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73 Articles

MYSTERIES OF THE UNIVERSE SOLVING THE SUN’S BURNING MYSTERY

Walk carefully over to a fire and you’ll find it gets hotter the closer you get. As you walk away you start to feel cooler again. But if you were to do that at the surface of the Sun, the opposite would happen. You’d walk away from the intense heat, start to feel cooler and then suddenly begin to feel hot again. Moving far away from this hot source only puts you in the midst of an even hotter upper atmosphere. Although the Sun’s surface burns at a blisteringly hot 6,000 degrees Celsius (10,800 degrees Fahrenheit), the outermost layer of our host star’s atmosphere – which extends thousands of miles above the visible surface – reaches temperatures of around 1 to 2 million degrees Celsius (1.8 to 3.6 million degrees…

MYSTERIES OF THE UNIVERSE SOLVING THE SUN’S BURNING MYSTERY

STUDYING THE SUN

1 Taking samples The Parker Solar Probe was launched in 2018. It flew through the corona to sample particles and magnetic fields in December 2021. There are spikes and valleys that wrinkle the surface. 2 Protection To enable the probe to withstand the extreme heat of nearly 1,377 degrees Celsius (2,500 degrees Fahrenheit), as well as radiation, it has a thick carbon-composite shield. The payload is at near room temperature. 3 Primary goals The probe is tracing how energy and heat move through the corona. It’s also exploring what accelerates the solar wind and solar energetic particles. 4 Comparative study Squire and his team say the structures and eddies forming in their simulation are similar to the measurements being taken by the probe. 5 Instruments The probe’s Electromagnetic Fields Investigation…

STUDYING THE SUN

SLICING UP OUR STAR

1 SOLAR CORE Temperature: Over 15 million degrees Celsius (27 million degrees Fahrenheit) Density: 150 grams per cubic centimetre 2 RADIATIVE ZONE Temperature: 1.9 million degrees Celsius (3.5 million degrees Fahrenheit) Density: From 20 to 0.2 grams per cubic centimetre 3 CONVECTIVE ZONE Temperature: 1.6 million to 5,540 degrees Celsius (3 million to 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit) Density: 2x10-7 grams per cubic centimetre 4 PHOTOSPHERE Temperature: 5,540 degrees Celsius (10,000 degrees Fahrenheit) Density: 10-9 grams per cubic centimetre 5 CHROMOSPHERE Temperature: 5,540 to 20,000 degrees Celsius (10,000 to 36,000 degrees Fahrenheit) Density: 10-12 grams per cubic centimetre 6 TRANSITION ZONE Temperature: 22,200 to 1 million degrees Celsius (40,000 to 1.8 million degrees Fahrenheit) Density: 2x10-13 grams per cubic centimetre 7 CORONA Temperature: 1.1 to 1.6 million degrees Celsius (2 to 3…

SLICING UP OUR STAR

Magnetic waves In 1942, Hannes Alfvén said large amounts of energy could be carried by magnetised waves of plasma from the Sun’s surface to the corona along magnetic fields before bursting with heat. The existence of these waves was confirmed in 2021. Bursts of heat Tiny eruptions called nanoflares occur in the corona; they are one-billionth the size of normal solar flares. One theory by Eugene Parker says these could be keeping the corona hotter than the surface of the Sun. Energy transfer The outer layer of the Sun is in a state of constant turbulence, and it’s known that energy is being transferred outwards from the Sun. But observations show that ions are heated more than electrons, and this theory suggests the opposite would happen. The helicity barrier The…

22 THINGS YOU DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT VENUS

1 VENUS HAS A RICH HISTORY Studies of Venus can be traced back to the ancient Babylonians in 1600 BCE. They tracked the movement of several planets and stars. The oldest astronomical document on record is a Babylonian diary of Venus appearances over a 21-year period. Venus played a serious part in the mythology of ancient civilisations, including the Maya and Greeks. Its name comes from the Roman goddess of love and beauty. 2 THE PRESSURE’S ON Walking around on Venus would be an unbearable experience for astronauts for several reasons, but one of them is the extreme pressures on the surface. The atmosphere creates air pressure that’s over 90 times the air pressure on Earth, which is similar to the pressure around a kilometre (0.6 miles) deep in the…

22 THINGS YOU DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT VENUS

COMPLETE GUIDE TO THE MOON

Because we can easily discern features on the Moon with the naked eye, it’s been a source of wonder to us since ancient times. The Moon is the brightest object in our sky after the Sun, and influences everything from our oceans to our calendars. It’s always been ‘the Moon’ because we didn’t know that there were any others. Once Galileo discovered in 1610 that Jupiter had satellites, we’ve used the word ‘moon’ to describe celestial bodies that orbit larger bodies, which orbit stars. Since the Moon has always been so present it might not seem worth studying, yet there’s a reason why we continue to return to it – we still have plenty to learn from our satellite. “The The Moon is the fifth-largest and second-densest satellite in the…

COMPLETE GUIDE TO THE MOON

Although the Moon may seem like a solid rock, it’s actually differentiated like Earth; it has a core, a mantle and a crust. The Moon’s structure likely came from the fractional crystallisation of a magma ocean that once covered it. This probably happened not long after the Moon was formed, about 4.5 billion years ago. As the magma ocean cooled, its composition changed as the different minerals within the melt crystallised into solids. The denser materials sank, forming the mantle, while less dense materials floated on top and formed the crust. The core is probably very small, with a radius about 20 per cent the total size of the Moon. By contrast, most differentiated celestial bodies have cores about 50 per cent of their total size. The core itself comprises…

THE MAGNETIC FIELD MYSTERY

The Moon has an external magnetic field – it’s less than one-hundredth that of Earth’s magnetic field. It’s not a dipolar magnetic field like Earth, which has a field that radiates from the north and south poles. Researchers believe the Moon once had a dipole magnetic field, created by a dynamo – a convecting liquid core of molten metal. But we aren’t sure what powered that dynamo. It could have worked like Earth’s dynamo. Earth’s dynamo powers itself as elemental radioactive decay maintains convection in the core. The Moon could also have had a dynamo powered by the cooling of elements at the core.…

THE MAGNETIC FIELD MYSTERY

THE MOON BY NUMBERS

400 How many times bigger the Sun is than the Moon. It’s also about 400 times further away from Earth, which is why they look the same size in the sky 29.5 DAYS The length of a lunar month, longer than the amount of time it takes the Moon to orbit Earth because Earth is moving, too 12 The number of people who have set foot on the Moon 3.8 CENTIMETRES The distance the Moon moves away from Earth each year 13 HOURS The amount of time it takes to reach the Moon by rocket 16.6 KILOGRAMS The amount you would weigh on the Moon if you weighed 100 kilograms on Earth…

