NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft is just over 8.8 billion km away, exploring the Kuiper Belt. This icy belt surrounds the Sun but it seems to have a surprise up its sleeve. It was expected that New Horizons would be leaving the region by now but it seems that it has detected elevated levels of dust that are thought to be from micrometeorite impacts within the belt. It suggests perhaps that the Kuiper Belt may stretch further from the Sun than we thought!
Continue reading “The Kuiper Belt is Much Bigger Than We Thought”Should We Send Humans to Pluto?
Universe Today has examined the potential for sending humans to Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa, the planet Venus, and Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, all despite their respective harsh environments and vast distances. These conversations with planetary science experts determined that humans traveling to these worlds in the foreseeable future could be possible, despite the harsh conditions and travel time, specifically to Titan.
Continue reading “Should We Send Humans to Pluto?”Arrokoth is Covered in Bizarre Mounds
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.
Continue reading “Arrokoth is Covered in Bizarre Mounds”NASA Uses Powerful Transmitters to Talk to Deep Space Spacecraft. Will Other Civilizations Receive Those Signals?
In a recent study submitted to the Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, a pair of researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) examine the likelihood of extraterrestrial intelligent civilizations intercepting outward transmissions from NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN) that are aimed at five deep space spacecraft: Voyager 1, Voyager 2, Pioneer 10, Pioneer 11, and New Horizons. Members of the public are free to track such transmissions at DSN Now, which displays real-time data of outgoing and incoming transmissions to all spacecraft at various times.
Continue reading “NASA Uses Powerful Transmitters to Talk to Deep Space Spacecraft. Will Other Civilizations Receive Those Signals?”Pluto Team Updates Science From the Solar System’s Edge
Nearly eight years after its historic Pluto flyby, NASA’s New Horizons probe is getting ready for another round of observations made from the icy edge of the solar system — and this time, its field of view will range from Uranus and Neptune to the cosmic background far beyond our galaxy.
Scientists on the New Horizons team shared their latest discoveries, and provided a preview of what’s ahead, during this week’s Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in The Woodlands, Texas.
Continue reading “Pluto Team Updates Science From the Solar System’s Edge”Freezing Ocean Might Not Be Responsible for Cryovolcanic Flows on Pluto’s Moon, Charon
In a recent study scheduled to be published in the journal Icarus in March 2023, a team of researchers led by the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) modeled a potential correlation between an ancient freezing ocean with cryovolcanic flows and surface canyons on Pluto’s largest moon, Charon. Their hypothesis was that when Charon’s interior ocean froze long ago, the significant stress put on the icy outer shell from the addition of more ice to the bottom of the existing shell could have been responsible for the cryovolcanic flows on the surface.
Continue reading “Freezing Ocean Might Not Be Responsible for Cryovolcanic Flows on Pluto’s Moon, Charon”Will Pluto finally answer, ‘Are we alone?’
We previously examined how Neptune’s largest moon, Triton, could answer the longstanding question: Are we alone? With its nitrogen geysers discovered by NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft, possible interior ocean, and lack of craters, Triton could be geologically active, which makes it an excellent celestial body for future astrobiology missions. But Triton isn’t the only place on the edge of the solar system which garners interest for finding life beyond Earth, as one of the most familiar and well-known (former) planets also exhibits evidence of recent geological activity and crater-less surface features. This is everyone’s favorite dwarf planet, Pluto, which like Triton has only been visited by one spacecraft, this one being NASA’s New Horizons, in 2015. But even with only one visitation, we discovered so much about Pluto, and what it might be hiding, as well.
Continue reading “Will Pluto finally answer, ‘Are we alone?’”The Universe is Brighter Than we Thought
Over seven years ago, the New Horizons mission made history when it became the first spacecraft to conduct a flyby of Pluto. In the leadup to this encounter, the spacecraft provided updated data and images of many objects in the inner and outer Solar System. Once beyond the orbit of Pluto and its moons, it embarked on a new mission: to make the first encounter with a Kuiper Belt Object (KBO). This historic flyby occurred about four years ago (Dec. 31st, 2015) when New Horizons zipped past Arrokoth (aka. 2014 MU69).
Now that it is passing through the Kuiper Belt, away from the light pollution of the inner Solar System, it has another lucrative mission: measuring the brightness of the Universe. These measurements will allow astronomers to make more accurate estimates of how many galaxies there are, which is still the subject of debate. According to new measurements by New Horizons, the light coming from stars beyond the Milky Way is two to three times brighter than the light from known populations of galaxies – meaning that there are even more out there than we thought!
Continue reading “The Universe is Brighter Than we Thought”Charon’s Red Cap at its North Pole? We Might Have an Answer
Pluto’s largest moon, Charon, started off as a beautiful, smooth red grape until someone came along, mostly peeled it, tried to smoosh it, then just gave up and walked away, leaving the poor moon to look like the absolute travesty that it is. Okay, so maybe that’s not exactly what happened, but Charon just looks like a mess and scientists want to know why. Never mind its smooshed equator, but what’s the deal with its red cap? Where did it come from and why is it red?
Continue reading “Charon’s Red Cap at its North Pole? We Might Have an Answer”Eight Missions are Getting Extensions, Most Exciting: OSIRIS-REx is Going to Asteroid Apophis
NASA has granted mission extensions to eight different planetary missions, citing the continued excellent operations of the spacecraft, but more importantly, the sustained scientific productivity of these missions, “and the potential to deepen our knowledge and understanding of the solar system and beyond.” Each mission will be extended for three more years.
One of the most exciting extensions gives a new mission to the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, sending it to one of the most infamous asteroids of them all, the potentially hazardous asteroid Apophis.
Continue reading “Eight Missions are Getting Extensions, Most Exciting: OSIRIS-REx is Going to Asteroid Apophis”