Universe Today

October 29, 2024October 29, 2024 by David Dickinson

Death of a Comet: S1 Didn’t Survive its Sungrazing Plummet

Jaeger Comet — Comet S1 ATLAS from October 19th. Credit: Michael Jaeger and Gerald Rhemann.

Sungrazer C/2024 S1 ATLAS broke apart at perihelion.

Alas, a ‘Great Halloween Comet’ was not to be. The Universe teased us just a bit this month, with the potential promise of a second naked eye comet in October: C/2024 S1 ATLAS. Discovered on the night of September 27th by the Asteroid Terrestrial Last-alert impact System (ATLAS) all-sky survey, this inbound comet was surprisingly bright and active for its relative distance from the Sun at the time of discovery. This gave the comet the potential to do what few sungrazers have done: survive a blisteringly close perihelion passage near the Sun.

October 28, 2024October 28, 2024 by Matt Williams

Remember that “Alien Signal” Sent by the ExoMars Orbiter Last Year? It’s Just Been Decoded

The Sign in Space message has finally been decoded. Credit: A Sign in Space

In May 2023, the ESA’s Exomars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO), currently in orbit around Mars, sent a signal to Earth to simulate a possible extraterrestrial transmission. As part of the multidisciplinary art project “A Sign in Space,” the purpose was to engage citizen scientists in helping to decode it. The campaign was inspired by Cosmicomics by Italian writer/journalist Italo Calvino, a series of short stories exploring various scientific principles. The project is partnered with the SETI Institute, the Green Bank Observatory, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF).

After three radio astronomy observatories on Earth intercepted the message, the challenge was to extract the message from the raw data of the radio signal and then decode it. After ten days, more than 5000 citizen scientists worldwide gathered online and used their combined resources to extract the signal. After a year of attempts, two U.S. citizens – the father-daughter team of Ken and Keli Chaffin – managed to crack the code after days of simulations. They discovered that the message consisted of five clusters of white dots and lattices against a black background, suggesting cellular formation and life!

October 28, 2024October 28, 2024 by Evan Gough

Add Astronaut Nutrition to the List of Barriers to Long-Duration Spaceflight

NASA Astronauts Kjell Lindgren (center) and Scott Kelly (right) and Kimiya Yui (left) of Japan consume space grown food for the first time ever, from the Veggie plant growth system on the International Space Station in August 2015. Credit: NASA TV

Though there are no firm plans for a crewed mission to Mars, we all know one’s coming. Astronauts routinely spend months at a time on the ISS, and we’ve learned a lot about the hazards astronauts face on long missions. However, Mars missions can take years, which presents a whole host of problems, including astronaut nutrition.

Nutrition can help astronauts manage spaceflight risks in the ISS, but long-duration missions to Mars are different. There can be no resupply.

October 28, 2024October 28, 2024 by Evan Gough

This Ancient Supernova Remnant Looks Like a Stellar Dandelion

An artist’s concept of a supernova remnant called Pa 30—the leftover remains of a supernova explosion that was witnessed from Earth in the year 1181. Unusual filaments of sulfur protrude beyond a dusty shell of ejected material. The remains of the original star that exploded, now a hot inflated star which may cool to become a white dwarf, are seen at the center of the remnant. The Keck Cosmic Web Imager (KCWI) at the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawai‘i has mapped the strange filaments in 3-D and shown that they are flying outward at approximately 1,000 kilometers per second. Image Credit: W.M. Keck Observatory/Adam Makarenko

In 1181, Japanese and Chinese astronomers saw a bright light appear in the constellation Cassiopeia. It shone for six months, and those ancient observers couldn’t have known it was an exploding star. To them, it looked like some type of temporary star that shone for 185 days.

In the modern astronomical age, we’ve learned a lot more about the object. It was a supernova called SN 1181 AD, and we know that it left behind a remnant “zombie” star. New research examines the supernova’s aftermath and the strange filaments of gas it left behind.

October 28, 2024October 28, 2024 by Mark Thompson

Astronauts Could Take an Asteroid Ferry from Earth to Mars

This idea really is quite a fascinating one. Currently a trip to Mars would require large amounts of air, water and other resources to sustain human life but would also expose travellers to harmful levels of radiation. A wonderful solution has been proposed in a new paper recently published by researchers from Ukraine. They propose that asteroids which already travel relatively close by Earth, Mars and even Venus already could be used to hop between the planets. They are already making the journey anyway and so perhaps the cosmos already provides the solution to interplanetary travel.

