In October 2023, NASA launched its long-awaited on-again, off-again Psyche mission. The spacecraft is on its way to study the metal-rich asteroid 16-Psyche, an M-type asteroid that could be the remnant core of a planetesimal that suffered a collision long ago. But understanding the giant, metal-rich asteroid isn’t the Psyche mission’s only goal.
On Earth, there is a phenomenon known as nightglow, where the atmosphere experiences faint light emissions that prevent the night sky from becoming completely dark. This is caused by various processes in the upper atmosphere, like the recombination of atoms, cosmic rays striking the atmosphere, or oxygen and nitrogen interacting with hydroxyl a few hundred kilometers from the surface. Thanks to data obtained by the ESA’s ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO), the same phenomenon has been observed in the Martian atmosphere for the first time.
In September 2022, an automated sky survey detected what seemed to be a supernova explosion about one billion light-years away. The Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) spotted it and gave it the name AT2022tsd. But something was different about this supernova. Supernovae explode and shine brightly for months, while AT2022tsd exploded brightly and then faded within days.
Twenty-two light-years away, a rocky world orbits a red dwarf. It’s called LTT 1445Ac, and NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) found it in 2022. However, TESS was unable to gauge the small planet’s size.
I cannot for the life of me remember when it was or what it was but a fair few years ago I remember positioning a telescope to observe an asteroid as it silently and perhaps slightly eerily drifted between us and the Moon. I say eerily as this asteroid had the ability to cause widespread damage had it hit but of course we knew it posed no threat. I remember at the time thinking it was mind blowing that even today, we still use mathematics with roots (pardon the pun) centuries old to calculate the position of objects in our Solar System. We get to see evidence of this again on 12th December when something rare happens!
Our Solar System’s ice giants, Uranus and Neptune, have been largely left out of the planetary probe game. While all of the other planets—including even the demoted Pluto—have been the subjects of dedicated missions, the ice giants have not. In fact, the only spacecraft to ever even fly by Uranus and Neptune was Voyager 2 in the late 1980s.
Everyone knows that the James Webb Space Telescope is a ground-breaking infrared space telescope that’s helping us better understand the cosmos. The JWST’s discerning infrared eyes are deepening our understanding of everything from exoplanets to primitive galaxies to the birth of stars.
In the very early universe, physics was weird. A process known as “inflation,” where best we understand the universe went from a single infinitesimal point to everything we see today, was one such instance of that weird physics. Now, scientists from the Chinese Academy of Science have sifted through 15 years of pulsar timing data in order to put some constraints on what that physics looks like.
We’re inching closer and closer to reliably detecting biosignatures on distant planets. Much of the focus is on determining which chemicals indicate life’s presence.
For years, people noticed strange features on the Moon dubbed “Lunar Swirls.” They’re bright regions that appear to be concentrations of lighter-colored material on the surface. It turns out that interactions between the solar wind and magnetic regions on the Moon may play a role at two sites.
On November 2, Virgin Galactic flew Unity 2 on the Galactic 05 mission. It carried two scientists, a private tourist, and an astronaut trainer on a sub-orbital trip flown by Pilots Mike Massuci and Kelly Latimer. It was the company’s sixth successful flight in six months and the last for 2023.
The JWST has delivered a breakthrough in planetary science. Its observations show that a long-proposed theory of planet formation is true. Up until now, thick veils of dust in young solar systems have obscured the evidence.
In the next decade, NASA, China, and their international and commercial partners plan to establish habitats on the Moon. Through the Artemis Program, NASA will deploy the orbiting Lunar Gateway and the Artemis Base Camp on the lunar surface. Meanwhile, China (and its partner Roscosmos) will deploy the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS), consisting of an orbital and surface element. The creation of this infrastructure will enable a “sustained program of lunar exploration and development” that could lead to a permanent human presence there.
Japan has embarked on an exciting new lunar program that will test automated remote construction machinery for the Moon. In 2021, representatives from the Kajima Corporation, the National Research and Development Agency, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), and the Shibaura Institute of Technology announced they would be working with the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism (MLIT) to develop a next-generation construction system (A4CSEL®) that will enable the creation of lunar infrastructure.
Two recent asteroid discoveries made by an amateur astronomer highlight what is possible, with access to the right equipment.
In 2023, amateur astronomer Dana Patchick was looking through images from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer archive and discovered a diffuse, circular object in the constellation of Cassiopeia. He found this apparent nebula was interesting because it was bright in the infrared portion of the spectrum, but virtually invisible in the colors of light visible to our eyes. Dana added this item to the database of the Deep Sky Hunters amateur astronomers group, believing it was a planetary nebula – the quiet remnant of stars in mass similar to the sun. He named it PA 30.
You might be familiar with the bizarre ritual of the female praying mantis which, I’m told, bites off the head and eats other body parts of the poor male they just mated with. It seems consuming partners is not unheard of. It’s even seen in the lives of stars where binary stars orbit one another closely and one star ultimately consumes the other. If the victim is a neutron star a burst of neutrinos can be generated and a new study reveals they might just be detectable on Earth.
Space exploration should never be run of the mill nor something that finds itself on the back pages of the newspaper. Captain James T. Kirk was right that space really is the final frontier and making it more accessible is one of the driving forces behind SpaceX. Their mission to seek out new life and new civilisations, wait that’s wrong – that’s Starfleet. The SpaceX mission ‘to revolutionise space technology, with the ultimate goal of enabling people to live on other planets is at the forefront of the development of the enormous Starship which may make another launch attempt as soon as this Friday 17th November.
Entropy is one of those fearsomely deep concepts that form the core of entire fields of physics (in this case, thermodynamics) that is unfortunately so mathematical that it’s difficult to explain in plain language. But we will give it a try. Whenever I see the word entropy, I like to replace it with the phrase “counting the number of ways that I can rearrange a scenario while leaving it largely the same.” That’s a bit of a mouthful, I agree, and so entropy will have to do.
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