Universe Today

April 1, 2008April 6, 2008 by Fraser Cain

Virgin/Google’s Mission to Mars: Virgle

Set your April jokes on fool, dear reader because it’s April 1st. That means there’ll be a non-stop barrage of April Fools Jokes coming at you from all directions. We had to join in the fun, but we’re not the only ones. Check out this “offering” from Virgin Galactic and Google. They’re going to be setting up a colony on Mars and they’re looking for volunteers. You’ve got to know it’s serious because Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page make the offer personally. I like how they mentioned the one-way trip idea. Is someone reading Universe Today?

And Branson’s version is here:

April 1, 2008December 24, 2015 by Fraser Cain

National Astronomical Meeting 2008 Coverage

You’re going to see a flurry of astronomy news this week. That’s because it’s time for the UK’s National Astronomical Meeting, or NAM 2008. We couldn’t get to this one, but our friends across the ocean have it covered. Chris Lintott and Orbiting Frog team are going to be live blogging the conference.

Click here to read the NAM 2008 live coverage.

April 1, 2008December 24, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Early Universe Had Burst of Star Formation

Just as humans develop and grow the fastest when we are young, it also appears our universe grew and developed stars at an incredibly fast rate when it was young, too. New measurements from some of the most distant galaxies helps support evidence that the strongest burst of star formation in the history of the universe occurred about two billion years after the Big Bang. An international team of astronomers from the UK, France, Germany and the USA have found evidence for a dramatic surge in star birth in a newly discovered population of massive galaxies. The astronomers have been studying five specific galaxies that are forming stars at an incredible rate. The galaxies also have large reservoirs of gas to power star formation for hundreds of millions of years. These galaxies are so distant that the light we detect from them has been travelling for more than 10 billion years, meaning we see them as they were about a three billion years after the Big Bang.

The recent discovery of a new type of extremely luminous galaxy during this early epoch of the universe – one that is very faint in visible light, but much brighter at longer, radio wavelengths – is the key to the new results. Using a new and much more sensitive camera that detects radiation emitted at sub-millimeter wavelengths (longer than the wavelengths of visible light that we see with but somewhat shorter than radio waves), astronomers first found this type of galaxy in 1997. In 2004 a group of astronomers proposed that these distant “submillimetre-galaxies” might only represent half of the picture of rapid star formation in the early Universe. They suggested that a population of similar galaxies with slightly hotter temperatures could exist but have gone largely unnoticed.

The team of scientists searched for the missing galaxies using observatories around the world: the MERLIN array in the UK, the Very Large Array (VLA) in the US (both radio observatories), the Keck optical telescope on Hawaii and the Plateau de Bure submillimetre observatory in France. The instruments found and pinpointed the galaxies, measured their distances and then confirmed their star-forming nature through the detection of the vastly extended gas and dust.

Click here for more images and a movie of the Sub-millimeter Star Forming Galaxies.

The new galaxies have extremely high rates of star formation, far higher than anything seen in the present-day universe. They probably developed after the first stars and galaxies had already formed in what would have been a perfectly smooth Universe. Studying these new objects gives astronomers an insight into the earliest epochs of star formation after the Big Bang.

This information was presented by Dr. Scott Chapman from the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge at the Royal Astronomy Society’s National Astronomy Meeting on April 1, 2008. Chapman’s work is supported by a parallel study made by PhD student Caitlin Casey.

Original News Source: Royal Astronomy Society Press Release

April 1, 2008December 24, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Supernova Alert: Supernova Factories Discovered

Two â€œsupernova factories,â€ rare clusters of Red Supergiant (RSG) stars, have recently been discovered. Together they contain 40 RSGs, which is nearly 20% of all the known RSGs in the Milky Way, and all 40 are on the brink of going supernova. â€œRSGs represent the final brief stage in a massive starâ€™s lifecycle before it goes supernova,â€ said Dr. Ben Davies of the Rochester (New York) Institute of Technology. â€œThey are very rare objects, so to find this many in the same place is remarkable.â€

The two clusters are located next to each other on the edge of the central galactic bar, a long bar of stars within the central bulge of our Milky Way Galaxy. This galactic bar is believed to be made up of about 30 million stars, most of them older, red stars, and stretches 27,000 light-years from end to end. The bar is plowing through the disc of the Milky Way, and astronomers believe the interaction between the bar and the disc triggered the star formation event, creating the uncommon clusters.

