Universe Today

September 23, 2019September 23, 2019 by Susie Murph

Carnival of Space #630

Carnival of Space. Image by Jason Major.

This week’s Carnival of Space is hosted by Brian Wang at his Next Big Future blog.

Click here to read Carnival of Space #630

And if you’re interested in looking back, here’s an archive to all the past Carnivals of Space. If you’ve got a space-related blog, you should really join the carnival. Just email an entry to [email protected], and the next host will link to it. It will help get awareness out there about your writing, help you meet others in the space community – and community is what blogging is all about. And if you really want to help out, sign up to be a host. Send an email to the above address.

September 23, 2019September 23, 2019 by Evan Gough

Elliptical Galaxy Messier 110 Has a Surprising Core of Hot Blue Stars

A new Hubble image of M 110 shows that these dwarf elliptical galaxies do contain some blue, hot young stars and that they may harbour areas of star formation after all. Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, L. Ferrarese et al.

Messier 110 (NGC 205) is a satellite of the Andromeda Galaxy. It’s a dwarf elliptical galaxy, a common type of galaxy often found in galaxy clusters and groups, and it contains about 10 billion stars. Like all dwarf ellipticals, it doesn’t have the characteristic shape of galaxies like Andromeda or the Milky Way, with their vast, spiral arms. It has a smooth, featureless shape.

Dwarf ellipticals lack the blazing bright areas of active star formation that other galaxies display. In fact, astronomers think that they’re too old to have any young stars at all. But M110 appears to be different.

September 21, 2019September 25, 2019 by Matt Williams

Venus Could Have Supported Life for Billions of Years

Artist's conception of a terraformed Venus, showing a surface largely covered in oceans. Credit: Wikipedia Commons/Ittiz

In 1978, NASA’s Pioneer Venus (aka. Pioneer 12) mission reached Venus (“Earth’s Sister”) and found indications that Venus may have once had oceans on its surface. Since then, several missions have been sent to Venus and gathered data on its surface and atmosphere. From this, a picture has emerged of how Venus made the transition from being an “Earth-like” planet to the hot and hellish place it is today.

It all started about 700 million years ago when a massive resurfacing event triggered a runaway Greenhouse Effect that caused Venus’s atmosphere to become incredibly dense and hot. This means that for 2 to 3 billion years after Venus formed, the planet could have maintained a habitable environment. According to a recent study, that would have been long enough for life to have emerged on “Earth’s Sister”.

September 20, 2019September 20, 2019 by Evan Gough

Rosetta Saw Collapsing Cliffs and Other Changes on 67P During its Mission

An example of a boulder having moved across the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko’s surface, captured in Rosetta’s OSIRIS imagery. The image was taken with the narrow-angle camera and shows the boulder in the lower third of the image. Image Credit: ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA (CC BY-SA 4.0);

It seems that comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko is not the stoic, unchanging Solar System traveller that it might seem to be. Scientists working through the vast warehouse of images from the Rosetta spacecraft have discovered there’s lots going on on 67P. Among the activity are collapsing cliffs and bouncing boulders.

September 20, 2019September 20, 2019 by Matt Williams

Hayabusa 2 has one Last Lander it’s Going to Throw at Ryugu

On June 27th, 2018, the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency‘s (JAXA) Hayabusa2 spacecraft reached asteroid 162173 Ryugu. As part of JAXA’s program to study Near-Earth Asteroids (NEAs), this mission has spent over a year conducting landing operations, shooting up the surface with “bullets” and an anti-tank warhead, and collecting samples from the surface and interior that will eventually be returned to Earth.

This past Monday (Sept. 16th), Hayabusa2 released two target markers as part of its “target marker separation operation” (which ran from Sept. 12th to Sept. 17th). This consisted of two 10 cm (4 in) balls covered in reflective material being released in orbit around Ryugu. This operation puts the mission a step closer to the deployment of the mission’s MINERVA-II2 Rover-2, which will be landing on the asteroid’s surface next month.

September 20, 2019September 20, 2019 by Evan Gough

Enceladus Causes Snowfall On Other Moons of Saturn

Stunningly beautiful Enceladus has a subsurface ocean. Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Radar evidence shows that geysers on Enceladus are ejecting water that turns to snow. The snow not only falls back on Enceladus’ surface, but also makes its way to its neighboring moons, Mimas and Tethys, making them more reflective. Researchers are calling this a ‘snow cannon.’

September 20, 2019September 20, 2019 by Matt Williams

Musk Shares the Latest Progress on the Starship Prototypes

SpaceX is getting closer to its making its next big leap with the Starship super-heavy launch system. With hover tests now complete, the public is eagerly awaiting the completion of the full-scale prototypes and for orbital testing to begin. Never one to disappoint, Elon Musk has been posting regular updates on Twitter showcasing the latest progress of the Starship Mk.1 and Mk.2.

September 19, 2019September 19, 2019 by Evan Gough

A Distant Asteroid Collision Gave Earthly Biodiversity An Ancient Boost

An artist's illustration of the Ordovician Meteor Event. Image Credit: DON DAVIS, SOUTHWEST RESEARCH INSTITUTE

About 466 million years ago, there was an asteroid collision in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The collision caused the breakup of a major asteroid, creating a shower of dust throughout the inner Solar System. That event is called the Ordovician Meteor Event, and its dust caused an ice age here on Earth.

That ice age contributed to an enormous boost in biodiversity on ancient Earth.

September 19, 2019September 19, 2019 by Evan Gough

Yes, This is Actually the Shadow of Io Passing Across the Surface of Jupiter.

Io casts a crisp circular shadow on the the cloud tops in Jupiter's atmosphere in this JunoCam image processed by Kevin Gill. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Kevin M. Gill https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

The JunoCam onboard NASA’s Juno spacecraft continues to provide we Earthbound humans with a steady stream of stunning images of Jupiter. We can’t get enough of the gas giant’s hypnotic, other-worldly beauty. This image of Io passing over Jupiter is the latest one to awaken our sense of wonder.

This image was processed by Kevin Gill, a NASA software engineer who has produced other stunning images of Jupiter.

September 18, 2019September 18, 2019 by Fraser Cain

Want To Explore Mars? Send Humans To The Moons Of Mars First: Phobos And Deimos

The streaked and stained surface of Phobos. (Image: NASA)

Humans to Mars. That’s the plan right? The problem is that sending humans down to the surface of Mars is one of the most complicated and ambitious goals that we can attempt. It’s a huge step to go from low Earth orbit, then lunar landings, and then all the way to Mars, a journey of hundreds of millions of kilometers and 2 years at the least.