INFORMATION

If predictions are correct, a key outburst star could put on a show in early 2024. If astronomers are correct, a familiar northern constellation could briefly take on a different appearance in 2024 , as a nova once again blazes into prominence. The star in question is T Coronae Borealis , also referred to as the ‘Blaze Star’ or T CrB. Located in the corner of the constellation Corona Borealis or the Northern Crown, T CrB is generally at a quiescent +10 th magnitude, barely discernible with binoculars… but once every 60 years, the star has flared briefly into naked eye visibility at around +2 nd magnitude. Finding T CrB in the sky. Credit: Stellarium The Curious Case of T Coronae Borealis The enigma that is T Coronae Borealis was first noted by Irish astronomer John Birmingham on the night of May 12, 1866. Observers later scoured the region for decades to come, until hitting pay-dirt with a second flare-up from the star once again in 1946. None other than astronomer Leslie Pelt...

Intuitive Machines says it’s putting its Odysseus moon lander to bed for a long lunar night, with hopes of reviving it once the sun rises again near the moon’s south pole. The Houston-based company and NASA recapped Odysseus’s six days of operation on the lunar surface, shared pictures showing its off-kilter configuration, and looked ahead to the mission’s next phase during a briefing today at Johnson Space Center in Texas. The original plan called for the solar-powered spacecraft to be turned off when the sun fell below the lunar horizon, but Intuitive Machines CEO Steve Altemus said mission controllers would instead put the Odysseus into hibernation and try restoring contact in three weeks’ time. “We are going to leave the computers and the power system in a place where we can wake it up and do this development test objective, to actually try to ping it with an antenna and see if we can’t wake it up once it gets power again,” he told reporters. Last week, Odysseus became the f...

During the Universe’s Dark Ages, dense primordial gas absorbed and scattered light, prohibiting it from travelling. Only when the first stars and galaxies began to shine in energetic UV light did the Epoch of Reionization begin. The powerful UV light shone through the Universe and punched holes in the gas, allowing light to travel freely. New observations with the James Webb Space Telescope reveal how it happened. The telescope shows that faint dwarf galaxies brought an end to the darkness. To reach back in time and answer fundamental questions about our Universe is the James Webb Space Telescope’s greatest gift. The powerful infrared space telescope has peered back into the earliest stages of the Universe’s life and shown astronomers the forces that shaped it. One of our biggest questions about the Universe concerns the Epoch of Reionization (EOR) that occurred several hundred million years after the Big Bang, ending the Universe’s Dark Ages. An illustration showing the timeline...

Here’s a front row seat on what it would be like to return to Earth inside a space capsule. Varda Space Industries’ small W-1 spacecraft successfully landed at the Utah Test and Training Range on February 21, 2024.  A camera installed inside the cozy 90 cm- (3 ft)-wide capsule captured the entire stunning reentry sequence, from separation from the satellite bus in low Earth orbit (LEO) to the fiery re-entry through Earth’s atmosphere, to parachute deploy, to the bouncy landing. At the end of this 5-minute video, you’ll see a pair legs with mud-caked shoes approach to gather the parachute and retrieve the capsule. Not only is there video, but sound as well. And the sounds of reentry and landing are what grabs you!   There’s a also full 27-minute unedited raw footage from separation to touchdown is also available, below. On X, Varda said reentry speeds reached Mach 25. Here's a video of our capsule ripping through the atmosphere at mach 25, no renders, raw footage: ...

When a satellite reaches the end of its life, it has only two destinations. It can either be maneuvered into a graveyard orbit, a kind of purgatory for satellites, or it plunges to its destruction in Earth’s atmosphere. The ESA’s ERS-2 satellite took the latter option after 30 years in orbit. ERS-2 was an Earth Observation satellite launched in 1995. It was scheduled to last three years but lasted much longer. In March 2,000, a computer and a gyro failed, and the mission continued but suffered some data degradation. Other equipment failures followed, and the mission finally ended in 2011. ERS-2 was destroyed during reentry into Earth’s atmosphere on February 21st, 2024. But unlike other satellites, the destruction of ERS-2 was caught on camera. The Tracking and Imaging Radar (TIRA) at the Fraunhofer Institute for High Frequency Physics and Radar Techniques FHR in Germany captured images of the satellite’s demise. A full-size model of ERS-2. Image Credit: By Poppy – Self-photographe...

Plate tectonics is not something most people would associate with Mars. In fact, the planet’s dead core is one of the primary reasons for its famous lack of a magnetic field. And since active planetary cores are one of the primary driving factors of plate tectonics, it seems obvious why that general conception holds. However, Mars has some features that we think of as corresponding with plate tectonics – volcanoes. A new paper from researchers at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) looks at how different types of plate tectonics could have formed different types of volcanoes on the surface of Mars. Typically, when you think of volcanoes on Mars, you think of massive shield volcanoes like Olympus Mons, similar to those seen in some locations on Earth, such as Hawai’i. These form when repeated eruptions deposit layers of lava for millions of years. Those eruptions aren’t impacted by how any underlying plates move underneath them. But they do create a different underlying landscape than e...