The clusters are about 20,000 light years from Earth and about 800 light years from each other. Cluster 1 contains 14 RSGs and is 12 million years old; Cluster 2 contains 26 RSGs and is 17 million years old. Massive stars are rarely observed because they burn their fuel up very quickly. RSGs are doubly rare because they are only a brief period of that short life cycle.

Dr. Davies said, â€œThe next supernova could go off in one of these clusters at any time. We estimate that itâ€™s about 5000 years between explosions for these clusters and we can see the remnants of a supernova that went off around 5000 years ago. That means that the next one could be any time between today and 7008 AD.â€

The team identified the clusters initially using the mid-infrared Galactic Plane survey (GLIMPSE), a huge database of images taken by the Spitzer Space Telescope. They found two distinct groupings of bright stars very close to one another in the constellation of Scutum. Using the Keck Telescope in Mauna Kea, Hawaii, they were then able to pin-point the exact distance from Earth of each star in each group. These observations showed that, in each group, large numbers of stars were at exactly the same distance from Earth, and therefore were members of the same cluster.

â€œThe discovery of these clusters gives us a great opportunity to answer some long-standing questions in astrophysics,â€ said Davies, â€œsuch as exact mechanisms of how massive stars evolve toward supernovae, and how the Galactic Bar can trigger huge starburst events in the Milky Way.â€
Davies presented his findings at the Royal Astronomy Societyâ€™s National Astronomy Meeting in Belfast on April 1, 2008.

Original News Source: Royal Astronomy Society Press Release

April 1, 2008December 24, 2015 by Tammy Plotner

Solar Corona Revealed by Medical X-Ray Techniques

For several decades solar scientists have been hard at work trying to unravel the mysteries of the solar corona. Thanks to a medical x-ray technique known as tomography, scientists are able resolve solar activity in greater detail. By using a new way of processing images, active regions now take on dimensions never foreseen by computer models.

Today Dr. Huw Morgan presented his results to the Royal Astronomical Society National Meeting in Belfast. Using an adapted medical X-ray technique, scientists have produced the first detailed map of the structure of the Sun’s outermost layer, the corona. The application known as tomography uses a series of images taken from many different angles to reconstruct a 3-dimensional map created from direct solar observations.

“This is a breakthrough for scientists trying to understand the corona and the solar wind. We’ve been attempting to apply tomography to the solar corona for more than 30 years but it’s proved very difficult and very inaccurate until now. The new technique that I’ve developed is only in its infancy but shows great potential for areas of research like space weather,” said Dr Morgan, of the University of Aberystwyth.

The process has not been as easy one, nor is it a new idea. Without images of the coronal far side, researchers were left with only half the data. The near side produces its own difficulties as well, since the outermost areas of the corona are more than a thousand times fainter than the regions near the Sun. This factor introduces huge potential errors to observations. Thanks to Dr. Morgan, his new way of processing coronal images, called Qualitative Solar Rotational Tomography (QSRT), eliminates the steep drop in brightness and associated errors. With the help of SOHO’s LASCO instrument, Dr. Morgan applied the technique to a series of images taken as the Sun’s rotation brings the ‘missing’ areas into view. The result? Full coronal maps that are at least 5 times more detailed than previous tomographical studies of the Sun. And the future may hold far more. Says Morgan:

“I’ve now produced maps of the corona over almost a whole cycle of solar activity, so we can now see in unprecedented detail how structures develop and evolve in three-dimensions. The maps have produced some interesting results: for instance we’ve observed large areas of dense structures when the Sun is most active that are not predicted by current computer models. We’ve also found evidence that inner regions of the corona rotate at different speeds.”

