The New Zealand Astrophotography Competition showcases and recognizes some of the most stunning images of the southern hemisphere’s night sky. This year, photographers from across New Zealand have captured some incredibly breathtaking skyscapes such as amazing auroras, stunning images of our Solar System, and deep-sky marvels.
At the centre of most galaxies are supermassive black holes. When they are ‘feeding’ they blast out jets of material with associated radiation that can outshine the rest of the galaxy. These are known as quasars and they are usually found in regions where huge quantities of gas exist. However, a recent study found a higher than expected number of quasars that are alone in the Universe. These loners are not surrounded by galaxies nor a supply of gas. The question therefore remains, how are they shining so brightly.
An 11-page document that’s attributed to a Pentagon whistleblower has provided new cases in the controversy over unidentified anomalous phenomena — also known as UAPs, unidentified flying objects or UFOs.
One of the most challenging aspects of astrobiology and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) is anticipating what life and extraterrestrial civilizations will look like. Invariably, we have only one example of a planet that supports life (Earth) and one example of a technologically advanced civilization (humanity) upon which to base our theories. As for more advanced civilizations, which statistically seems more likely, scientists are limited to projections of our own development. However, these same projections offer constraints on what SETI researchers should search for and provide hints about our future development.
Navigating the harsh terrain of other rocky worlds has consistently been challenging. The Free Spirit campaign unfortunately failed in its goal to will the plucky Martian rover out of the morass it found itself in, despite two years of continual effort from some of the world’s best engineers. To combat this difficulty, other engineers have turned to alternative propulsion methods, and a team of researchers in the EU have done just that for their work on an autonomous mining robot. They decided to use an Archimedes screw as their primary propulsion method.
Mars has been a fascination to us for centuries. Early observations falsely gave impressions of an intelligent civilisation but early visiting probes revealed a stark, desolate world. Underneath the surface is a few metres of water ice and a recent study by NASA suggests sunlight could reach the layer. If it does, it may allow photosynthesis in the meltwater. On Earth this actually happened and biologists have found similar pools teeming with life.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab has announced a second round of layoffs for 2024, this time laying off 325 people – about 5% of its workforce. The announcement was made on Nov. 12 in a memo sent to employees, which notes the layoffs could have been even larger. The last cut was made this past February, when 530 employees were let go. Part of the issues which forced the layoffs comes from the the possible cancelation of the Mars Sample Return mission. With the October 2024 launch of Europa Clipper, JPL doesn’t have a flagship mission in the pipeline right now.
Will we ever understand how life got started on Earth? We’ve learned much about Earth’s long, multi-billion-year history, but a detailed understanding of how the planet’s atmospheric chemistry evolved still eludes us. At one time, Earth was atmospherically hostile, and its transition from that state to a planet teeming with life followed a complex path.
There is a region of the sky where astronomers fear to look. Filled with dark clouds of dust, it hides an unseen mass. A mass so large it is pulling the Milky Way and other galaxies toward it…
Filmmakers love New Zealand. Its landscapes evoke other worlds, which explains why so much of The Lord of the Rings was filmed there. The country has everything from long, subtropical sandy beaches to active volcanoes.
The theory goes that black holes accrete material, often from nearby stars. However the theory also suggests there is a limit to how big a black hole can grow due to accretion and certainly shouldn’t be as large as they are seen to be in the early Universe. Black holes it seems, are fighting back and don’t care about those limits! A recent study shows that supermassive black holes are growing at rates that defy the limits of current theory. Astronomers just need to figure out how they’re doing it!
Eventually, every stellar civilization will have to migrate to a different star. The habitable zone around all stars changes as they age. If long-lived technological civilizations are even plausible in our Universe, migration will be necessary, eventually.
Putting humans on Mars has been one of NASA’s driving missions for years, but they are still in the early stages of deciding what exactly that mission architecture will look like. One major factor is where to get the propellant to send the astronauts back to Earth. Advocates of space exploration often suggest harvesting the necessary propellant from Mars itself – some materials can be used to create liquid oxygen and methane, two commonly used propellants. To support this effort, a group from NASA’s COMPASS team detailed several scenarios of the infrastructure and technologies it would take to make an in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) system that could provide enough propellant to get astronauts back to a Mars orbit where they could meet up with an Earth return vehicle. However, there are significant challenges to implementing such a system, and they must be addressed before the 8-9-year process of getting the system up and running can begin.
Rarely does something get developed which is a real game changer in space exploration. One example is the Skylon reusable single-stage-to-orbit spaceplane. Powered by the hypersonic SABRE engine it operates like a jet engine at low altitude and more like a conventional rocket at high altitude. Sadly, ‘Reaction Engines’ the company that designs the engines has filed for bankruptcy.
The dream of traversing the depths of space and planting the seed of human civilization on another planet has existed for generations. For long as we’ve known that most stars in the Universe are likely to have their own system of planets, there have been those who advocated that we explore them (and even settle on them). With the dawn of the Space Age, this idea was no longer just the stuff of science fiction and became a matter of scientific study. Unfortunately, the challenges of venturing beyond Earth and reaching another star system are myriad.
Supermassive Black Holes (SMBHs) can have billions of solar masses, and observational evidence suggests that all large galaxies have one at their centres. However, the JWST has revealed a foundational cosmic mystery. The powerful space telescope, with its ability to observe ancient galaxies in the first billion years after the Big Bang, has shown us that SMBHs were extremely massive even then. This contradicts our scientific models explaining how these behemoths became so huge.
A town in the Austrian Alps might not seem like the most conducive place to come up with daring space missions. But, for the last 40 years, students and professors have been gathering to do just that in Alpbach, just north of the Lichtenstein/Austrian border. One outcome of the Alpbach Summer School this year was an idea for a combined Neptune / Triton explorer mission to take advantage of existing technology developed for the JUICE missions. Before we get into the technical details of the mission, though, let’s dive into why scientists should care about the Neptunian system in the first place.
Climate change is a huge topic and often debated across the world. We continue to burn fossil fuels and ignore our charge toward human driven climate change but while our behaviour never seems to improve, something else does! For the last few decades we have been pumping chlorofluorocarbons into the atmosphere causing a hole in the ozone layer to form. Thanks largely to worldwide regulation changes and a reduction in the use of these chemicals, the hole it seems is finally starting to get smaller.
One of the most difficult challenges when assembling a telescope is aligning it to optical precision. If you don’t do it correctly, all your images will be fuzzy. This is particularly challenging when you assemble your telescope in space, as the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) demonstrates.
Astronauts on the International Space Station generate their share of garbage, filling up cargo ships that then deorbit and burn up in the atmosphere. Now Sierra Space has won a contract to build a trash compactor for the space station. The device will compact space trash by 75% in volume and allow water and other gases to be extracted for reclamation. The resulting garbage blocks are easily stored and could even be used as radiation shielding on long missions.
All Rights Reserved. 2025. SpaceZE.com
