Universe Today

May 1, 2021May 1, 2021 by Matt Williams

Mid-Latitude Glaciers on Mars Could Supply Water to Human Explorers

The earliest Mars explorers will live in their landers or other Earth-provided habitats while they use local resources to build more permanent colonies and settlements. Credit: NASA

By Earth standards, the surface of Mars is the picture of desolation. It’s not only irradiated and cold enough to make Antarctica look balmy, but it’s also one-thousands times drier than the driest places on Earth. However, beneath the super-arid surface of the Red Planet, there are abundant supplies of water ice that could someday be accessible to human explorers (and even settlers).

This is especially the case in the mid-latitude region known as Arcadia Planitia, a smooth plain located in Martian northern lowlands. According to new research conducted with support from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), the region shows signs of glaciers and glacier activity. These findings could prove very useful for the future human landings and exploration of Mars, not to mention potential settlement.

April 30, 2021April 30, 2021 by Andy Tomaswick

How Salty is Enceladus’ Ocean Under the ice?

An icy satellite of Saturn, Enceladus, has been a subject of increasing interest in recent years since Cassini captured jets of water and other material being ejected out of the south pole of the moon. One particularly tantalizing hypothesis supported by the sample composition is that there might be life in the oceans under the ice shells of Enceladus. To evaluate Enceladus’ habitability and to figure out the best way to probe this icy moon, scientists need to better understand the chemical composition and dynamics of Enceladus’ ocean.

April 30, 2021April 30, 2021 by Scott Alan Johnston

China Launches the Core Module of Its New Space Station

Early on Thursday, a Long March 5B rocket – currently the most powerful of China’s space launch vehicles – blasted off from Wenchang, carrying the first major component of an ambitious new modular space station.

The station module, dubbed Tianhe (Harmony of the Heavens), marks the next big step in China’s human spaceflight program in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). Barred from participating in the International Space Station (ISS) by US law, which forbids cooperation in space between the two countries, China has been developing its own LEO capabilities for over a decade now.

April 30, 2021April 30, 2021 by Brian Koberlein

11-Sigma Detection of Dark Energy Comes From Measuring Over a Million Extremely Distant Galaxies

Exploration of the Universe by the SDSS mission during the past two decades (1998-2019). Credit: eBOSS collaboration

After galaxies began to form in the early universe, the universe continued to expand. The gravitational attraction between galaxies worked to pull galaxies together into superclusters, while dark energy and its resulting cosmic expansion worked to drive these clusters apart. As a result, the universe is filled with tight clusters of galaxies separated by vast voids of mostly empty space.

April 29, 2021April 29, 2021 by Matt Williams

Ingenuity Completes a Huge 50-Meter Flight on Mars

NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter can be seen hovering during its third flight on April 25, 2021, as seen by the left Navigation Camera aboard NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

On Feb. 18^th, 2021, the Perseverance rover landed on Mars carrying the most advanced scientific instruments ever sent to another planet. It also carried experiments designed to push the envelope of exploration and help pave the way for crewed missions to Mars. This includes the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, an experimental flight system designed to see if aerial systems can operate in the Martian atmosphere.

After making its inaugural flight on April 19^th, Ingenuity has taken to the air twice more and set many records in the process. During its most recent test flight (which took place on the morning of April 25^th), the helicopter flew farther and faster than ever before. All told, the helicopter covered a distance of 50 meters (164 feet) in 80 seconds, reaching a top speed of 2 m/s (6.6 feet per second) or 7.2 km/hour (4.5 mph).

April 29, 2021April 29, 2021 by Nancy Atkinson

Stare Straight Down Into a Giant Storm on Jupiter

A view from the Juno spacecraft of a giant storm on Jupiter. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Kevin M. Gill

A new batch of images recently arrived at Earth from JunoCam, the visible light camera on board the Juno spacecraft at Jupiter. The camera has provided stunning views of the gas giant world since the spacecraft’s arrival in 2016. Citizen scientists and imaging enthusiasts act as the camera’s virtual imaging team, participating in key steps of the process by making suggestions of areas on Jupiter to take pictures and doing the image editing work.

This lead image, edited by Kevin Gill, is another stunner: a look straight down into a giant storm.

And we like Kevin’s attitude about this whole process:

April 28, 2021April 28, 2021 by Andy Tomaswick

NASA is now Planning a Mission to go 1,000 AU From the Sun, Deep Into Interstellar Space

A different perspective can do wonders. Perceiving things from a different angle can both metaphorically and literally allow people to see things differently. And in space, there are an almost infinite number of angles that objects can be observed from. Like all perspectives, some are more informative than others. Sometimes those informative perspectives are also the hardest to reach.

Voyager’s two probes did an excellent job in allowing humanity to access some difficult new perspectives simply given their distance from the Earth. But now a team of over 500 scientists and volunteers is urging NASA to go even further to find a better perspective by sending a satellite to a distance 1000 times the distance from the Sun to the Earth – almost 10 times how far the Voyagers have traveled in over 35 years.

April 28, 2021April 28, 2021 by Nancy Atkinson

“Put LUCKY on My Tombstone.” Apollo 11 Astronaut Michael Collins Dies at 90

Donned in his space suit, Command Module (CM) pilot Michael Collins does a final check of his communications system before the boarding of the Apollo 11 mission. Credit: NASA

We bid a reluctant but truly fond farewell today to Michael Collins. The NASA astronaut passed away at the age of 90 on April 28, 2021. Collins flew on the historic Apollo 11 mission in 1969, and also on Gemini 10 in 1966.

As Command Module Pilot, Collins was the lone member of the Apollo 11 crew who remained in orbit while his fellow astronauts became the first to land and walk on the Moon. But his endearing nature means he will be most remembered for his wit and humor, his passion and humbleness, his unflappable demeanor, his thoughtful contemplations, and the inspiring words he left behind as a writer of several books.

April 28, 2021April 28, 2021 by Andy Tomaswick

Mars has the Right Conditions for Life Just Under the Surface

According to the immortal words of Ian Malcom (Jeff Goldblum) “Life..uh…finds a way”. Back in 2005, an article in Nature used the famous quote from Jurassic Park to describe the possibility of life surviving on Mars. It encapsulates the hope that life’s adaptability, which it has proved itself so many times over on Earth, could hold true on other planets as well. Now a new paper in Astrobiology shows that there might very well be a place where life can sustain itself on the red planet – right underneath the surface.

April 28, 2021April 28, 2021 by Matt Williams

We Could Detect Alien Civilizations Through Their Interstellar Quantum Communication

The Parkes radio telescope at Parkes Observatory in New South Wales, Australia. Astronomers using the telescope detected what appeared to be a radio signal coming from the direction of Proxima Centauri in April and May 2019. Image via Daniel John Reardon/ Wikimedia Commons.

Since the mid-20th century, scientists have been looking for evidence of intelligent life beyond our Solar System. For much of that time, scientists who are engaged in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) have relied on radio astronomy surveys to search for signs of technological activity (aka. “technosignatures“). With 4,375 exoplanets confirmed (and counting!) even greater efforts are expected to happen in the near future.

In anticipation of these efforts, researchers have been considering other possible technosignatures that we should be on the lookout for. According to Michael Hippke, a visiting scholar at the UC Berkeley SETI Research Center, the search should also be expanded to include quantum communication. In an age where quantum computing and related technologies are nearing fruition, it makes sense to look for signs of them elsewhere.