Space News & Blog Articles

Mars’ ancient climate is one of our Solar System’s most perplexing mysteries. The planet was once wet and warm; now it’s dry and cold. Whatever befell the planet, it didn’t happen all at once.

If I ask you to picture a radio telescope, you probably imagine a large dish pointing to the sky, or even an array of dish antennas such as the Very Large Array. What you likely don’t imagine is something that resembles a TV dish in your neighbor’s backyard. With modern electronics, it is relatively easy to build your own radio telescope. To understand out how it can be done, check out a recent paper by Jack Phelps.

The Hubble Space Telescope was carried to space inside the space shuttle Discovery and then released into low-Earth orbit. The James Webb Space Telescope was squeezed inside the nose cone of an Ariane 5 rocket and then launched. It deployed its mirror and shade on its way to its home at the Sun-Earth L2 Lagrange point.

In 1963, the Arecibo Observatory became operational on the island of Puerto Rico. Measuring 305 meters (~1000 ft) in diameter, Arecibo’s spherical reflector dish was the largest radio telescope in the world at the time – a record it maintained until 2016 with the construction of the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) in China. In December 2020, Arecibo’s reflector dish collapsed after some of its support cables snapped, leading the National Science Foundation (NSF) to decommission the Observatory.

One thing we’ve learned in recent decades is that exoplanets are surprisingly common. So far, we’ve confirmed nearly 6,000 planets, and we have evidence for thousands more. Most of these planets were discovered using the transit method. though we there are other methods as well. Many stars are known to have multiple planets, such as the TRAPPIST-1 system with seven Earth-sized worlds. But even within known planetary systems there could be planets we’ve overlooked. Perhaps their orbit doesn’t pass in front of the star from our vantage point, or the evidence of their presence is buried in data noise. How might we find them? A recent paper on the arXiv has an interesting approach.

Nine years ago, Blue Origin revealed the plans for their New Glenn rocket, a heavy-lift vehicle with a reusable first stage that would compete with SpaceX for orbital flights. Since that time, SpaceX has launched hundreds of rockets, while Blue Origin has been working mostly in secret on New Glenn. Last week, the company rolled out the first prototype of the first-stage booster to the launch complex at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. If all goes well, we could see a late November test on the launch pad.

When we think of exoplanets that may be able to support life, we hone in on the habitable zone. A habitable zone is a region around a star where planets receive enough stellar energy to have liquid surface water. It’s a somewhat crude but helpful first step when examining thousands of exoplanets.

Black holes are real. We see them throughout the cosmos, and have even directly imaged the supermassive black hole in M87 and our own Milky Way. We understand black holes quite well, but the theoretical descriptions of these cosmic creatures still have nagging issues. Perhaps the most famous issue is that of the singularity. According to the classical model of general relativity, all the matter that forms a black hole must be compressed into an infinite density, enclosed within a sphere of zero volume. We assume that somehow quantum physics will avert this problem, though without a theory of quantum gravity, we aren’t sure how. But the singularity isn’t the only infinite problem. Take, for example, the strange boundary known as the Cauchy horizon.

On November 26th, 2018, NASA’s Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy, and Heat Transport (InSight) mission landed on Mars. This was a major milestone in Mars exploration since it was the first time a research station had been deployed to the surface to probe the planet’s interior. One of the most important instruments InSight would use to do this was the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP3) developed by the German Aerospace Center (DLR). Also known as the Martian Mole, this instrument measured the heat flow from deep inside the planet for four years.

Many people think of the James Webb Space Telescope as a sort of Hubble 2. They understand that the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) has served us well but is now old, and overdue for replacement. NASA seems to agree, as they have not sent a maintenance mission in over fifteen years, and are already preparing to wind down operations. But a recent paper argues that this is a mistake. Despite its age, HST still performs extremely well and continues to produce an avalanche of valuable scientific results. And given that JWST was never designed as a replacement for HST — it is an infrared (IR) telescope) — we would best be served by operating both telescopes in tandem, to maximize coverage of all observations.

The gravitational field of a rotating black hole is powerful and strange. It is so powerful that it warps space and time back upon itself, and it is so strange that even simple concepts such as motion and rotation are turned on their heads. Understanding how these concepts play out is challenging, but they help astronomers understand how black holes generate such tremendous energy. Take, for example, the concept of frame dragging.

