Space and astronomy news
Japan’s Hayabusa 2 mission to asteroid Ryugu has reached one of its final milestones, if not its climax. The sample-return spacecraft has launched the Minerva-II2 rover at the asteroid. This is the last of four rovers that Hayabusa 2 is deploying on Ryugu.
Continue reading “Hayabusa 2 Has Sent its Last Rover to Ryugu”
According to the most widely-accepted cosmological models, the first galaxies began to form between 13 and 14 billion years ago. Over the course of the next billion years, the cosmic structures we’ve all come to know emerged. These include things like galaxy clusters, superclusters, and filaments, but also galactic features like globular clusters, galactic bulges, and Supermassive Black Holes (SMBHs).
However, like living organisms, galaxies have continued to evolve ever since. In fact, over the course of their lifetimes, galaxies accrete and eject mass all the time. In a recent study, an international team of astronomers calculated the rate of inflow and outflow of material for the Milky Way. Then the good folks at astrobites gave it a good breakdown and showed just how relevant it is to our understanding of galactic formation and evolution.
Continue reading “Earth, Solar System, Milky Way. Are they Getting More or Less Massive Over Time?”
The mole is still stuck.
The mole is the name given to the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP3) instrument on NASA’s Mars InSight lander. It’s job is to penetrate into the Martian surface to a depth of 5 meters (16 ft) to measure how heat flows from the planet’s interior to the surface. It’s part of InSight’s mission to understand the interior structure of Mars, and how it formed.
But it’s stuck at about 35 centimers (14 inches.) The mole can do science shy of its maximum depth of 5 meters, but not this shallow. And NASA, and the DLR (German Aerospace Center) who provided the mole, have a new plan to fix it.
Continue reading “Here’s NASA’s New Plan to Get InSight’s Temperature Probe Into Mars”
In a death-defying maneuver for the spacecraft, NASA’s Juno has completed an unprecedented and unplanned engine burn. The purpose? To save the spacecraft’s “life,” or at least the rest of its mission to Jupiter.
Jupiter casts a deep, dark shadow. Dark enough, in fact, to effectively kill Juno if it flies through it. Rather than let the spacecraft spend 12 battery-draining hours in Jupiter’s shadow, and then attempt a risky resuscitation on the other side, NASA took another course of action: a 10.5 hour burn of Juno’s reaction thrusters that will steer it clear of Jupiter’s life-draining shadow.
The SEIS (Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure) instrument on NASA’s InSight lander has sensed 21 Marsquakes since it was deployed on December 19th, 2018. It actually sensed over 100 events to date, but only 21 of them have been identified as Marsquakes. SEIS is extremely sensitive so mission scientists expected these results.
SEIS is a key part of InSight, NASA’s mission to understand the interior of Mars. Along with other instruments, it’ll help scientists understand what’s going on inside Mars.
Continue reading “InSight Has Already Detected 21 Marsquakes”
When China’s Chang’e-4 spacecraft landed on the lunar far side on January 3rd 2019, it made history. It was the first spacecraft to visit that part of the Moon, and among its payload was a 2.6 kg (5.7 lb) mini-biosphere called the Lunar Micro Ecosystem (LME).
The sealed, cylindrical biosphere is only 18 cm (7.1 in) long and 16 cm (6.3 in) in diameter. The LME carried six lifeforms, kept in mostly Earth-like conditions except for micro-gravity and lunar radiation.
Continue reading “China’s Lander Successfully Grew Some Cotton Plants on the Moon. Fruit Flies and Potatoes Didn’t Fare So Well”
In the past decade, thousands of planets have been discovered beyond our Solar System. These planets have provided astronomers with the opportunity to study planetary systems that have defied our preconcieved notions. This includes particularly massive gas giants that are many times the size of Jupiter (aka. “super-Jupiters”). And then there are those that orbit particularly close to their suns, otherwise known as “hot-Jupiters”.
Conventional wisdom indicates that gas giants should exist far from their suns and have long orbital periods that can last for a decade or longer. However, in a recent study, an international team of astronomers announced the detection of a “hot-Jupiter” with the shortest orbital period to date. Located 1,060 light-years away from Earth, this planet (NGTS-10b) takes just 18 hours to complete a full orbit of its sun.
Continue reading “Exoplanet Orbits its Star Every 18 Hours. The Quickest Hot-Jupiter Ever Found”
The International Space Station’s usual complement of six astronauts grew by 50% recently, making things a little crowded up there. The nine astronauts come from four separate space agencies, and for the first time, an astronaut from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is onboard the ISS.
The ISS is a multicultural place. Astronauts from around the world serve on the station to advance the scientific goals of humanity and to build cooperative ties between Earth’s different peoples. It’s kind of like Star Trek, but in space.
Continue reading “Nine Astronauts from Four Different Space Agencies are on the International Space Station Right Now”
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Fraser Cain (universetoday.com / @fcain)
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Veranika “Nika” Klimovich
Emmy Award-winning television host and producer Geoff Notkin starred in three seasons of the cult television adventure series Meteorite Men for Science Channel and two seasons of the educational series STEM Journals for Cox Media. He has also appeared in shows for Discovery, NASA EDGE, TLC, PBS, A&E, National Geographic Channel, History Channel, Travel Channel, and the BBC. He is a science writer, meteorite specialist, photographer, world traveler, and CEO of Aerolite Meteorites Inc, a leader in meteorite research and recovery. Continue reading “Weekly Space Hangout: October 2, 2019 – Geoff Notkin, President of the National Space Society”
On Saturday, Sept.28th, Elon Musk stood before a crowd at SpaceX’s testing facility in Boca Chica, Texas. To the SpaceX employees, guests and reporters assembled (and the millions watching the live stream) Musk presented the fully-assembled Starship Mk.1 prototype. Musk also used the occasion, which also marked the seventeenth anniversary for SpaceX, to celebrate company milestones and update the world on the latest design of the finished Starship.
Once operational, this vehicle will fulfill Musk’s promise of conducting commercial flights to orbit, the Moon, and Mars and even the creation of off-world bases. And to give us a taste of what that would be like, Musk recently posted a video on Twitter of what the inside of the Mk