Posted on by Susie Murph

Weekly Space Hangout: Dec 26, 2018 The Year in Review

Hosts:
Fraser Cain (universetoday.com / @fcain)
Dr. Paul M. Sutter (pmsutter.com / @PaulMattSutter)
Dr. Kimberly Cartier (KimberlyCartier.org / @AstroKimCartier )
Dr. Morgan Rehnberg (MorganRehnberg.com / @MorganRehnberg & ChartYourWorld.org)

Announcements:
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The Weekly Space Hangout is a production of CosmoQuest.

Posted on by Susie Murph

Astronomy Cast Ep. 510: 2018 – Year in Review

2018 was an incredible year in space news. Rockets launched, landers landed, spacecraft were born and died. We learned tremendous new things about Universe around us, and today we’re here to look back fondly over the last 12 months to review the year in space that was.

We usually record Astronomy Cast every Friday at 3:00 pm EST / 12:00 pm PST / 20:00 PM UTC. You can watch us live on AstronomyCast.com, or the AstronomyCast YouTube page.

Visit the Astronomy Cast Page to subscribe to the audio podcast!

If you would like to support Astronomy Cast, please visit our page at Patreon here – https://www.patreon.com/astronomycast. We greatly appreciate your support!

If you would like to join the Weekly Space Hangout Crew, visit their site here and sign up. They’re a great team who can help you join our online discussions!

Want to support CosmoQuest? Here are specific ways you can help:
* Donate! (Streamlabs link) https://streamlabs.com/cosmoquestx
* Buy stuff from our Redbubble https://www.redbubble.com/people/cosmoquestx
* Help us find sponsors by sharing our program and fundraising efforts through your networks
* Become a Patreon of Astronomy Cast https://www.patreon.com/astronomycast
* Sponsor 365 Days of Astronomy http://bit.ly/sponsor365DoA
* A combination of the above!

Posted on by Matt Williams

This Crater on Mars Traps the Cold, and Remains Filled With Ice, All Year Round

This image from ESA’s Mars Express shows Korolev crater, an 82-kilometre-across feature found in the northern lowlands of Mars. Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin

On June 2nd, 2003, the European Space Agency’s Mars Express mission left Earth to begin its journey to Mars. Six months later (on December 25th) the spacecraft fired its main engine and entered orbit around Mars. This Christmas will therefore mark the fifteenth anniversary of the orbiter’s arrival and all the observations it has made of the Red Planet since then.

Appropriately, the Mars Express mission was able to commemorate this occasion by capturing some beautiful photos of a Martian crater that remains filled with ice all year round. This feature is known as the Korolev crater, which measures 82 km (51 mi) in diameter and is located in the northern lowlands, just south of the northern polar ice cap.

Continue reading “This Crater on Mars Traps the Cold, and Remains Filled With Ice, All Year Round”

Posted on by Tammy Plotner

The Equuleus Constellation

Equuleus is tucked between Pegasus, the Flying Horse, and Delphinus about a quarter of the way from Enif, the horse's nose, to bright Altair in Aquila. The constellation stands due south around 11 p.m. local time in mid-September. Credit: Stellarium

Welcome to another edition of Constellation Friday! Today, in honor of the late and great Tammy Plotner, we take a look at the “little horse” – the Equuleus constellation. Enjoy!

In the 2nd century CE, Greek-Egyptian astronomer Claudius Ptolemaeus (aka. Ptolemy) compiled a list of the then-known 48 constellations. This treatise, known as the Almagest, would be used by medieval European and Islamic scholars for over a thousand years to come, effectively becoming astrological and astronomical canon until the early Modern Age.

One of these constellation is Equuleus (aka. “little Horse”), a constellation that lies in the northern sky. This small, faint constellation is the second smallest in the night sky, after Crux (the Southern Cross). Today, it is one of the 88 modern constellations recognized by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) and is bordered by the constellations of Aquarius, Delphinus and Pegasus. Continue reading “The Equuleus Constellation”

Posted on by Paul M. Sutter

New Research Reveals How Galaxies Stay Hot and Bothered

This visualization uses data from simulations of orbital motions of gas swirling around at about 30% of the speed of light on a circular orbit around the black hole. Credit: ESO/Gravity Consortium/L. Calçada

It’s relatively easy for galaxies to make stars. Start out with a bunch of random blobs of gas and dust. Typically those blobs will be pretty warm. To turn them into stars, you have to cool them off. By dumping all their heat in the form of radiation, they can compress. Dump more heat, compress more. Repeat for a million years or so.

Eventually pieces of the gas cloud shrink and shrink, compressing themselves into a tight little knots. If the densities inside those knots get high enough, they trigger nuclear fusion and voila: stars are born.