The landscape of the Moon is dominated by three main features: maria, terrae and craters. The basalt maria appear dark due to their high iron content and are much more prevalent on the near side of the Moon. Other volcanic features on the surface include domes and rilles. Domes are shield volcanoes that are round and wide with gentle slopes, while rilles are twisting sinuous formations caused by channels of flowing lava. The lighter areas on the Moon are called terrae, or lunar highlands. They are made up of anorthosite, the type of igneous rock that dominates the overall crust of the Moon. While this type of rock can be located in some places on Earth, it’s not generally found on the surface due to plate tectonics and deposits. These…

A LUNAR WORLD TOUR

1 Oceanus Procellarum This mare is so large that it was deemed an ocean, covering about 4,000,000 square kilometres (1,500,000 square miles). 2 Luna 9 This site marks the first soft landing of an unmanned spacecraft on the Moon, launched by the Soviet space program on 31 January 1966. 3 Surveyor 1 The first American soft Moon landing happened here, launched on 30 May 1966. 4 Copernicus This crater is well known because it can be easily seen from Earth. It is a younger crater, about 800 million years old, with a prominent system of ejecta rays. 5 Vallis Alpes This lunar valley bisects a mountain range called the Montes Alpes, and extends 166 kilometres (103 miles). 6 Montes Apenninus This mountain range is about 600 kilometres (370 miles) long…

A LUNAR WORLD TOUR

EXPLORING THE MOON: THE PAST

Apollo 11 21 July 1969 NASA astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong became the first humans to set foot on another body in space when they landed on the Moon in 1969. Apollo 12 19 November 1969 The second spacecraft to land on the Moon, Apollo 12, used a Doppler effect radar technique to land the spacecraft within walking distance of the Surveyor 3 probe, which had landed on the lunar surface about two years prior. Apollo 14 5 February 1971 The commander on board the third spacecraft to land on the Moon was Alan Shepard who, a decade earlier on 5 May 1961, had become the second person in space after Yuri Gagarin and the first American as part of the Mercury program. Apollo 15 30 July 1971 NASA…

EXPLORING THE MOON: PRESENT AND FUTURE

Although there hasn’t been a manned mission to the Moon since 1972 and there were no soft landings at all until 1966, we’re still exploring our satellite. Currently the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) is still circling the Moon. It launched on 18 June 2009, and became the first NASA mission to the Moon in more than a decade. The LRO is meant to be a precursor to future manned missions, and was originally designed to spend just a year in orbit. However, the mission was extended several times. It was designed to extensively map the Moon in high resolution, explore the potential of ice in the polar regions, study the deep space radiation, and continue to map the surface of the Moon. The other current NASA mission is ARTEMIS, an…

EXPLORING THE MOON: PRESENT AND FUTURE

EARTH TO THE MOON

1 Launch day Scheduled to launch in 2025, the third Artemis mission and second with crew on board will launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It will be monitored by the nearby Launch Control Center. 2 Entering orbit Once the rocket has taken Orion into orbit, its engines shut down and it will separate from the capsule. These rocket components will fall towards the Pacific Ocean. Orion will then deploy its solar arrays. 3 Trans-lunar injection Having made it into Earth orbit, the Orion vehicle will head to the Moon. During a 20-minute burn, the engines will fire to increase the speed, displacing the spacecraft from its low-Earth orbit. 4 To deep space Set on a precise trajectory, Orion will travel over 384,000 kilometres (239 miles). This needs…

EARTH TO THE MOON

MAIN MISSION OBJECTIVES

Long-term presence Following Apollo 17’s three-day presence on the Moon, Artemis will send astronauts there for weeks. Equality A female astronaut hasn’t set foot on the Moon yet. This mission will demonstrate the increasing role women have played in space missions since the Apollo era. Partnerships NASA has collaborated with private companies such as SpaceX and Boeing. These show space travel’s shift towards commercialisation. Technology NASA is always learning from past missions; the spacecraft and spacesuits have been tailored to the Moon mission, exhibiting the latest in space technology. Knowledge Collecting further information about the lunar surface and deep space, NASA hopes to become better prepared for later missions back to the Moon and further afield. Resources Access to the lunar surface provides the opportunity to search for rare minerals…

MAIN MISSION OBJECTIVES

FOCUS ON WATER ON MARS

Evidence is growing that Mars, now cold and dry, had liquid water running on its surface much more recently than previously thought. Scientists have long believed that Mars was wet around 3 billion years ago, during the planet’s Hesperian period, then lost much of its water. But a new study presents evidence of water activity from just 700 million years ago, well into the current Amazonian period, posing a new puzzle to crack about the Red Planet and its history. The new study is based on data from China’s Zhurong rover, part of the Tianwen-1 mission that touched down on the surface of Mars in May 2021. In particular, the scientists used data the rover gathered during its first 92 Martian days, or sols, at its landing site in Utopia…

FOCUS ON WATER ON MARS

IS JUPITER IS PROTECTING US?

Jupiter is by far the largest planet in the Solar System, containing more than twice as much mass as the rest of the planets put together. As such, its influence on the dynamics of the Solar System is second only to the Sun itself, and it’s often said that Jupiter is the planetary ‘protector’ of Earth. But is that true, and if so, how does it work? To start with, Jupiter isn’t really that close to us. The distance from Earth to the Sun is one astronomical unit (AU), while that between the Sun and Jupiter is much bigger at around 5.2 AU. This means that Jupiter never gets closer to us than 4.2 AU, and it’s often much further away than that. And as big as Jupiter is, it…

IS JUPITER IS PROTECTING US?

JUPITER AND THE ASTEROID BELT

1 Disrupted asteroid belt If Jupiter’s inward migration had continued all the way through the asteroid belt, it would have disrupted Earth’s development so much that it would probably have prevented the emergence of life here. 2 Solar System asteroid belt This shows what actually happened in the Solar System. Although Jupiter did migrate inwards, it stopped outside the main asteroid belt. This allowed the planets further in – Mars, Earth and Venus – to remain stable and undisrupted. 3 Dense asteroid Belt If Jupiter hadn’t migrated inwards at all, far more asteroids would have survived to form a much denser belt. Constant bombardment of the inner planets by these asteroids would probably have prevented life from evolving.…

JUPITER AND THE ASTEROID BELT

WHY WE NEED COMPUTER MODELS

The motion of one body orbiting another, such as a lone planet around a star, has an exact mathematical solution. But that’s not true if other gravitational effects are involved, such as the influence of Jupiter on the orbit of an asteroid. A few stable solutions can be found algebraically, such as the existence of the ‘trojan points’ in the orbit of Jupiter itself, but more general solutions require computer modelling on a case-by-case basis. These solutions are not always stable – they may change slowly over the course of many orbits. For example, Jupiter can disturb the orbit of an asteroid that initially comes nowhere near an inner planet into one that poses a collision threat to it.…