According to the RAS press release, the technique is already being used by scientists at the Institute of Maths and Physics at Aberystwyth University to interpret their radio-wave observations of the solar wind. Dr. Morgan, together with colleagues at the Institute of Astronomy at the University of Hawaii, is also using the maps to interpret ultraviolet observations of the corona. Says Dr. Morgan:

“These maps will also prove useful in the important field of space weather. Explosions at the Sun travel through space and often hit the Earth. These energetic magnetic clouds can disrupt communication, power supplies and be a major health hazard for astronauts and airline pilots. Understanding and predicting these storms is a major goal of solar science. The ability to map the whole 3D structure of the corona is a critical step towards achieving this goal.”

April 1, 2008December 24, 2015 by Tammy Plotner

Old Galaxies Stick Together In A Young Universe

Can appearances be deceiving? According to the United Kingdom Infra-Red Telescope (UKIRT), galaxies that appear old in our Universe’s early history are positioned in huge clouds of dark matter. Using the most sensitive images ever taken, UKIRT scientists believe these galaxies will evolve into the most massive yet known.

Today University of Nottingham PhD student Will Hartley is speaking to the Royal Astronomical Society’s National Astronomy Meeting in Belfast. As the leader of the study, Hartley proposes the distant galaxies identified in the UKIRT images are considered elderly from their content of old, red stars. Because these systems are nearly 10 billion light years distant, the images are as the galaxies appeared about 4 billion years after the Big Bang. Fully evolved galaxies at that point in time are hard to explain and the answer has been puzzling astronomers who study galactic formation and evolution.

Hartley and his team used the deep UKIRT images to estimate the mass of the dark matter formed in a halo surrounding the old galaxies – a halo which collapses under its own gravity to form a even distribution of matter. By measuring their ability to form galactic clusters, astronomers can get a better sense of what causes older galaxies to stick together.

Hartley explains “Luckily, even if we don’t know what dark matter is, we can understand how gravity will affect it and make it clump together. We can see that the old, red galaxies clump together far more strongly than the young, blue galaxies, so we know that their invisible dark matter halos must be more massive.

The halos of dark matter surrounding the old galaxies in the early Universe are found to be extremely massive, containing material which is one hundred thousand billion times the mass of our Sun. In the nearby Universe, halos of this size are known to contain giant elliptical galaxies, the largest galaxies known.

“This provides a direct link to the present day Universe,” says Hartley, “and tell us that these distant old galaxies must evolve into the most massive but more familiar elliptical-shaped galaxies we see around us today. Understanding how these enormous elliptical galaxies formed is one of the biggest open questions in modern astronomy and this is an important step in comprehending their history.”

April 1, 2008April 26, 2016 by Nancy Atkinson

SuperWASP are Super Planet-Finding Observatories

The United Kingdomâ€™s Wide Area Search for Planets, known as SuperWASP consists of two 8-camera robotic observatories that cover both hemispheres of the sky. In the past 6 months an international team of astronomers have used these unique observatories to discover 10 new extra-solar planets, making SuperWASP the most successful planet-hunting observatory in the world. The discovery of these planets was announced on April 1 by Dr. Don Pollacco of Queen’s University in Belfast at the Royal Astronomy Societyâ€™s National Astronomy Meeting in the UK.

All told, scientists have found more than 270 extrasolar planets since the the early 1990s. Most of these are detected through their gravitational influence on the star they orbit. As a planet orbits a star, it tugs the star back and forth. However, making these discoveries depends on looking at each star over a period of weeks or months, making the pace of discovery fairly slow.

But SuperWASP uses a different method. The two sets of cameras watch for events known as transits, where a planet passes directly in front of a star and blocks out some of the star’s light, so from the Earth the star temporarily appears a little fainter. The SuperWASP cameras work as robots, surveying a large area of the sky at once and each night astronomers have data from millions of stars that they can check for transits. The transit method also allows scientists to deduce the size and mass of each planet.

SuperWASP-North is located on the island of La Palma, just off the Northwestern coast of Africa, and SuperWASP-South is at the southern tip of Africa at the South African Astronomical Observatory near Sutherland, South Africa.