October 26, 2024October 26, 2024 by Mark Thompson

Webb Scans Vega for Planets

To northern sky watchers, Vega is a familiar sight in the summer sky. It’s one of the brightest stars in the sky and in 2013, astronomers detected a large ring of rocky debris surrounding the planet. The prospect of planets suddenly became a real possibility so astronomers turned the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) on the star. The hunt achieved 10 times the sensitivity of previous ground based searches but alas no planets were discovered.

October 26, 2024October 26, 2024 by Brian Koberlein

Could Life at TRAPPIST-1 Survive the Star's Superflares?

Artist's Illustration of a Young Red Dwarf Stripping Away a Planet's Atmosphere. Credit: NASA, ESA, and D. Player (STScI)

The TRAPPIST-1 system is a science-fiction writer’s dream. Seven Earth-sized worlds orbit a red dwarf star just 40 light-years away. Three of those worlds are within the habitable zone of the star. The system spans a distance less than 25 times that of the distance from the Earth to the Moon. Oh, what epic tales a TRAPPIST civilization would have! That is, if life in such a system is even possible…

October 26, 2024October 26, 2024 by Mark Thompson

Red Dwarf Stars Might Be Able to Hold Onto Their Atmospheres After All

This 2018 artist’s concept shows what the TRAPPIST-1 planetary system may look like, based on available data about the planets’ diameters, masses and distances from the host star (far left). New research shows that while TRAPPIST-1b, second from the left, has no atmosphere, TRAPPIST-1e, third from the right, could have a long-term stable atmosphere.NASA/JPL-Caltech

Exoplanets are a fascinating aspect of the study of the Universe. TRAPPIST-1 is perhaps one of the most intriguing exoplanet systems discovered to date with no less than 7 Earth-sized worlds. They orbit a red dwarf star which can unfortunately be a little feisty, hurling catastrophic flares out into space. These flares could easily strip atmospheres away from the alien worlds rendering them uninhabitable. A new piece of research suggests this may not be true and that the rocky planets may be able to maintain a stable atmosphere after all.

October 25, 2024October 25, 2024 by Matt Williams

Webb Finds Dozens of Supernovae Remnants in the Triangulum Galaxy

M33, the Triangulum Spiral Galaxy, seen here in a 4.3 hour exposure image. Astronomers used JWST to examine a section of its south spiral arm to search out and find nearly 800 newly forming stars. Credit and copyright: John Chumack.

Infrared astronomy has revealed so much about the Universe, ranging from protoplanetary disks and nebulae to brown dwarfs, aurorae, and volcanoes on together celestial bodies. Looking to the future, astronomers hope to conduct infrared studies of supernova remnants (SNRs), which will provide vital information about the physics of these explosions. While studies in the near-to-mid infrared (NIR-MIR) spectrum are expected to provide data on the atomic makeup of SNRs, mid-to-far IR (MIR-FIR) studies should provide a detailed look at heated dust grains they eject into the interstellar medium (ISM).

Unfortunately, these studies have been largely restricted to the Milky Way and the Magellanic Clouds due to the limits of previous IR observatories. However, these observational regimes are now accessible thanks to next-generation instruments like the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). In a recent study, a team led by researchers from Ohio State University presented the first spatially resolved infrared images of supernova remnants (SNRs) in the Triangulum Galaxy (a.k.a. Messier 33). Their observations allowed them to acquire images of 43 SNRs, thanks to the unprecedented sensitivity and resolution of Webb’s IR instruments.

October 25, 2024October 25, 2024 by Evan Gough

The Search for Exomoons is On

An artist's conception of a potentially-habitable exomoon. It seems reasonable that exoplanets have exomoons, and now we're going to look for them. Credit: NASA

Moons are the norm in our Solar System. The International Astronomical Union recognizes 288 planetary moons, and more keep being discovered. Saturn has a whopping 146 moons. Every planet except Mercury and Venus has moons, and their lack of moons is attributed to their small size and proximity to the Sun.

It seems reasonable that there are moons around exoplanets in other Solar Systems, and now we’re going to start looking for them with the James Webb Space Telescope.