As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.

space

SPACE: Did A Neutron Star Collision Shower Early Earth With Elements Crucial for Life?

by
neutron star collision - NASA

Two astronomers think they’ve pinpointed the ancient stellar collision that gave our solar system its cache of precious gold and platinum — some of it, anyway. In a new study published May 1 in the journal Nature, the duo analyzed the remnants of radioactive isotopes, or versions of molecules with different numbers of neutrons, in a very old meteorite. Then, they compared those values with isotope ratios produced by a computer simulation of neutron star mergers — cataclysmic stellar collisions that can cause ripples in the fabric of space-time. The researchers found that a single neutron star collision, starting about … Read more

SPACE: Hubble Finds Buckyballs in Space

by
buckyball - pixabay

The Hubble Space Telescope recently spied new evidence of a peculiar molecule: wiggly buckyballs, which have intrigued astrophysicists since they were discovered in space nearly a decade ago. Dubbed Buckminsterfullerene, these supersize molecules are made of 60 carbon atoms linked together in pentagons and hexagons to form a hollow sphere. The shape of these structures is much like a soccer ball, or like the geodesic domes designed by 20th-century architect Richard Buckminster Fuller (the inspiration for the molecule’s name). Buckyballs were first spotted in space in the form of a gas in 2010, and then as particles in 2012. And … Read more

SPACE: Soar Through the Heart of a Supernova

by

When the universe’s largest stars run out of fuel and die, they explode in technicolor tsunamis of gas and dust that can stretch on into space for dozens of light-years. To see the full array of cosmic colors left behind by a star gone supernova, you generally need some pretty sophisticated telescopes capable of seeing light beyond the visible spectrum. But today, you can grab a front-row seat to those cosmic pyrotechnics by clicking over to this new 3D simulation released by the Smithsonian. The interactive, 360-degree graphic allows armchair astronauts to navigate through the heart of a supernova remnant … Read more

SPACE: The Moon is Totally Cracked

by

Is the moon all it’s cracked up to be? Yes — and then some. New analysis of the lunar surface reveals that it’s far more fractured than once thought. Since the moon formed 4.3 billion years ago, asteroid impacts have scarred its face with pits and craters. But the damage goes far deeper than that, with cracks extending to depths of 12 miles (20 kilometers), researchers recently reported. Though the moon’s craters have been well-documented, scientists previously knew little about the upper region of the moon’s crust, the megaregolith, which sustained the bulk of the damage from space rock bombardment. … Read more

SPACE: How Did the Moon Get There?

by

Nearly 50 years since man first walked on the moon, the human race is once more pushing forward with attempts to land on the Earth’s satellite. This year alone, China has landed a robotic spacecraft on the far side of the moon, while India is close to landing a lunar vehicle, and Israel continues its mission to touch down on the surface, despite the crash of its recent venture. NASA meanwhile has announced it wants to send astronauts to the moon’s south pole by 2024. But while these missions seek to further our knowledge of the moon, we are still … Read more

NASA Probe Captures Amazing Images of Asteroid

by
Bennu

You’ve never seen an asteroid like this before. This technicolor marvel is a compilation of more than 11 million measurements of an asteroid called Bennu, all gathered by a NASA probe called OSIRIS-REx. That spacecraft arrived in December and since then has been conducting a carefully planned survey of the space rock. The 3-dimensional view is based on data gathered in February and shows the surface height of Bennu, with a nearly 200-foot (60-meter) difference in height between the lowland dark blue areas and the red peaks. Now, the spacecraft has just entered a phase called the Detailed Survey: Equatorial … Read more

SPACE: Titan Might Have Phantom Lakes and Caves

by
Titan's Moon - NASA

Picture a world where rain falls, gathers in lakes and ponds, seeps into the surrounding rock, and evaporates away, only to fall again. There’s just one catch: The world is Saturn’s moon, Titan, where the rain isn’t water; it’s liquid methane. Two new papers explore how this eerily familiar, waterless “water cycle” manifests on Titan’s surface. To do so, two separate research teams turned to data from the Cassini mission, which ended its stay at the Saturn system in September 2017. The spacecraft flew past the massive moon more than 100 times, gathering crucial observations of this strange world as … Read more

SPACE: The Sun is Belching at Us

by
solar burps

The sun’s corona constantly breathes wispy strings of hot, charged particles into space — a phenomenon we call the solar wind. Every now and then, however, those breaths become full-blown burps. Perhaps as often as once every hour or two, according to a study in the February issue of the journal JGR: Space Physics, the plasma underlying the solar wind grows significantly hotter, becomes noticeably denser, and it pops out of the sun in rapid-fire orbs of goo capable of engulfing entire planets for minutes or hours at a time. Officially, these solar burps are called periodic density structures, but … Read more

SPACE: Japan Copper Bombs an Asteroid

by

A Japanese spacecraft deployed a heavy, explosive-packed copper plate toward the asteroid Ryugu in an attempt to create an artificial crater last night (April 4), but it’s still unclear how the dramatic operation went. The Hayabusa2 spacecraft, which has been studying the 3,000-foot-wide (900 meters) Ryugu up close since last June, released a 4.4-lb. (2 kilograms) hunk of copper late last night, along with a camera known as DCAM3 to record this “Small Carry-on Impactor” (SCI) operation. “The spacecraft state is normal and it was confirmed that the evacuation operation, the separation of the SCI and DCAM3 went as planned. The … Read more

SPACE: Scientists Detect Starquakes On Distant Sun

by
sun quakes - pixabay

A NASA space observatory called TESS has, for the first time, detected a planet orbiting a star with visible starquakes. That’s a big deal, both because it shows the capabilities of the newly active TESS planet-hunting satellite and because it allowed astronomers to precisely characterize a newfound “hot Saturn.” That exoplanet revealed itself to cameras on TESS (short for Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite). “This is the first bucketful of water from the fire hose of data we’re getting from TESS,” Steve Kawaler, a professor of astronomy at Iowa State University and co-author of a paper on the new research, said … Read more