Evan Gough, Author at Universe Today

January 15, 2019January 15, 2019 by Evan Gough

Titan’s Thick Clouds Obscure our View, but Cassini Took these Images in Infrared, Showing the Moon’s Surface Features

A global mosaic of the surface of Titan, thanks to the infrared eyes of the Cassini spacecraft. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Nantes/University of Arizona

Saturn’s moon Titan is a very strange place. It’s surrounded by a dense, opaque atmosphere, the only moon in the solar system with an atmosphere to speak of. It has lakes of liquid methane on its surface, maybe some cryovolcanoes, and some scientists speculate that it could support a form of life. Very weird life.

But we still don’t know a lot about it, because we haven’t really seen much of the surface. Until now.

January 15, 2019January 15, 2019 by Evan Gough

A New Technique to Figure Out How Old Stars Are

Embry-Riddle researchers used data captured by the Gaia satellite (shown here in an artist’s impression) to determine the ages of stars. Credit: European Space Agency – D. Ducros, 2013

Our understanding of the universe, and of the Milky Way, is built on an edifice of individual pieces of knowledge, all related to each other. But each of those pieces is only so accurate. The more accurate we can make one of the pieces of knowledge, the more accurate our understanding of the whole thing is.

The age of stars is one such piece. For years, astronomers have used a method of determining the age of stars that has a 10% to 20% margin of error. Now, a team of scientists from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University has developed a new technique to determine the age of stars with a margin of error of only 3% to 5%.

January 15, 2019January 15, 2019 by Evan Gough

Incredible Descent Video of the Chinese Lander to the Lunar Far Side

China's Chang'e-4 lander on the lunar surface. Image Credit: CNSA/CLEP

On January 2nd, 2019, China’s Chang’e-4 lander made a successful landing on the far side of the Moon. The China National Space Administration (CNSA) and the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program (CLEP) report that after 9 days on the surface, the mission is in good shape. The Yutu-2 rover has been deployed and has begun exploring the Von Karman crater.

CNSA has released some video of the mission, including a video of Chang’e-4’s historic descent. Thanks to the hard-working people at the Planetary Society, and to Andrew Jones who reports on the Chinese Space Program, we have a handful of new videos and images of the Chang’e-4’s mission to enjoy.

January 14, 2019January 14, 2019 by Evan Gough

Astronomers See the Exact Moment a Supernova Turned into a Black Hole (or Neutron Star)

A look at The Cow (approximately 80 days after explosion) from the W.M. Keck Observatory in Maunakea, Hawaii. The Cow is nestled in the CGCG 137-068 galaxy, 200 million light years from Earth. Image Credit:Raffaella Margutti/Northwestern University

On June 17th 2018, the ATLAS (Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System) survey’s twin telescopes spotted something extraordinarily bright in the sky. The source was 200 million light years away in the constellation Hercules. The object was given the name AT2018cow or “The Cow.” The Cow flared up quickly, and then just as quickly it was gone.

What was it?

January 11, 2019January 11, 2019 by Evan Gough

Giant Streak Structure Found in Venus’ Cloudtops

The large-scale streak structures discovered in Venus' atmosphere. Credit: Japanese Space Agency.

A team of researchers in Japan has discovered a gigantic streak structure in the cloud tops of Venus. The discovery is based on observations of Venus by the Japanese spacecraft Akatsuki. The findings were published in January 9th in the journal Nature Communications.

Venus is unlike any other planet in the Solar System. The entire planet is shrouded in thick clouds of sulfuric acid between altitudes of 45 km to 70 km. This thick shroud has prevented scientists from studying Earth’s so-called “sister planet” in detail. But Japanese researchers are making progress.

January 11, 2019January 11, 2019 by Evan Gough

Uh oh, Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 is Down

On January 8, 2019, the Wide Field Camera 3 on the Hubble Space Telescope suspended operations due to a hardware problem. Image Credit: NASA/STScI.

