Space and astronomy news
Space is a hostile environment in so many ways. But one of its worst features is the various kinds of radiation you can find. When astronauts go back beyond the protective environment of the Earth’s magnetosphere, what are the various kinds of radiation they’ll encounter. And is there anything we’ll be able to do about it?
How fast is the Universe expanding? That’s a question that astronomers haven’t been able to answer accurately. They have a name for the expansion rate of the Universe: The Hubble Constant, or Hubble’s Law. But measurements keep coming up with different values, and astronomers have been debating back and forth on this issue for decades.
The basic idea behind measuring the Hubble Constant is to look at distant light sources, usually a type of supernovae or variable stars referred to as ‘standard candles,’ and to measure the red-shift of their light. But no matter how astronomers do it, they can’t come up with an agreed upon value, only a range of values. A new study involving quasars and gravitational lensing might help settle the issue.
Continue reading “Quasars with a Double-Image Gravitational Lens Could Help Finally Figure out how Fast the Universe is Expanding”
On July 14th, 2015, the New Horizons mission made history when it became the first robotic spacecraft to conduct a flyby of Pluto. On December 31st, 2018, it made history again by being the first spacecraft to rendezvous with a Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) – Ultima Thule (2014 MU69). In addition, the Voyager 2 probe recently joined its sister probe (Voyager 1) in interstellar space.
Given these accomplishments, it is understandable that proposals for interstellar missions are once again being considered. But what would such a mission entail, and is it even worth it? Kelvin F. Long, the co-founder of the Initiative for Interstellar Studies (i4iS) and a major proponent of interstellar flight, recently published a paper that supports the idea of sending robotic missions to nearby star systems to conduct in-situ reconnaissance.
Continue reading “What Would be the Benefits of an Interstellar Probe?”
For some stars, their last act is a final exhalation of gases, which we call a planetary nebula. While a living being’s last breath is closely followed by death, a star can continue to shine. And that shining illuminates the final exhalation of gases like a cosmic, diaphanous veil.
Astronomers have captured one such planetary nebula in this stunning image. This brightly-lit, stellar exhalation will last only 10,000 years, a brief moment in astronomical terms. As the last breath expands and travels away from the star that exhaled it, it will become diffuse and will no longer be visible. All that will be left is the tiny and intensely hot remnant of the star that spawned it.
Continue reading “A Planetary Nebula Like This Will Only be Visible for About 10,000 Years Before it Fades Away”
Blue Origin, the private aerospace company founded by multi-billionaire (and founder of Amazon) Jeff Bezos, is looking to make its presence felt in the rapidly expanding NewSpace industry. To this end, Blue Origin has spent years developing a fleet of reusable rockets that they hope will someday rival those of their greatest competitor, SpaceX.
So far, these efforts have led to the New Shepard rocket, which can send payloads (and soon, space tourists) to suborbital altitudes. In the coming years, Blue Origin hopes to go farther with their New Glenn rocket, a reusable launch vehicle capable of reaching Low-Earth Orbit (LEO). The company recently released a new video of the New Glenn, which showcased the designs latest features and specifications.
Continue reading “Blue Origin has Shown off a New Video of its New Glenn Rocket Design”
An almost unimaginably enormous black hole is situated at the heart of the Milky Way. It’s called a Supermassive Black Hole (SMBH), and astronomers think that almost all massive galaxies have one at their center. But of course, nobody’s ever seen one (sort of, more on that later): It’s all based on evidence other than direct observation.
The Milky Way’s SMBH is called Sagittarius A* (Sgr. A*) and it’s about 4 million times more massive than the Sun. Scientists know it’s there because we can observe the effect it has on matter that gets too close to it. Now, we have one of our best views yet of Sgr. A*, thanks to a team of scientists using a technique called interferometry.
Continue reading “One of Our Best Views of the Supermassive Black Hole at the Heart of the Milky Way”
Elon Musk indicates that the SpaceX Starhopper has been damaged after being toppled in 50 mile-per-hour winds. This will take a few weeks to repair.
Continue reading “SpaceX Starhopper Damaged in High Winds”I just heard. 50 mph winds broke the mooring blocks late last night & fairing was blown over. Will take a few weeks to repair.— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 23, 2019
Hosts:
Fraser Cain (universetoday.com / @fcain)
Dr. Morgan Rehnberg (MorganRehnberg.com / @MorganRehnberg & ChartYourWorld.org)
Marco is a self-declared Asteroid/Comet whisperer. He’s dabbled in citizen science for years, and he most recently flagged many changes on 67P when this was directly requested through the Rosetta Blog:
http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2016/06/03/the-changing-comet-call-for-contributions/ He is currently working on finding evidence for out gassing and stretch at Ultima Thule (similar to 67P), predicting an outburst for RYUGU when an impactor is fired into it in March, and helping with the engineering and physics of a propellant-less thruster based on capacitors called the IMFAB. Marco can be found on twitter at @marcoparigi1.
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Is there or isn’t there a Planet 9? Is there a planet way out on the outskirts of our Solar System, with sufficient mass to explain the movements of distant objects? Or is a disc of icy material responsible? There’s no direct evidence yet of an actual Planet 9, but something with sufficient mass is affecting the orbits of distant Solar System objects.
A new study suggests that a disc of icy material causes the strange movements of outer Solar System objects, and that we don’t need to invent another planet to explain those movements. The study comes from
Professor Jihad Touma, from the American University of Beirut, and
Antranik Sefilian, a PhD student in Cambridge’s Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics. Their results are published in the Astronomical Journal.
Wow. Sunday night’s total lunar eclipse offered an amazing view, and for a few astute observers, a little surprise.
Continue reading “Amazing Images From Sunday’s Total Lunar Eclipse as Observers Spy Impact Flash”