WHY WE NEED COMPUTER MODELS

OTHER PLANETARY SYSTEMS

It’s tempting to think that our Solar System is typical, with the giant planet Jupiter relatively far from the host star, while Earth and other rocky planets are further in, and nothing is closer to the Sun than Mercury. But as NASA researcher Yasuhiro Hasegawa observed in 2020, “that kind of configuration currently seems very rare”. In fact, many exoplanet systems seem to lack anything resembling Jupiter, while so called super-Earths – planets larger than Earth that are much closer to their star than Mercury is to the Sun – appear quite common. It’s possible that such a super-Earth did start to form early in the life of the Solar System, but was then pulled to pieces by Jupiter’s gravity during the grand tack, with most of the debris falling…

OTHER PLANETARY SYSTEMS

JUPITER AND COMETS

As comets fall inwards towards the Sun on highly elongated orbits, they may feel enough of a pull from Jupiter’s gravity to alter their course significantly. This has happened several times to comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, best known as the destination of the Rosetta mission in 2014. Over the course of multiple orbits between 1840 and 1959, its closest approach to the Sun gradually reduced from 4.0 to 1.3 AU – the latter close enough to Earth’s own orbit to be worrying if the inward trend resumes in future. But Jupiter can also have a protective effect by swallowing up comets that get too close to it, as was seen in dramatic fashion in 1994 when the fragments of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, already broken apart by Jupiter’s gravity, crashed one after another…

JUPITER AND COMETS

JUPITER THE DESTROYER?

Using computer simulations, Dr Jonti Horner of the University of Southern Queensland in Australia examined how the presence of Jupiter affects the rate of impacts on Earth for three different types of objects: asteroids, short-period comets and long-period comets. He found that only in the last case was Jupiter’s effect unambiguously beneficial. For asteroids and short-period comets, on the other hand, Jupiter’s presence appeared to increase the collision rate. However, this was relative to the complete absence of a planet-sized object in Jupiter’s orbit, which isn’t necessarily realistic. In models where there is a planet there, but significantly smaller than the real Jupiter, the rate of collisions turned out to be enormous. Jupiter may not be the best-case scenario, but it’s not the worst either.…

JUPITER THE DESTROYER?

FOCUS ON COMETS FADE NEAR SATURN’S ORBIT

When comets first appear near Earth, their bright tails of ionised gas stun observers, but on every return they become dimmer. Astronomers believed that these objects become dimmer on return because they released too much ice and gas during earlier visits to the inner Solar System. The comets melted and shrank because of the Sun’s warmth, so when they return there’s less material left to release, and therefore a fainter coma. But a new study by scientists from the University of Oklahoma found that even comets that only skirt the inner Solar System and remain beyond the orbit of Saturn fade over time. That makes no sense as in those far reaches of the Solar System, the Sun’s light is so weak that it shouldn’t be able to melt a…

FOCUS ON COMETS FADE NEAR SATURN’S ORBIT

COSMIC SNOWBALLS

1 Nucleus Spanning up to tens of kilometres in diameter, a comet nucleus is made up of frozen water, gases such as carbon dioxide and methane, organic molecules and dust. 2 Coma As a comet approaches the Sun its surface sublimates, reducing frozen material into a glowing trail of gas called a coma. 3 Dust tail A red dust tail is formed when solar radiation pressure moves dust particles into a curved tail following the comet. 4 Plasma tail The solar wind interacts with the gaseous coma, ionising particles and pushing them away from the nucleus to create a plasma tail. 5 Kuiper Belt A doughnut-shaped region of space just beyond Neptune that’s filled with millions of icy bodies lying 4.5 to 7.5 billion kilometres (2.7 to 4.6 billion miles)…

COSMIC SNOWBALLS

SECRETS OF THE ICE GIANTS

Uranus and Neptune could be stranger than we once thought. On the surface these two planets – roughly midway in size between Earth and Jupiter – seem unassuming, if different from one another. Uranus is a featureless, pale-azure planet, and Neptune a deep-blue one with white cloud bands and a dark storm system similar to Jupiter’s Great Red Spot. But at heart they may be much more alike, as well as unlike anything we would encounter on Earth. Studies are showing that in terms of chemistry, density, temperature and pressure, the interiors of these worlds have the complexity of a Shakespearean character, and even that they may have actual diamond rain. Although NASA’s pioneering Voyager 2 spacecraft visited both planets in 1986 and 1989, sending back a wealth of images…

SECRETS OF THE ICE GIANTS

1 Hydrogen-helium atmosphere Although by percentage the atmospheric composition of hydrogen and helium is similar to the other giant planets, by mass it’s very low. 2 Silicate iron-nickel core The core is thought to be a rocky, iron-nickel body 0.5 to 3.7 times Earth’s mass. The precise figure is currently unknown due to the difficulty of calculating it. 3 Fluid icy mantle Made of ammonia, water and methane ices, the mantle is the bulk of Uranus’ mass, increasing in temperature and pressure towards the core.…

SEASONS ON URANUS

1 1965 In this year the northern hemisphere of the planet underwent its autumn equinox while the southern half was in spring. During this time there were roughly equal measures of day and night for 21 years. 2 1986 It was back in 1986 that the Voyager 2 spacecraft flew past the ice giant during the northern hemisphere’s winter, which means that the northern hemisphere was plummeted into 21 years of darkness. 3 2007 With the rings edge-on to the Sun, the northern hemisphere’s spring equinox took place around seven years ago. It’s this time of year where there are 21 years of normal days and nights. 4 2028 It’s winter in the southern hemisphere, while the northern hemisphere is treated to the summer solstice. As a result, the northern…

SEASONS ON URANUS

HOW AN ICE GIANT IS MADE

1 Cloud of gas and dust collapses An interstellar cloud of gas and dust, known as a solar nebula, collapsed in on itself and began to spin. Our newborn Sun began to shine in the centre of this spinning disc as the temperatures and pressures triggered thermonuclear fusion. 2 Material comes together Heavier materials in the spinning disc of gas and dust started to form into clumps. Closer to the Sun these materials included rock and iron, but beyond the frost line, which lies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, there were solid ‘ices’ like water, methane and ammonia. 3 Clumps collide and merge Clumps combined through collisions and started to become the building blocks of planets. Over millions of years these planetesimals increased in size through more collisions. The four giant planets beyond…

