Universe Today

December 22, 2020May 9, 2022 by Matt Williams

A Canadian Astronaut Will be on Artemis 2, Making it the Second Nation to Send Humans Into Deep Space (but not Walk on the Moon)

PHOTO DATE: 12-07-17 LOCATION: Ellington Field - Hangar 276 SUBJECT: CSA astronauts NEAR A T-38 PHOTOGRAPHER: BILL STAFFORD AND DAVID DEHOYOS

NASA and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) recently announced that a Canadian astronaut will fly as part of the crew of Artemis II. This mission, scheduled for May of 2024, will see an Orion space capsule conduct a circumlunar flight where it flies around the Moon without landing. This will be the first of two crew opportunities that NASA will provide for Canadian astronauts on Artemis missions (as per the agreement).

December 22, 2020December 22, 2020 by Brian Koberlein

If Axions Explain Dark Matter, it Could be Possible to Detect Them Nearby Neutron Stars

The Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope. Credit: Green Bank Observatory/NRAO

As we continue to search for dark matter particles, one thing is very clear: they cannot be any of the elementary particles we’ve discovered so far. The particles would need to have mass, but interact with light only weakly. Of the known particles, neutrinos fit that description, but neutrinos have a tiny mass, and aren’t nearly enough to explain dark matter. Some other kind of particle must make up the majority of dark matter.

December 21, 2020December 21, 2020 by Matt Williams

NASA Announces its Artemis Astronauts: 18 People Training to Fly to the Moon

In less than four years, NASA will be sending the “first woman and next man” to the Moon as part of the Artemis III mission. This will be the first time that astronauts have landed on the lunar surface since the final mission of the Apollo Program, which was Apollo 17 in 1972. After careful consideration, NASA has announced the names of the 18 astronauts that make up the Artemis Team.

December 21, 2020December 21, 2020 by Paul M. Sutter

China’s Planning to Launch a Space-Based Gravitational Wave Observatory in the 2030s: TianQin. Here’s how it’ll Stack up Against LISA

Artist's impression of the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA). Credit: ESA

The successful detection of gravitational waves has been a game-changer for astronomy. And now the new frontier is in space, with satellite-based detection systems currently in development that will uncover some of the universe’s biggest mysteries. And while the team behind LISA is now developing that observatory in space, it just may be outclassed by a rival, TianQin, developed by the Chinese.

December 21, 2020December 21, 2020 by Paul M. Sutter

This galaxy took only 500 million years to form

C1-23152 grew to 200 billion suns in just 500 million years. Image via INAF/ HST/ NASA/ ESA.

Galaxies are supposed to build up a very slowly, taking billions of years to acquire their vast bulk. But a newfound galaxy, appearing in the universe when it was only 1.8 billion years old, tells a different tale. It formed stars at a rate hundreds of times greater than the Milky Way, and was able to build itself up to host 200 billion stars in less than 500 million years – perhaps the universe’s greatest speed run.

December 20, 2020February 7, 2022 by Matt Williams

Beyond “Fermi’s Paradox” XIV: What is the Aurora Hypothesis?

Credit and Copyright: Stefan Payne-Wardenaar; Magellanic Clouds: Robert Gendler/ESO

Welcome back to our Fermi Paradox series, where we take a look at possible resolutions to Enrico Fermi’s famous question, “Where Is Everybody?” Today, we examine the possibility that the reason for the Great Silence is that colonizing other star systems is hazardous to our health!

In 1950, Italian-American physicist Enrico Fermi sat down to lunch with some of his colleagues at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, where he had worked five years prior as part of the Manhattan Project. According to various accounts, the conversation turned to aliens and the recent spate of UFOs. Into this, Fermi issued a statement that would go down in the annals of history: “Where is everybody?“

This became the basis of the Fermi Paradox, which refers to the disparity between high probability estimates for the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI) and the apparent lack of evidence. Since Fermi’s time, there have been several proposed resolutions to his question, which includes the Aurora Hypothesis that states that just because planets are habitable doesn’t mean that intelligent life can colonize there.

December 20, 2020December 21, 2020 by Matthew Cimone

Radio Emissions Have Been Detected from an Exoplanet

Concept art for the discovery of radio emission coming from the exoplanet Tau Boötis b, a possible first detection of its kind. c. Jack Madden / Cornell

Invisible Glow

Finding planets out in the Universe is pretty hard. I say this despite the fact that two planets in Earth’s skies are aligning tomorrow to form one of the brightest objects seen in hundreds of years. But while the brilliant Jupiter and Saturn are always visible to the naked eye, Neptune wasn’t directly observed until 1846 despite being in our own solar system. We didn’t start discovering planets outside the solar system until 150 years after Neptune. Like Neptune, we find them (though indirectly), through visible light. However an international team of researchers may have just made the first detection of an exoplanet through radio emissions created by the planet’s aurora.

A simulation of Gas giant “Hot Jupiter” Tau Boötis Ab which orbits its parent star at one seventh the distance Mercury orbits our Sun. It’s atmosphere and the corona of its star are possibly touching eachother. – c SpaceEngine Pro by Author

December 19, 2020December 19, 2020 by Andy Tomaswick

The European Extremely Large Telescope Just Got a 10% Budget Boost, Now Costing $1.5 Billion

Funding is an extremely important aspect of any large-scale science project. The whims of financial controllers can greatly expand or completely sink the efforts of hundred or thousands of other workers. Many times, funding announcements for large scientific projects focus on cuts or “cost-savings” which hobble the eventual end system they are trying to build. But recently the European Southern Observatory (ESO) announced it had actually increased the budget for the under-construction Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) by 10%.

December 19, 2020December 19, 2020 by Matt Williams

Here are NASA’s Science Priorities for the Artemis Missions

View of the Earth rising above the lunar horizon, taken during the Apollo 11 mission. Credit: NASA

In October of 2024, NASA will send astronauts to the Moon for the first time since the Apollo Era. After establishing orbit with their Orion spacecraft, a team of two astronauts (“the first woman and the next man”) will land in the Moon’s southern polar region. Over the course of a week, these astronauts will explore and investigate one of the region’s many permanently-shadowed craters.

As the first crewed lunar mission in over fifty years, this mission and those that follow will have a robust series of science objectives. These objectives were laid out in the Artemis III Science Definition Team Report, which was released to the public earlier this month. This report is a summary of the science plan prepared at the behest of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD) for the Artemis III mission.

December 18, 2020December 18, 2020 by Alan Boyle

White House Encourages NASA to Work on Space-Based Nuclear Power and Propulsion Systems

Nuclear-powered transit habitat — An artist's conception shows a Mars transit habitat with a nuclear propulsion system. Credit: NASA

In what’s likely to be one of the last space policy initiatives of his administration, President Donald Trump has issued a directive that lays out a roadmap for nuclear power applications beyond Earth.

Space Policy Directive 6, released on December 16th, calls on NASA and other federal agencies to advance the development of in-space nuclear propulsion systems as well as a nuclear fission power system on the Moon.

“Space nuclear power and propulsion is a fundamentally enabling technology for American deep space missions to Mars and beyond,” Scott Pace, the executive secretary of the National Space Council, said in a White House news release. “The United States intends to remain the leader among spacefaring nations, applying nuclear power technology safely, securely and sustainably in space.”