Universe Today

June 24, 2019June 24, 2019 by Matt Williams

Uranus’ Rings are Surprisingly Bright in Thermal Emissions

Composite image of Uranus’s atmosphere and rings at radio wavelengths, taken with the ALMA array in December 2017. The image shows thermal emission, or heat, from the rings of Uranus for the first time, enabling scientists to determine their temperature: a frigid 77 Kelvin (-320 F). Dark bands in Uranus’s atmosphere at these wavelengths show the presence of molecules that absorb radio waves, in particular hydrogen sulfide gas. Bright regions like the north polar spot (yellow spot at right, because Uranus is tipped on its side) contain very few of these molecules. (UC Berkeley image by Edward Molter and Imke de Pater)

During the late 1970s, scientists made a rather interesting discovery about the gas giants of the Solar System. Thanks to ongoing observations using improved optics, it was revealed that gas giants like Uranus – and not just Saturn – have ring systems about them. The main difference is, these ring systems are not easily visible from a distance using conventional optics and require exceptional timing to see light being reflected off of them.

Another way to study them is to observe their planet in infrared or radio wavelengths. This was recently demonstrated by a team of astronomers who conducted observations of Uranus using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and the Very Large Telescope (VLT). In addition to obtaining temperature readings from the rings, they confirmed what many scientists have suspected about them for some time.

June 24, 2019December 2, 2019 by Tammy Plotner

Messier 88 – the NGC 4501 Spiral Galaxy

Welcome back to Messier Monday! Today, we continue in our tribute to our dear friend, Tammy Plotner, by looking at the spiral galaxy known as Messier 88!

During the 18th century, famed French astronomer Charles Messier noticed the presence of several “nebulous objects” while surveying the night sky. Originally mistaking these objects for comets, he began to catalog them so that others would not make the same mistake. Today, the resulting list (known as the Messier Catalog) includes over 100 objects and is one of the most influential catalogs of Deep Space Objects.

One of these objects is the spiral galaxy known as Messier 88 (New General Catalog designation 4501), a spiral galaxy located between 50 and 60 million light-years away in the constellation Coma Berenices. M88 was one of the first celestial objects to be recognized as a spiral galaxy and is one of the brighter galaxies of its kind in the Virgo Cluster.

Continue reading “Messier 88 – the NGC 4501 Spiral Galaxy”

June 21, 2019June 21, 2019 by Evan Gough

NASA Model Shows Greenland’s Ice Sheet Will Disappear Over the Next 1000 Years, Raising Sea Levels by 7 Meters

The Greenland ice sheet could be gone in a thousand years. Don't buy waterfront property. Image Credit: NASA

Great news! Humankind’s greatest-ever engineering project is nearing completion. Soon we will have warmed the Earth enough to get rid of all those pesky ice sheets and other frozen areas. The finish line is in sight.

If we all work together for the next thousand years, we’ll finally reach our goal!

June 21, 2019June 21, 2019 by Evan Gough

Deep Space Atomic Clocks Will Help Spacecraft Answer, with Incredible Precision, if They’re There Yet

The Deep Space Atomic Clock, a new technology from NASA's JPL, may change the way spacecraft navigate in space. Launching in late June aboard the Orbital Test Bed satellite, on the SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket, descendants of the technology demonstration could be a key component of a self-driving spacecraft and a GPS-like navigation system at other worlds.Credit: General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems

How do spacecraft know where they are? There’s no GPS out there. Right now, it involves sending a signal to the spacecraft which the spacecraft then sends right back to Earth. The elapsed time reveals the distance.

But on June 24th, that method could be replaced by something much more autonomous.

June 20, 2019June 20, 2019 by Matt Williams

Enceladus is Filled with Tasty Food for Bacteria

The plumes of Enceladus have phosphate-rich ice grains entrained. Credit: NASA — A NASA illustrations of Cassini flying through the plumes of Enceladus. Credit: NASA.

