One of the many threats facing space travellers and indeed our own planet is that of Solar Storms. At their most minor they can grant polar latitudes with a gentle auroral display but at their most extreme they can pose a threat to technology in space, communications and even our atmosphere. Now a team of researchers have found that extreme space weather can leave its mark in tree rings, leaving evidence that can help guard against future severe events.
This stunning image of a star cluster in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) is more than just a pretty picture. It’s part of a scientific effort to understand star formation in an environment different from ours. The young star cluster is called NGC 602, and it’s very young, only about 2 or 3 million years old.
Since the 1960s, astronomers have theorized that the Universe may be filled with a mysterious mass that only interacts with “normal matter” via gravity. This mass, nicknamed Dark Matter (DM), is essential to resolving issues between astronomical observations and General Relativity. In recent years, scientists have considered that DM may be composed of axions, a class of hypothetical elementary particles with low mass within a specific range. First proposed in the 1970s to resolve problems in the Standard Model of particle physics, these particles have emerged as a leading candidate for DM.
Some of the most cataclysmic and mysterious events in the cosmos only reveal themselves by their gravitational waves. We’ve detected some of them with our ground-based detectors, but the size of these detectors is limited. The next step forward in gravitational wave (GW) astronomy is a space-based detector: LISA, the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna.
Nestled on the slopes of Cerro La Negra at an elevation of 13,000 feet is an unusual-looking observatory. Known as the High-Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) observatory, it looks like a tightly packed collection of grain silos, which is essentially what it is. But rather than holding grain, the silos are each filled with 188,000 liters of water and four photomultiplier tubes. While it’s an unusual setup, it’s what you need to observe high-energy gamma rays from deep space.
Between 2011 and 2018, NASA’s Dawn mission conducted extended observations of Ceres and Vesta, the largest bodies in the Main Asteroid Belt. The mission’s purpose was to address questions about the formation of the Solar System since asteroids are leftover material from the process, which began roughly 4.5 billion years ago. Ceres and Vesta were chosen because Ceres is largely composed of ice, while Vesta is largely composed of rock. During the years it orbited these bodies, Dawn revealed several interesting features on their surfaces.
Testing is one of the unsung steps in the engineering process. Talk to any product development engineer, and they will tell you how big of a milestone passing “V&V” – or verification and validation – testing is. Testing is even more critical when you work on equipment meant for the harsh space environment. It is also more challenging to mimic those harsh environments on Earth. Luckily for some of NASA’s more critical upcoming missions, another government agency has a unique test lab to help V&V with some of its most critical components – their heat shields.
Most of us know about the impact that wiped out the dinosaurs about 66 million years ago. It’s a scientific fact that’s entered mainstream knowledge, maybe because so many of us shared a fascination with dinosaurs as children. However, it’s not the only catastrophic impact that shaped life on Earth.
With ‘Thousand Sails,’ China joins the race to fill up Low Earth Orbit with mega-satellite constellations.
The word “volatile” is commonly used in the space exploration community, but it has a different meaning than when used otherwise. In space exploration, volatiles are defined as the six most common elements in living organisms, plus water. Earth had enough volatiles for life to start here, but it might not have been that way. Researchers from the University of Cambridge and Imperial College London now think they have a reason why Earth received as many volatiles as it did – and thereby allowed it to develop life in the first place.
The elliptical galaxy NGC 1270 lies about 240 million light-years away. But it’s not alone. It’s part of the Perseus Cluster (Abell 426), the brightest X-ray object in the sky and one of the most massive objects in the Universe.
Ships passing in the night used Morse code sent with lanterns and shutters to communicate. That same basic principle has allowed NASA to communicate with Psyche, its mission to a metal-rich asteroid in the main belt. However, the “light” was a version of heat, and instead of being able to see each other, Psyche is 240 million miles away from Earth. Oh, and the upload rate of the data it sent is still better than old dial-up internet connections that were prevalent not so long ago.
The massive South Pole-Aitken (SPA) basin is one of the Moon’s dominant features, though it’s not visible from Earth. It’s on the lunar far side, and only visible to spacecraft. It’s one of the largest impact features in the Solar System, and there are many outstanding questions about it. What type of impactor created it? Where did the ejected material end up? Is it feasible or worthwhile to explore it?
In this decade and the next, multiple space agencies will send crewed missions to the Moon for the first time since the Apollo Era. These missions will culminate in the creation of permanent lunar infrastructure, including habitats, using local resources – aka. In-situ resource utilization (ISRU). This will include lunar regolith, which robots equipped with additive manufacturing (3D printing) will use to fashion building materials. These operations will leverage advances in teleoperation, where controllers on Earth will remotely operate robots on the lunar surface.
For most of human history, the Sun appeared stable. It was a stoic stellar presence, going about its business fusing hydrogen into helium beyond our awareness and helping Earth remain habitable. But in our modern technological age, that facade fell away.
On July 1st, 2023 (Canada Day!), the ESA’s Euclid mission lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. As part of the ESA’s Cosmic Vision Programme, the purpose of this medium-class mission was to observe the “Dark Universe.” This will consist of observing billions of galaxies up to 10 billion light-years away to create the most extensive 3D map of the Universe ever created. This map will allow astronomers and cosmologists to trace the evolution of the cosmos, helping to resolve the mysteries of Dark Matter and Dark Energy.
Unistellar’s new Odyssey Pro telescope offers access to deep-sky astrophotography in a small portable package.
The search for exoplanets has grown immensely in recent decades thanks to next-generation observatories and instruments. The current census is 5,766 confirmed exoplanets in 4,310 systems, with thousands more awaiting confirmation. With so many planets available for study, exoplanet studies and astrobiology are transitioning from the discovery process to characterization. Essentially, this means that astronomers are reaching the point where they can directly image exoplanets and determine the chemical composition of their atmospheres.
The Artemis program involves impressive technological advancements in robotics, communications, spacecraft, and advanced habitats, all of which are clearly necessary for such an ambitious endeavour. But the mission also requires updated spacesuits. Those spacesuits are critical to mission success, and the Italian luxury fashion house Prada is adding their knowledge and experience to the design.
In 1995, Caltech researchers at the Institute’s Palomar Observatory first observed what appeared to be a brown dwarf orbiting Gliese 229 – a red dwarf star located about 19 light-years from Earth. Since then, this brown dwarf (Gliese 229 B) has mystified astronomers because it appeared too dim for its mass. With 70 times the mass of Jupiter, it should have been brighter than what telescopes had observed. However, a Caltech-led international team of astronomers recently solved the mystery by determining that the brown dwarf is a pair of closely orbiting twins!
Testing the equipment on an interstellar mission is one of the first things operators do when the spacecraft successfully launches. In some cases, those tests show the future troubles the mission will face, such as what happened to NASA’s Lucy mission a few years ago. However, in some cases, the mission provides us with perspectives we might never have seen before, which was the case for Hera, ESA’s mission to Dimorphos. This asteroid was deflected successfully during NASA’s DART test in 2022.
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