Featured Archives

December 19, 2019December 19, 2019 by David Dickinson

Will Blanpain Perform? Comet Prospects for 2020

Getting brighter... Comet T2 PanSTARRS from December 6th. Image credit and copyright: Efrain Morales Rivera.

Looking forward to the next bright comet in 2020 or beyond? You’re not alone. Though we’ve had a steady string of decent binocular comets over the past few years, we haven’t had a good naked eye comet since W3 Lovejoy beat solar death during its blistering perihelion passage in 2011. But this survivor turned out to be bashful, and headed for southern hemisphere skies… Comet P1 McNaught followed suit in 2007, hiding from northern hemisphere observers at its best. And we all remember what happened to Comet S1 ISON—touted as the next great ‘Comet of the Century’ on U.S. Thanksgiving Day 2013. Here it is almost 2020, and you have to go allll the way back nearly a quarter of a century to Hale-Bopp and Hyakutake to remember just how brilliant a good naked eye comet can be.

December 17, 2019December 17, 2019 by Matt Williams

Astronomers Map the Surface of a Pulsar

Simulation of a possible quadrupole magnetic field configuration for a pulsar with hot spots in only the southern hemisphere. Credits: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

When stars exhaust their supply of fuel, they collapse under their own weight and explode, blowing off their outer layers in an event known as a “supernova”. In some cases, these events leave behind neutron stars, the smallest and densest of stellar objects (with the exception of certain theoretical stars) that sometimes spin rapidly. Pulsars, a class of neutron star, can spin up to several hundred times per second.

One such object, designated J0030+0451 (J0030), is located about 1,100 light-years from Earth in the Pisces constellation. Recently, scientists using NASA’s Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) were able to measure the pulsar’s size and mass. In the process, they also managed to locate the various “hot spots” on its surface, effectively creating the first map of a neutron star.

December 14, 2019 by Matt Williams

Planets Started Out From Dust Clumping Together. Here’s How

Artist depiction of a protoplanetary disk permeated by magnetic fields. Objects in the foregrounds are millimeter-sized rock pellets known as chondrules. Credit: Hernán Cañellas

According to the most widely accepted theory of planet formation (the Nebular Hypothesis), the Solar System began roughly 4.6 billion years ago from a massive cloud of dust and gas (aka. a nebula). After the cloud experienced gravitational collapse at the center, forming the Sun, the remaining gas and dust fell into a disk that orbited it. The planets gradually accreted from this disk over time, creating the system we know today.

However, until now, scientists have wondered how dust could come together in microgravity to form everything from stars and planets to asteroids. However, a new study by a team of German researchers (and co-authored by Rutgers University) found that matter in microgravity spontaneously develops strong electrical charges and stick together. These findings could resolve the long mystery of how planets formed.

December 14, 2019December 14, 2019 by Matt Williams

The Spaceport America Cup Joins Crowdsourcing Platform HeroX to Propel Student Innovation!

Spaceport America in New Mexico. Credit: Foster and Partners.

Beginning in 2017, the Experimental Sounding Rocket Association (ESRA) and Spaceport America came together to launch a competition known as the Spaceport America Cup. This annual event sees academics and industry experts from around the world gather at the world’s first purpose-built spaceport to collaborate, compete, and inspire young people to become the next generation of aerospace engineers.

At the heart of the competition is the Intercollegiate Rocket Engineering Competition (IREC), where commercial and student teams build and launch-test rockets of their own design. This year’s competition is expected to be very exciting and will see 1,500 international students from over 70 institutions converge on Southern New Mexico this summer to ply their talents and compete for the prestigious Spaceport America Cup!

December 12, 2019December 12, 2019 by Matt Williams

An Upcoming ESA Mission is Going to Remove one Piece of Space Junk From Orbit

While working at the NASA Johnson Space Center during the 1970s, astrophysicist Donald Kessler predicted that collisions between space debris would become increasingly common as the density of space debris increases in orbit around the Earth – creating a cascading effect. Since 2005, the amount of debris in orbit has followed an exponential growth curve, confirming Kessler’s prediction.

Given that the problem is only going to get worse in the coming years, there is a growing demand for technologies that can remove space debris. Following a competitive process, the ESA recently contracted the Swiss startup ClearSpace Today to create the world’s first debris-removing space mission. This mission, known as ClearSpace-1, is expected to launch by 2025 and will help pave the way for more debris removal missions.

