Category: Cosmic Space

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Cosmic Space

Flight log: Six spacefliers go suborbital with Blue Origin

Liftoff for Blue Origin New Shepard rocket
Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket ship rises from its Texas launch pad. (Blue Origin via YouTube)

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture sent six more people on a brief suborbital space trip today aboard a New Shepard rocket ship. The flight, known as NS-36, was Blue Origin’s 36th New Shepard mission and the 15th crewed flight.

Today’s 10-minute flight was conducted at Blue Origin’s Launch Site One in West Texas. It followed Blue Origin’s standard procedure, with liftoff coming at 8:40 a.m. CT (6:40 a.m. PT). The reusable booster sent the crew capsule to a height of 65.7 miles (346,791 feet, or 106 kilometers), and then flew itself back to a landing pad.

Meanwhile, the crew got out of their seats to float in zero gravity and look out the windows at the black sky of space and the Earth below. They got back in their seats for a parachute-aided descent that ended with touchdown at 8:50 a.m. CT (6:50 a.m. PT).

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Cosmic Space

Scientists find a third interstellar object — and it’s a comet

Illustration: 'Oumuamua heading through solar system with planets' orbital paths labeled
This illustration shows a previously detected interstellar object in our solar system. Credit: NASA, ESA, and J. Olmsted and F. Summers (STScI)

Astronomers say they’ve spotted the third interstellar object to be detected flying through our solar system. The object — initially known as A11pl3Z and now designated 3I/ATLAS — was discovered on July 1 by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System, or ATLAS.

Early indications are that the 3I/ATLAS is behaving like a comet, and that it may be up to 12 miles (20 kilometers) wide. But don’t panic: This object has no chance of hitting Earth.

3I/ATLAS is currently about 416 million miles from the sun and zooming across the solar system at 130,000 mph. Its projected path is being determined more precisely through follow-up observations and analysis, including a review of “precovery” telescope images that recorded the object’s position but went unnoticed until the ATLAS astronomers reported their find.

The analysis suggests the object will have a close encounter with Mars and swing past the sun in October. Earth will be on the other side of the sun, which rules out making up-close observations or sending a probe. David Rankin, an astronomer with the Catalina Sky Survey, said in a series of Bluesky postings that the path of 3I/ATLAS through the solar system appears to have the highest eccentricity ever found.

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Cosmic Space

A cousin for Pluto? New dwarf planet candidate found

Three images of 2017 OF201
Images captured by the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope between August and November 2011 zero in on 2017 OF201. (Credit: Cheng et al.)

Astrophysicists say they’ve identified an object beyond the orbit of Neptune that’s likely to qualify as a dwarf planet, alongside other trans-Neptunian objects including Pluto, the erstwhile “ninth planet.”

The discovery of 2017 OF201 touches upon another ninth-planet controversy: namely, whether there’s a large planet nicknamed Planet 9 or Planet X lurking somewhere on the edges of the solar system.

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Cosmic Space

Sky survey boosts the case for dark energy’s downturn

Long-exposure photo of Mayall Telescope with circular star trails
A long-exposure photo shows the Mayall Telescope beneath the whirling stars. (Credit: KPNO/ NOIRLab / NSF / AURA / B. Tafreshi)

It’s looking more and more as if dark energy, the mysterious factor that scientists say is behind the accelerating expansion of the universe, isn’t as constant as they once thought.

The latest findings from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument, or DESI, don’t quite yet come up to the level of a confirmed discovery, but they’re leading scientists to rethink their views on the evolution of the universe — and how it might end.

Readings from DESI’s Data Release 2, published on March 19, suggest dark energy’s influence isn’t as strong as it used to be. Scientists had thought that the universe’s endless expansion would eventually lead to a state of cosmic stasis known as the “Big Chill.” But if dark energy fizzles out, billions or trillions of years from now, the universe may fall back on itself and end up in a reverse Big Bang, or “Big Crunch.”

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Cosmic Space

Get ready to see a total lunar eclipse (or maybe not)

Time-lapse sequence of total lunar eclipse of Sept. 28, 2015
This sequence shows the end-to-end progression of a total lunar eclipse on Sept. 28, 2015. (Credit: Sean Walker via Sky & Telescope)

The first total lunar eclipse since 2022 will turn the full moon an eerie shade of red on the night of March 13-14 — but your chances of seeing it with your own eyes will depend on where you are.

North Americans should have great seats for the eclipse this time around. The key phases of the show, from the time the moon begins to enter the darkest part of Earth’s shadow to the time it leaves, should be visible to the entire continent.

But add some emphasis to the word “should.” In order to see the darkened moon with your own eyes, the skies have to be clear.

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Cosmic Space

Hubble spots potential threesome on solar system’s edge

Illustration: Three small celestial bodies in Kuiper Belt
An artist's concept depicts a possible three-body scenario for the Altjira system. (Credit: NASA, ESA, Joseph Olmsted / STScI)

Three bodies? No problem!

The “three-body problem” has traditionally referred to the devilishly tricky challenge of working out the trajectories of three objects orbiting each other in space. The concept has inspired a sci-fi trilogy about an alien invasion, plus a Netflix series based on the novels.

