Evan Gough, Author at Universe Today

February 22, 2020February 22, 2020 by Evan Gough

Dust Devils Have Left Dark Streaks All Over This Martian Crater

HiPOD from February 16th 2020 showing dust devil trails in a Martian crater. Image Credit: NASA/JPL/UArizona

There may be no life on Mars, but there’s still a lot going on there. The Martian surface is home to different geological process, which overlap and even compete with each other to shape the planet. Orbiters with powerful cameras give us an excellent view of Mars’ changing surface.

February 21, 2020February 21, 2020 by Evan Gough

Nutrient-Poor and Energy-Starved. How Life Might Survive at the Extremes in the Solar System

Artist impression of a sunset over KELT-9b, where the planet’s atmosphere is hot enough to vaporize heavy metals such as iron and titanium. Credit and ©: Denis Bajram

Our growing understanding of extremophiles here on Earth has opened up new possibilities in astrobiology. Scientists are taking another look at resource-poor worlds that appeared like they could never support life. One team of researchers is studying a nutrient-poor region of Mexico to try to understand how organisms thrive in challenging environments.

February 20, 2020February 20, 2020 by Evan Gough

Both Stars in This Binary System Have Accretion Disks Around Them

Artist’s impression of one of the two stars in the FU Orionis binary system, surrounded by an accreting disk of material. What has caused this star — and others like it — to dramatically brighten? [NASA/JPL-Caltech] — Artist’s impression of one of the two stars in the FU Orionis binary system, surrounded by an accreting disk of material. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Stars exhibit all sorts of behaviors as they evolve. Small red dwarfs smolder for billions or even trillions of years. Massive stars burn hot and bright but don’t last long. And then of course there are supernovae.

Some other stars go through a period of intense flaring when young, and those young flaring stars have caught the attention of astronomers. A team of researchers are using the Atacama Large Millimeter/sub-millimeter Array (ALMA) to try to understand the youthful flaring. Their new study might have found the cause, and might have helped answer a long-standing problem in astronomy.

February 19, 2020February 19, 2020 by Evan Gough

ESA is Considering a Mission to Give Advanced Warnings of Solar Storms

A massive prominence erupts from the surface of the sun. Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

The Sun is not exactly placid, though it appears pretty peaceful in the quick glances we can steal with our naked eyes. In reality though, the Sun is a dynamic, chaotic body, spraying out solar wind and radiation and erupting in great sheets of plasma. Living in a technological society next to all that is a challenge.

February 13, 2020February 13, 2020 by Evan Gough

Beautiful Exposed Bedrock and Sand Dunes on Mars

An impact crater south of Aurorae Chaos on Mars. Large enough craters form central uplifts or peaks of exposed bedrock. Image Credit: NASA/JPL/UArizona

Impact craters can be quite complex. Depending on the size of the impactor, and on the size of the planet it strikes, craters form differently. Some form central peaks or uplifted structures, or even pits as seen in this image.

February 13, 2020February 13, 2020 by Evan Gough

Mars Was Hit By a Lot of Protoplanets Early in its History, Taking Longer to Form than Previously Thought.

Scientists developed this illustration of how early Mars may have looked, showing signs of liquid water, large-scale volcanic activity and heavy bombardment from planetary projectiles. SwRI is modeling how these impacts may have affected early Mars to help answer questions about the planet’s evolutionary history. Image Credit: SwRI/Marchi

There are around 61,000 meteorites on Earth, or at least that’s how many have been found. Out of those, about 200 of them are very special: they came from Mars. And those 200 meteorites have been important clues to how Mars formed in the early Solar System.

February 12, 2020February 12, 2020 by Evan Gough

A Rare Fast Radio Burst has been Found that Actually Repeats Every 16 Days

Taken with the HAWK-I instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope in the Chilean Atacama Desert, this stunning image shows the Milky Way’s central region with an angular resolution of 0.2 arcseconds. This means the level of detail picked up by HAWK-I is roughly equivalent to seeing a football (soccer ball) in Zurich from Munich, where ESO’s headquarters are located. The image combines observations in three different wavelength bands. The team used the broadband filters J (centred at 1250 nanometres, in blue), H (centred at 1635 nanometres, in green), and Ks (centred at 2150 nanometres, in red), to cover the near infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum. By observing in this range of wavelengths, HAWK-I can peer through the dust, allowing it to see certain stars in the central region of our galaxy that would otherwise be hidden.

A team of scientists in Canada have found a Fast Radio Burst (FRB) that repeats every 16 days. This is in stark contrast to other FRBs, which are more sporadic. Some of those sporadic FRBs occur in clusters, and repeat irregularly, but FRBs with a regular, repeatable occurrence are rare.

February 12, 2020February 12, 2020 by Evan Gough

Here are the First Pictures from CHEOPS

First image of the star chosen as target for CHEOPS after cover opening. The star, at the centre of the image, is located at a distance of 150 light-years from us, in the constellation of Cancer. Image Credit:ESA/Airbus/CHEOPS Mission Consortium

The CHEOPS spacecraft is taking the first tentative steps in its mission. Back on January 29th, the spacecraft opened the cover on its lens. Now, we have the first images from CHEOPS.

February 11, 2020February 18, 2020 by Evan Gough

Astronomers Have Some Serious Concerns About Starlink and Other Satellite Constellations

till image from Hadley's simulation of the Starlink satellite constellation. Credit: Mark Hadley

Picture the space around Earth filled with tens of thousands of communications satellites. That scenario is slowly coming into being, and it has astronomers concerned. Now a group of astronomers have written a paper outlining their detailed concerns, and how all of these satellites could have a severe, negative impact on ground-based astronomy.

February 6, 2020February 6, 2020 by Evan Gough

There Are Winds Blowing On Pluto, Driven by Frozen Nitrogen

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft captured this image of Sputnik Planitia — a glacial expanse rich in nitrogen, carbon monoxide and methane ices — that forms the left lobe of a heart-shaped feature on Pluto’s surface. SwRI scientists studied the dwarf planet’s nitrogen and carbon monoxide composition to develop a new theory for its formation. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute

Earth and Pluto don’t have much in common. Earth is a vibrant, living world, whereas Pluto is cold, distant and lifeless. But one thing they do have in common is nitrogen. Earth’s atmosphere is about 78% nitrogen, and Pluto’s primary atmospheric constituent is also nitrogen, although the exact percentage is unclear.

On Pluto, where the surface temperature is about 42 Kelvin (-231 Celsius) most of that nitrogen is frozen. A new study says that Pluto’s frozen nitrogen drives the planet’s winds, and shapes its feature surfaces.