Universe Today

October 5, 2023October 5, 2023 by Evan Gough

Europa and Enceladus are the Perfect Targets for a Lightsail Mission

Saturn's moon Enceladus isn't just bright and beautiful. It has an ocean under all that ice that could have hydrothermal vents that create organic chemicals. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, JPL, SSI, Cassini Imaging Team

There’s always a need for new technologies or for novel uses of existing technologies to lower the cost of space exploration and extend our reach. Lightsails are a novel type of spacecraft that could eventually be our first visitors to nearby stars like the Alpha Centauri system. But they could be put to productive use right here in our Solar System.

October 5, 2023October 5, 2023 by Carolyn Collins Petersen

A Star Threw Off a Sun’s Worth of Material. And Then it Exploded!

Artist's conception of SN 2023ixf. One of the nearest Type II supernovae in a decade and among the brightest to date, SN 2023ixf is a young supernova. Its progenitor star exploded and the supernova was discovered earlier this year by amateur astronomer K?ichi Itagaki of Yamagata, Japan. Credit: Melissa Weiss/CfA

What happens just before a massive star explodes as a supernova? To figure that out, astronomers need to look at very “young” supernovae across multiple wavelengths of light. That’s what happened when SN 2023ixf occurred in May 2023. It turns out its aging progenitor star blew off a solar mass worth of material just before it died. Now, the big question is: why?

October 5, 2023October 8, 2023 by Matt Williams

Magnetic Fusion Plasma Engines Could Carry us Across the Solar System and Into Interstellar Space

A new study offers a new means of propulsion that could revolutionize space travel - the Magnetic Fusion Plasma Drive (MFPD). Credit: Created with Imagine

Missions to the Moon, missions to Mars, robotic explorers to the outer Solar System, a mission to the nearest star, and maybe even a spacecraft to catch up to interstellar objects passing through our system. If you think this sounds like a description of the coming age of space exploration, then you’d be correct! At this moment, there are multiple plans and proposals for missions that will send astronauts and/or probes to all of these destinations to conduct some of the most lucrative scientific research ever performed. Naturally, these mission profiles raise all kinds of challenges, not the least of which is propulsion.

Simply put, humanity is reaching the limits of what conventional (chemical) propulsion can do. To send missions to Mars and other deep space destinations, advanced propulsion technologies are required that offer high acceleration (delta-v), specific impulse (I_sp), and fuel efficiency. In a recent paper, Leiden Professor Florian Neukart proposes how future missions could rely on a novel propulsion concept known as the Magnetic Fusion Plasma Drive (MFPD). This device combines aspects of different propulsion methods to create a system that offers high energy density and fuel efficiency significantly greater than conventional methods.

October 5, 2023October 5, 2023 by Brian Koberlein

Will Solar Panels Work at Proxima Centauri?

The range of stars that might have habitable worlds. Credit: Schopp, et al

Solar panel technology has advanced significantly in recent years, to the point where solar energy is the fastest-growing renewable power source. The solar panels we have today are a by-product of those used in space. If you want to power a satellite or crewed spacecraft, there are only two ways: solar energy or nuclear power. Of the two, only solar energy isn’t limited by the amount of fuel you bring on board. As we contemplate traveling to other star systems, this raises the question: will solar panels work near other stars?

October 5, 2023October 5, 2023 by Nancy Atkinson

Arrokoth is Covered in Bizarre Mounds

The large mound structures that dominate one of the lobes of the Kuiper belt object Arrokoth are similar enough to suggest a common origin. Credit: Southwest Research Institute.

When New Horizons flew past Arrokoth in 2019, it revealed close-up images of this enigmatic Kuiper Belt Object for the first time. Astronomers are still studying all the data sent home by the spacecraft, trying to understand this two-lobed object, which looks like a red, flattened snowman.

Scientists have now identified 12 mounds on Arrokoth’s larger lobe, which are roughly the same size – about 5-kilometers long – as well as the same shape, color, and reflectivity. The scientists think their similar look is because they all formed the same way, where icy material slowly accumulated on the surface of Arrokoth.

October 5, 2023October 5, 2023 by Laurence Tognetti

The Big Bang: What is it? Why study it? What happened before? How will it all end?

Approximately 13.8 billion years ago, the greatest event in all of existence occurred that literally created existence itself. This event is known as the Big Bang, and it’s responsible for the estimated septillion number of stars that are scattered across the vast reaches of the unknown, including the one our small, blue world orbits. However, other than knowing that the Big Bang occurred, there is still a septillion amount of information we still don’t know about the greatest event in the history of existence.

October 5, 2023October 5, 2023 by David Dickinson

It’s Time to Start Worrying About Space Junk Around the Moon, Too

Researchers look to track and mitigate the growing number of space junk objects around the Moon.

It’s getting crowded up there. An increase in military, commercial and scientific launches, coupled with a lower cost for rideshare cubesat launches, means lots more space junk to deal with in coming years. And we’re not just talking about low Earth orbit; the Moon and cis-lunar (near lunar space) is about to become busy as well.

October 4, 2023October 4, 2023 by Evan Gough

Watch OSIRIS-REx Release its Sample Capsule

This is the OSIRIS-Rex sample return capsule in the Great Salt Lake Desert. It's charred and blackened from its plunge through Earth's atmosphere. Image Credit: NASA/Keegan Barber

Most of the spacecraft we send out into the Solar System are never meant to return. Time, space, and entropy overtake them, or else they’re purposely sent crashing to their doom at the end of their missions. But not OSIRIS-REx. Its mission was only a success when it returned to Earth with its rare cargo.

October 4, 2023October 4, 2023 by Nancy Atkinson

Hundreds of Free-Floating Planets Found in the Orion Nebula

This image shows the full survey of the inner Orion Nebula and Trapezium Cluster made using the NIRCam instrument on the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope. This is the long-wavelength colour composite, which focuses on the gas, dust, and molecules in the region with unprecedented sensitivity in the thermal infrared. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA / Science leads and image processing: M. McCaughrean, S. Pearson.

It appears that rogue planets – free floating worlds that aren’t gravitationally bound to a parent star – might be more common than we thought. New data from the James Webb Space Telescope have revealed 540 (yes, that’s right) planetary-mass objects in the Orion Nebula and Trapezium Cluster.

If confirmed, this would be by far the largest sample of rogue planets ever discovered.

October 4, 2023October 4, 2023 by Evan Gough

Seeing the Web Connecting Galaxies Across the Universe

New research has imaged the Cosmic Web of cold dark gas that interconnects the Universe's galaxies. Image Credit: Martin et al. 2023.

One hundred years ago, we didn’t know there was anything outside of our own galaxy, the Milky Way. Now we know that our puny planet Earth, and everything else, is part of a vast structure called the Cosmic Web. Its scale is difficult to comprehend in any concrete way, and the system’s complexity and magnitude brings our most powerful supercomputers to their knees.

Astronomers have known about the Cosmic Web for some time, as they’ve caught glimpses of it. But a new instrument has given us our most complete view of it yet.