Space and astronomy news
Comet F3 NEOWISE continues to dazzle in these spectacular images.
Just. Wow. If you’re like us, your space-feed has been inundated with some pretty spectacular images of Comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE as of late. F3 NEOWISE broke from the pack of good binocular comets for 2020 early this month, to become one of the best northern hemisphere comets in a generation.
Continue reading “Amazing Images of Comet F3 NEOWISE From Around the World”
NASA and many other space agencies around the world are eager to get back to Venus. And this time around, they want to send missions that can explore the surface for more than a few hours! To this end, engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and Glenn Research Center (GRC) are investigating “steampunk” concepts and special electronic systems that will allow rovers to work in Venus’ hellish environment.
In February of 2020, NASA also launched a public competition through HeroX to seak ideas for rovers that would be capable of surviving the extreme conditions on Venus’ surface – the “Exploring Hell Challenge“. After months of consideration for all the worthy submissions they received, NASA recently announced that it in addition to three winning concepts, they have selected two additional finalists and ten honorable mentions!
Continue reading “15 Different Ideas for Rovers That Could Explore Venus”
Before this decade is out, NASA plans to send astronauts to the Moon for the first time since the Apollo Era and establish a sustainable program of lunar exploration. In order to ensure that future lunar missions are cost-effective and not entirely dependent on Earth for resupply, NASA is looking for ways to leverage lunar resources – everything from water ice to oxygen-rich regolith – to meet their astronauts’ needs.
This process, known as In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU), is a major part of NASA’s plans to explore the Moon in the coming years, as well their long-term plans to send astronauts to Mars. To help them meet this challenge, NASA recently selected 10 proposals through its Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) program to developed ISRU-related technologies.
Continue reading “NASA Chooses 10 Projects that Will Help it Live Off the Land… on the Moon”
As we speak, engineers at SpaceX’s Boca Chica test facility are busy getting the fifth Starship prototype (SN5) ready. Having recently passed the crucial cryogenic load test, and with the installation of its SN27 Raptor engine, the ground crews are now gearing up for a static fire test. Assuming the SN5 doesn’t explode in a massive fireball (as the SN4 did), it will be ready to make the first hop test of a full-scale Starship prototype.
Continue reading “Will We See a Starship Test This Week?”
NASA is busy preparing to land astronauts around the Moon’s South Pole-Aitken Basin by 2024, which will be the first time astronauts have walked on lunar soil since the Apollo Era. By 2028, they plan to establish the Lunar Gateway and Lunar Base Camp, which will facilitate long-term lunar exploration and also missions to Mars. Naturally, a lot of things need to be figured out beforehand, like seeing to the astronauts’ needs.
This includes shelter from the elements, food, and water, but also electricity. To meet that demand, the NASA Centennial Challenges Program has once again launched an incentive challenge through HeroX to inspire solutions. It’s called the Watts on the Moon Challenge, and in exchange for a prize purse of up to $5 million, NASA is looking for solutions on how to provide a reliable supply of energy for lunar missions.
Continue reading “NASA and HeroX are Looking to Light Up the Moon!”
In August of 2022, NASA will send a robotic spacecraft to the Main Asteroid Belt to explore a truly unique object: a metal asteroid. This object is known as 16 Psyche, is one of the largest asteroids in the Belt, and is composed almost entirely of iron and nickel. The most widely-accepted theory is that it used to be the core of a protoplanet in the Belt that experienced a massive collision that sent its rocky crust and mantle into space.
The spacecraft, also named Psyche, was submitted as part of a call for proposals for NASA’s Discovery Program in 2015 and was selected as the 14th Discovery mission by 2017. Most recently, the spacecraft passed a crucial milestone by moving from the planning and designing phase to the manufacturing phase, where all of the hardware that will allow it to make the journey is being assembled.
Continue reading “That’s So Metal. NASA’s Psyche Mission is Now Under Construction”
About 370,000 years after the Big Bang, the Universe experienced a period that cosmologists refer to as the “Cosmic Dark Ages.” During this period, the Universe was obscured by pervasive neutral gas that obscured all visible light, making it invisible to astronomers. As the first stars and galaxies formed over the next few hundred millions of years, the radiation they emitted ionized this plasma, making the Universe transparent.
One of the biggest cosmological mysteries right now is when “cosmic reionization” began. To find out, astronomers have been looking deeper into the cosmos (and farther back in time) to spot the first visible galaxies. Thanks to new research by a team of astronomers from University College London (UCL), a luminous galaxy has been observed that was reionizing the intergalactic medium 13 billion years ago.
Continue reading “A Giant Galaxy Seen Lighting Up the Universe Shortly After the Big Bang”
It’s a captivating idea: build an interstellar ark, fill it with people, flora, and fauna of every kind, and set your course for a distant star! The concept is not only science fiction gold, its been the subject of many scientific studies and proposals. By building a ship that can accommodate multiple generations of human beings (aka. a Generation Ship), humans could colonize the known Universe.
But of course, there are downsides to this imaginative proposal. During such a long voyage, multiple generations of people will be born and raised inside a closed environment. This could lead to all kinds of biological issues or mutations that we simply can’t foresee. But according to a new study by a team of linguistics professors, there’s something else that will be subject to mutation during such a voyage – language itself!
Continue reading “Languages Will Change Significantly on Interstellar Flights”
This past weekend (June 5th), the California and New Zealand-based aerospace company Rocket Lab suffered a terrible accident. During the 13th launch of their Electron rocket, an anomaly caused the second stage of the rocket to explode in midair. Luckily, there were no injuries, but the explosion did claim the mission payload, which consisted of satellites and commercial payloads for three different companies.
Continue reading “Electron Rocket’s 13th Launch Failed, Destroying its Satellite Payload”
In the 1960s, astronomers began theorizing that there might be black holes in the Universe that are so massive – supermassive black holes (SMBHs) – they could power the nuclei of active galaxies (aka. quasars). A decade later, astronomers discovered that an SMBH existed at the center of the Milky Way (Sagittarius A*); and by the 1990s, it became clear that most large galaxies in the Universe are likely to have one.
Since that time, astronomers have been hunting for the largest SMBH they can find in the hopes that they can see just how massive these things can get! And thanks to new research led by astronomers from the Australian National University, the latest undisputed heavy-weight contender has been found! With roughly 34 billion times the mass of our Sun, this SMBH (J2157) is the fastest-growing black hole and largest quasar observed to date.
Continue reading “There’s a Black Hole With 34 Billion Times the Mass of the Sun, Eating Roughly a Star Every Day”