Space and astronomy news
Our Sun is the very reason we’re alive. It provides warmth and the energy our planet needs to keep going. Now you can add photogenic to its illustrious résumé, as NASA recently photographed our giant ball of nuclear fusion doing something quite peculiar.
Continue reading “The Sun Could Hurl Powerful Storms at Earth From its Goofy Smile”
We recently examined how and why Saturn’s icy moon, Enceladus, could answer the longstanding question: Are we alone? With its interior ocean and geysers of water ice that shoot out tens of kilometers into space that allegedly contains the ingredients for life, this small moon could be a prime target for future astrobiology missions. But Enceladus isn’t the only location in our solar system with active geysers, as another small moon near the edge of the solar system shares similar characteristics, as well. This is Neptune’s largest moon, Triton, which has been visited only once by NASA’s Voyager 2 in 1989. But are Triton’s geysers the only characteristics that make it a good target for astrobiology and finding life beyond Earth?
Continue reading “Will Triton finally answer, ‘Are we alone?’”
Edward Stone is retiring after 50 years as Project Scientist for the Voyager mission. The twin spacecraft revolutionized our understanding of our Solar System, and Stone was along for the ride every step of the way. Both spacecraft are still going, travelling deeper into interplanetary space, and still sending data home.
But after a long and rewarding career full of achievements and recognition, Stone is moving on.
Continue reading “Edward Stone Has Been the Voyagers’ Project Scientist for 50 Years. He Just Retired”
The Universe is over 13 billion years old, so a 12-year slice of that time might seem uneventful. But a timelapse movie from NASA shows how much can change in just over a decade. Stars pulse, asteroids follow their trajectories, and distant black holes flare as they pull gas and dust toward themselves.
Continue reading “NASA Provides a Timelapse Movie Showing How the Universe Changed Over 12 Years”
We recently examined how and why Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, could answer the longstanding question: Are we alone? It’s the only moon that possesses a thick atmosphere and the only planetary body other than Earth (so far) that has liquid bodies on its surface. These characteristics alone make Titan an enticing location to search for life beyond Earth. In contrast, what if life were to be found in one of the unlikeliest of places and on a planet that is known to possess some of the harshest conditions ever observed?
Continue reading “Will Venus finally answer, ‘Are we alone?’”
How great are wheels, really? Wheels need axles. Suspension. Power of some kind. And roads, or at least swaths of relatively flat and stable terrain. Then you need to maintain all of it. Because of their cost many civilizations across human history, who knew all about wheels and axles, didn’t bother using them for transportation. Another way to look at it – much of human technology mimics nature. Of the simple machines, levers, inclined planes, wedges, and even screws are observed in nature. Why not the wheel?
Continue reading “Robots Might Jump Around to Explore the Moon”
This next week will mark a scientifically valuable achievement for NASA’s Juno mission, as the pioneering spacecraft is slated to fly within 358 kilometers (222 miles) of Jupiter’s icy moon Europa on September 29 at 5:36 a.m. EDT (2:36 a.m. PDT) as part of its extended mission to explore the Jupiter system. A flyby this close to Europa’s surface will allow Juno to acquire some of the highest-resolution images ever taken of the icy moon. For context, the last mission to explore Europa in depth was NASA’s Galileo spacecraft, which got within 351 kilometers (218 miles) of the surface on January 3, 2000.
Continue reading “NASA’s Juno To Skim the Surface of Jupiter’s Icy Moon Europa”
In a recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, an international team of researchers led by Monash University in Australia have verified the existence of a rare hexagonal structure of diamond called lonsdaleite, within ureilite meteorites from the inside of a dwarf planet that formed approximately 4.5 billion years ago.
Lonsdaleite is named after Dame Kathleen Lonsdale, a famous British pioneering crystallographer responsible for developing several X-ray methods for studying crystal structures, and was the first woman elected as a Fellow to the Royal Society in 1945. This study holds the potential for further unlocking the secrets of the formation of our solar system, and was conducted with collaboration from RMIT University, the Australian Synchrotron and Plymouth University, and CSIRO.
Continue reading “Space Diamonds are Even Harder Than Earth Diamonds”
In a recent study submitted to Earth and Planetary Astrophysics, an international team of researchers discuss the various mission design options for reaching a hypothetical Planet 9, also known as “Planet X”, which state-of-the-art models currently estimate to possess a semi-major axis of approximately 400 astronomical units (AU). The researchers postulate that sending a spacecraft to Planet 9 could pose scientific benefits much like when NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft visited Pluto in 2015. But does Planet 9 actually exist?
Continue reading “Flying to (Hypothetical) Planet 9: Why visit it, how could we get there, and would it surprise us like Pluto?”
Do aliens exist? Almost certainly. The universe is vast and ancient, and our corner of it is not particularly special. If life emerged here, it probably did elsewhere. Keep in mind this is a super broad assumption. A single instance of fossilized archaebacteria-like organisms five superclusters away would be all it takes to say, “Yes, there are aliens!” …if we could find them somehow.
Continue reading “Alien Artifacts Could Be Hidden Across the Solar System. Here’s how we Could Search for Them.”