According to the United Nations, the world produces about 430 million metric tons (267 U.S. tons) of plastic annually, two-thirds of which are only used for a short time and quickly become garbage. What’s more, plastics are the most harmful and persistent fraction of marine litter, accounting for at least 85% of total marine waste. This problem is easily recognizable due to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and the amount of plastic waste that washes up on beaches and shores every year. Unless measures are taken to address this problem, the annual flow of plastic into the ocean could triple by 2040.

Space-based telescopes are remarkable. Their view isn’t obscured by the weather in our atmosphere, and so they can capture incredibly detailed images of the heavens. Unfortunately, they are quite limited in mirror size. As amazing as the James Webb Space Telescope is, its primary mirror is only 6.5 meters in diameter. Even then, the mirror had to have foldable components to fit into the launch rocket. In contrast, the Extremely Large Telescope currently under construction in northern Chile will have a mirror more than 39 meters across. If only we could launch such a large mirror into space! A new study looks at how that might be done.

Voyager 1 was launched waaaaaay back in 1977. I would have been 4 years old then! It’s an incredible achievement that technology that was built THAT long ago is still working. Yet here we are in 2024, Voyager 1 and 2 are getting older. Earlier this week, NASA had to turn off one of the radio transmitters on Voyager 1. This forced communication to rely upon the low-power radio. Alas technology around 50 years old does sometimes glitch and this was the result of a command to turn on a heater. The result was that Voyager 1 tripped into fault protection mode and switch communications! Oops. 

Think of the Moon and most people will imagine a barren world pockmarked with craters. The same is likely true of Mars albeit more red in colour than grey! The Earth too has had its fair share of craters, some of them large but most of the evidence has been eroded by centuries of weathering. Surprisingly perhaps, Venus, the second planet from the Sun does not have the same weathering processes as we have on Earth yet there are signs of impact craters, but no large impact basins! A team of astronomers now think they have secured a new view on the hottest planet in the Solar System and revealed the missing impact sites. 

Neutron stars are extraordinarily dense objects, the densest in the Universe. They pack a lot of matter into a small space and can squeeze several solar masses into a radius of 20 km. When two neutron stars collide, they release an enormous amount of energy as a kilonova.

Perhaps the greatest tool astronomers have is the ability to look backward in time. Since starlight takes time to reach us, astronomers can observe the history of the cosmos by capturing the light of distant galaxies. This is why observatories such as the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) are so useful. With it, we can study in detail how galaxies formed and evolved. We are now at the point where our observations allow us to confirm long-standing galactic models, as a recent study shows.

The discovery of the accelerated expansion of the Universe has often been attributed to the force known as dark energy. An intriguing new theory was put forward last year to explain this mysterious force; black holes could be the cause of dark energy! The theory goes on to suggest as more black holes form in the Universe, the stronger the pressure from dark energy. A survey from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) seems to support the theory. The data from the first year of operation shows the density of dark energy increases over time and seems to correlate with the number and mass of black holes! 

It was 1969 that humans first set foot on the Moon. Back then, the Apollo mission was the focus of the attempts to land on the Moon but now, over 50 years on, it looks like we are set to head back. The Artemis project is the program that hopes to take us back to the Moon again and it’s going from strength to strength. The plan is to get humans back on the Moon by 2025 as part of Artemis III. As a prelude to this, NASA is now turning its attention to the possible landing sites. 

China has a fabulously rich history when it comes to space travel and was among the first to experiment in rocket technology. The invention of the rocket is often attributed to the Sung Dynasty (AD 960-1279.) Since then, China has been keen to develop and build its own space industry. The Chinese National Space Administration has already successfully landed probes on the Moon but is preparing for their first human landers. Chinese astronauts are sometimes known as taikonauts and CNSA has just confirmed their fourth batch of taikonauts are set for a lunar landing. 

In a few years, as part of the Artemis Program, NASA will send the “first woman and first person of color” to the lunar surface. This will be the first time astronauts have set foot on the Moon since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972. This will be followed by the creation of permanent infrastructure that will allow for regular missions to the surface (once a year) and a “sustained program of lunar exploration and development.” This will require spacecraft making regular trips between the Earth and Moon to deliver crews, vehicles, and payloads.