Mark Thompson, Author at Universe Today

January 4, 2025January 4, 2025 by Mark Thompson

There Were Over 260 Orbital Launches in 2024. A New Record

Breakdown of launches per year. Credit : SpaceStatsOnline.Com

The launch of a rocket into orbit should never become routine. There was a time, probably around the 50’s and 60’s that a rocket launch hit the headlines. Now its just another launch. Last year (2024) saw a record breaking 263 launches. The US launched 158, China launched 68 and other countries/regions like Europe, Russian and Japan. Last year just 224 launches were completed and two years ago in 2022, 168 launches were completed. Surprisingly perhaps, prior to 2020 the record was set at 141 back in 1967, the future of rocket flight still seems quite alive!

January 2, 2025January 2, 2025 by Mark Thompson

Could There Be Bacteria Living on Mars Today?

Methanogens. Credit: Maryland Astrobiology Consortium, NASA, and STScI.

Mars is often considered to be the planet most similar to the Earth. Earth however, is capable of supporting life, Mars on the other hand could not. There was once a time when it was warmer and wetter and could support life. Exploring life on Earth shows us that bacteria known as extremophiles can live in the most harsh conditions on Earth, it may just be possible that there are places on Mars that could also support these hardy forms of life. A new paper explores that possibility by studying the most extreme Earth-based bacteria that could survive under ground on Mars.

January 2, 2025January 2, 2025 by Mark Thompson

This Particle Only Has Mass When Moving in One Direction

The quasiparticle, called a semi-Dirac fermion, was first theorized 16 years ago, but was only recently spotted inside a crystal of semi-metal material called ZrSiS. The observation of the quasiparticle opens the door to future advances in a range of emerging technologies from batteries to sensors, according to researchers who made the discovery. Credit: Yinming Shao / Penn State

Particle physics is not everyone’s cup of tea. A team of physicists have theorised the existence of a strange type of particle that behaves differently depending on its direction of travel—massless in one direction but possessing mass when moving the other way! This strange, elusive particle, known as a semi-Dirac fermion or “quasiparticle,” has actually been observed in action. To detect it, researchers cooled a semi-metal crystal to near absolute zero, exposed it to a powerful magnetic field and infrared light, and successfully captured the signal of these unusual quasiparticles.

January 1, 2025January 1, 2025 by Mark Thompson

Crisscrossing Dust Devil Tracks Across the Surface of Mars

Dust Devils on Mars - NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

An incredible image of Mars has been released that captures the relentless activity of dust devils, swirling across the planet’s surface. These Martian whirlwinds form, move across the surface and dissipate before others take their place. The image was taken by the HiRISE camera aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in September 2022 and shows part of the Haldane Crater, where dust devils have left their mark on the landscape. Scientists study the image tracks and the rate at which dust accumulates on Mars, helping them better understand the planet’s atmospheric processes.

December 30, 2024December 30, 2024 by Mark Thompson

Even Stars Can Get the Hiccups

An artist’s impression of Pulsational Pair Instability, credit: Gemini Observatory/NSF/AURA/ illustration by Joy Pollard

Stars come in all manner of sizes and temperatures. Many of the massive ones are nearing the end of their lives and at some point in the next few million years, will detonate as supernova explosions. Observing the early stages of these events is tricky though as we can never be sure when they will go pop! It would be great if we could narrow down the timeframe to help hone our search. One theorised phase is that massive stars can ‘hiccup’ with its core expanding and contracting rapidly. This is known as ‘pulsational pair-instability’ and finally a team of astronomers have actually caught a star having the hiccups!

December 30, 2024December 30, 2024 by Mark Thompson

Hotter White Dwarfs Get Puffier

Concept art of two white dwarf stars with the same mass but different temperatures. The hotter star (left) is slightly puffier, while the cooler star (right) is more compact. Credit:Roberto Molar Candanosa/Johns Hopkins University

When our Sun dies, it will turn into a white dwarf. They are a common aspect of stellar evolution and a team of researchers have now turned their attention onto them. They have just completed a survey of 26,000 white dwarfs and confirmed a long-predicted theory that the hotter the star, the puffier it is! This new study will help us to understand white dwarfs and the processes that drive them.

December 30, 2024December 30, 2024 by Mark Thompson

NASA to Probe the Secrets of the Lunar Regolith

Regolith Adherence Characterization, or RAC, is one of 10 science and technology instruments flying on NASA’s next Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) flight as part of the Blue Ghost Misison-1. Developed by Aegis Aerospace of Webster, Texas, RAC is designed to study how lunar dust reacts to more than a dozen different types of material samples, located on the payload’s wheels. Photo courtesy Firefly Aerospace

Gaze up at the Moon on any night and you will see a barren world displaying all manner of shades of grey. Aside from the obvious craters and lunar maria, the surface of the Moon is covered in the fine, dusty lunar regolith. The Apollo astronauts in the 60’s and 70’s learned that it was electromagnetically charged and was very abrasive posing a problem for mechanical equipment. Now a new payload on the Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative will explore the regolith even further.

December 29, 2024December 29, 2024 by Mark Thompson

New Image Revealed by NASA of their New Martian Helicopter.

Rendering of Mars Helicopter : Credit - NASA/JPL-Caltech

Ingenuity became the first aircraft to fly on another world in the first half of 2021. It explored the Martian terrain from above proving that powered air flight was a very efficient way to move around alien worlds. Now NASA have released a computer rendering of their next design, the Mars Chopper!

December 29, 2024December 30, 2024 by Mark Thompson

Meteor Showers May One Day Help Protect Humanity!

A long-period comet called 2001 RX14 (Linear) turned up in images captured in 2002 by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey telescope in New Mexico.

For centuries, comets have captured our imagination. Across history they have been the harbingers of doom, inspired artists and fascinated astronomers. These icy remnants of the formation of the Solar System hold secrets to help us understand the events nearly 5 billion years ago. But before these secrets can be revealed, comets have to be studied and to study them they need to be found. A team of researchers have developed a technique to hunt down comets based upon data from meteor showers and to assess if they pose any threat to us here on Earth!

December 20, 2024December 20, 2024 by Mark Thompson

IceCube Just Spent 10 Years Searching for Dark Matter

IceCube Neutrino Observatory in 2023 by Christopher Michel

Neutrinos are tricky little blighters that are hard to observe. The IceCube Neutrino Observatory in Antarctica was built to detect neutrinos from space. It is one of the most sensitive instruments built with the hope it might help uncover evidence for dark matter. Any dark matter trapped inside Earth, would release neutrinos that IceCube could detect. To date, and with 10 years of searching, it seems no excess neutrinos coming from Earth have been found!