HOW AN ICE GIANT IS MADE

HOW THE ICE GIANTS’ WEATHER SYSTEMS COMPARE WITH OTHER WORLDS

EARTH Type of rain: Water Average temperature: 16 degrees Celsius (61 degrees Fahrenheit) Day: 24 hours Year: 365 days VENUS Type of rain: Sulphuric acid Average temperature: 462 degrees Celsius (864 degrees Fahrenheit) Day: 116 days Year: 225 days HD 189733 B Type of rain: Glass Average temperature: 843 degrees Celsius (1,549 degrees Fahrenheit) Day: 13 days Year: 2.2 days URANUS Type of rain: Diamond Average temperature: -216 degrees Celsius (-357 degrees Fahrenheit) Day: 17 hours Year: 84.3 years NEPTUNE Type of rain: Diamond Average temperature: -214 degrees Celsius (-353 degrees Fahrenheit) Day: 16 hours Year: 164.8 years OGLE-TR-56B Type of rain: Iron Average temperature: 1,699 degrees Celsius (3,090 degrees Fahrenheit) Day: Unknown Year: 1.2 days TITAN Type of rain: Methane Average temperature: -179 degrees Celsius (-290 degrees Fahrenheit) Day:…

HOW THE ICE GIANTS’ WEATHER SYSTEMS COMPARE WITH OTHER WORLDS

1 Hydrogen-helium atmosphere It has a hydrogen-helium atmosphere, albeit with a more dynamic climate and prominent upper clouds. The nature of the deep-blue colour is unknown. 2 Silicate iron-nickel core Neptune has a rocky iron-nickel core that’s at least as massive as Earth. Pressures at its centre could reach 7 million Earth atmospheres. 3 Fluid icy mantle Neptune’s bulk mass is composed of a mantle made of ammonia, water, methane and other ices. Recent experiments suggest a carbon ocean.…

THE RINGS OF NEPTUNE

1 Galle Galle is 2,000 kilometres (1,240 miles) wide; it orbits Neptune at 41,000 to 43,000 kilometres (25,500 to 26,700 miles). 2 Le Verrier 113 kilometres (70 miles) wide, it orbits 53,200 kilometres (33,000 miles) away. 3 Lassell Lassell is more like a broad dust sheet than a ring, with its orbit around Neptune between 53,200 and 57,200 kilometres (33,000 and 35,500 miles). 4 Arago Arago orbits Neptune at 57,200 kilometres (35,500 miles) and is less than 100 kilometres (62 miles) wide. 5 Adams Adams is 35 kilometres (22 miles) wide and orbits around Neptune at 62,900 kilometres (39,000 miles). 6 Arcs These arcs are the particles of dust clustered together in the Adams ring, named Fraternité, Égalité 1, Égalité 2, Liberté and Courage.…

THE RINGS OF NEPTUNE

MISSIONS TO URANUS AND NEPTUNE

1 Neptune orbiter with probe Launch date: 2030s Mission length: 15 years A minimum 50-kilogram science payload would be required for a mission to Neptune. This would include both the orbiter and probe’s science packages. The orbiter would study Neptune’s moons – particularly Triton, which is a captured Kuiper Belt object. It would also study Neptune’s weather systems, magnetosphere and solar wind particles at this distance. The atmospheric probe would be required to accurately measure the abundance of noble gases, including hydrogen and helium, and other elements. 2 Uranus orbiter only Launch date: 2030s Mission length: 15 years This would weigh three times as much as the other concepts, but carry five times as many instruments. Alongside a narrow-angle camera and instruments for measuring magnetic fields and interior atmospheric structure,…

MISSIONS TO URANUS AND NEPTUNE

COMETS, ASTEROIDS & METEOR SHOWERS

Every 133 years, Comet Swift-Tuttle makes its return to the inner Solar System. It last made an appearance in 1992. Each time it nears the Sun, this speeding ball of ice, rock and dust grows a tail that deposits a glittering trail in its wake. Every year our planet moves through this, causing the dust particles left behind to come crashing through the atmosphere. Most of them are tiny, but as they burn up 100 kilometres (60 miles) above our heads they leave a bright streak of light. We call this a meteor, or ‘shooting star’. The space between the planets and around Earth’s orbit is full of dust, so every night there will be one or two random meteors. When Earth travels through the cloudy trail of dust left…

COMETS, ASTEROIDS & METEOR SHOWERS

253 Mathilde C-type Carbonaceous They’re so dark due to their carbon-black surfaces that even the largest require a telescope to detect. They consist mostly of clay and silicate rocks and account for more than 75 per cent of all asteroids. Most of these ancient space rocks orbit in the outermost regions of the asteroid belt. 433 Eros S-type Stony This class of asteroids orbit the inner asteroid belt and are primarily composed of stony materials, metallic nickel-iron as well as iron and magnesium silicates. S-types are the second most common asteroids and are also among the brightest – some larger examples, such as 7 Iris, can be spotted with binoculars. 21 Lutetia M-type Metallic M-types are pure metal, or mixtures of metal and small amounts of stone, and have originated…

NAMING SPACE ROCKS

1 Meteor shower These occur at the same time every year, when Earth passes through a region that has a large concentration of debris shed from either a comet or an asteroid. From our location on Earth, meteors appear to originate from the same location year after year. 2 Comet These bodies are made of ice, rock, dust and frozen gases. Comets have a nucleus and show off a brilliant tail when they get closer to the Sun. As they disintegrate, some comets leave a trail of solid debris. 3 Meteoroid A small rocky or metallic body that races through space, meteoroids are quite a lot smaller than their larger cousins, asteroids. Lumps of space rock that are even smaller than meteoroids are classified as micrometeoroids, or space dust. 4…

NAMING SPACE ROCKS

CELESTIAL BODIES

Makemake Found around 4.2 billion miles from the Sun, just outside the orbit of Neptune, this dwarf planet is the second-brightest object in the Kuiper Belt – the first being Pluto. Its discovery in 2005 prompted the International Astronomical Union to form a new classification of celestial bodies, called dwarf planets. Haumea Haumea sits in the Kuiper Belt and is one of the fastest rotating large objects in the Solar System. A single day on Haumea is equivalent to four hours on Earth, but due to its proximity to the Sun, one Haumean year is equal to 285 Earth years. This oval-shaped dwarf plane has two moons: Namaka and Hi’iaka. Io Io is one of the most volcanically active bodies in the Solar System. There are hundreds of volcanoes on…

CELESTIAL BODIES

50 AMAZING FACTS ABOUT BLACK HOLES

“As stars age, the fuel eventually starts to run out” 1 MANY BLACK HOLES STARTED LIFE AS STARS Stars spend their entire lifetimes resisting gravitational collapse. Their enormous masses mean that their gas is continually pulled towards their cores, but instead of collapsing down, atoms collide and fuse, releasing explosive atomic energy. Radiation pushes outwards against gravity, holding the star open as a glowing ball of gas. As stars age, more and more of the atoms are fused, creating heavier and heavier elements, and eventually the fuel starts to run out. Without the outwards push, the balance is tipped in favour of gravity and the star begins to collapse. For small stars, such as the Sun, the collapse is incomplete, and repelling forces manage to hold the last glowing embers…