The observatories are quite simple, but effective. They use 8 high quality digital cameras to take pictures of the sky and simply measure any changing brightness of the stars.

Each possible planet found using SuperWASP is then observed by astronomers working at the Nordic Optical Telescope on La Palma, the Swiss Euler Telescope in Chile and the Observatoire de Haute Provence in southern France, who use precision instruments to confirm or reject the discovery.

45 planets have now been discovered using the transit method, and since they started operation in 2004 the SuperWASP cameras have found 15 of them, which makes SuperWASP by far the most successful discovery instruments in the world. The SuperWASP planets have a variety of masses, between a middleweight 0.5 and a huge 8.3 times that of Jupiter. A number of these new worlds are quite exotic. For example, a year on WASP-12B (its orbital period) is just 1.1 days. The planet is so close to its star that its daytime temperature could reach a searing 2300 degrees Celsius.

Dr. Pollacco is delighted with the results. â€œSuperWASP is now a planet-finding production line and will revolutionize the detection of large planets and our understanding of how they were formed. It’s a great triumph for European astronomers.â€

Original News Source: Royal Astronomy Society press release

April 1, 2008April 26, 2016 by Ian O'Neill

NASA to Burn Sponsor Logos into the Surface of Mars

NOTE: This was the Universe Today’s contribution to April Fools Day (April 1st), but it isn’t all a joke… International efforts in space are being seriously hindered by budget cuts, forcing agencies to think up alternative methods to raise money. The following article could be a possibility…

In an effort to raise additional funds, NASA has announced new partnerships with corporate sponsors. It is becoming increasingly difficult for government-backed space agencies to support the vast range of missions currently exploring the solar system, so urgent measures are being taken. Planetary missions in particular, such as the Mars Exploration Rover project, have fallen on tough times. As already demonstrated by research groups in the UK, funds from private companies are essential for survival and some weird and wonderful methods to capture public interest have already been exploited.

Now it is the perfect time for the biggest marketing stunt yet: tattoo Mars with corporate logos for orbiting spacecraft and ground-based telescopes to observe…

With millions of dollars being injected into the commercial space market, companies such as Virgin Galactic, Astrium and XCOR are all beginning to dominate the fledgling space flight industry. Where government space agencies such as NASA and ESA have spearheaded technological advancement, the void left behind is slowly being filled by space tourism companies all competing for short trips into space and, eventually, tours to the Moon with the prospect of Mars in a few decades time.

But what about all the robotic missions exploring the solar system now? Who pays for them? Well, that is up to government funding and initiatives. As recently highlighted by the UK’s Â£80 million ($160 million) research budget shortfall, and the attempt to cut $4 million from the NASA Mars rovers, there appears to be international pressure on government-funded groups to think “out of the box” where money is concerned. After all, scientific research (on the whole) is not political, but scientific funding is.

So, in an unprecedented move, UK astronomers carried out an unorthodox measure and transmitted Doritos ads into space to help fund the beleaguered Jodrell Bank Telescope in Cheshire currently under threat from closure due to funding cuts. This might sound silly, but the undisclosed advertising revenue was much needed.

Although there is a slim-to-no-chance of aliens picking up the interstellar ad, NASA was obviously paying attention. Today, the space agency has announced an offbeat plan of their own: to burn sponsor logos into the surface of Mars. It’s not quite as reckless as it sounds, but existing technology on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) will be used to etch sponsor logos into the top layers of the Martian regolith. The stunt is expected to have minimal effect on the planet, as winds and dust storms will erase the ads within a couple of sols (Martian days).

“Just think, 3 years ago, we wouldn’t have the optical capabilities to spot an advertisement from orbit. But now, with the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and its ability to resolve objects as small as half a meter, we’ll be able to see our sponsors ads clearly etched into the Martian surface.” – Dr. Francis Rae, NASA Outreach Spokeswoman.

