Space News & Blog Articles

The Sun has been vying for attention these last couple of weeks. First with the appearance of a fabulous complex sunspot region and then with a plethora of solar flares. On the 14th May, yet another was released, this time an X8.7 class flare from the same complex sunspot regions. It was significantly more powerful than the flare that set off the aurora displays which enchanted much of the planet but alas it was not pointing toward the Earth (  sad emoji face.) Even though it was not directed at us, it could still disrupt communications and electronics but is a reminder that the Sun, whilst is on its way to solar maximum still has lots to give.

Europa has always held a fascination to me. I think it’s the concept of a world with a sub-surface ocean and the possibility of life that has inspired me and many others. In September 2022, NASAs Juno spacecraft made a flyby, coming within 355 kilometres of the surface. Since the encounter, scientists have been exploring the images and have identified regions where brine may have bubbled to the surface. Other images revealed possible, previously unidentified steep-walled depressions up to 50km wide, this could be caused by a free-floating ocean! 

The tension between quantum mechanics and relativity has long been a central split in modern-day physics. Developing a theory of quantum gravity remains one of the great outstanding challenges of the discipline. And yet, no one has yet been able to do it. But as we collect more data, it shines more light on the potential solution, even if some of that data happens to show negative results.

NASA’s Juno spacecraft spies a tiny inner moon of Jupiter, Amalthea.

Despite the vast distance between us and Saturn’s gleaming moon Enceladus, the icy ocean moon is a prime target in our search for life. It vents water vapour and large organic molecules into space through fissures in its icy shell, which is relatively thin compared to other icy ocean moons like Jupiter’s Europa. Though still out of reach, scientific access to its ocean is not as challenging as on Europa, which has a much thicker ice shell.

Astronomers were surprised in 1937 when a star in a binary pair suddenly brightened by 1,000 times. The pair is called FU Orionis (FU Ori), and it’s in the constellation Orion. The sudden and extreme variability of one of the stars has resisted a complete explanation, and since then, FU Orionis has become the name for other stars that exhibit similar powerful variability.

Planetary scientists perk up whenever methane is mentioned. Methane is produced by living things on Earth, so it’s considered to be a potential biosignature elsewhere. In recent years, MSL Curiosity detected methane coming from the surface of Gale Crater on Mars. So far, nobody’s successfully explained where it’s coming from.

Mention the Milky Way and most people will visualise a great big spiral galaxy billions of years old. It’s thought to be a galaxy that took shape billions of years after the Big Bang. Studies by astronomers have revealed that there are the echo’s of an earlier time around us. A team of astronomers from MIT have found three ancient stars orbiting the Milky Way’s halo. The team think these stars formed when the Universe was around a billion years old and that they were once part of a smaller galaxy that was consumed by the Milky Way. 

If you watch astronauts in space then you will know how they seem to float around their spaceship. Spaceships in orbit around the Earth are in free-fall, constantly falling toward surface fo the Earth with the surface constantly falling away from it. Any occupant is also in free-fall but living like this causes muscle tone to degrade slowly. One solution is to generate artificial gravity through acceleration in particular a rotating motion. A new paper makes the case for a rotating space station and goes so far that it is achievable now. 

When stars exhaust their hydrogen fuel at the end of their main sequence phase, they undergo core collapse and shed their outer layers in a supernova. Whereas particularly massive stars will collapse and become black holes, stars comparable to our Sun become stellar remnants known as “white dwarfs.” These “dead stars” are extremely compact and dense, having mass comparable to a star but concentrated in a volume about the size of a planet. Despite being prevalent in our galaxy, the chemical makeup of these stellar remnants has puzzled astronomers for years.

We have discovered over 5,000 planets around other star systems. Amongst the veritable cosmic menagerie of exoplanets, it seems there is a real shortage of Neptune-sized planets close to their star. A new paper just published discusses a Saturn-sized planet close to its host star which should be experiencing mass loss, but isn’t. Studying this world offers a new insight into exoplanet formation across the Universe. 

Gravitational wave astronomy has been one of the hottest new types of astronomy ever since the LIGO consortium officially detected the first gravitational wave (GW) back in 2016. Astronomers were excited about the number of new questions that could be answered using this sensing technique that had never been considered before. But a lot of the nuance of the GWs that LIGO and other detectors have found in the 90 gravitational wave candidates they have found since 2016 is lost. 

The TRAPPIST-1 solar system generated a swell of interest when it was observed several years ago. In 2016, astronomers using the Transiting Planets and Planetesimals Small Telescope (TRAPPIST) at La Silla Observatory in Chile detected two rocky planets orbiting the red dwarf star, which took the name TRAPPIST-1. Then, in 2017, a deeper analysis found another five rocky planets.

I can remember when Perseverance was launched, travelled out into the Solar System and landed on Mars in February 2021.  In all the time since it arrived, having clocked up 1000 days of exploration, it has collected 23 samples from different geological areas within the Jezero Crater. The area was once home to an ancient lake and if there is anywhere on Mars to find evidence of ancient (fossilised) life, it is here. 

Back in the year 2000, Epsilon Eridani b was discovered. It is a Jupiter-like exoplanet 10.5 light years away but it has taken decades of observations to learn more about the planet. One thing that remains a mystery is it’s orbit which, until recently has been unknown. There has never been a direct image of the planet either, so now, it’s the turn of JWST to see what it can do. 

Primordial Black Holes (PBHs) have recently received much attention in the physics community. One of the primary reasons is the potential link to dark matter. In effect, if PBHs can be proven to exist, there’s a very good chance that they are what dark matter, the invisible thing that makes up 85% of the universe’s mass, is made of. If proven, that would surely be a Nobel-level discovery in astrophysics. 

We already know that water has existed on the surface of Mars but for how long? Curiosity has been searching for evidence for the long term presence of water on Mars and now, a team of researchers think they have found it. The rover has been exploring the Gale Crater and found it contains high concentrations of Manganese. The mineral doesn’t form easily on Mars so the team think it may have formed as deposits in an ancient lake. It is interesting too that life on Earth helps the formation of Manganese so its presence on Mars is a mystery.

“A dream come true.”
“I never expected this!”
“The most amazing light show I’ve ever seen in my life!”
“Once in a lifetime!”
“No doubt, this weekend will be remembered as ‘that weekend.’”

In February 2022, SpaceX and entrepreneur/philanthropist Jared Isaacman (commander of the Inspiration4 mission) announced they were launching a new program to “rapidly advance human spaceflight capabilities” while supporting important charitable and humanitarian causes here on Earth. It’s called the Polaris Program. In a recent press release, SpaceX revealed the spacesuits its Polaris astronauts will be wearing (up top) and described the research crews will conduct during the program’s three human spaceflight missions – the first of which is scheduled to launch this summer!

Within the last five years, astronomers have discovered a new type of astronomical phenomenon that exists on vast scales – larger than whole galaxies. They’re called ORCs (odd radio circles), and they look like giant rings of radio waves expanding outwards like a shockwave. Until now, ORCs had never been observed in any wavelength other than radio, but according to a new paper released on April 30 2024, astronomers have captured X-rays associated with an ORC for the first time.

Supermassive black holes are central to the dynamics and evolution of galaxies. They play a role in galactic formation, stellar production, and possibly even the clustering of dark matter. Almost every galaxy has a supermassive black hole, which can make up a small fraction of a galaxy’s mass in nearby galaxies. While we know a great deal about these gravitational monsters, one question that has lingered is just how supermassive black holes gained mass so quickly.