEDALUS, led by Julius-Maximilians-Universität of Würzburg (JMU), with interesting new insights into the sphere shaped autonomous robot.

March 30, 2021March 30, 2021 by Andy Tomaswick

LEGO Announces the Space Shuttle Discovery and Hubble Edition

When I saw the opportunity to write about a new Lego set featuring the Space Shuttle Discovery and Hubble, I immediately went to my 7 year old son, who is obsessed with Legos, and asked him if he thought I should write about it. He immediately agreed, so now I have the pleasure of introducing UT’s audience to one of Lego’s newest sets – #10283 – NASA Space Shuttle Discovery.

March 30, 2021March 30, 2021 by Andy Tomaswick

Mars Spiders Form as Spring Arrives on Mars. But why?

A person suffering from arachnophobia might think their fear would stoked on a trip to Mars. However, there is such a thing known colloquially as a Martian “spider”. It is much more innocuous than the eight legged animal that strikes fear into the hearts of millions, but its origins have only been theorized until recently. Now, a team led by a group at Trinity College Dublin has determined that these “spiders” are actually topological troughs formed when dry ice directly sublimates to a gas.

March 29, 2021March 29, 2021 by Matt Williams

This Time NASA’s SLS Hotfire Goes the Full 8 Minutes

The core stage for the first flight of NASA’s Space Launch System rocket is seen in the B-2 Test Stand during a second hot fire test, Thursday, March 18, 2021, at NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. The four RS-25 engines fired for the full-duration of 8 minutes during the test and generated 1.6 million pounds of thrust. The hot fire test is the final stage of the Green Run test series, a comprehensive assessment of the Space Launch System’s core stage prior to launching the Artemis I mission to the Moon. Photo Credit: (NASA/Robert Markowitz)

When NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) is fully integrated, assembled, and finished with testing, it will be the most powerful rocket since the Saturn V that carried the Apollo astronauts to the Moon. To get it there, NASA has been conducting a testing campaign known as the Green Run, an 8-step assessment that culminates in a test-firing of all four of the Core’s RS-25 engines (aka. a “Hot Fire” test).

On January 16^th, NASA made its first attempt at a Green Run Hot Fire test at the Stennis Space Center’s B-2 Test Stand in Mississippi, which only lasted for about one minute. Another attempt was made on Thursday, March 18^th, where all four engines fired for 8 minutes and 19 seconds. This successful fire test is a crucial milestone for the SLS and brings it one step closer to sending astronauts back to the Moon.

March 29, 2021March 29, 2021 by Matt Williams

A 1-Stage, Fully Reusable Lunar Lander Makes the Most Sense for Returning Humans to the Moon

When astronauts return to the Moon for the first time since the Apollo Era, they will be relying on a number of mission elements to get them there and back safely. This includes the Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion spacecraft that will launch a crew of four and carry them to the Moon. But until recently, the question of how they will get to and from the surface remained unresolved, as there were a few options.

To determine which would be best in terms of performance and cost, researchers from Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (Skoltech) in Moscow and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) reviewed several dozen proposals. In the end, they determined that a one-stage reusable lunar lander that could transport astronauts to and from the orbiting Lunar Gateway was the best option.

March 29, 2021March 29, 2021 by Nancy Atkinson

Careful Calculations Show That Earth is Safe From Asteroid Apophis for at Least 100 Years

These images of asteroid Apophis were recorded by radio antennas at the Deep Space Network’s Goldstone complex in California and the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia. The asteroid was 10.6 million miles (17 million kilometers) away, and each pixel has a resolution of 127 feet (38.75 meters). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech and NSF/AUI/GBO

If you’re looking for doomsday, you can forget about asteroid Apophis. The latest radar observations have effectively ruled out any possibility of this near-Earth object (NEO) hitting Earth for the foreseeable future.

March 27, 2021March 27, 2021 by Brian Koberlein

The Event Horizon Telescope has Revealed the Magnetic Field Lines Around M87's Central Black Hole

Computer simulation of plasma near a black hole. Credit: Hotaka Shiokawa / EHT

In 2019 astronomers captured the first direct image of a black hole. It was an image of the supermassive black hole at the heart of M87. And when many folks saw it, their reaction was “that’s it?” Which is understandable, given that the image is just a blurry, donut-shaped smudge. It isn’t much to look at. But an astronomical image is a small fraction of the data gathered by astronomers. Recently more of that data has been analyzed, including both the polarization of the light and the magnetic field surrounding the black hole.