Astronomy

Astronomers have picked up evidence of an Earth-sized world, distinct from the previously hypothesised Planet Nine and Planet X, that might be warping the orbits of objects beyond Neptune

Earth’s atmosphere is large, extending out to around 10,000 km from the surface of the planet. It’s so large, in fact, that scientists break it into five separate sections, and there’s one particular section that hasn’t got a whole lot of attention due to the difficulty in keeping any craft afloat there. Planes and balloons can visit the troposphere and stratosphere, the two sections closest to the ground, while satellites can sit in orbit in the thermosphere and exosphere, allowing for a platform for consistent observations. But the mesosphere, the section in the middle, is too close to have a stable orbit, but too sparse in air for traditional airplanes or balloons to work. As a result, we don’t have a lot of data on it, but it impacts climate and weather forecasting, so scientists have simply had to make a lot of assumptions about what it's like up there. But a new study from researchers at Harvard and the University of Chicago might have found a way to put stable sensing platforms into the mesosphere, using a novel flight mechanism known as photophoresis.

A new theoretical study by University of Virginia astrophysicist Jonathan Tan, a research professor with the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences’ Department of Astronomy, proposes a comprehensive framework for the birth of supermassive black holes.

New images from NASA's Psyche spacecraft show that its cameras are working just fine. By pointing them at Earth and the Moon, NASA was able to test the spacecraft's cameras and science instruments. Since both bodies reflect light like Psyche, and since their spectra are familiar, it's a valuable opportunity to test and calibrate the instruments.

For thousands of years, humanity viewed the skies as unchanging, except for a few “wandering stars” (that we now know are planets). As we improved our ability to perceive the cosmos with light-gathering telescopes and electronic detectors, we realized that the universe is full of things that change in brightness, whether it be an exploding star or a matter-gulping black hole. NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is poised to deliver an avalanche of such transients, including thousands of “standard candle” supernovae that allow us to measure the expansion history of the universe.

The discovery of an extremely rare quadruple star system could significantly advance our understanding of brown dwarfs, astronomers say. Brown dwarfs in wide binary orbits offer a chance to determine their properties more clearly.

The hunt will be on shortly, to once again recover a clandestine mission in low Earth orbit. SpaceX is set to launch a Falcon-9 rocket from launch pad LC-39A at the Kennedy Space Center Thursday night August 21st, with the classified USSF-36 mission. The U.S. Space Force has announced that this is the eighth mission for its fleet of two Orbital Test Vehicles (OTV-8). This is the automated ‘mini-space shuttle’ about the size of a large SUV that launches like a rocket, and lands like a plane.

Sometimes inspiration can strike from the most unexpected places. It can result in a cross-pollination between ideas commonly used in one field but applied to a completely different one. That might have been the case with a recent paper on lightsail design from researchers at the University of Nottingham that used techniques typically used in video games to develop a new and improved structure of a lightsail.

How do tidal forces determine a planet’s orbital evolution, specifically planets in the habitable zone? This is what a recently submitted study hopes to address as an international team of researchers investigated how tidal forces far more powerful than experienced on Earth could influence orbital evolution of habitable zone planets with highly eccentric orbits around low-mass stars. This study has the potential to help researchers better understand the formation and evolution of exoplanets, specifically regarding where we could find life beyond Earth.

Some scientists thought that the asteroids Ryugu and Bennu were from the same family. Now that they have samples and JWST spectra from both, the verdict is in: They're both from the Polana collisional family, a diverse and widespread family of asteroids.

Astronomers have discovered what may be a massive star exploding while trying to swallow a black hole companion, offering an explanation for one of the strangest stellar explosions ever seen.

The Three Body Problem isn’t just the name of a viral Netflix series or a Hugo Award winning sci-fi book. It also represents a really problem in astrodynamics - and one that can cause headaches to mission planners in terms of its complexity, but also one that offers the promise of an easier way to enter stable orbits that might otherwise be possible. A new paper from researchers at the Beijing Institute of Technology shows one way those orbital maneuvers might be enhanced while exploring planetary systems - by using a gravity assist from its moons.

Compact, reflective, easy to manufacture mirrors are a critical component for advancing astronomical technology in space. Mirrors are a key component in most telescopes, though they are notoriously hard to manufacture with the necessary precision, especially at large scales. A new paper from researchers in the UK uses additive manufacturing to make a thin, flexible, and lightweight mirror out of aluminum and analyzes its properties to see if it will be useful in applications such as CubeSats.

In a recent paper, researchers followed the trajectories of 1I/`Oumuamua, 2I/Borisov, and 3I/ATLAS - three installer objects that have entered the Solar System in the past decade - to constrain their possible origin. Through a series of Monte Carlo simulations, they came up with predictions of where they came from and how old they are.

Exoplanets with and without a magnetic field are predicted to form, behave, and evolve very differently. In order to understand the exoplanet population, and to make progress understanding habitability, astronomers need to understand and constrain exoplanets' magnetic fields. Detecting them may best be done from the Moon.

Physicists from the University of Copenhagen have begun using the gigantic magnetic fields of galaxy clusters to observe distant black holes in their search for an elusive particle that has stumped scientists for decades.

We already know a decent amount about how planets form, but moon formation is another process entirely, and one we’re not as familiar with. Scientists think they understand how the most important Moon in our solar system (our own) formed, but its violent birth is not the norm, and can’t explain larger moon systems like the Galilean moons around Jupiter. A new book chapter (which was also released as a pre-print paper) from Yuhito Shibaike and Yann Alibert from the University of Bern discusses the differing ideas surrounding the formation of large moon systems, especially the Galileans, and how we might someday be able to differentiate them.

The Universe's early galaxies were engulfed in halos of high-energy cosmic rays. It's likely because they had tangled and turbulent magnetic fields. These fields accelerate cosmic rays to higher energies.

China took a step closer to the Moon, with the first short test for their crewed lunar lander. The test was completed on Wednesday, August 6th at a facility in China’s northern Hebei Province, and lasted just under 30 seconds. The tethered test successfully demonstrated the integration and performance of key systems, simulating descent, guidance, control and engine shutdown. This marks the first test for a China’s Manned (crewed) Space Agency (CMSA’s) human-rated lander.

Taking a walk is great for inspiration. There have been numerous studies about how people think more clearly on walks, and how new ideas come to them more frequently while doing so. That’s part of the reason some of the most famous minds in history included a daily walk in their schedule. Just such an inspiration must have happened recently to Nicholas Heinz, a scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California. On a hike in Arizona he found a rock that could be used as an analog of a unique one found by the Perseverance rover on Mars - and decided to take it back to his lab to study it.x