Space and astronomy news
After several months of meticulous, careful work, NASA has the final total for their haul of asteroidal material from the OSIRIS-REx mission to Bennu. The highly successful mission successfully collected 121.6 grams, or almost 4.3 ounces, of rock and dust. It won’t be long before scientists get their hands on these samples and start analyzing them.
Continue reading “OSIRIS-REx’s Final Haul: 121.6 Grams from Asteroid Bennu”
For a long time, our understanding of the Universe’s first galaxies leaned heavily on theory. The light from that age only reached us after travelling for billions of years, and on the way, it was obscured and stretched into the infrared. Clues about the first galaxies are hidden in that messy light. Now that we have the James Webb Space Telescope and its powerful infrared capabilities, we’ve seen further into the past—and with more clarity—than ever before.
The JWST has imaged some of the very first galaxies, leading to a flood of new insights and challenging questions. But it can’t see individual stars.
How can astronomers detect their impact on the Universe’s first galaxies?
Continue reading “Even if We Can’t See the First Stars, We Could Detect Their Impact on the First Galaxies”
Planets orbit stars. That’s axiomatic. Or at least it was until astronomers started finding rogue planets, also called free-floating planets (FFPs). Some of these planets were torn from their stars’ gravitational grip and now drift through the cosmos, untethered to any star. Others formed in isolation.
Now, astronomers have discovered that some FFPs can orbit each other in binary relationships as if swapping their star for another rogue planet.
Continue reading “Radio Telescope Confirms Free-Floating Binary Planets in the Orion Nebula”
Aging stars that become red giants increase their luminosity and can wreak havoc on planets that were once in the star’s habitable zones. When the Sun becomes a red giant and expands, its habitable zone will move further outward, meaning Earth will likely lose its atmosphere, its water, and its life. But for planets further out, their time in the habitable zone will just begin.
Is there enough time for life to arise on these newly habitable planets?
Continue reading “Dying Stars Could Have Completely New Habitable Zones”
Does life appear independently on different planets in the galaxy? Or does it spread from world to world? Or does it do both?
New research shows how life could spread via a basic, simple pathway: cosmic dust.
Continue reading “Cosmic Dust Could Spread Life from World to World Across the Galaxy”
When the interstellar object (ISO) Oumuamua appeared in our Solar System in 2017, it generated a ton of interest. The urge to learn more about it was fierce, but unfortunately, there was no way to really do so. It came and went, and we were left to ponder what it was made of and where it came from. Then, in 2019, the ISO comet Borisov came for a brief visit, and again, we were left to wonder about it.
There’s bound to be more of these ISOs traversing our Solar System. There’s been talk of having missions ready to go to visit one of these interstellar visitors in the future, but for that to happen, we need advance notice of its arrival. Could the Vera Rubin Observatory tell us far enough in advance?
Continue reading “The Vera Rubin’s Keen Eye On Our Solar System Will Inspire Future Missions”
The poetic-minded among us like to point out how Nature is a dance. If they’re right, then galaxies sometimes form unwieldy pairs. With the Hubble Space Telescope, we can spot some of these galactic pairs as they approach one another.
Continue reading “Hubble Sees a Bridge of Stars Connecting Two Galaxies”
In a disheartening turn of events, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has announced that it’s laying off about 8% of its workforce. That means that about 530 JPL employees will be let go, along with about 40 employees of the Lab’s contractors. That sucks for the people being let go, but the bigger concern for the rest of us is what will happen to upcoming missions like Mars Sample Return (MSR)?
Continue reading “NASA’s JPL Lays Off Hundreds of Workers”
We can’t see them directly, but we know they’re there. Supermassive black holes (SMBHs) likely dwell at the center of every large galaxy. Their overwhelming gravity draws material toward them, where it collects in an accretion disk, waiting its turn to cross the event horizon into oblivion.
But in one galaxy, the SMBH has choked on its meal and spit it out, sending material away at high speeds and clearing out the entire neighbourhood.
Continue reading “A Black Hole Has Cleared Out Its Neighbourhood”
One of contemporary astronomy’s most pressing questions concerns planet formation. We can see more deeply than ever into very young solar systems where planets are taking shape in the disks around young stars. But our view is still clouded by all the gas and dust in these young systems.
The picture of planet formation just got cloudier with the discovery that some young planets are shaped like flattened candies rather than spheres.
Continue reading “Some Young Planets Are Flattened Smarties, not Spheres.”