The MRO has a laser-ranging instrument on board that usually takes highly accurate measurements of landscape features. Scientists have modified the laser to emit a higher powered beam so small areas of Martian regolith can be fused together. It is expected to use the surplus power available from the ultra-efficient solar panels on the satellite. After a few orbits, corporate logos and other ads may be constructed, creating logos spanning small 5Ã—5 meter areas of Mars plains and crater bottoms. Of course, the logos created will be crude, and will only be available in shades of red, but the marketing and psychological impact will be huge. It is hoped the advertising revenue will follow suit.

This is only for starters. If all goes well, huge areas of the surface may be used, possibly allowing Earth-observable logos. Doritos, famed with the UK’s ad transmission into space, has already backed NASA’s plans and fully intends to support any marketing campaign carried out by the robotic explorers. An excerpt from a Pepsi Co, Inc. statement reads, “…the Doritos snack division of our corporation is always looking for new and novel ways to promote our products, branding an alien planet with our logo will not only be historic, it will revolutionize product marketing.” They add at the bottom of the press release, “Besides, it will be very cool.” An artists impression of a huge Doritos logo next to a crater observed by the MRO (HiRISE instrument) has also been released (pictured).

Other Mars missions are now being evaluated for their potential marketing skills, and an obvious mission that comes to mind are the Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity. Easier than tattooing the planet from orbit, the rovers could quickly create tire tracks into shapes that can be observed from space.

When asked whether the Phoenix lander had any such capability, Rae commented, “I really wish we’d thought that through better.” The lander will only be able to dig crude shapes into the regolith should it be called into fund-raising action. It seems doubtful that sponsors would be interested in this mission which is arriving at the Red Planet in May.

This leads to the question: Will a NASA mission be measured more for its revenue building ability, or for its scientific merit? “I doubt it will come to that, we’re not a private enterprise, science is our priority,” Rae added.

Other marketing tools are at mission planners’ fingertips. Some fun options include:

Physically moving rocks around the Martian landscape by future advanced rovers to assemble messages, take photos and send them back to Earth – the ultimate personal postcard message!
The future of terraforming the planet could include growing lichen in the shape of sponsor logos (imagine how much Pizza Hut would pay to have the very first life on Mars growing in the shape of their hut logo!)
Send a personal item on aÂ Mars-bound mission and get the lander to place it on the planet, take a photo andÂ pay for the pleasure of seeing something you own in the Martian dirt! Just don’t expect it back… (An orbital version has already been done by Bigalow Aerospace…)

Source: NASA Press Release

March 31, 2008December 26, 2015 by Ian O'Neill

What is Phoenix? It’s a Mars Mission Question on Jeopardy!

The answer was: “A NASA Mars lander has this mythic name because it was made of parts from a scrapped 2001 mission,” and the correct question was “What is Phoenix?“. The Mars mission currently en-route to Mars hasn’t only set the science world alight, it appears to be growing into the public mindset. Appearing as the subject for one of the questions on the highly popular US gameshow Jeopardy! before it has even arrived at Mars, I wonder how popular it will become when the mission actually begins…

It seems that even gameshows consider the next Mars mission to be significant enough for their contestants to answer.

Getting space science missions into the public domain is never an easy task – there needs to be a certainÂ balance between how much science and information is released to make the mission accessible to non-specialists. Personal experience of this includes giving my first public outreach lecture on physics and astronomy in the Arctic where I chatted all about the “cool” physics we were doing up there (including plasma physics, particle dynamics and some magnetohydrodynamic interactions in the magnetosphere thrown in for good measure… eh?). I later found out that I hadn’t connected with my audience at all (surprise), just because I found it exciting didn’t mean everyone else would. In future presentations I focused on what you could see up there (I mean, a huge picture of the aurora was a good starting point) and the fact we had to travel to the frozen observatories with rifles (not to hijack the telescope, but to protect us from polar bears) engaged my audience far more effectively. The science could then be related much better, giving it a meaning and an importance.

So this brings me to NASA’s Phoenix Mars mission. Not only does the mission have one of the best research/mission websitesÂ out thereÂ (hosted not by NASA but by the University of Arizona, Phoenix), I’ve noticed with each news release there is a genuine and informed effort to get people excited about this superb mission. And people not familiar with planetary missions are taking note.