Astronomers have found three new moons orbiting our Solar System’s ice giants. One is orbiting Uranus, and two are orbiting Neptune. It took hard work to find them, including dozens of time exposures by some of our most powerful telescopes over several years. All three are captured objects, and there are likely more moons around both planets waiting to be discovered. This is the first new moon found around Uranus in 20 years and brings the planet’s total to 28. One of the new moons around Neptune is the smallest ever detected with a ground-based telescope, and the pair of new discoveries bring Neptune’s total to 16. Uranus’ new moon has the provisional title S/2023 U1 and was first observed on November 4, 2023, by Scott Sheppard from Carnegie Science. Like the planet’s other outer satellites, it will eventually be given a name from a Shakespeare play. Other moon names include Oberon, Titania, and Ariel. S/2023 U1 is only 8 km in diameter, tiny compared to the ice giant’s largest moo...

In a recent announcement, the Chinese Space Agency (CSA) unveiled the names for its forthcoming lunar mission components. The CSA have been working towards sending humans to the Moon through a series of robotic missions. The 22-tonne capsule that is taking the astronauts to the Moon is called Mengzhuo (translates to ‘dream vessel’) and the lander has been named Lanyue (meaning ‘embracing the Moon’). Assuming all goes to plan, they will send two humans and a rover to the surface of the Moon by 2030. Despite the fact that the CSA have not published a date for the mission yet, if all goes well then they will become the second country to get humans to the lunar surface. The capsules will launch to the Moon atop their new super-heavy-lift carrier rocket named Long March 10. According to Chinese state media, the Mengzhou spacecraft will include the re-entry module designed to house the astronauts and will also function as a control centre. In addition to this, there will be the service mo...

Discovering exoplanets is almost routine now. We’ve found over 5,500 exoplanets, and the next step is to study their atmospheres and look for biosignatures. The James Webb Space Telescope is leading the way in that effort. But in some exoplanet atmospheres, lightning could make the JWST’s job more difficult by obscuring some potential biosignatures while amplifying others. Detecting biosignatures in the atmospheres of distant planets is fraught with difficulties. They don’t advertise their presence, and the signals we receive from exoplanet atmospheres are complicated. New research adds another complication to the effort. It says that lightning can mask the presence of things like ozone, an indication that complex life could exist on a planet. It can also amplify the presence of compounds like methane, which is considered to be a promising biosignature. The new research is “ The effect of lightning on the atmospheric chemistry of exoplanets and potential biosignatures, ” and it’s be...

To quote NASA associate administrator Jim Reuter, sending crewed missions to Mars by 2040 is an “audacious goal.” The challenges include the distance involved, which can take up to six months to traverse using conventional propulsion methods. Then there’s the hazard posed by radiation, which includes increased exposure to solar particles, flares, and galactic cosmic rays (GCRs). And then there’s the time the crews will spend in microgravity during transits, which can take a serious toll on human health, physiology, and psychology. But what about the challenges of living and working on Mars for several months at a time? While elevated radiation and lower gravity are a concern, so is Martian regolith. Like lunar regolith, dust on Mars will adhere to astronauts’ spacesuits and inflict wear on their equipment. However, it also contains harmful particles that must be removed to prevent contaminating habitats. In a recent study, a team of aerospace engineers tested a new electrostatic syste...

Four days after Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus lander made an off-kilter touchdown on the moon, the mission team is releasing snapshots that were taken during its descent. The ultra-wide-angle images confirm that the lander is continuing to communicate with flight controllers, even though it’s lying in an awkward angle that limits how much data its antennas can transmit. Meanwhile, images from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter have identified Odysseus’ landing spot, within a mile (1.5 kilometers) of its intended target near a crater called Malapert A in the moon’s south polar region. The bad news is that the solar-powered lander may have to go dark sooner than anticipated. This low-resolution, ultra-wide-angle image from the Odysseus lander shows the lunar terrain with a scrunched view of the lander itself off to the right side of the frame. (Credit: Intuitive Machines) The lander is the first-ever commercial spacecraft to survive a descent to the moon, and the first U.S-buil...

Does Saturn’s largest moon, Titan , possess the necessary ingredients for life to exist? This is what a recent study published in Astrobiology hopes to address as a team of international researchers led by Western University investigated if Titan, with its lakes of liquid methane and ethane , could possess the necessary organic materials, such as amino acids, that could be used to produce life on the small moon. This study holds the potential to help researchers and the public better understand the geochemical and biological processes necessary for life to emerge throughout the cosmos. Along with its liquid lakes of methane and ethane, Titan is also strongly hypothesized to possess a subsurface liquid water ocean like Saturn’s icy moon, Enceladus , and Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa . For the study, the researchers used data from impact cratering from comets to estimate the number of organic molecules that could relocate from Titan’s surface to its subsurface liquid water ocean. T...