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May 7, 2019May 7, 2019 by Matt Williams

Astronauts Could Rely on Algae as the Perfect Life Support Partner

From the Soyuz capsule, Space Shuttle Endeavour during Expedition 27 is docked to the International Space Station 220 miles above the Earth. Before Apollo 11 landed on the Moon, plans were underway to develop the next generation spacecraft that would lower the cost of human spaceflight and make trips routine. Forty years have passed since the Saturn rocket last flew and four years since the last Shuttle. Supporters on Capital Hill appear resigned to accept a replacement for the Shuttle, while inhernently safer, will cost $600 million per launch excluding the cost of the payload. SLS is destined to server both humand spaceflight and robotic missions. (Photo Credit: NASA)

When planning for long-duration crewed missions, one of the most important things is to make sure that the crews have enough of the bare essentials to last. This is no easy task, since a crewed spacecraft will be a crew’s entire world for months on end. That means that a sufficient amount of food, water and oxygen will need to be brought along.

According to a new investigation being conducted aboard the International Space Station, a possible solution could lie with a hybrid life support system (LSS). In such a system, which could be used aboard spacecraft and space stations in the near future, microalgae would be used to clean the air and water, and possibly even manufacture food for the crew.

May 6, 2019May 6, 2019 by Matt Williams

Hayabusa1’s Samples of Itokawa Turned up Water That’s Very Similar to Earth’s Oceans

Detailed view of the rubble-pile asteroid 25143 Itokawa visited by the Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa in 2005. Credit: JAXA

Right now, the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency‘s (JAXA)
Hayabusa2 spacecraft is busy exploring the asteroid 162173 Ryugu. Like it’s predecessor, this consists of a sample-return mission, where regolith from the asteroid’s surface will be brought back home for analysis. In addition to telling us more about the early Solar System, these studies are expected to shed light on the origin of Earth’s water (and maybe even life).

Meanwhile, scientists here at home have been busy examining the samples returned from 25143 Itokawa by the Hayabusa1 spacecraft. Thanks to a recent study by a pair of cosmochemists from Arizona State University (ASU), it is now known that this asteroid contained abundant amounts of water. From this, the team estimates that up to half the water on Earth could have come from asteroid and comet impacts billions of years ago.

May 3, 2019May 3, 2019 by Matt Williams

Starlink’s Satellites Will be Orbiting at a Much Lower Altitude, Reducing the Risks of Space Junk

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

Among Elon Musk’s many plans for the future, one of the more ambitious has been the creation of a constellation of satellites that will offer broadband internet access to the entire world. Known as “Starlink”, the company’s long-term plan is to deploy over 12,000 internet satellites to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) by the mid-2020s.

Despite criticism and dismissal, Musk and SpaceX have taken some major steps in recent years to get the ball rolling on this proposal. And according to a recently-released official statement from the company, mass production is well underway and the first batch of operational satellites are already in Florida awaiting their scheduled May 2019 launch.

May 3, 2019May 3, 2019 by Matt Williams

16 Years of Hubble Images Come Together in this one Picture Containing 265,000 Galaxies

This Hubble Space Telescope image represents the largest, most comprehensive "history book" of galaxies in the universe.The image, a combination of nearly 7,500 separate Hubble exposures, represents 16 years' worth of observations.The ambitious endeavor, called the Hubble Legacy Field, includes several Hubble deep-field surveys, including the eXtreme Deep Field (XDF), the deepest view of the universe. The wavelength range stretches from ultraviolet to near-infrared light, capturing all the features of galaxy assembly over time.The image mosaic presents a wide portrait of the distant universe and contains roughly 265,000 galaxies. They stretch back through 13.3 billion years of time to just 500 million years after the universe's birth in the big bang. The tiny, faint, most distant galaxies in the image are similar to the seedling villages from which today's great galaxy star-cities grew. The faintest and farthest galaxies are just one ten-billionth the brightness of what the human eye can see.The wider view contains 100 times as many galaxies as in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, taken in 2004. The new portrait, a mosaic of multiple snapshots, covers almost the width of the full Moon. Lying in this region is the XDF, which penetrated deeper into space than this legacy field view. However, the XDF field covers less than one-tenth of the full Moon's diameter. Credits: NASA, ESA, G. Illingworth and D. Magee (University of California, Santa Cruz), K. Whitaker (University of Connecticut), R. Bouwens (Leiden University), P. Oesch (University of Geneva) and the Hubble Legacy Field team

Even after almost three decades of faithful service, the Hubble Space Telescope continues to operate and provide breathtaking images of the cosmos. As one of NASA’s Great Observatories, its observations of distant galaxies, exoplanets, and the expansion of the Universe have had a revolutionary impact on astronomy, astrophysics and cosmology.

Hubble’s latest contribution comes in the form of a deep-sky mosaic image that was constructed using 16 years’ worth of observations. Known as the “Hubble Legacy Field“, this mosaic is being described as the largest and most comprehensive “history book” of galaxies. All told, it contains roughly 265,000 galaxies that date back to just 500 million years after the Big Bang.