December 11, 2019December 15, 2019 by Matt Williams

This Galaxy Has Been Home to 5 Supernovae in the Last 20 Years

Some of the most dramatic events in the Universe occur when certain stars die — and explode catastrophically in the process. Such explosions, known as supernovae, mainly occur in a couple of ways: either a massive star depletes its fuel at the end of its life, become dynamically unstable and unable to support its bulk, collapses inwards, and then violently explodes; or a white dwarf in an orbiting stellar couple syphons more mass off its companion than it is able to support, igniting runaway nuclear fusion in its core and beginning the supernova process. Both types result in an intensely bright object in the sky that can rival the light of a whole galaxy. In the last 20 years the galaxy NGC 5468, visible in this image, has hosted a number of observed supernovae of both the aforementioned types: SN 1999cp, SN 2002cr, SN2002ed, SN2005P, and SN2018dfg. Despite being just over 130 million light-years away, the orientation of the galaxy with respect to us makes it easier to spot these new ‘stars’ as they appear; we see NGC 5468 face on, meaning we can see the galaxy’s loose, open spiral pattern in beautiful detail in images such as this one from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.

When stars die, they don’t die quietly but prefer to go out with a bang! This is known as a supernova, which occurs when a star has expended all of its fuel and undergoes gravitational collapse. In the process, the outer layers of the star will be blown off in a massive explosion visible from billions of light-years away. For decades, NASA has been monitoring galaxies beyond the Milky Way and detected numerous supernova taking place.

For instance, over the past 20 years, the Hubble Space Telescope has been monitoring the galaxy NGC 5468 – an intermediate spiral galaxy located roughly 130 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Virgo. In that time, this galaxy has experienced 5 supernovae and, thanks to its orientation (perpendicular to our own), astronomers have been able to study this galaxy and its supernovae in glorious detail.

December 10, 2019December 12, 2019 by Matt Williams

Why Does Enceladus Have Stripes at its South Pole?

Scientists recently determined that a certain strain of Earth bacteria could thrive under conditions found on Enceladus. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Saturn’s moon Enceladus has captivating scientists ever since the Voyager 2 mission passed through the system in 1981. The mystery has only deepened since the arrival of the Cassini probe in 2004, which included the discovery of four parallel, linear fissures around the southern polar region. These features were nicknamed “Tiger Stripes” because of their appearance and the way they stand out from the rest of the surface.

Since their discovery, scientists have attempted to answer what these are and what created them in the first place. Thankfully, new research led by the Carnegie Institute of Science has revealed the physics governing these fissures. This includes how they are related to the moon’s plume activity, why they appear around Enceladus’ south pole, and why other bodies don’t have similar features.

December 10, 2019December 10, 2019 by David Dickinson

December Meteor Squalls: Prospects for the 2019 Geminids and Ursids

December means chillier climes for northern hemisphere residents, a time to huddle inside near the campfire, both real and cyber. I’ve always thought this was a shame, as the cold crisp nights of winter also offer up sharp, clear skies. Over the past decade or so, December gives observers another reason to brave the cold: the Geminids.

December 9, 2019December 9, 2019 by Matt Williams

China’s Yutu-2 Rover has now Traveled Over 345 Meters Across the Surface of the Moon

This image shows a lot of detail of the Yutu rover. Image: Chinese Academy of Sciences/China National Space Administration/The Science and Application Centre for Moon and Deep Space Exploration/Emily Lakdawalla.

On January 3rd, 2019, China’s Chang’e-4 lander became the first mission in history to make a soft-landing on the far side of the Moon. After setting down in the Von Karman Crater in the South Pole-Aitken Basin, the rover element of the mission (Yutu 2) deployed and began exploring the lunar surface. In that time, the rover has traveled a total of 345.059 meters (377 yards) through previously unexplored territory.

December 8, 2019December 8, 2019 by Matt Williams

A New Way to Measure the Age of the Milky Way

Artist’s impression of the warped and twisted Milky Way disk. Credit: Chen Xiaodian/Kavli Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics

Like many other spiral galaxies in the Universe, the Milky Way Galaxy consists of two disk-like structures – the thin disk and the thick disk. The thick disk, which envelopes the thin disk, contains about 20% of the Milky Way’s stars and is thought to be the older of the pair based on the composition of its stars (which have greater metallicity) and its puffier nature.

However, in a recent study, a team of 38 scientists led by researchers from Australia’s ARC Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in Three Dimensions (ASTRO-3D) used data from the now-retired Kepler mission to measure starquakes in the Milky Way’s disk. From this, they have revised the official estimates on the age of the Milky Way’s thick disk, which they conclude is around 10 billion years old.