Featured Archives

September 14, 2020September 14, 2020 by Matt Williams

An Update on the Damage to the Arecibo Observatory

The Arecibo Radio Telescope. Though it's decommissioned now, Arecibo Data may explain 1977's mysterious Wow! Signal. Image Credit: UCF

On Aug. 10th, a little over a month ago, the iconic Arecibo Observatory suffered serious damage when an auxiliary cable broke and struck the reflector dish. This cable struck the observatory’s Gregorian Dome on its way down and twisted an access platform before landing on the reflecting dish itself. The impact created a gash over 30 meters (100 feet) in length and forced the observatory to shut down until repairs could be made.

Since then, teams have been busy working to stabilize the structure and determine the cause. These teams are made up of technicians from the observatory and the University of Central Florida (UCF), which manages the facility for the National Science Foundation (NSF). For the past few weeks, they have been meeting with experts from various fields and laying the groundwork for an investigation and a rigorous repair schedule.

September 12, 2020September 12, 2020 by Matt Williams

China’s New Reusable Spaceplane Lands After 2 Days in Space

On Friday, Sept. 4th, China launched a new and mysterious spacecraft from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center. The nature (and even appearance) of the spacecraft remains unknown, but according to statements made by Chinese authorities, it’s a reusable spaceplane. This vehicle is essentially China’s answer to the USAF/USSF X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV), which made its sixth launch to space (OTV-6) back in late-May.

September 12, 2020June 20, 2023 by Matt Williams

Beyond “Fermi’s Paradox” IX: What is the Brief Window Hypothesis?

A case study of the inhabitants of Easter Island served in part as the basis for a mathematical model showing the ways a technologically advanced population and its planet might develop or collapse together. Credit: University of Rochester illustration / Michael Osadciw

Welcome back to our Fermi Paradox series, where we take a look at possible resolutions to Enrico Fermi’s famous question, “Where Is Everybody?” Today, we examine the possibility that we haven’t heard from aliens because intelligent life only survives for so long.

In 1950, Italian-American physicist Enrico Fermi sat down to lunch with some of his colleagues at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, where he had worked five years prior as part of the Manhattan Project. According to various accounts, the conversation turned to aliens and the recent spate of UFOs. Into this, Fermi issued a statement that would go down in the annals of history: “Where is everybody?“

This became the basis of the Fermi Paradox, which refers to the disparity between high probability estimates for the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI) and the apparent lack of evidence. Since Fermi’s time, there have been several proposed resolutions to his question, which include the possibility that civilizations only have a “Brief Window” with which to communicate with the cosmos before going extinct.

September 10, 2020January 22, 2021 by Matt Williams

China is Building a Floating Spaceport for Rocket Launches

The first flight of a Long March 11 the mobile Eastern Aerospace Port on June 5th, 2019. Credit: China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT)

In the near future, launch facilities located at sea are expected to be a lot more common. SpaceX announced that it is hoping to create offshore facilities in the near future for the sake of launching the Starship away from populated areas. And China, the latest member of the superpowers-in-space club, is currently building the “Eastern Aerospace Port” off the coast of Haiyang city in the eastern province of Shandong.

This mobile launch facility is being developed by the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), the country’s largest aerospace and defense contractor. Once fully operational, it will be used to launch light vehicles, as well as for building and maintaining rockets, satellites, and related space applications. As China’s fifth launch facility, it will give the country’s space program a new degree of flexibility.

September 9, 2020September 10, 2020 by Matt Williams

Behold! The Black Hole Collision Calculator!

This image shows two massive black holes in the OJ 287 galaxy. The smaller black hole orbits the larger one, which is also surrounded by a disk of gas. When the smaller black hole crashes through the disk, it produces a flare brighter than 1 trillion stars. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Black holes have been the subject of intense interest ever since scientists began speculating about their existence. Originally proposed in the early 20th century as a consequence of Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity, black holes became a mainstream subject a few decades later. By 1971, the first physical evidence of black holes was found and by 2016, the existence of gravitational waves was confirmed for the first time.

This discovery touched off a new era in astrophysics, letting people know collision between massive objects (black holes and/or neutron stars) creates ripples in spacetime that can be detected light-years away. To give people a sense of how profound these events are, Álvaro Díez created the Black Hole Collision Calculator (BHCC) – a tool that lets you see what the outcome of a collision between a black hole and any astronomical object would be!

September 8, 2020September 8, 2020 by David Dickinson

Astro-Challenge: Adventures in Daytime Astronomy

It’s one of the stranger observations in ancient literature, and one of the earliest recorded tales of daytime astronomy.

A curious account comes to us from the 1^st century AD Roman scholar Pliny the Elder, concerning the exploits of Greek philosopher Thales of Miletus, who notes that:

“The Sun’s radiance makes the fix’d stars invisible in the daytime, although they are shining as much as in the night, which becomes manifest at a solar eclipse and also when the star is reflected in a very deep well.”

September 7, 2020September 7, 2020 by Matt Williams

Extraterrestrial Hunters Figure Out a Way to Expand Their Search for Signals by a Factor of 200

Credit: Breakthrough Listen/Univ. of Machester/Daniëlle Futselaar

In 2015, Russian-American billionaire Yuri Milner established Breakthrough Initiatives, a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing space exploration. Central to this effort is Breakthrough Listen, a ten-year international research program dedicated to the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) and the largest and most sophisticated effort to find intelligent life beyond Earth to date.

In the past five years, the project has made two major data releases (in the June of 2019 and February of 2020) and announced that it found no signs of alien transmissions from the 1,327 nearest star systems. But thanks to an analytical breakthrough recently proposed by researchers from the University of Manchester, it looks as though Breakthrough Listen’s search efforts could be expanded by a factor of more than 200!

September 3, 2020September 4, 2020 by Matt Williams

SpaceX’s Starship Prototype Nails Another Hop Test! Bring on Orbital Flights!

SpaceX has done it again! Earlier today (Thurs. Sept. 3rd), the company completed a second hop test with a Starship prototype. This time, it was the sixth iteration (SN6) that successfully made the 150-meter (~500 foot) flight at their launch facility near Boca Chica, Texas. This latest test has further validated the Starship design and the Raptor engine, two systems which Musk hopes will someday take humans to the Moon, to Mars, and beyond!

September 3, 2020September 3, 2020 by David Dickinson

Review: Canadarm and Collaboration by Elizabeth Howell

Think you know everything there is to know about the famous Canadarm, and the story of the Canadian space program? A new book out next month delves deep into the fascinating backstory of the Canadian Space Agency.

The book is Canadarm and Collaboration: How Canada’s Astronauts and Space Robots Explore New Worlds by Elizabeth Howell, out on October 20th, 2020 by ECW Press.

September 2, 2020September 2, 2020 by Matt Williams

Machine Learning Algorithm Scoops up 50 New Exoplanets

Advances in technology are having a profound impact on astronomy and astrophysics. At one end, we have advanced hardware like adaptive optics, coronographs, and spectrometers that allow for more light to be gathered from the cosmos. At the other end, we have improved software and machine learning algorithms that are allowing for the data to be analyzed and mined for valuable nuggets of information.

One area of research where this is proving to be invaluable is in the hunt for exoplanets and the search for life. At the University of Warwick, technicians recently developed an algorithm that was able to confirm the existence of 50 new exoplanets. When used to sort through archival data, this algorithm was able to sort through a sample of candidates and determine which were actual planets and which were false positives.