As soon as the Cassini-Huygens mission arrived the Saturn system in 2004, it began to send back a number of startling discoveries. One of the biggest was the discovery of plume activity around the southern polar region of Saturn’s moon Enceladus’, which appears to be the result of geothermal activity and an ocean in the moon’s interior. This naturally gave rise to a debate about whether or not this interior ocean could support life.

Since then, multiple studies have been conducted to get a better idea of just how likely it is that life exists inside Enceladus. The latest comes from the University of Washington’s Department of Earth and Space Sciences (ESS), which shows that concentrations of carbon dioxide, hydrogen and methane in Enceladus’ interior ocean (as well as its pH levels) are more conducive to life than previously thought.

June 20, 2019June 25, 2019 by Matt Williams

Want to Find Aliens? The Largest Dataset in the History of SETI has Been Released to the Public

In 2016, Russian-Israeli billionaire Yuri Milner launched Breakthrough Initiatives, a massive non-profit organization dedicated to the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence (SETI). A key part of their efforts to find evidence of intelligent life is Breakthrough Listen, a $100 million program that is currently conducting a survey of one million of the nearest stars and the 100 nearest galaxies.

In keeping with their commitment to making the results of their surveys available to the public, the Listen team recently submitted two papers to leading astrophysical journals. These papers describe the analysis of Listen’s first three years of radio observations which resulted in a petabyte of radio and optical data, the single largest release of SETI data in the history of the field.

June 20, 2019June 20, 2019 by Evan Gough

Stunning Image Shows How Saturn’s Tiny Moon Sculpts the Planet’s Rings

This image of the tiny moon Daphnis, only about 8km in diameter, is an enhanced-color mosaic. Daphnis is creating three waves in the outer edge of the Keeler gap. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

The Cassini mission to Saturn ended a year and a half ago, but scientific results are still coming from all of the data it collected. When Cassini moved in closer to Saturn in its final months, it took a very detailed look at the gas giant’s rings, travelling between them and the planet itself. That detailed inspection raised quite a few questions about all the interactions shaping those rings.

A new paper published in Science presents some of the results from Cassini’s close-up look at the rings.

June 19, 2019June 19, 2019 by Matt Williams

Two Earth-Like Worlds Found Orbiting a Red Dwarf Only 12.5 Light-Years Away

Artistic recreation of the Teegarden Star system. Credit: University of Göttingen

In the past few decades, there has been an explosion in the number of planets discovered beyond our Solar System. With over 4,000 confirmed exoplanets to date, the process has gradually shifted from discovery towards characterization. This consists of using refined techniques to determine just how likely a planet is to be habitable.

At the same time, astronomers continue to make discoveries regularly, some of which are right in our cosmic backyard. For instance, an international team of researchers recently detected two new Earth-like planets orbiting Teegarden’s Star, an M-type (red dwarf) star located just 12.5 light-years from the Solar System in the direction of the Aries constellation.

June 19, 2019June 19, 2019 by Evan Gough

Competition Will Let You Name an Exoplanet

Within the framework of its 100th anniversary commemorations, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) is organising the IAU100 NameExoWorlds global competition that allows any country in the world to give a popular name to a selected exoplanet and its host star. Image Credit: IAU/L. Calçada

When it comes to naming all those exoplanets that astronomers keep finding, it’s up to the International Astronomical Union (IAU) to do the job. In an effort to reach out to the global community, they’re running a new contest. In honour of their 100 year anniversary, the IAU has organized the 100IAU NameExoWorlds event.

June 19, 2019June 19, 2019 by Evan Gough

The Earliest Example of Merging Galaxies Ever Found

An artist's illustration of the merging galaxy object B14-65666. Image Credit: NAOJ

Galaxy mergers are not particularly rare, but they are important events. Not only for the galaxies involved, but for scientists trying to piece together how galaxies evolve. Now, astronomers using ALMA have found the earliest example yet of merging galaxies.