One indicator is that the long-running US TV show Jeopardy! featured a question on the Phoenix mission due to arrive at Mars on May 25th. The clue was “A NASA Mars lander has this mythic name because it was made of parts from a scrapped 2001 mission,” and the answer was “What is Phoenix?” (note: forÂ those outside the US orÂ those not familiar with the show, the “answer” is stated and the “question” to that “answer” must be guessed by the contestants).

It’s not clear from the Phoenix news release whether it was answered correctly or not, but what is significant is that it was chosen as a question on a non-specialized TV show (a prime-time show at that) in the first place. Obviously the Phoenix mission public outreach guys are doing a great job, beginning to make the Phoenix Mars Mission a household name…

Roll on May 25th!

Credit: Phoenix Mars Mission

March 31, 2008December 26, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Explaining Dark Matter and Contradicting the Big Bang

Itâ€™s well-known that â€œBig Bangâ€ was a derogatory name given to the cosmological theory of the expanding (not exploding) universe in an attempt to discredit the idea. But, the name stuck and with the discovery of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) in 1964, the theory has stuck, too. However, every once in awhile, a new idea comes out which claims to contradict the Big Bang Theory. The latest comes from researchers Robert K. Soberman and Maurice Dubin who say they know what dark matter is comprised of, and their new ideas provide a better explanation for the CMB, as well as the galactic red shift, two observations that currently support the Big Bang Theory.

Soberman and Dubin believe dark matter is actually made of cosmic meteoroids — clumps of hydrogen and helium atoms, which they call â€œcosmoids.â€ The two researchers say cosmoids were found in a new evaluation of data detected by Pioneer 10 & 11. This dark and fragile matter exists in the â€œnear absolute zero cold and almost forceless space between galaxies from material expelled in stellar winds. Little, if any radiation is emitted at that temperature, hence its invisibility,â€ say Soberman and Dubin in a paper they released on March 25, 2008.

While the cosmic microwave background seems to cover the sky smoothly in all directions, this is unlike visible matter which is clumped into galaxies. The two researchers hypothesize that cosmoids were drawn gravitationally into our galaxy, the solar system and the immediate Earth vicinity, and radiate at 2.735 K which is â€œerroneously interpreted as the big bang cosmic microwave background.â€Â”Hence, this locally smooth distribution of cosmoids makes the radiation look the same in all directions to us.

Soberman and Dubin say that even variations discovered by satellites such as COBE and WMAP do not explain the distribution of visible matter, and that cosmoids provide a better alternative explanation.

The cosmoid proposal also explains the galactic redshift, according to Soberman and Dubin. Cosmoids absorb and re-emit light from distant galaxies, and that should redshift the light in a way that is subtly different from a Doppler redshift generated by an expanding universe. They say that the subtle difference should be relatively easy to spot with a few observations.

They will conduct several tests which they expect will contradict Big Bang predictions. The test include mixing hydrogen with a small amount of helium and cooling it to 2.735 K to see if cosmoids form, and measuring the red shift of cosmoids (dark matter) lying within 1 AU of the sun.

â€œBereft of the two supporting pieces of evidence, the big bang hypothesis should collapse. Any hypothesis worthy of consideration should offer predictions that allow choice between it and competitor(s). This model concludes with analytical and experimental predictions, the results of which should contradict the big bang hypothesis,â€ say Soberman and Dubin.

Soberman and Dubin do not mention anything about the third â€œpillarâ€ of the Big Bang Theory, which is the distribution of hydrogen and helium throughout the cosmos, which closely matches the predictions of the Big Bang Theory.

While this new theory is sure to raise more than just a few eyebrows, it demonstrates whatâ€™s great about science. All theories — whether long-standing mainstays of current scientific understanding or new, upstart ideas â€“ will undergo constant scrutiny and testing. It will be interesting to see what Soberman and Dubinâ€™s tests reveal.

Original News Sources: ArXiv Blog, and ArXiv