I remember being so happy back in mid-2015 when I heard that ESA made contact with the Philae lander. The little lander that could was thought to be lost to the cold of space, not receiving enough sunlight to power itself. But when the comet approached the Sun, the sunlight became intense enough to wake it back up and allow it to move some of the data it captured. But now, as the comet 67P has moved further from the Sun in its orbit, the likelihood that Philae will ever communicate again is slim. When the landing originally happened, the little...
You may have heard about the leaked rumour about the discovery of gravitational waves from earlier this week. It was from Lawrence Krauss, who is an amazing science communicator and author, as well as a darn good astrophysicist. My earlier rumor about LIGO has been confirmed by independent sources. Stay tuned! Gravitational waves may have been discovered!! Exciting. — Lawrence M. Krauss (@LKrauss1) January 11, 2016 It’s safe to say that as a guy with an inside scoop on a lot of the latest science news, this is something to get excited about. The ‘LIGO’ he is referring to stands...
The Crab Nebula, as it’s commonly known, is connected to one of the earliest recorded supernova explosions. In 1054 AD, Chinese Astronomers saw the explosion of this supernova as an incredibly bright star in the sky lasting about two weeks, before fading. Now, nearly 1000 years later, the explosion is still happening as an expanding shock front rich in heavy elements moves through the interstellar medium. When the shock front hits dust or gas it is slowed down, giving the resulting nebula a unique shape. In this case, it looks like a crab. The supernova wasn’t exactly the death of the original...
In the early universe, there was a huge amount of swirling matter and light that didn’t really have much structure. Compared to today’s much more regular dotting of galaxy clusters and superclusters, the early universe was all over the place. But as will all things, there had to be a first. a first star, a first galaxy, and even a first galaxy cluster. The massive cluster of galaxies known as IDCS J1426.5+3508 is the most distant massive galaxy cluster ever discovered, and it has some interesting properties that point to how it formed and evolved so quickly. One such property is...
This story popped up yesterday, and I can imagine it will go far, since it talks about life in the universe. I get it, it’s what people are interested in, and at least this story is focused on the science of why this is the best place to look for intelligent civilizations, instead of “Oh hey there’s a strange ring of material around a star, must be an alien superstructure.” But I digress. So where is the best place to look for life in the universe? The answer is in a Globular Cluster. A globular cluster is one of the...
If you actually had the ability to see X-Rays, the world around you would look pretty boring. Actually it would be invisible, since nothing around you gives off X-rays. You might be able to see an imaging device if you live or work near a medical office, but that’s about it. If you looked at the night sky, you would see many interesting sources of X-Ray light, mostly from active black holes in our own galaxy and beyond. Recently a high-resolution scan of the Andromeda Galaxy revealed a plethora of sources, showing where black holes and neutron stars are feeding...
Some days at work, when I am in the Space hall at the Ontario Science Center, I take a close look at the golf-ball-sized Moon rock we have on display. I think about how this rock was brought back on an Apollo mission over 40 years ago, how it had been an untouched part of the Moon for Billions of years before this, and how it has taught us so much about how the Moon, and subsequently the Earth, formed. But now it’s time for a new generation of Moon rocks to be analyzed, and China is in the nation...
After talking about high resolution mapping of Ceres last week, it occurred to me that we have mapped so many distant worlds in our solar system. We have seen moons of Jupiter and Saturn up close, completely mapped Mars, and started mapping Pluto, pushing our boundaries of exploration. But what about our Moon? Sure the Earth-facing side has been seen in high definition. Anyone with a small telescope and a camera can take a great photo of the Moon. But what about the other side of the Moon, the so called dark side? It turns out that the Lunar Reconnaissance...
This is it, my 365th post of 2015. I didn’t post every day, but I produced one post for each and every day. Some days I was on vacation, with family, having adventures, sick, tired, working, or any of a hundred other reasons for not posting. But regardless of the reason, I took the day, got up the next day, and worked extra hard to keep up with it. This is the first time I have ever completed a New Year’s Resolution, and it was certainly an ambitious one. Maybe my writing has improved, and maybe it hasn’t, but 2015...
The Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) mission, originally set to launch in March of 2016, has been delayed. It’s not yet clear when it will launch, but it certainly won’t be on schedule for March. The reason for the scrub is that a major science instrument on the lander has been having issues. The French-made Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) requires a vacuum seal around three main sensors to protect them from the Martian environment. This vacuum seal allows them to detect seismic activity on Mars, and notice any ground movements as small as...
