Universe Today

November 26, 2020November 26, 2020 by Evan Gough

Astronomers See a Newly Forming Planetary Disk That’s Continuing to Feed On Material from its Nebula

This false-colour image shows the filaments of accretion around the protostar [BHB2007] 1. The large structures are inflows of molecular gas (CO) nurturing the disk surrounding the protostar. The inset shows the dust emission from the disk, which is seen edge-on. The "holes" in the dust map represent an enormous ringed cavity seen (sideways) in the disk structure. Image Credit: MPE

Over the last few years, astronomers have observed distant solar systems in their early stages of growth. ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array) has captured images of young stars and their disks of material. And in those disks, they’ve spotted the tell-tale gaps that signal the presence of growing young planets.

As they ramped up their efforts, astronomers were eventually able to spot the young planets themselves. All those observations helped confirm our understanding of how young solar systems form.

But more recent research adds another level of detail to the nebular hypothesis, which guides our understanding of solar system formation.

November 26, 2020November 26, 2020 by Nancy Graziano

Weekly Space Hangout: November 25, 2020, Dr. Olivier Witasse, Project Scientist, the JUICE Mission

This week we are aired Fraser’s pre-recorded interview with Dr. Olivier Witasse, Project Scientist on the JUICE mission.

November 25, 2020November 27, 2020 by Matt Williams

RocketLab Recovers a First-Stage Booster for the First Time: “Return to Sender”

In recent years, one of the most impressive developments for space exploration has been the rise of the commercial space industry (aka. NewSpace). Beyond fulfilling contracts with space agencies like NASA to provide commercial and crewed launch services, private aerospace companies are also fostering innovation that is helping to reduce the cost of sending payloads to space.

Take RocketLab, the US/NZ-based small satellite launch company that has broken new ground with its Electron rocket. In a further bid to reduce the costs of individual launches, RocketLab announced last year that it would begin recovering and reusing the spent boosters of its rockets. Recently, the company took a big step by successfully retrieving the first stage of an Electron after it delivered a payload to orbit.

November 25, 2020November 25, 2020 by Evan Gough

A New Artist’s Illustration of the Extremely Large Telescope. So Many Lasers

The Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) will be the biggest ‘eye on the sky’ when it achieves first light later this decade. The telescope uses lasers as ‘guide stars’ to measure how much the light is distorted by turbulence in the Earth’s atmosphere. The deformable M4 mirror adjusts its shape in real time to compensate for these changes in the atmosphere, helping the ELT produce images 16 times sharper than the Hubble Space Telescope. Image Credit: ESO

Everyone loves lasers. And the only thing better than a bunch of lasers is a bunch of lasers on one of the world’s (soon to be) largest telescopes, the E-ELT. Well, maybe a bunch of lasers on a time-travelling T. Rex that appears in your observatory and demands to know the locations and trajectories of incoming asteroids. That might be better. For the dinosaurs; not for us.

November 25, 2020November 26, 2020 by David Dickinson

Catch Monday Morning’s Subtle Lunar Eclipse

A penumbral lunar eclipse in the early morning hours of November 30^th marks the start of the last eclipse season for 2020.

Howling at the Moon Sunday night? Sunday night into Monday morning November 30^th features not only the penultimate Full Moon for 2020, but the final lunar eclipse of the year, with a penumbral eclipse of the Moon.

November 25, 2020November 25, 2020 by Brian Koberlein

Solar astronomers can now predict future sunspots. There should be a big one in a couple of days

Sunspot image from the newly upgraded GREGOR Telescope

The surface of the Sun is a turbulent dance of gravity, plasma, and magnetic fields. Much like the weather on Earth, its behavior can seem unpredictable, but there are patterns to be found when you look closely.

November 24, 2020November 24, 2020 by Alan Boyle

China’s Chang’e-5 Probe Is Off to Bring Back a Moon Sample — and NASA Hopes to See the Data

Chang'e-5 launch — China's Long March 5 rocket sends the Chang'e-5 probe on the first leg of its mission to the moon and back. (CNSA / CLEP Photo)

China’s Chang’e-5 probe is on its way to the Moon for a mission that could bring back the first samples of lunar rocks and dirt in more than 40 years.

The 8.2-metric-ton spacecraft was sent into space from south China’s Wenchang Space Launch Center at 4:30 a.m. local time November 24th (20:30 Universal Time November 23rd) atop a Long March 5 rocket.

November 24, 2020November 24, 2020 by Ralph Crewe

Here’s what we know about Earth’s new minimoon

For only the second time in history, astronomers have discovered a new, natural-origin, minimoon orbiting the Earth. The minimoon, known as 2020CD3 (CD3 for short), was first discovered by Kacper Werizchos and Teddy Pruyne using data from the Catalina Sky Survey. Once CD3’s orbit was determined to be geo-centric, Queens University Belfast Post-Doctoral Research Fellow Dr. Grigori Fedorets assembled a team of 23 astronomers worldwide to make careful observations of the object to determine its identity. Based on the team’s findings, a paper was published on November 24, 2020, in the Astronomical Journal, characterizing the minimoon.

November 24, 2020November 24, 2020 by Matt Williams

At One Time, This Region of Mars was Inundated by a “Megaflood”

Thanks to multiple robotic missions that have explored Mars’ atmosphere, surface, and geology, scientists have concluded that Mars was once a much warmer, wetter place. In addition to having a thicker atmosphere, the planet was actually warm enough that flowing water could exist on the surface in the form of rivers, lakes, and even an ocean that covered much of the northern hemisphere.

According to new research based on data collected by NASA’s Curiosity mission, it appears that the Gale Crater (where the rover has been exploring for the past eight years) experienced massive flooding roughly 4 billion years ago. These findings indicate that the mid-latitudes of Mars were also covered in water at one time and offers additional hints that the region once supported life.

November 24, 2020November 24, 2020 by Evan Gough

Hubble Sees Dark Shadows That Could Be Cast by a Supermassive Black Hole

This Hubble Space Telescope image of the heart of nearby active galaxy IC 5063 reveals a mixture of bright rays and dark shadows coming from the blazing core, home of a supermassive black hole. Astronomers suggest that a ring of dusty material surrounding the black hole may be casting its shadow into space. Image Credit: NASA/STScI

We use the term ‘supermassive black hole’ with a kind of casual familiarity. But stop and think about what they really are: Monstrous, beguiling singularities where the understood laws of physics and cosmology are brought to their knees. A region where gravity is so powerful that it warps everything around it, drawing material in—even light itself—and sometimes spitting out jets of energy at near-light-speed.

It was only recently that we got our first image of one of these monstrosities. Now, the Hubble has captured an image of a supermassive black hole (SMBH), or what might be part of its shadow, anyway.