Universe Today

May 30, 2020May 30, 2020 by Matt Williams

NASA and SpaceX Make History with Successful Crew Dragon Launch!

Today, on Saturday, May 30th, NASA and SpaceX successfully launched the Crew Dragon to space with two astronauts for the first time. Far from just a demonstration, this launch signaled the restoration of domestic launch capability to US soil! From this day forward, NASA astronauts will no longer be dependent on foreign launch providers (like Roscosmos) to send astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS).

May 29, 2020May 29, 2020 by Evan Gough

Maybe the Elusive Planet 9 Doesn’t Exist After All

The imagined view from Planet Nine looking back toward the sun. Astronomers think the huge, distant planet is gaseous, similar to the other giant planets in our solar system.

Oh Planet Nine, when will you stop toying with us?

Whether you call it Planet Nine, Planet X, the Perturber, Jehoshaphat, “Phattie,” or any of the other proposed names—either serious or flippant—this scientific back and forth over its existence is getting exhausting.

Is this what it was like when they were arguing whether Earth is flat or round?

May 29, 2020June 11, 2020 by Matt Williams

SN4, We Hardly Knew You. Another Starship Prototype Lost!

Earlier today (Friday, May 29th), at 01:49 p.m. local time (02:49 p.m. EDT; 11:49 PDT), SpaceX Starship prototype (SN4) exploded on the company’s test pad near Boca Chica, Texas. The explosion occurred two minutes after ground crews commenced a static fire test of its Raptor engine. This test was intended to test the Raptor and the Starship design once more in preparation for a major milestone – a 150 m (500 ft) hop test – this summer.

May 29, 2020May 29, 2020 by Matt Williams

Due to Weather Delay, NASA & SpaceX Push Historic Launch to Saturday

On Wednesday, May 27th, NASA and SpaceX geared up for what was sure to be a historic event! After years of hard work, the Crew Dragon capsule developed through NASA’s Commercial Crew Program would dock with the ISS for the first time. This launch would effectively restore domestic-launch capability to the United States, something it lost in 2011 with the retiring of the Space Shuttle. Unfortunately, the weather didn’t get the memo!

Less than 15 minutes before the Crew Dragon was to launch atop a Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, mission controllers scrubbed the flight because the weather was not clearing up. As a result, NASA and SpaceX pushed the launch of the Crew Dragon to their two backup launch opportunities, both of which will be happening this weekend.

May 29, 2020May 29, 2020 by Evan Gough

Mars Doesn’t Have Much of a Magnetosphere, But Here’s a Map

This image is from a scientific visualization of the electric currents around Mars. Electric currents (blue and red arrows) envelop Mars in a nested, double-loop structure that wraps continuously around the planet from its day side to its night side. These current loops distort the solar wind magnetic field (not pictured), which drapes around Mars to create an induced magnetosphere around the planet. In the process, the currents electrically connect Mars’ upper atmosphere and the induced magnetosphere to the solar wind, transferring electric and magnetic energy generated at the boundary of the induced magnetosphere (faint inner paraboloid) and at the solar wind bow shock (faint outer paraboloid). Credits: NASA/Goddard/MAVEN/CU Boulder/SVS/Cindy Starr

Even though Earthling scientists are studying Mars intently, it’s still a mysterious place.

One of the striking things about Mars is all of the evidence, clearly visible on its surface, that it harbored liquid water. Now, all that water is gone, and in fact, liquid water couldn’t survive on the surface of the Red Planet. Not as the planet is now, anyway.

But it could harbour water in the past. What happened?

May 29, 2020May 29, 2020 by Evan Gough

A New Kind of Supernova Explosion has been Discovered: Fast Blue Optical Transients

Artist's conception illustrates the differences in phenomena resulting from an "ordinary" core-collapse supernova explosion, an explosion creating a gamma-ray burst, and one creating a Fast Blue Optical Transient. Credit: Bill Saxton, NRAO/AUI/NSF

For the child inside all of us space-enthusiasts, there might be nothing better than discovering a new type of explosion. (Except maybe bigger rockets.) And it looks like that’s what’s happened. Three objects discovered separately—one in 2016 and two in 2018—add up to a new type of supernova that astronomers are calling Fast Blue Optical Transients (FBOT).

May 29, 2020May 29, 2020 by Matt Williams

How to Make the Food and Water Mars-Bound Astronauts Will Need for Their Mission

Mars vegetation chamber. A greenhouse on Mars. Credit: NASA

If we ever intend to send crewed missions to deep-space locations, then we need to come up with solutions for how to keep the crews supplied. For astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS), who regularly receive resupply missions from Earth, this is not an issue. But for missions traveling to destinations like Mars and beyond, self-sufficiency is the name of the game!

This is the idea behind projects like BIOWYSE and TIME SCALE, which are being developed by the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Space (CIRiS) in Norway. These two systems are all about providing astronauts with a sustainable and renewable supply of drinking water and plant food. In so doing, they address two of the most important needs of humans performing long-duration missions that will take them far from home.

May 29, 2020May 29, 2020 by Brian Koberlein

Powerful Telescope Confirms There’s an Earth-Sized World Orbiting Proxima Centauri

Artist view of the surface of Proxima Centauri b. Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser

The closest star to the Sun is a small red dwarf star known as Proxima Centauri. It is only 4.2 light-years away and is now known to have an Earth-sized planet in its habitable zone. That doesn’t mean there is life orbiting the nearest star, but its proximity should help us understand the possibilities.

May 29, 2020May 29, 2020 by Paul M. Sutter

On Mars, mud flows like lava

A composite image showing alternating layers of ice and sand in an area where they are exposed on the surface of Mars. The photograph, taken with the HiRISE camera aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, was adjusted to show water ice as light-colored layers and sand as darker layers of blue. The tiny bright white flecks are thin patches of frost. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

One of the most striking features on Earth are the curious flows of lava as it cools, forming undulating ropes of rock known by the Hawaiian word pahoehoe. New research simulating conditions on Mars now reveals that the red planet has its own kind of pahoehoe…but made of mud.

May 29, 2020May 29, 2020 by Nancy Atkinson

This Rocket Engine’s Thrust Chamber was 3D-printed and Only has Three Parts

This fully 3D-printed thrust chamber is built in just three parts and could power the upper stages of future rockets. This first test lasted 30 seconds and was carried out on 26 May 2020 at the DLR German Aerospace Center’s Lampoldshausen testing facility. Credit: ESA/DLR.

This week, European engineers hot-fire tested a fully 3D-printed thrust chamber that could one day power the upper stages for rockets. The chamber has just three parts, and was constructed using additive layer manufacturing, another name for 3D printing.

This hot-fire test lasted 30 seconds and was carried out on May 26, 2020 at the DLR German Aerospace Center’s Lampoldshausen testing facility. The European Space Agency said that additional tests are planned for next week.