50 AMAZING FACTS ABOUT BLACK HOLES

FOCUS ON X-RAY VIEW SHOWS HOW SUPERMASSIVE BLACK HOLES SPEED UP PARTICLES IN JETS

Peering deep into the heart of a blazar, astronomers have learned how particles are being accelerated to close to the speed of light, racing away in a jet emanating from near the blazar’s monstrous supermassive black hole. Blazars are quasars seen head-on; a quasar is an extremely active galactic nucleus (AGN) that is powered by a black hole accreting vast amounts of matter. The matter circles around the black hole in an accretion disc, where conditions are so extreme that the disc shines at millions of degrees. Tightly entwined magnetic fields wrapped up in the disc are able to funnel away some of the material in tightly collimated jets shooting away from the centre of the accretion disc in either direction. The charged particles in these jets spiral around the…

FOCUS ON X-RAY VIEW SHOWS HOW SUPERMASSIVE BLACK HOLES SPEED UP PARTICLES IN JETS

IS THE UNIVERSE DUE ANOTHER BIG BANG?

Ask any astronomer about the very beginnings of the universe, and they’re likely to describe the Big Bang theory. Some 13.8 billion years ago, they’ll say, the universe was born out of nothing, in an explosion that unleashed the expanding dimensions of space and time, alongside vast amounts of energy. In the moments that followed, most of this energy transformed into the building blocks of matter – subatomic particles of varying mass and complexity, which eventually came together to form simple atoms, and then coalesced to create giant, short-lived stars and the nuclei of the first galaxies. There’s a wealth of evidence to show that the Big Bang theory is broadly correct. For instance, even today the universe is still growing at tremendous speed, with widely separated galaxies and galaxy…

IS THE UNIVERSE DUE ANOTHER BIG BANG?

COSMIC TIME MACHINE

Because even light has a speed limit, powerful telescopes can act as cosmic time machines, allowing astronomers to look back across the history of the Universe. This map from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey charts relatively nearby galaxies and galaxy clusters (yellow) and more distant but bright quasars (red) in terms of their ‘lookback time’ – the amount of time their light has travelled to reach us. Between the most distant quasars and the ‘cosmic dark age’ before galaxies began to form lies the mysterious zone of galaxies whose light has been stretched beyond the visible range – the region now being probed by the Webb.…

COSMIC TIME MACHINE

WHAT CAUSED THE BIRTH OF THE UNIVERSE?

1 There was nothing Strictly speaking, no scientist believes that our universe started from literally nothing. There always has to be something to cause another action to occur. However, many cosmologists are not yet convinced that there was anything before the Big Bang. Lawrence Krauss is one such scientist and he’s developed a theory of ‘quantum nothingness’ from which the universe could have originated. The theory involves so-called ‘virtual particles’, which flit in and out of existence for fractions of a second in empty space. They are predicted by quantum theory and their effects can be observed. Krauss says that if you remove virtual particles from a region of space it still has an energy density – but it shouldn’t. It’s from this form of ‘nothing’ that our universe could’ve…

WHAT CAUSED THE BIRTH OF THE UNIVERSE?

ARE WE IN A ‘BOUNCING UNIVERSE’?

1 Inflation Very early in the current universe, something drove the rapid expansion called inflation. The bouncing universe theory suggests this was the pressure of dark energy, which later diminished in strength. 2 Contracting universe According to the theory, the strength and direction of dark energy can oscillate; in the far future, it could effectively reverse, causing space to contract. 3 Big Crunch As the future universe grows smaller, the strength of dark energy increases rapidly. The universe becomes hot and dense once again, and matter is transformed back into pure energy. 4 A fresh start Before space collapses to a singularity, the effect of dark energy reverses and drives a new burst of inflation – the universe is reborn.…

ARE WE IN A ‘BOUNCING UNIVERSE’?

WHEN STARS GO SUPERNOVA

Place your fingers on your wrist and check your pulse. You can feel the blood pumping around your body, delivering oxygen from your head to your toes. That oxygen is ferried around by trillions of red blood cells, each just 0.008 millimetres across. The element iron plays an indispensable role in this oxygen delivery, but the universe would contain very little iron if it weren’t for a ferocious type of exploding dying star called a supernova. Without supernovae, you simply wouldn’t exist. We often think of the Sun as the quintessential star, but it’s not massive enough to go supernova when it dies. According to Dr Christopher Frohmaier, a supernova researcher at the University of Southampton, to detonate in this most spectacular of celestial firework displays, a star needs a…

WHEN STARS GO SUPERNOVA

Supernovae are reasonably common - about two explode every century in a galaxy like our Milky Way. With hundreds of billions of galaxies to observe, astronomers see them on a regular basis. Usually, they’re far away, meaning astronomers can struggle to see them in detail. Astronomers were handed an astronomical gift in 1987 when a Type II supernova exploded in the Large Magellanic Cloud, one of the satellite galaxies of the Milky Way. At just 168,000 light years away, they could observe never-before-seen features of the explosion. It was the first time that astronomers were able to confirm that radioactive decay is responsible for the visible light we see from core-collapse supernovae, for example. SN 1987A was also pivotal in our understanding of the role that neutrinos play. Several hours…

HOW DO STARS DETONATE?

1 Finding the right stars These supernovae occur when a white dwarf is found in a binary pair with another star. 2 Matter transfer Two stars orbit close enough to each other that matter will transfer from the companion onto a white dwarf star in a process called accretion. 3 Squeezing down This accretion of matter from its companion adds extra mass. The additional gravitational forces compress the already highly pressurised core of the white dwarf. 4 A star reborn As the star approaches the Chandrasekhar limit, the dying star comes to life again and undergoes fusion in its centre. 5 Limited gains However, white dwarfs can only get so massive through accretion. The Chandrasekhar limit puts their maximum size at about 1.4 times the mass of our Sun. 6…

HOW DO STARS DETONATE?