May 2, 2019May 2, 2019 by Matt Williams

When the Impact that Created the Moon Happened, the early Earth was still a ball of magma

The chemicals that made life possible on Earth may have come from another planet that collided with Earth, forming the Moon. Image Credit: Rice University

Since the late 19th century, scientists have struggled to explain the origin of the Moon. While scientists have long-theorized that it and the Earth have a common origin, the questions of how and when has proven to be elusive. For instance, the general consensus today is that an impact with a Mars-sized object (Theia) led to the formation of the Earth-Moon System shortly after the formation of the planets (aka. the Giant Impact Hypothesis).

However, simulations of this impact have shown that the Moon would have formed out of material primarily from the impacting object. This is not borne out by the evidence, though, which shows that the Moon is composed of the same material Earth is. Luckily, a new study by a team of scientists from Japan and the US has offered an explanation for the discrepancy: the collision took place when Earth was still composed of hot magma.

May 2, 2019May 2, 2019 by Matt Williams

Dark Matter Detector Finds the Rarest Event Ever Seen in the Universe

Since the 1960s, scientists have theorized that the Universe is filled with a mysterious, invisible mass. Known as “dark matter“, this mass is estimated to make up roughly 85% of the matter in the Universe and a quarter of its energy density. While this mass has been indirectly observed and studied, all attempts at determining its true nature have so far failed.

To address this, multiple experiments are being carried out that rely on immensely sophisticated instruments. One of these, called XENON, recently observed a process that had previously avoided multiple attempts at detection. These results could help scientists to improve their understanding of neutrinos, which some scientists believe is what dark matter is made up of.

May 2, 2019May 2, 2019 by David Dickinson

Keep an Eye Out for the Eta Aquarid Meteors This Weekend

Never heard of the Eta Aquarid meteors? 2019 offers a good chance to check out this normally obscure meteor shower.

April 30, 2019April 30, 2019 by David Dickinson

Friday’s SpaceX Dragon Launch CRS-17 to Light Up the U.S. East Coast

CRS-16 — A SpaceX Falcon-9 rocket poised to launch Dragon from Cape Canaveral. Credit: NASA

Update: The CRS-17 launch has slipped to Friday, May 3rd, to give NASA time to evaluate electrical issues aboard the International Space Station. Follow us (@Astroguyz) on Twitter for further updates on the visibility prospects of the mission leading up to launch.

Ever seen a rocket launch before? Catching one is easier than you might think. You just need to be looking in the right direction at the right time, and have clear skies. If you happen to be watching from the U.S./Canada eastern seaboard before dawn this Friday (May 3rd), you just might catch the spectacular dawn launch of a SpaceX Falcon-9 rocket with Dragon on the CRS-17 (also known as SpX-17) mission headed to the International Space Station.

April 29, 2019December 2, 2019 by Tammy Plotner

Messier 84 – the NGC Elliptical Galaxy

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image captures the galaxy Messier 84 — also known as NGC 4374 — an object from the Messier catalogue, published in its final version in 1781 by Charles Messier. This elliptical galaxy was discovered in March 1781 and lies about 60 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Virgo (The Virgin). The galaxy is part of the very heavily populated centre of the Virgo Cluster, a cluster which consists of more than 1000 galaxies. This image does not show the whole galaxy but only its very interesting centre, and is likely to be the best image of the region ever captured. Previous observations using Hubble’s Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) revealed a supermassive black hole in the centre of Messier 84. Astronomers found the supermassive black hole by mapping the motion of the gas and the stars which are caught in its grip. Next to its interesting centre Messier 84 is also known for its supernovae. Two supernovae have been observed within the galaxy. The first, SN1957 was discovered in 1957 and another, called SN1991bg, was discovered in 1991. Credit: NASA/ESA/HST

Welcome back to Messier Monday! Today, we continue in our tribute to our dear friend, Tammy Plotner, by looking at the elliptical (lenticular) galaxy known as Messier 84!

During the 18th century, famed French astronomer Charles Messier noticed the presence of several “nebulous objects” while surveying the night sky. Originally mistaking these objects for comets, he began to catalog them so that others would not make the same mistake. Today, the resulting list (known as the Messier Catalog) includes over 100 objects and is one of the most influential catalogs of Deep Space Objects.

One of these objects is known as Messier 84, an elliptical (or lenticular) galaxy located about 54.9 million light years from Earth. This galaxy is situated in the inner core of the heavily populated Virgo Cluster and has two jets of matter shooting out of its center. It also has a rapidly rotating disk of gas and stars that are indicative of a supermassive black hole of 1.5 billion Solar masses at its center.

Continue reading “Messier 84 – the NGC Elliptical Galaxy”

April 26, 2019April 27, 2019 by Matt Williams

InSight Just Detected its First “Marsquake”

This artist's illustration of InSight on a photo background of Mars shows the lander fully deployed. The solar array is open, and in the foreground two of its instruments are shown. On the left is the SEIS instrument, and on the right is the HP3 probe. Image: NASA/Lockheed Martin

In November of 2018, the NASA Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) lander set down on Mars. Shortly thereafter, it began preparing for its science operations, which would consist of studying Mars’ seismology and its heat flow for the sake of learning how this planet – and all the other terrestrial planets in the Solar System (like Earth) – formed and evolved over time.

With science operations well-underway, InSight has been “listening” to Mars to see what it can learn about its interior structure and composition. A few weeks ago, mission controllers discovered that the lander’s Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) instrument detected its strongest seismic signal (aka. a “marsquake”) to date. This faint quake could reveal much about the Red Planet and how it came to be.