Featured Archives

November 3, 2019November 4, 2019 by Matt Williams

The Lowest Mass Black Hole has Been Found, only 3.3 Times the Mass of the Sun

An artist's rendering of the black hole astrophysicists identified in this study. The black hole (bottom left) is seen near a red giant star. The discovery shows there may be an entire class of black holes astronomers did not know existed. Credit: Ohio State/Jason Shults

Black holes are one of the most awesome and mysterious forces of nature. At the same time, they are fundamental to our understanding of astrophysics. Not only are black holes the result of particularly massive stars that go supernova at the end of their lives, they are also key to our understanding of General Relativity and are believed to have played a role in cosmic evolution.

Because of this, astronomers have diligently been trying to create a census of black holes in the Milky Way galaxy for many years. However, new research indicates that astronomers may have overlooked an entire class of black holes. This comes from a recent discovery where a team of astronomers observed a black hole that is just over three Solar masses, making it the smallest black hole discovered to date.

November 1, 2019November 1, 2019 by Matt Williams

Asteroid Hygiea is Round Enough That it Could Qualify as a Dwarf Planet, the Smallest in the Solar System

A new SPHERE/VLT image of Hygiea, which could be the Solar System’s smallest dwarf planet yet. As an object in the main asteroid belt, Hygiea satisfies right away three of the four requirements to be classified as a dwarf planet: it orbits around the Sun, it is not a moon and, unlike a planet, it has not cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit. The final requirement is that it have enough mass that its own gravity pulls it into a roughly spherical shape. This is what VLT observations have now revealed about Hygiea.

Within the Main Asteroid Belt, there are a number of larger bodies that have defied traditional classification. The largest among them is Ceres, which is followed by Vesta, Pallas, and Hygeia. Until recently, Ceres was thought to be the only object in the Main Belt large enough to undergo hydrostatic equilibrium – where an object is sufficiently massive that its gravity causes it to collapse into a roughly spherical shape.

However, it now seems that there is another body in the Main Belt that has earned the designation of “dwarf planet”. Using data from the Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet REsearch (SPHERE) instrument at the Very Large Telescope (VLT), an international team of astronomers found compelling evidence that Hygeia is actually round, making it the smallest dwarf planet in the Solar System.

November 1, 2019November 1, 2019 by Matt Williams

Mars 2020 Stands Up on its Wheels For The First Time

This coming July, the Mars 2020 rover will launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and begin its journey to the Red Planet. After it touches down in the Jezero Crater, the rover will commence science operations similar to what Curiosity has been doing since 2012. This will consist of driving over rough terrain, sampling the atmosphere, collecting drill samples, and subjecting them to chemical analysis.

In order to get it ready for this mission, the engineering team over at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory are putting the rover through its paces. On Oct. 8th, this included placing the full weight of the rover on its legs and wheels for the first time ever. This event, which was tantamount to an infant standing for the very first time, was captured with a time-lapse video that you can see below.

October 29, 2019October 29, 2019 by Matt Williams

NASA is Testing a Rover That Could Search For Water Ice on The Moon

In the coming years, NASA will be sending astronauts back to the Moon for the first time since the last Apollo mission took place in 1972. Back in May, NASA announced that the plan – which is officially known as Project Artemis – was being expedited and would take place in the next five years. In accordance with the new timeline, Artemis will involve sending the first woman and next man to the Moon’s southern polar region by 2024.

To this end, NASA is working on a lunar rover that will search for and map out water deposits in the Moon’s southern polar region. It’s known as the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) and it is scheduled to be delivered to the lunar surface by 2022. This mission will gather data that will help inform future missions to the South Pole-Aitken Basin and the eventual construction of a base there.

October 28, 2019January 21, 2020 by Matt Williams

SpaceX is Sure They’ll be Able to Land Starship on the Moon in 2022

Artist's rendering of a Starship taking off from a lunar base. Credit: SpaceX

Things are looking pretty good for Elon Musk and SpaceX, the company he founded back in 2002 with the intent of reinvigorating space exploration. In the last six months alone, SpaceX has deployed the first batch of its Starlink broadband internet satellites to space, conducted two successful untethered tests with the Starship Hopper, and finished work on the first orbital-class Starship test vehicle (the Mk.1).