In the books and in the TV show, the alien invaders are coming from the Alpha Centauri star system — where three stars are gravitationally bound to each other just a little more than 4 light-years away from us. But we don’t have to look that far away to find a three-body system.

Back in 2020, astronomers reported the detection of a trio of celestial objects in the Kuiper Belt, the broad ring of icy material at our solar system’s edge — and now scientists analyzing data from the Hubble Space Telescope and the W.M. Keck Observatory say they may have come across the Kuiper Belt’s second three-body system.

A report about the system, known as Altjira, was published today in The Planetary Science Journal.

“The universe is filled with a range of three-body systems, including the closest stars to Earth, the Alpha Centauri star system, and we’re finding that the Kuiper Belt may be no exception,” study lead author Maia Nelsen, a physics and astronomy graduate of Brigham Young University, said in a NASA news release.

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Cosmic Space

Hubble gets a wide-screen view of Andromeda galaxy

Hubble panorama of Andromeda galaxy
It took 10 years to create the Hubble Space Telescope's 2.5-billion-pixel panoramic view of the Andromeda galaxy. Science credit: NASA / ESA / Benjamin F. Williams and Zhuo Chen (Univ. of Washington) / L. Clifton Johnson (Northwestern). Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)

Over the course of more than a decade, astronomers used the Hubble Space Telescope to gather up 2.5 billion pixels’ worth of imagery focusing on the Andromeda galaxy — and the results could provide clues to the evolutionary history of our galaxy’s celestial neighbor.

The panoramic mosaic of the Andromeda galaxy was unveiled last week in Maryland at the winter meeting of the American Astronomical Society, and in an accompanying research paper published in The Astrophysical Journal.

It’s not just a pretty picture. Hubble was able to resolve more than 200 million of the galaxy’s stars. “This detailed look at the resolved stars will help us piece together the galaxy’s past merger and interaction history,” University of Washington astronomer Benjamin Williams, principal investigator for the project, said in a news release.

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Cosmic Space

How dark is the cosmos? Probe provides a far-out answer

New Horizons probe with galactic disk in background
Artwork shows NASA’s New Horizons probe in deep space. (Credit: NASA / JHUAPL / SwRI / Serge Brunier / Marc Postman / Dan Durda)

We know that deep space is dark, but just how dark is it? Or, put another way, how bright is it? And how much of that brightness comes from galaxies? Astronomers have gotten a clearer answer to those questions, thanks to observations sent back from billions of miles away.

Nine years after its history-making flyby of Pluto, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft measured the brightness of the distant universe from a vantage point in deep, dark space.

“If you hold up your hand in deep space, how much light does the universe shine on it?” Marc Postman, an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, asked today in a news release. “We now have a good idea of just how dark space really is.”

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Cosmic Space

NASA picks SpaceX to create a space station killer

Illustration: U.S. Deorbit Vehicle
An artist's conception shows SpaceX's Deorbit Vehicle in action. (Credit: SpaceX)

Spacecraft built by SpaceX have been servicing the International Space Station since 2012, and now NASA has chosen SpaceX to build the spacecraft that’ll take the station down to its doom in 2030.

The space agency announced today that SpaceX has been selected to develop and deliver the U.S. Deorbit Vehicle that will provide the capability to push the station into a fiery but controlled descent through the atmosphere. The deed will have to be done in a way that makes sure any debris falls harmlessly in an unpopulated area — for example, a remote part of the Pacific Ocean known as Point Nemo.

NASA laid out its plan for deorbiting the space station at the end of its operating life two years ago. At the time, mission planners suggested that Russian Progress supply ships or Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus cargo spacecraft might play a part in the denouement.

Today’s announcement makes clear that a SpaceX craft will take on the curtain-closing role. However, NASA will take ownership of the U.S. Deorbit Vehicle once it’s developed, and operate it through the final mission. No astronauts will be aboard the station during the robotically guided re-entry, and the U.S. Deorbit Vehicle is expected to break up along with the rest of the space station.

NASA said the single-award contract has a total potential value of $843 million. Launch service will be covered in a future procurement.

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Cosmic Space

Webb Telescope expands the frontier of early galaxies

JWST image highlighting galaxy JADES-GS-z14-0
An infrared image from the James Webb Space Telescope's NIRCam instrument reveals the galaxy JADES-GS-z14-0 as it existed 290 million years after the big bang. (Credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / STSci / B. Robertson, UCSC / B. Johnson, CfA / S. Tacchella, Cambridge / P. Cargile, CfA)

Astronomers say infrared readings from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have revealed a new record-holder for the most distant galaxy observed in the universe — a smudge of stars whose light started its journey a mere 290 million years after the big bang.

The galaxy, known as JADES-GS-z14-0, dethroned the previous champion, which scientists detected in 2022. JADES-GS-z14-0 is thought to be about 40 million years older, based on a detailed analysis of spectroscopic data. Because the age of the universe is estimated at 13.8 billion years, the light from the galaxy took more than 13.5 billion years to reach JWST’s detectors.

Scientists also detected another galaxy, designated JADES-GS-z14-1, that was nearly as distant. And there are likely to be even more distant galaxies still waiting to be discovered.

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