Universe Today

October 15, 2020October 16, 2020 by Matt Williams

Elon Musk Shares a View of Starship With Three Raptor Engines Installed

SpaceX has been very busy lately with the development of its Starship prototypes. Based on recent activity at its Boca Chica facility, and recent images provided by Musk himself, it looks like they are about ready to make their biggest leap yet. Yesterday, on Oct. 14th, Musk announced that the eighth prototype of the Starship (SN8) has received the three Raptor engines it will use to make its planned 15.25 km (50,000 ft).

October 15, 2020October 15, 2020 by Nancy Graziano

Weekly Space Hangout: October 14, 2020, Drs. Jane Huang & Jonathan Williams, Protoplanetary Disks

This week we are joined by Dr. Jane Huang and Dr. Jonathan Willams from the Center for Astrophysics, Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA). Dr. Huang, Dr. Williams, and their team recently discovered some surprising information about the size and shape of some protoplanetary disks.

October 15, 2020October 15, 2020 by Evan Gough

Astronomers Report They’ve Detected the Amino Acid Glycine in the Atmosphere of Venus

The planet Venus, as imaged by the Magellan mission. Credit: NASA/JPL

Does it feel like all eyes are on Venus these days? The discovery of the potential biomarker phosphine in the planet’s upper atmosphere last month garnered a lot of attention, as it should. There’s still some uncertainty around what the phosphine discovery means, though.

Now a team of researchers claims they’ve discovered the amino acid glycine in Venus’ atmosphere.

October 14, 2020October 14, 2020 by Evan Gough

China’s Mars-bound Tianwen-1 Takes a Selfie

China's Tianwen-1 spacecraft on its way to Mars. Credit: CNSA/CLEP

The CNSA (Chinese National Space Agency) has released an image of its Tianwen-1 spacecraft to coincide with the National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival. The spacecraft is on its way to Mars, and if the landing is successful, China will be only the third nation to successfully land a spacecraft on the planet.

October 14, 2020October 14, 2020 by Matt Williams

Starman Just Made his Closest Approach to Mars

On February 6th, 2018, SpaceX successfully launched its Falcon Heavy rocket, the most powerful launch vehicle in their rocket family, and in service today. Not only was this a major milestone for SpaceX, it was also the biggest public relations coup ever orchestrated by Musk. For this launch, Musk decided that the payload would be his cherry Tesla Roadster with a SpaceX spacesuit (affectionately named “Starman”) at the wheel.

Those who watched the live footage of the event (or caught the compilation video released shortly after) are not likely to forget Starman and the Roadster orbiting Earth as David Bowie played in the background. At the time, it was also anticipated that Starman and the Roadster would eventually make a close pass of Mars. Two years after launch, Starman finally accomplished a flyby of the Red Planet!

October 14, 2020October 14, 2020 by Evan Gough

This Martian Lava Tube Skylight is 50 Meters Across. The Biggest Lava Tube on Earth is Only 15 Meters Across

This is the collapsed ceiling of a Martian lava tube. It measures 50 meters (150 ft) across, much larger than any Earth lava tubes. Image Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

NASA’s Mariner 9 was the first spacecraft to orbit another planet when it reached Mars in late 1971. It got there only a few weeks before the Soviet Union’s Mars 2 and Mars 3 spacecraft, despite being launched 11 days later than those missions. Unfortunately, there was a major dust storm when Mariner 9 arrived, and NASA had to wait until January before the spacecraft could get good images.

When it did get those images, they revealed a surprise: volcanoes and lava flows cover large portions of the Martian surface.

October 14, 2020October 14, 2020 by Matt Williams

The Most Comprehensive 3D Map of Galaxies Has Been Released

Credit: Danny Farrow, Pan-STARRS1 Science Consortium and Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics

Atop the summit of Haleakala on the Hawaiian island of Maui sits the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System, or Pan-STARRS1 (PS1). As part of the Haleakala Observatory overseen by the University of Hawaii, Pan-STARRS1 relies on a system of cameras, telescopes, and a computing facility to conduct an optical imaging survey of the sky, as well as astrometry and photometry of know objects.

In 2018, the University of Hawaii at Manoa’s Institute for Astronomy (IfA) released the PS1 3pi survey, the world’s largest digital sky survey that spanned three-quarters of the sky and encompassed 3 billion objects. And now, a team of astronomers from the IfA have used this data to create the Pan-STARRS1 Source Types and Redshifts with Machine Learning (PS1-STRM), the world’s largest three-dimensional astronomical catalog.

October 14, 2020October 15, 2020 by David Dickinson

BepiColombo Mercury Mission to Make First Venus Flyby Tonight

The Mercury-bound BepiColombo spacecraft will observe Venus during tonight’s pass, on the hunt for phosphine and sulfur-dioxide.

The joint Japanese/European Space Agency’s BepiColombo spacecraft makes a scheduled pass near Venus tonight, while the cloud-shrouded planet has been very much in the news.

October 14, 2020October 14, 2020 by Evan Gough

We’re Made of Starstuff. Especially From Extremely Massive Stars

An illustration of a protoplanetary disk. The solar system formed from such a disk. Astronomers suggest this birthplace was protected by a larger filament of molecular gas and dust early in history. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle (SSC)

A new study shows how massive young stars create the kind of organic molecules that are necessary for life.

A team of researchers used an airborne observatory to examine the inner regions around two massive young stars. Along with water, they found things like ammonia and methane. These molecules are swirling around in a disk of material that surrounds the young stars.

That material is the same stuff that planets form from, and the study presents some new insights into how the stuff of life becomes incorporated into planets.

October 13, 2020October 16, 2020 by Paul M. Sutter

Do Ripples on the Surface of the Sun tell us that a Flare is Coming?

Flares from the sun are some of the nastiest things in the solar system. When the sun flares, it belches out intense X-ray radiation (and sometimes even worse). Predicting solar flares is a tricky job, and a new research paper sheds light on a possible new technique: looking for telltale ripples in the surface of the sun minutes before the blast comes.