THE VERA C. RUBIN OBSERVATORY

Under construction atop Chile’s Cerro Pachón, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, formerly the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, will survey a huge area of the Southern Hemisphere sky, providing data for a wide range of scientific objectives. For supernova scientists, the value of Rubin comes down to its ability to image the entire sky repeatedly every few nights, and to great depth. This means it could spot hundreds of thousands of new events. Within a minute of each change in the sky, Rubin will alert the community to respond, catching supernovae events before they fade forever. “Spectra really tell you about the underlying astrophysics, so it will unlock a wealth ofinformation”Christopher Frohmaier 1 Large mirror Rubin’s reflecting telescope contains an 8.4-metre (28-foot) primary mirror that can track across at sufficient pace…

THE VERA C. RUBIN OBSERVATORY

FIVE STARS READY TO EXPLODE

Betelgeuse Stellar evolution models suggest it should go supernova anytime in the next 100,000 years, when it will be as bright as the full Moon in the night sky. Even before its recent dimming, Betelgeuse showed the most variation of any progenitors. Antares The red eye of the scorpion in the constellation of Scorpius is due to go supernova in the next million years. With a mass 15 to 18 times that of our Sun, it will be spectacular, though its lack of variability suggests it’s not quite ready yet. Mu Cephei Known as ‘Herschel’s Garnet Star’, it’s further away than Betelgeuse, but double its diameter, and therefore perhaps closer to death. Its supernova would likely produce a black hole while providing a ‘guest star’ as bright as Venus. Eta…

FIVE STARS READY TO EXPLODE

FOCUS ON RELATIVISTIC JETS BUBBLING IN THE TEACUP GALAXY

New research investigates how relativistic jets from a supermassive black hole have been shaping the Teacup Galaxy, giving it its iconic handle. Active galactic nuclei (AGN) are some of the most intense places in the universe, where supermassive black holes are gobbling up matter and spewing out jets that move at almost the speed of light. Astrophysicists know that these relativistic jets shape the galaxies they’re in, stirring up and pushing out material as they shoot out from the central black hole. But not all jets are created equal – some are stronger and drastically change their surroundings by heating up the gas in their galaxies, stunting the galaxies’ growth. Others are weaker, referred to as radio-quiet, but computer simulations suggest that they still have shockingly large effects and an…

FOCUS ON RELATIVISTIC JETS BUBBLING IN THE TEACUP GALAXY

FOCUS ON SUPERNOVA WRECKAGE BLASTS OUT COSMIC RAYS

Some space radiation crashing into Earth has an explosive origin. Astronomers spotted wreckage from a supernova explosion potentially capable of blasting out high-energy particles – or cosmic rays – that frequently bombard Earth. Their new findings link shock waves and wreckage created by dying stars to natural high-energy proton accelerators in space, dubbed PeVatrons. These intriguing cosmic accelerators – which receive their name from their ability to boost the energies of particles to extreme petaelectronvolt (PeV) levels – have never been conclusively identified. A handful of suspected PeVatrons were already fingerprinted before this study, including one at the centre of our Milky Way. The research team says their new find of a supernova explosion’s leftovers – a cloud of material called G106.3+2.7 – could be the most promising candidate yet.…

FOCUS ON SUPERNOVA WRECKAGE BLASTS OUT COSMIC RAYS

HOW DO STARS EXPLODE?

1 Matter transfer Two stars can orbit close enough to each other that matter will transfer from the companion onto a white dwarf star in a process called accretion. 2 Finding the right stars These occur when a white dwarf, like the one our Sun will leave behind after its death, is found in a binary pair with another star. 3 Squeezing down This accretion of matter adds extra mass. The additional gravitational forces compress the already highly pressurised core of the white dwarf. 4 A star reborn As the star approaches the Chandrasekhar limit, the dying star comes to life again and undergoes fusion in its centre. 5 Limited gains White dwarfs can only get so massive through accretion. The Chandrasekhar limit puts their maximum size at about 1.4 times…

HOW DO STARS EXPLODE?

THE SEARCH FOR WORMHOLES

Wormholes are so-called gateways that provide a shortcut through the fabric of space-time. They can be thought of as tunnels with ends capped by an ever-hungry black and a white hole, the black hole’s time-reversed cousin that prefers to spit things out if anything comes too close to its event horizon. It’s true that a wormhole never looks out of place in science fiction – for example, lurking in the universe of Star Trek: Deep Space 9 and employed by captain Benjamin Sisko and his crew of the Defiant. They use the hole to travel from the Alpha to the Gamma quadrant on the other side of the galaxy at unprecedented speed – certainly a thrilling prospect. However, we still don’t know for sure whether traversable wormholes like the ones…

THE SEARCH FOR WORMHOLES

WHY ARE WE LOOKING FOR WORMHOLES?

“I think it’s extremely important that we continue to search for and research the ideas behind wormholes. There are all sorts of [avenues for] research and we often find that some subjects are more practical than others. Obviously wormhole physics is not a very practical subject, but wormholes and other exotic phenomena provide a route to understanding some of the deepest questions about the nature of our universe. For that reason alone, this is an exciting endeavour and deserving of support. "It’s also important to note subjects that might seem highly impractical could eventually be central to our daily lives. Electromagnetic theory was at one time considered an impractical subject and now it’s fundamental to everyday life. Quantum theory has long been viewed as an arcane body of research, but…

WHY ARE WE LOOKING FOR WORMHOLES?

THE MAKING OF A WORMHOLE

1 Collapse of the core When a gigantic star dies, when it no longer has any nuclear fuel to burn, sometimes a black hole is formed. The core has no choice but to collapse in on itself in the catastrophic explosion of a supernova. The devastated star’s outer layers are expelled into space, while the core continues to shrink in size. 2 A cosmic plug hole Shrinking smaller and smaller, the core continues to pale in significance. While it has shrunk to a speck, all of its mass is concentrated in a very small area. This forms a singularity. If you place anobject onto a bed sheet, it makes a dent. Anything moving towards the dent will fall towards it, which is how gravity affects the universe. 3 The makings…

THE MAKING OF A WORMHOLE

TURNING A WORMHOLE INTO A TIME MACHINE

Take a piece of paper and imagine that it’s a two-dimensional representation of our universe. To travel from one end to the other would take a long time, so imagine if it was possible to take a shortcut that folds space. If you bend the paper so the two opposite ends are now touching, you can hop a short distance to reach it. The idea is that a wormhole would act like a bridge. Now imagine that the paper doesn’t just represent space, but also time. This means a wormhole can also connect two time periods. This diagram illustrates exactly how this could be possible. 1 Enlarging the mouth To enlarge the mouth, you would need exotic matter – in other words something with negative energy to act as an…

TURNING A WORMHOLE INTO A TIME MACHINE

20 UNIVERSE MYTHS BUSTED

Our understanding of the workings of the universe is better than it has ever been, but there are still a number of misconceptions that manage to fool many of us. Some of the following might sound plausible, but barely any of it is true: the Sun is a burning orb of yellow fire and the temperature is higher during the summer months because we orbit closer than we do in winter. Mercury is the closest planet to our star and must therefore be the hottest. The lunar phases are caused by the shadow of Earth and at night we can only see one side of the Moon, so the other must be in perpetual darkness. The stars form patterns with their close neighbours and are grouped into local constellations. The…

