Space and astronomy news
When we think of exoplanets that may be able to support life, we hone in on the habitable zone. A habitable zone is a region around a star where planets receive enough stellar energy to have liquid surface water. It’s a somewhat crude but helpful first step when examining thousands of exoplanets.
However, there’s a lot more to habitability than that.
Continue reading “Habitable Worlds are Found in Safe Places”
Nine years ago, Blue Origin revealed the plans for their New Glenn rocket, a heavy-lift vehicle with a reusable first stage that would compete with SpaceX for orbital flights. Since that time, SpaceX has launched hundreds of rockets, while Blue Origin has been working mostly in secret on New Glenn. Last week, the company rolled out the first prototype of the first-stage booster to the launch complex at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. If all goes well, we could see a late November test on the launch pad.
The test will be an integrated launch vehicle hot-fire which will include the second stage and a stacked payload.
Continue reading “New Glenn Booster Moves to Launch Complex 36”
One thing we’ve learned in recent decades is that exoplanets are surprisingly common. So far, we’ve confirmed nearly 6,000 planets, and we have evidence for thousands more. Most of these planets were discovered using the transit method. though we there are other methods as well. Many stars are known to have multiple planets, such as the TRAPPIST-1 system with seven Earth-sized worlds. But even within known planetary systems there could be planets we’ve overlooked. Perhaps their orbit doesn’t pass in front of the star from our vantage point, or the evidence of their presence is buried in data noise. How might we find them? A recent paper on the arXiv has an interesting approach.
Continue reading “How Many Additional Exoplanets are in Known Systems?”
Many people think of the James Webb Space Telescope as a sort of Hubble 2. They understand that the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) has served us well but is now old, and overdue for replacement. NASA seems to agree, as they have not sent a maintenance mission in over fifteen years, and are already preparing to wind down operations. But a recent paper argues that this is a mistake. Despite its age, HST still performs extremely well and continues to produce an avalanche of valuable scientific results. And given that JWST was never designed as a replacement for HST — it is an infrared (IR) telescope) — we would best be served by operating both telescopes in tandem, to maximize coverage of all observations.
Continue reading “Hubble and Webb are the Dream Team. Don't Break Them Up”
On November 26th, 2018, NASA’s Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy, and Heat Transport (InSight) mission landed on Mars. This was a major milestone in Mars exploration since it was the first time a research station had been deployed to the surface to probe the planet’s interior. One of the most important instruments InSight would use to do this was the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP3) developed by the German Aerospace Center (DLR). Also known as the Martian Mole, this instrument measured the heat flow from deep inside the planet for four years.
The HP3 was designed to dig up to five meters (~16.5 ft) into the surface to sense heat deeper in Mars’ interior. Unfortunately, the Mole struggled to burrow itself and eventually got just beneath the surface, which was a surprise to scientists. Nevertheless, the Mole gathered considerable data on the daily and seasonal fluctuations below the surface. Analysis of this data by a team from the German Aerospace Center (DLR) has yielded new insight into why Martian soil is so “crusty.” According to their findings, temperatures in the top 40 cm (~16 inches) of the Martian surface lead to the formation of salt films that harden the soil.
Continue reading “Scientists Have Figured out why Martian Soil is so Crusty”
The gravitational field of a rotating black hole is powerful and strange. It is so powerful that it warps space and time back upon itself, and it is so strange that even simple concepts such as motion and rotation are turned on their heads. Understanding how these concepts play out is challenging, but they help astronomers understand how black holes generate such tremendous energy. Take, for example, the concept of frame dragging.
Continue reading “Another Way to Extract Energy From Black Holes?”
According to the United Nations, the world produces about 430 million metric tons (267 U.S. tons) of plastic annually, two-thirds of which are only used for a short time and quickly become garbage. What’s more, plastics are the most harmful and persistent fraction of marine litter, accounting for at least 85% of total marine waste. This problem is easily recognizable due to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and the amount of plastic waste that washes up on beaches and shores every year. Unless measures are taken to address this problem, the annual flow of plastic into the ocean could triple by 2040.
One way to address this problem is to improve the global tracking of plastic waste using Earth observation satellites. In a recent study, a team of Australian researchers developed a new method for spotting plastic rubbish on our beaches, which they successfully field-tested on a remote stretch of coastline. This satellite imagery tool distinguishes between sand, water, and plastics based on how they reflect light differently. It can detect plastics on shorelines from an altitude of more than 600 km (~375 mi) – higher than the International Space Station‘s (ISS) orbit.
Continue reading “Plastic Waste on our Beaches Now Visible from Space, Says New Study”
Space-based telescopes are remarkable. Their view isn’t obscured by the weather in our atmosphere, and so they can capture incredibly detailed images of the heavens. Unfortunately, they are quite limited in mirror size. As amazing as the James Webb Space Telescope is, its primary mirror is only 6.5 meters in diameter. Even then, the mirror had to have foldable components to fit into the launch rocket. In contrast, the Extremely Large Telescope currently under construction in northern Chile will have a mirror more than 39 meters across. If only we could launch such a large mirror into space! A new study looks at how that might be done.
Continue reading “Future Space Telescopes Could be Made From Thin Membranes, Unrolled in Space to Enormous Size”
Voyager 1 was launched waaaaaay back in 1977. I would have been 4 years old then! It’s an incredible achievement that technology that was built THAT long ago is still working. Yet here we are in 2024, Voyager 1 and 2 are getting older. Earlier this week, NASA had to turn off one of the radio transmitters on Voyager 1. This forced communication to rely upon the low-power radio. Alas technology around 50 years old does sometimes glitch and this was the result of a command to turn on a heater. The result was that Voyager 1 tripped into fault protection mode and switch communications! Oops.
Continue reading “Voyager 1 is Forced to Rely on its Low Power Radio”
Perhaps the greatest tool astronomers have is the ability to look backward in time. Since starlight takes time to reach us, astronomers can observe the history of the cosmos by capturing the light of distant galaxies. This is why observatories such as the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) are so useful. With it, we can study in detail how galaxies formed and evolved. We are now at the point where our observations allow us to confirm long-standing galactic models, as a recent study shows.
Continue reading “Webb Confirms a Longstanding Galaxy Model”