Evan Gough, Author at Universe Today

December 7, 2021December 7, 2021 by Evan Gough

Asteroid Apophis’ 2029 Flyby Will Provide a Bonanza of Asteroid Science

The asteroid 99942 Apophis. Image Credit: NASA/Caltech/JPL

If NASA and other space agencies don’t want us to freak out about asteroids colliding with Earth, why do they give them names like Apophis? It sounds apocalyptic.

Apophis was the ancient Egyptian god of Chaos. He was an evil serpent that dwelled in endless darkness, the enemy of light and truth. So when they informed us that an asteroid named Apophis was due for a close encounter with Earth in 2029, people were understandably anxious. After all, Earth’s previous dominant inhabitants were evicted by an asteroid.

December 6, 2021December 6, 2021 by Evan Gough

Did the Earth’s Water Come From the Sun?

The sun, solar winds and asteroid Itokawa. Image Credit: Curtin University.

Where did Earth’s water come from? Comets may have brought some of it. Asteroids may have brought some. Icy planetesimals may have played a role by crashing into the young Earth and depositing their water. Hydrogen from inside the Earth may have contributed, too. Another hypothesis states the collision that formed the Moon gave Earth its water.

There’s evidence to back up all of these hypotheses.

But new research suggests that the Sun and its Solar Wind may have helped delivered some water, too.

November 30, 2021November 30, 2021 by Evan Gough

InSight Peers Deep Below the Surface on Mars

Artist's concept of InSight "taking the pulse of Mars". Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The InSight lander has been on Mars, gathering data for a thousand days now, working to give us a better understanding of the planet’s interior. It’s at Elysium Planitia, the second largest volcanic region on Mars. A newly-published paper based on seismic data from the lander shows something unexpected underground: a layer of sediment sandwiched between layers of lava flows.

November 29, 2021November 29, 2021 by Evan Gough

This is a Classic Example of a Reflection Nebula, Where the Reflected Light From Young Hot Stars Illuminates a Protostellar Cloud of Gas and Dust

This NASA Hubble Space Telescope image captures a portion of the reflection nebula IC 2631 that contains a protostar, the hot, dense core of a forming star that is accumulating gas and dust. Image Credit: Credit: NASA, ESA, and K. Stapelfeldt (Jet Propulsion Laboratory); Processing; Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)

The interplay of energy and matter creates beautiful sights. Here on Earth, we enjoy rainbows, auroras, and sunsets and sunrises. But out in space, nature creates extraordinarily dazzling structures called nebulae that can span hundreds of light-years. Nebulae are probably the most beautiful objects out there.

While searching for young stars and their circumstellar disks, Hubble captured a classic reflection nebula.

November 26, 2021November 26, 2021 by Evan Gough

Astronomers Find a Planet That Orbits its Star in Just 16 HOURS!

The newly discovered planet, designated TOI-2109b, is relatively close to its star, at a distance of only about 1.5 million miles out. Credits: Image: NASA, ESA and G. Bacon

Mercury is the speed champion in our Solar System. It orbits the Sun every 88 days, and its average speed is 47 km/s. Its average distance from the Sun is 58 million km (36 million mi), and it’s so fast it’s named after Mercury, the wing-footed God.

But what if instead of Mercury, Jupiter was closest to the Sun? And what if Jupiter was even closer to the Sun than Mercury and far hotter?

November 24, 2021November 24, 2021 by Evan Gough

Did Cosmic Dust Deliver the Phosphorus Needed for Life?

Sunlight reflects off tiny, interplanetary dust particles, creating the faint column of glowing light seen against the stars in this image. New research suggests that cosmic dust might be an important source of phosphorus for life on Earth. Credit: Malcol, CC BY 3.0

Without phosphorus, there’s no life. It’s a necessary part of DNA, RNA, and other biological molecules like ATP, which helps cells transport energy. But any phosphorus that was present when Earth formed would’ve been sequestered in the center of the molten planet.

So where did phosphorus come from?

It might have come from cosmic dust.

November 23, 2021November 23, 2021 by Evan Gough

Here are Hubble’s 2021 Photos of the Outer Solar System

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has completed its annual grand tour of the outer Solar System for 2021. This is the realm of the giant planets — Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune — extending as far as 30 times the distance between Earth and the Sun. Unlike the rocky terrestrial planets like Earth and Mars that huddle close to the Sun’s warmth, these far-flung worlds are mostly composed of chilly gaseous soups of hydrogen, helium, ammonia, and methane around a packed, intensely hot, compact core. Note: The planets are not shown to scale in this image. Credit: NASA, ESA, A. Simon (Goddard Space Flight Center), and M.H. Wong (University of California, Berkeley) and the OPAL team

If we had to rely solely on spacecraft to learn about the outer planets, we wouldn’t be making great progress. It takes a massive effort to get a spacecraft to the outer Solar System. But thanks to the Hubble Space Telescope, we can keep tabs on the gas giants without leaving Earth’s orbit.

November 22, 2021November 22, 2021 by Evan Gough

Is That a Fossil on Mars? Non-Biological Deposits can Mimic Organic Structures

NASA's Perseverance rover, which is searching signs of ancient life on Mars (credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)

There’s nothing easy about searching for evidence of life on Mars. Not only do we somehow have to land a rover there, which is extraordinarily difficult. But the rover needs the right instruments, and it has to search in the right location. Right now, the Perseverance lander has checked those boxes as it pursues its mission in Jezero Crater.

But there’s another problem: there are structures that look like fossils but aren’t. Many natural chemical processes produce structures that mimic biological ones. How can we tell them apart? How can we prepare for these false positives?

November 19, 2021November 19, 2021 by Evan Gough

There’s So Much Pressure at the Earth’s Core, it Makes Iron Behave in a Strange Way

New observations of the atomic structure of iron reveal it undergoes "twinning" under extreme stress and pressure. Image Credit: SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

It’s one of nature’s topsy-turvy tricks that the deep interior of the Earth is as hot as the Sun’s surface. The sphere of iron that resides there is also under extreme pressure: about 360 million times more pressure than we experience on the Earth’s surface. But how can scientists study what happens to the iron at the center of the Earth when it’s largely unobservable?

With a pair of lasers.

November 18, 2021November 18, 2021 by Evan Gough

Eggshell Planets Have a Thin Brittle Crust and No Mountains or Tectonics

'Eggshell planets’ are rocky worlds that have an ultra-thin outer brittle layer and little to no topography. Here, an artist’s rendition of such an exoplanet. (Image: NASA)

Planets without plate tectonics are unlikely to be habitable. But currently, we’ve never seen the surface of an exoplanet to determine if plate tectonics are active. Scientists piece together their likely surface structures from other evidence. Is there a way to determine what exoplanets might be eggshells, and eliminate them as potentially habitable?

The authors of a newly-published paper say there is.