Universe Today

November 7, 2019May 18, 2021 by Matt Williams

NASA is Testing a Coating to Help Astronauts and Their Equipment Shed Dangerous Lunar Dust

Buzz Aldrin's bootprint on the surface of the moon during the Apollo 11 mission on July 20, 1969. Credit: NASA

In the coming years, NASA is going back to the Moon for the first time since the Apollo Era. Rather than being a “footprints and flags” operation, Project Artemis is intended to be the first step in creating a sustainable human presence on the Moon. Naturally, this presents a number of challenges, not the least of which has to do with lunar regolith (aka. moondust). For this reason, NASA is investigating strategies for mitigating this threat.

November 6, 2019February 12, 2020 by Evan Gough

What Voyager 2 Learned After Spending a Year in Interstellar Space

An artist concept depicting one of NASA's twin Voyager spacecraft, humanity's farthest and longest-lived spacecraft. Voyager 2 just lost contact with Earth while Voyager 1 is still reporting back. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Only two of humanity’s spacecraft have left the Solar System: NASA’s Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. Voyager 1 left the heliosphere behind in 2012, while Voyager 2 did the same on Nov. 5th, 2018. Now Voyager 2 has been in interstellar space for one year, and five new papers are presenting the scientific results from that one year.

November 6, 2019November 10, 2019 by Susie Murph

Weekly Space Hangout: November 6, 2019 – Tiera & Myron Fletcher, Engineers on NASA’s Space Launch System

Hosts: Fraser Cain (universetoday.com / @fcain)

Nancy Atkinson ( @Nancy_A / @nancyatkinson_ut)

Beth Johnson (@planetarypan)

Veranika Klimovich ( @VeronikaSpace)

This week we welcome Tiera and Myron Fletcher, Aerospace Engineers with Boeing working on NASA’s Space Launch System.

November 6, 2019November 6, 2019 by Brian Koberlein

New Research Suggests that the Universe is a Sphere and Not Flat After All

Diagram showing the Lambda-CBR universe, from the Big Bang to the the current era. Credit: Alex Mittelmann/Coldcreation

The universe is a seemingly endless sea filled with stars, galaxies, and nebulae. In it, we see patterns and constellations that have inspired stories throughout history. But there is one cosmic pattern we still don’t understand. A question that remains unanswered: What is the shape of the universe? We thought we knew, but new research suggests otherwise, and it could point to a crisis in cosmology.

November 5, 2019November 5, 2019 by Evan Gough

It Seems Impossible, But Somehow This Planet Survived its Star’s Red Giant Phase

An artists's illustration of TESS, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite. Image Credit: NASA

Astronomers working with TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) data have found a planet where it shouldn’t be: in the space recently filled by its host star when it was a red giant.

November 5, 2019November 5, 2019 by Matt Williams

The First Stars Formed Very Quickly

Credit: Max Planck Institute for Astronomy

Ever since astronomers realized that the Universe is in a constant state of expansion and that a massive explosion likely started it all 13.8 billion years ago (the Big Bang), there have been unresolved questions about when and how the first stars formed. Based on data gathered by NASA’s Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) and similar missions, this is believed to have happened about 100 million years after the Big Bang.

Much of the details of how this complex process worked have remained a mystery. However, new evidence gathered by a team led by researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy indicates that the first stars must have formed rather quickly. Using data from the Magellan Telescopes at Las Campanas Observatory, the team observed a cloud of gas where star formation was taking place just 850 million years after the Big Bang.

November 4, 2019November 4, 2019 by Matt Williams

Boeing’s Starliner Performed its Abort Test Today. One Parachute Failed to Deploy

For years, NASA has been working to restore domestic launch capability to the US and send astronauts to the Moon and beyond. A crucial part of this is the development of next-generation crew capsules that can carry crews and payloads to space. These include Lockheed Martin’s Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV) and the Crew Space Transportation (CST) -100 Starliner currently being developed by Boeing.

Earlier today (on Monday, Nov. 4th), the CST-100 passed a critical milestone with a successful end-to-end test of its abort system. The Pad Abort Test took place at Launch Complex 32 at the US Army’s White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. When crewed missions to space begin using the CST-100, this system will ensure that astronauts will be carried to safety in the unlikely event of an emergency before liftoff.

November 4, 2019November 4, 2019 by Matt Williams

NASA Has a New Method For Cooling Down Electronics Crammed Together in a Spacecraft

Ground crew recover experiments that launched on the reusable New Shepard rocket on which the microgap-cooling technology flew twice. Credits: Blue Origin

One of the most exciting things about space exploration today is the ways in which it is getting more cost-effective. Between reusable rockets, miniaturized electronics, and low-cost launch services, space is becoming more accessible and populated. However, this also presents a challenge when it comes to conventional methods for maintaining spacecraft and satellites.

One of the biggest challenges is packing electronics into tighter spaces, which makes it harder to keep them at operational temperatures. To address this, engineers at NASA are developing a new system known as microgap-cooling technology. During two recent test flights, NASA demonstrated that this method is effective at removing heat and can also function in a weightless environment.

November 4, 2019November 4, 2019 by Susie Murph

Carnival of Space #635-636

Carnival of Space. Image by Jason Major.

This week’s Carnival of Space is hosted by Allen Versfeld at his Urban Astronomer blog.

Click here to read Carnival of Space #635-636.

November 4, 2019November 5, 2019 by David Dickinson

Our Guide to the November 11th, 2019 Transit of Mercury Across the Sun

Mercury transits the Sun in 2016. Image credit and copyright: David Blanchflower.

One of the finest spectacles in astronomy is to witness the passage of one object in front of another. This can transpire as an eclipse, an occultation, or a rare event known as a planetary transit. We get a shot at seeing just such a singular event next Monday on November 11^th, as a transit of Mercury across the face of Sol occurs for the last time this decade.