And at the 70th International Astronautical Congress, which took place last week in Washington, DC, SpaceX president and Chief Operations Officer Gwynne Shotwell provided additional details about the Starship‘s mission timeline. As she indicated during a series of interviews, the company hopes to be sending the Starship to orbit next year, landing on the Moon by 2022, and sending payloads to the lunar surface by 2024.

October 26, 2019October 28, 2019 by Matt Williams

Breakthrough Listen and NASA Team Up to Look for Signs of Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence!

Planets everywhere. So where are all the aliens? Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser

This week, the non-profit research organization Breakthrough Listen announced that it was entering into a partnership with scientists from the NASA Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) mission. This new collaboration will direct the resources of the former with data and expertise of the latter to the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence (SETI) like never before!

October 26, 2019October 26, 2019 by Matt Williams

Skylon’s SABRE Engine Passes a Big Test

Artist's impression of a spaceplane that relies on the SABRE engine. Credit: Reaction Engines Ltd.

The UK aerospace company Reaction Engine Limited was founded in 1989 for the express purpose of creating engines that would lead to spaceplanes capable of horizontal take-off and landing (HOTOL). With support from the ESA, these efforts have resulted in the Synergetic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine (SABRE). Once complete, this system will combine elements of jet and rocket propulsion to achieve hypersonic speeds (Mach 5 to Mach 25).

Recently, Reaction Engines passed a major milestone with the development of their SABRE engine. As the company announced earlier this week (on Tues. Oct. 22nd), their engineers conducted a successful test of a vital component – the engine’s heat exchange element (aka. precooler). What’s more, the test involved airflow temperatures equivalent to speeds of Mach 5, which is in the hypersonic range.

October 23, 2019October 23, 2019 by Matt Williams

Elon Musk Tweets with Starlink. Services Could be Available Next Year.

Still image from Hadley's simulation of the Starlink satellite constellation. Credit: Mark Hadley

In January of 2015, Elon Musk shared his vision of creating a constellation of satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) that would provide broadband internet access to the entire planet. Back in May, SpaceX launched the first batch of 60 Starlink satellites to orbit, with plans to send an additional 1,584 to space by 2024 and 2,200 more by 2027.

Naturally, consumers have been wondering when they will be able to avail themselves of this new internet service. As SpaceX Chief Operations Officer Gwynne Shotwell announced on October 22nd, the company should be able to offer broadband access within the US by mid-2020. This came a day after Musk sent the inaugural tweet using Starlink services.

October 23, 2019October 23, 2019 by David Dickinson

Did an Ancient Supernova Force Humans to Walk Upright?

Crab nebula — The Crab Nebula (Messier 1) a recent supernova remnant noticed as a bright new star in Taurus in the 11th century. Image credit and copyright: Nick Howes.

A new study hints at a possible fascinating twist in human evolution. Did a chain of cosmic events triggered by a nearby ancient supernova force humans to walk upright?

October 22, 2019October 22, 2019 by Matt Williams

Now that Many Countries Have the Ability to Destroy Satellites, the US is Figuring Out Ways to Make Them More Armored

An air-to-air left side view of an F-15 Eagle aircraft releasing an anti-satellite (ASAT) missile during a test. Credit: USAF

As long as human beings have been sending satellites into space, they have been contemplating ways to destroy them. In recent years, the technology behind anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons has progressed considerably. What’s more, the ability to launch and destroy them extends beyond the two traditional superpowers (the US and Russia) to include newcomers like India, China, and others.

For this reason, Sandia National Laboratories – a federal research center headquartered in New Mexico – has launched a seven-year campaign to develop autonomous satellite protection systems. Known as the Science and Technology Advancing Resilience for Contested Space (STARCS), this campaign will fund the creation of hardware and software that will allow satellites to defend themselves.