20 UNIVERSE MYTHS BUSTED

FOCUS ON BLACK HOLES SPOTTED ON A COLLISION COURSE

Astronomers have spotted not one but two dwarf galaxy black hole duos on separate collision courses, the first observational evidence of such a cosmic clash. Just as the black holes are heading for a collision and merger that will leave a more massive black hole behind, the dwarf galaxies they sit in will also merge and form a larger galaxy. The findings could have important implications for our understanding of how these cosmic titans and the galaxies they inhabit grew in the early universe. Scientists examined the colliding black hole pairings using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and found that as the dwarf galaxies are racing towards each other, they are pulling in gas that is ‘feeding’ their inhabitant black holes, causing them to grow even before the merger. Dwarf galaxies…

FOCUS ON BLACK HOLES SPOTTED ON A COLLISION COURSE

LAUNCH FOR THE MOON

The Moon has captured the attention of humankind for as long as we have gazed upon the stars. Reflecting the Sun’s light each dark night, its presence reminds us of worlds beyond our own. But astronauts have done much more than simply look upon it. On 20 July 1969 the first humans landed on the Moon. As part of a series of missions dubbed the Apollo program, NASA astronauts returned to Earth with more knowledge of the rocky orb than our species had ever acquired before. But to think that a handful of missions to this world would make us experts of this foreign terrain would be a mistake. We have only explored a tiny portion of the Moon, and there is still so much more to learn. It’s been…

LAUNCH FOR THE MOON

WHERE ARE WE GOING?

For the initial Artemis Moon missions, the selected astronauts will likely fly to the Moon’s south pole. This area has great potential as it is believed to be home to the highest abundance of water ice. If we can extract this water, it could be used to sustain human exploration farther into space, whether that’s as a human hydration source, rocket fuel resource or cooling system for equipment. Shackleton crater is a huge 19-kilometre (12-mile) depression in the Moon’s surface and a feature well worth visiting. With a permanent shadow cast in the dips of the crater, the low temperatures make it a promising location for ice to form. In fact, these permanently lightless areas maintain some of the coldest temperatures in the entire Solar System. Although it’s possible that…

WHERE ARE WE GOING?

THREE-PART PLAN

2022 Artemis I The first mission will be uncrewed to test the safety of takeoff, the capsule’s ability to orbit, descent and splashdown. The rocket will carry 13 small satellites into space to perform experiments and technology demonstrations. For six days the craft will orbit the Moon, collecting performance data. 2024 Artemis II Carrying the first four Artemis astronauts, the Orion capsule will take the crew farther from Earth than humans have ever travelled before. Over the approximately ten-day mission, the crew will complete a lunar flyby and return to Earth, evaluating the spacecraft’s systems while carrying humans. 2025 Artemis III This will see the next man and first woman step onto the lunar surface. Providing previous missions have been successful, the astronauts will shoot towards the Moon, using the…

THREE-PART PLAN

If we want to send astronauts to the Moon, they will need the latest technology to assist them. While astronauts have undergone multiple spacewalks since the Apollo missions, these have not required them to walk on the surface of a celestial body. The next astronaut to walk on the Moon will do so in a brand-new, updated spacesuit. NASA has unveiled Artemis-generation spacesuits designed especially for the mission: one for the launch and landing, worn inside the spacecraft, and one to protect the bodies of those venturing outside the protection of the Orion capsule. The suits will be custom fit to their bodies, with the aim of improving upon the comfort and practicality of previous versions.…

MAIN MISSION OBJECTIVES

Long-term presence Following Apollo 17’s three-day presence on the Moon, Artemis will send astronauts there for weeks. Equality A female astronaut hasn’t set foot on the Moon yet. This mission will demonstrate the increasing role women have played in space missions since the Apollo era. Partnerships NASA has collaborated with private companies such as SpaceX and Boeing. These show space travel’s shift towards commercialisation. Technology NASA is always learning from past missions; the spacecraft and spacesuits have been tailored to the Moon mission, exhibiting the latest in space technology. Knowledge Collecting further information about the lunar surface and deep space, NASA hopes to become better prepared for later missions back to the Moon and further afield. Resources Access to the lunar surface provides the opportunity to search for rare mineral…

MAIN MISSION OBJECTIVES

EARTH TO THE MOON

1 Launch day Scheduled to launch in 2025, the third Artemis mission and second with crew on board launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. All the action will be watched and monitored by the nearby Launch Control Center. 2 Entering orbit Once the rocket has completed its task of taking Orion into orbit, its engines shut down and it will separate from the capsule. These rocket components then fall towards the Pacific Ocean. Left to fend for itself, Orion will deploy its solar arrays. 3 Trans-lunar injection Having successfully made it into Earth orbit, the Orion vehicle is ready to cross over to the Moon. During a 20-minute burn, the engines fire to increase the speed of travel, displacing the spacecraft from its low-Earth orbit. 4 To deep…

EARTH TO THE MOON

Between 1969 and 1972, six missions took place in which 12 people walked on the surface of the Moon – all of them men. For such a high-risk mission, the most experienced astronauts were required, and at the time there were no women at NASA who had suitable test flight experience. For a long time space was viewed as an industry primarily for men, and it wasn’t until 1978 that NASA selected its first female astronauts. As of March 2022, 75 women have been to space, and this mission will serve as a reminder of changing times. While it’s currently undecided who will be chosen, it will be one of NASA’s astronauts who has already worked aboard the International Space Station. The team of astronauts is expected to be announced…

Launch The launch rocket is responsible for the all-important task of firing the capsule and crew into space. The Space Launch System (SLS) is NASA’s new rocket designed for human space travel beyond Earth orbit. Having to travel almost 1,000 times farther than those headed for the ISS, it’s designed to reach speeds of 40,000 kilometres (25,000 miles) per hour. Approximately eight minutes after launch, the core stage falls away and the astronauts continue with their journey to the Moon. 1 Launch vehicle stage adapter This nine-metre (30-foot) cone-shaped structure connects the core stage of the rocket to the upper stage and crew capsule. It also acts as a protective shield for the engine in the upper stage. 2 Core stage 65 metres (213 feet) tall and some eight metres…

