Universe Today

January 11, 2024January 11, 2024 by Mark Thompson

A Self-Eating Engine Could Make Rockets More Efficient

Illustration of a self-eating rocket engine

There can’t be many ideas that beat the crazy yet ingenious idea of a rocket engine that actually uses part of the fuselage for fuel! Typically a rocket will utilise multiple stages so that excess weight can be jetisoned allowing the rocket to be as efficient as possible. Now a team in Scotland is working on a rocket engine that actually consumes part of its body to use as fuel, reducing weight and providing even more thrust so that greater payloads can be used.

January 11, 2024January 11, 2024 by Evan Gough

There are Mysteries at Venus. It’s Time for an Astrobiology Mission

NASA's Magellan spacecraft captured this image of Venusian craters. Image Credit: NASA/JPL

When scientists detected phosphine in Venus’ atmosphere in 2020, it triggered renewed, animated discussions about Venus and its potential habitability. It would be weird if the detection didn’t generate interest since phosphine is a potential biomarker. So people were understandably curious. Unfortunately, further study couldn’t confirm its presence.

But even without phosphine, Venus’ atmosphere is full of chemical intrigue that hints at biological processes. Is it time to send an astrobiology mission to our hellish sister planet?

January 11, 2024January 11, 2024 by Andy Tomaswick

Parker Solar Probe Skims the Sun on its 18th Flyby

The fasted object ever made by humans has completed another milestone. The Parker Solar Probe recently celebrated the new year by completing its 18th flyby of the Sun.

January 11, 2024January 11, 2024 by Evan Gough

Planetesimals Are Buffeted by Wind in their Nebula, Throwing Debris into Space

This artist's illustration shows planetisimals around a young star. New research shows that planetesimals are blasted by headwind, losing debris into space. Image Credit: NASA/JPL

Before planets form around a young star, the protosolar disk is populated with innumerable planetesimals. Over time, these planetesimals combine to form planets, and the core accretion theory explains how that happens. But before there are planets, the disk full of planetesimals is a messy place.

January 11, 2024January 11, 2024 by Andy Tomaswick

Solar Electric Propulsion Systems are Just What we Need for Efficient Trips to Mars

There are many different ways to get to Mars, but there are always tradeoffs. Chemical propulsion, proven the most popular, can quickly get a spacecraft to the red planet. But they come at a high cost of bringing their fuel, thereby increasing the mission’s overall cost. Alternative propulsion technologies have been gaining traction in several deep space applications. Now, a team of scientists from Spain has preliminary studied what it would take to send a probe to Mars using entirely electric propulsion once it leaves Earth.

January 11, 2024January 11, 2024 by Nancy Atkinson

Satellite Data Shows US East Coast is Sinking

Map shows vertical land motion along the East Coast. The yellow, orange and red areas on these maps denote areas of sinking. Image courtesy of Leonard Ohenhen.Virginia Tech.

Based on satellite imagery, geologists have determined major cities on the U.S. Atlantic coast are sinking, some areas as much as 2 to 5 millimeters (.08-0.2 inches) per year. Called subsidence, this sinking of land is happening at a faster rate than was estimated just a year ago. In a new paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences, researchers say their analysis has far-reaching implications for community and infrastructure resilience planning, particularly for roadways, airport runways, building foundations, rail lines, and pipelines.

January 10, 2024January 10, 2024 by Carolyn Collins Petersen

Hubble Shows That a Fast Radio Burst Came From a Giant Group of Galaxies

A Hubble Space Telescope image of the host galaxy of an exceptionally powerful Fast Radio Burst, FRB20220610A. Hubble’s sensitivity and sharpness reveals a compact group of multiple galaxies that may be in the process of merging. Courtesy: NASA, ESA, STScI, Alexa Gordon (Northwestern University)

Way back when the cosmos was only five billion years old, a powerful explosion happened in a group of young galaxies halfway across the Universe. It sent out a blast of radiation from one member of that distant galaxy group.

January 10, 2024January 10, 2024 by Mark Thompson

Chinese Rocket Lofts the Einstein Probe and its “Lobster Eyes”

Any astronomical instrument dubbed “Lobster Eyes” is bound to grab attention. It’s actually unlike scientists to give anything creative names, take the big red coloured storm on Jupiter which resembles a spot…aka the Great Red Spot! Lobster Eyes is the name adtoped by the X-ray telescope that just been launched from China and will scan the sky looking for X-rays coming from high-energy transients.

January 10, 2024January 11, 2024 by Laurence Tognetti

Impact Craters: Why study them and can they help us find life elsewhere?

Image of a fresh impact crater with a diameter of approximately 30 meters (100 feet) with corresponding ejecta rays obtained by NASA’s High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on Nov. 19, 2013. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona)

When we look at the Moon, either through a pair of binoculars, a telescope, or past footage from the Apollo missions, we see a landscape that’s riddled with what appear to be massive sinkholes. But these “sinkholes” aren’t just on the Moon, as they are evident on nearly every planetary body throughout the solar system, from planets, to other moons, to asteroids. They are called impact craters and can range in size from cities to small countries.

January 10, 2024January 10, 2024 by Evan Gough

A Giant Star is Fading Away. But First, it Had an Enormous Eruption

Astronomers from Georgia State University’s CHARA Array have captured the first close-up images of a massive star known as RW Cephei that recently experienced a strange fading event. The images are providing new clues about what’s happening around the massive star approximately 16,000 light years from Earth. Image Credit: GSU/CHARA, Anugu et al. 2023

About 16,000 light-years away, a massive star experienced an unusual dimming event. This can happen in binary stars when one star passes in front of the other. It can also be due to intrinsic reasons like innate variability. But this star dimmed by as much as one-third, a huge amount.

What happened?