With the historic fly-by of Pluto last month, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft gave us an up-close look at the former 9th planet, showing that it is a dynamic world with icy plains, tall mountains, and an atmosphere. But now that New Horizons has passed by Pluto, it has the infinite cosmic horizon in its stead. So what’s next for the $700 Million spacecraft? Its battery will keep it going for a few more decades, and it will likely pass beyond the edge of the solar system, in the stead of the Voyager crafts. What else is ahead? The good news is...
I am always fascinated by the diversity of colours, shapes, and scenarios that pop up throughout our universe. Even though we can classify things into categories like ‘planetary nebula,’ ‘galaxy,’ ‘dwarf star,’ and such, there is still a huge amount of variability among these categories. The most diverse group may be nebulae, since their shape relies on what elements are present, the environment in which they formed, and how far along they are in their evolution. A great example of a strange and interesting nebula is the PN M2-9, the Twin Jet Nebula. Lying 5,560 light years away, in the...
Rosetta captured comet 67P in all its glory this past week, as it reached perihelion, its closest approach to the Sun. This marks the point where the comet feels the most solar energy, resulting in streams of gas and dust shooting from the nucleus. Rosetta captured a series of images to show the brilliance of the comet. It’s been just over a year since Rosetta first injected itself into orbit around 67P on August 6th, 2014, and it has been hitching a ride around the Sun with the comet ever since, collecting amazing science data and observing the comet through its...
One of the big questions in astrophysics is about variation of the laws of Physics. The laws we know and are familiar with; angular momentum, gravity, energy, are the same everywhere on Earth. But what about beyond Earth? The universe is so large and so vast, we may be in a local region where the laws of Physics are set, and our laws may be different from a distinct region somewhere else in the universe. The good news is that we can make predictions based on our understanding of physics. And with our powerful telescopes that allow us to view a variety of...
Hey hey! It’s a blue moon today! For all those people who have used the phrase ‘Once in a blue moon,’ it finally happened. Turns out that phrase means ‘about once every 2-3 years.’ A blue moon doesn’t mean the moon is changing colour anytime soon, just like a supermoon doesn’t mean the moon actually gains superpowers or gets noticeably bigger. A blue moon is simply the second full moon in a calendar month. The moon orbits the Earth in approximately 29.5 days. This was how months were originally formed. But 12 months x 29.5 days means that we are...
For the last few months, Venus and Jupiter have been visible in the night sky. Venus makes it’s usual 584 day cycle, becoming an ‘evening star’ once again, reaching far from the Sun in the West, while still following our central star. Jupiter has slowly worked its way westward over the past few months, due more in part to Earth’s orbit than Jupiter’s. Finally, the long-awaited conjunction of the planets is nigh, and it offers the best views and photographic opportunities of the year for professional and amateur astronomers alike. What is the brightest object in the sky? The Sun...
If there’s one true fact about every single gas giant planet ever observed, around the Sun or other stars in the Galaxy, it’s that they all are mainly composed of Hydrogen. Even though the giants of our solar system such as Neptune and Jupiter seem very different, it is Hydrogen that primarily composes them. The difference is in the details though. The blue colour of Neptune is due to the presence of Methane, and even then it only makes up 1.7% of Neptune’s mass. But Hydrogen is light. Wouldn’t giant planets like hot Jupiters lose their Hydrogen from being blasted...
Since it entered Saturnian orbit on July 1st, 2004, the Cassini spacecraft has changed our view of Saturn and its moons. It is a dynamic gas giant with unique and fascinating moons that have their own characteristics that make them seem more like small, rocky, planets than moons of a gas giant. Cassini has been delivering amazing science for over a decade, and it’s next journey lies in a polar orbit of Saturn, where it will dive through Saturn’s rings, giving the most detailed and close up views of the tiny ice particles that compose them. Before this journey, Cassini...
Remember a few months ago when excitement was high about seeing the surface of the dwarf planet Ceres for the first time with the Dawn spacecraft? Remember when the pictures were simple and blurry and looked more like a conspiracy theorist’s UFO pictures than another celestial body? Remember when I wrote about how cool it will be when we become the first humans in history, and the first form of life to ever see the surface of this object? The lead up to the Ceres encounter is well summed up in the NASA video from right before the encounter. I...
As we are approaching the New Horizons bypass of Pluto just over a month from now, there is a lot of focus on the Plutonian system, from its strange Moons to its enigmatic surface. As we wait for the first ever high resolution images of the surface of Pluto, we can look to Hubble data to give us our fix. The best image of Pluto taken up to today, by Hubble, is blurry and at best can lead us to speculation about what we are seeing. But Hubble, as always, produces valuable science, and has given new insights into the...