Continue reading “New Research Reveals How Galaxies Stay Hot and Bothered”

Posted on by Evan Gough

InSight Just Placed its Seismometer onto the Surface of Mars to Listen for Marsquakes

This copper-colored hexagonal box is an insulating container for SEIS. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
This copper-colored hexagonal box is an insulating container for SEIS. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA’s InSight lander has deployed its first instrument on the surface of Mars. On December 19th, the stationary lander used its robotic arm to deploy the SEIS (Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure), marking the first time a seismometer has been placed on the surface of another planet. This is a milestone for the mission, and one that comes well ahead of schedule.

InSight landed on Mars at Elysium Planitia on November 26th. Since then, it’s been checking out its immediate surroundings with its cameras to find the perfect spot to deploy the seismometer, and its other deployable instrument, the HP3 (Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package.) Mission planners allocated several weeks for instrument site selection, so this is well ahead of schedule.
Continue reading “InSight Just Placed its Seismometer onto the Surface of Mars to Listen for Marsquakes”

Posted on by Matt Williams

Remember the Discovery of Methane in the Martian Atmosphere? Now Scientists Can’t Find any Evidence of it, at all

The Trace Gas Orbiter arrived at Mars in 2016. Credit: ESA

In 2003, scientists from NASA’s Goddard Space Center made the first-ever detection of trace amounts of methane in Mars’ atmosphere, a find which was confirmed a year later by the ESA’s Mars Express orbiter. In December of 2014, the Curiosity rover detected a tenfold spike of methane at the base of Mount Sharp, and later uncovered evidence that Mars has a seasonal methane cycle, where levels peak in the late northern summer.

Since it’s discovery, the existence of methane on Mars has been considered one of the strongest lines of evidence for the existence of past or present life. So it was quite the downer last week (on Dec. 12th) when the science team behind one of the ESA’s ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) spectrometers announced that they had found no traces of methane in Mars’ atmosphere.

Continue reading “Remember the Discovery of Methane in the Martian Atmosphere? Now Scientists Can’t Find any Evidence of it, at all”

Posted on by Matt Williams

Even if Exoplanets Have Atmospheres With Oxygen, it Doesn’t Mean There’s Life There

Artist’s impression of a sunset seen from the surface of an Earth-like exoplanet. Credit: ESO/L. Calçada

In their efforts to find evidence of life beyond our Solar System, scientists are forced to take what is known as the “low-hanging fruit” approach. Basically, this comes down to determining if planets could be “potentially habitable” based on whether or not they would be warm enough to have liquid water on their surfaces and dense atmospheres with enough oxygen.

This is a consequence of the fact that existing methods for examining distant planets are largely indirect and that Earth is only one planet we know of that is capable of supporting life. But what if planets that have plenty of oxygen are not guaranteed to produce life? According to a new study by a team from Johns Hopkins University, this may very well be the case.

Continue reading “Even if Exoplanets Have Atmospheres With Oxygen, it Doesn’t Mean There’s Life There”

Posted on by Evan Gough

The Saturn Nebula Kind of Looks Like the Planet in a Small Telescope, But in One of the Most Powerful Telescopes on Earth, it Looks Like This

The Saturn nebula as imaged by the MUSE instrument on the ESO's Very Large Telescope. Image Credit: ESO/VLT
The Saturn nebula as imaged by the MUSE instrument on the ESO's Very Large Telescope. Image Credit: ESO/VLT

Saturn is an icon. There’s nothing else like it in the Solar System, and it’s something even children recognize. But there’s a distant object that astronomers call the Saturn nebula, because from a distance it resembles the planet, with its pronounced ringed shape.

The Saturn nebula bears no relation to the planet, except in shape. It’s about five thousand light years away, so in a small backyard telescope, it does resemble the planet. But when astronomers train large telescopes on it, the illusion falls apart.

Continue reading “The Saturn Nebula Kind of Looks Like the Planet in a Small Telescope, But in One of the Most Powerful Telescopes on Earth, it Looks Like This”

Posted on by Matt Williams

Saturn is Losing its Rings, Fast. They Could be Gone Within 100 Million Years

This portrait looking down on Saturn and its rings was created from images obtained by NASA's Cassini spacecraft on Oct. 10, 2013. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute/G. Ugarkovic

It has been almost forty years since the Voyager 1 and 2 missions visited the Saturn system. As the probes flew by the gas giant, they were able to capture some stunning, high-resolution images of the planet’s atmosphere, its many moons, and its iconic ring system. In addition, the probes also revealed that Saturn was slowly losing its rings, at a rate that would see them gone in about 100 million years.

More recently, the Cassini orbiter visited the Saturn system and spent over 12 years studying the planet, its moons and its ring system. And according to new research based on Cassini’s data, it appears that Saturn is losing its rings at the maximum rate predicted by the Voyager missions. According to the study, Saturn’s rings are being gobbled up by the gas giant at a rate that means they could be gone in less 100 million years.

Continue reading “Saturn is Losing its Rings, Fast. They Could be Gone Within 100 Million Years”