GATEWAY TO THE MOON

“For Apollo, putting humans on the Moon was the main and final goal” For exploration of another celestial body, astronauts need a base camp. The Lunar Gateway will serve this purpose. Orbiting the Moon, Orion will synchronise with the path of this station. When the spacecraft reaches Gateway it will dock, and then the astronauts can leave Orion. Serving a similar purpose to the ISS – but travelling in a completely different orbit around the Moon – Gateway is a place where astronauts can conduct science experiments and prepare for the main stage of their mission, the landing. Unlike the ISS, however, the Lunar Gateway will house astronauts for shorter periods and won’t be permanently occupied. Built with return trips to the Moon beyond the initial Artemis missions and long-term…

GATEWAY TO THE MOON

Q&A STEVEN SWANSON

During his career at NASA, Swanson logged over 195 days in space, undertaking five spacewalks. His three missions to the ISS include two Space Shuttle flights (STS-117 and STS-119) and one Soyuz flight (TMA-12M). How does NASA select astronauts? Nobody knows for sure. Really it’s up to the chief of the astronaut office to make that selection, and sometimes others depending on how high profile the mission is. But it’s partly just where you are in the queue, because we come in as a group together. The people who came in the group before will fly before you do. I didn’t think about an astronaut career until I was about 25. It took 12 years from that point to become one, and I ended up working 11 of those years…

Q&A STEVEN SWANSON

FOCUS ON MARS ROVER PICKS ITS OWN ROCK SAMPLES

NASA is hailing the Perseverance rover’s improved ability to pick its own targets as a way of speeding up science on Mars. Without explicit direction from Earth, the Perseverance rover zapped two rock targets with its SuperCam instrument on Sol 442 (18 May 2022) to learn more about their elemental compositions, mission scientists said in an update on 31 May. “Normally when the rover team picks the targets, observations aren’t made until the following day,” Roger Wiens, principal investigator of SuperCam and a planetary scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, said. “If Perseverance picks its own targets, it can shoot them right after a drive. Having the SuperCam results right away can alert the team to unusual compositions in time to make decisions about further analyses before the rover moves…

FOCUS ON MARS ROVER PICKS ITS OWN ROCK SAMPLES

12 AMAZING JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE BREAKTHROUGHS

“The James Webb Space Telescope is a pathfinder of scientific discovery” NASA’s deep-space observing telescope is looking at the universe like never before. The James Webb Space Telescope is a pathfinder of scientific discovery, generating incredible insights about galaxies, planets, stars and all sorts of interesting cosmic objects. The telescope is near the beginning of its cosmic journey, as it is rated for 20 years of operations and just launched in December 2021. Billed as a successor to the venerable Hubble Space Telescope, Webb is also breaking ground in science excitement. 1 WEBB IS HAILED AS THE GREATEST SPACE BREAKTHROUGH When Webb launched on 25 December 2021, it was the culmination of decades of work by NASA scientists and engineers. The launch went off without a hitch, as did the numerous…

12 AMAZING JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE BREAKTHROUGHS

FOCUS ON JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE FINDS A GARGANTUAN GEYSER ON SATURN’S MOON

Scientists caught Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus spraying a huge plume of watery vapour far into space – and that plume likely contains many of the chemical ingredients for life. “It’s immense,” Sara Faggi, a planetary astronomer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, said. This isn’t the first time scientists have seen Enceladus spout water, but the new telescope’s wider perspective and higher sensitivity showed that the jets of vapour shoot much farther into space than previously realised. Scientists first learned of Enceladus’ watery blasts in 2005, when NASA’s Cassini spacecraft caught icy particles shooting up through large lunar cracks called ‘tiger stripes’. Analysis revealed that the jets contained methane, carbon dioxide and ammonia – organic molecules containing the chemical building blocks necessary for the development of life. It’s even possible…

FOCUS ON JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE FINDS A GARGANTUAN GEYSER ON SATURN’S MOON

TEN AMAZING SPACE STATION EXPERIMENTS

The International Space Station (ISS) houses an incredible array of cutting-edge research facilities, allowing scientists back on Earth to conduct pioneering experiments in space. Different space agencies, academic institutions and private companies from across the world share the onboard facilities, taking it in turns to perform their experiments. Delicate tests can be conducted in microgravity inside the station itself, and outside experiments can be exposed to vacuum and radiation. With a clear view of space and out of the reaches of Earth’s atmosphere, the ISS is also the perfect place to investigate the universe. Some experiments investigate the physical sciences, looking at the behaviour of different materials in space, while others focus on biology, helping us understand how the human body is affected by space travel or how to grow…

TEN AMAZING SPACE STATION EXPERIMENTS

FOCUS ON HUBBLE SPOTS STAR THAT SURVIVED A VIOLENT EXPLOSION

When a massive star reaches the end of its life, it explodes in a brilliant burst of light known as a supernova. This bright explosion can briefly outshine entire galaxies, which is how the star’s surviving partner remained hidden from view. Using Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3, researchers were able to study the supernova SN 2013ge in ultraviolet light. The scientists found that while the light from the bright stellar explosion has been fading since 2016, another nearby source of ultraviolet light has maintained its brightness over time, suggesting SN 2013ge has a surviving binary companion. “This was the moment we had been waiting for, finally seeing the evidence for a binary system progenitor of a fully stripped supernova,” Ori Fox, lead investigator on the Hubble research program, said. “The…

FOCUS ON HUBBLE SPOTS STAR THAT SURVIVED A VIOLENT EXPLOSION

HOW DO STARS EXPLODE?

Type Ia supernovae 1A Finding the right stars These occur when a white dwarf is found in a binary pair with another star. 2A Matter transfer Occasionally the two stars will orbit close enough that matter will transfer from the companion onto the white dwarf. 3A Squeezing down This accretion of matter adds extra mass. The additional gravitational forces compress the already highly pressurised core of the white dwarf. 4A Astar reborn The dying star comes to life again and undergoes fusion in its centre. 5A Limited gains White dwarfs can only get so massive through accretion, about 1.4 times the mass of our Sun. 6A Outward pressure The star can no longer expand. Expansive forces build, creating a violent supernova. Type II supernovae 1B Out of gas Supergiants eventually…

HOW DO STARS EXPLODE?

10 SPACECRAFT THAT CHANGED THE WORLD

1 APOLLO 11 LUNAR MODULE The first manned spacecraft to land on the Moon To perform the first Moon landing, the Apollo 11 mission used two very different spacecraft. The first was the pressurised, conical-shaped Command Module that served as the main living quarters. It was attached to an unpressurised Service Module containing the main rocket engine and propellant. At launch, the Apollo 11’s Command and Service Module (CSM) was mounted above the Lunar Module (LM) on top of the Saturn V rocket. When they moved out of Earth orbit, the CSM separated itself and turned around to attach to the docking port on the LM. On 20 July 1969 at 20:17 (UTC), Neil Armstrong and Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin touched down on the Sea of Tranquillity and deployed exploration equipment…

10 SPACECRAFT THAT CHANGED THE WORLD

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