On January 8th, an important piece of equipment on the Hubble Space Telescope went down. The Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) suspended its operations because of a hardware. The Hubble team is investigating the anomaly, and during this time the space telescope’s other instruments are working normally and continuing their science operations.

The WFC3 was installed on the Hubble in 2009. It replaced the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2). The WFC3 is the most technologically advanced instrument on the Hubble, and it has captured some of the most stunning and famous images ever captured.

January 11, 2019January 11, 2019 by Evan Gough

Canadian Telescope Finds 13 More Fast Radio Bursts Including the Second One Ever Seen Repeating

CHIME consists of four metal "half-pipes", each one 100 meters long. Image Credit: CHIME/Andre Renard, Dunlap Institute.

Canadian scientists using the CHIME (Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment) have detected 13 FRBs (Fast Radio Bursts), including the second-ever repeating one. And they think they’ll find even more.

CHIME is an innovative radio telescope in the Okanagan Valley region in British Columbia, Canada. It was completed in 2017, and its mission is to act as a kind of time machine. CHIME will help astronomers understand the shape, structure, and fate of the universe by measuring the composition of dark energy.

CHIME’s unique design also makes it well-suited for detecting fast radio bursts.

January 10, 2019January 10, 2019 by Evan Gough

Bad News. Planets Orbiting Red Dwarfs Might not have the Raw Materials for Life

These two NASA Hubble Space Telescope images, taken six years apart, show fast-moving blobs of material sweeping outwardly through a debris disk around the young, nearby red dwarf star AU Microscopii (AU Mic). Red dwarfs are the most abundant and longest-lived stars in our Milky Way galaxy. AU Mic is approximately 23 million years old. Image Credit: NASA/STScI

New research from the Hubble Space Telescope and the ESO’s Very Large Telescope is dampening some of the enthusiasm in the search for life. Observations by both ‘scopes suggest that the raw materials necessary for life may be rare in solar systems centered around red dwarfs.

And if the raw materials aren’t there, it may mean that many of the exoplanets we’ve found in the habitable zones of other stars just aren’t habitable after-all.

January 9, 2019January 9, 2019 by Evan Gough

TESS Finds its Third Planet, a sub-Neptune with a 36-Day Orbit

An artist's illustration of the newly-discovered exoplanet HD21749b. Image Credit: By NASA/MIT/TESS - https://static01.nyt.com/images/2019/01/08/climate/08TESS2/merlin_148878360_2fd4c6fe-ad22-400b-a882-f6b3a698a573-superJumbo.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=75686540

After only three months of operation, NASA’s TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) spacecraft is delivering on its mission to find more exoplanets. A new paper presents the latest finding: a sub-Neptune planet with a 36-day orbit around its star. This is the third confirmed exoplanet that TESS has found.

The planet orbits a K-dwarf star about 52 light years away, in the constellation Reticulum. In astronomical terms, this makes the planet pretty close to us, and a great candidate for follow-up observations. Even better, it may have a sibling planet about the same size as Earth.

January 8, 2019January 8, 2019 by Evan Gough

Check out this Amazing Picture of the Triangulum Galaxy by Hubble.

This gigantic image of the Triangulum Galaxy — also known as Messier 33 — is a composite of about 54 different pointings with Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys. With a staggering size of 34 372 times 19 345 pixels, it is the second-largest image ever released by Hubble. It is only dwarfed by the image of the Andromeda Galaxy, released in 2015. The mosaic of the Triangulum Galaxy showcases the central region of the galaxy and its inner spiral arms. Millions of stars, hundreds of star clusters and bright nebulae are visible. This image is too large to be easily displayed at full resolution and is best appreciated using the zoom tool.

To the unaided eye, the Triangulum Galaxy is just a smudge in the night sky. But it’s a smudge that contains about 40 billion stars. It also contains some very active star-forming regions, which have attracted the eyes of astronomers.

The Triangulum has a couple other names: Messier 33 and NGC 598. But Triangulum is the easier name to remember. (It’s also sometimes called the “Pinwheel Galaxy.”) But whatever name you choose to call it, this Hubble image brings it to life.