For a long time, the scientific community has been hopeful for a mission to some of the most interesting moons of the solar system. Europa, Enceladus, and Ganymede all have subsurface oceans and will give substantial insights into the formation and evolution of life in the solar system and beyond. The only problem is that it costs an astronomical (literally) amount of money to get there. A bare bones mission to Europa would cost over 600 Million dollars, and if we are spending that much we had better be sure it will work. Money aside, the technology to get appropriate...
By now, if you keep up with Astronomy news even a little bit, you’ve heard of the strange white spot on the surface of Ceres, within a large crater in the dwarf planet’s northern hemisphere. As the science mission of the Dawn spacecraft continues, we are starting to see new images of the surface in unprecedented detail, and finally we have a closer view of the mystery spot. Is the new series of images enough to determine its origin? See for yourself. The only thing clear from these new images is that what once appeared to be a single or...
The Dawn space craft has finally begun its science phase after settling into a 13,500 Km orbit around the dark dwarf planet Ceres. It took some manoeuvring to get it in the right spot, but now it has begun mapping the surface as it slowly orbits once every two weeks. A lovely mosaic image from the space craft is the latest jaw-dropping picture of the former asteroid. Like a great shot of the Lunar terminator, by seeing the shadows created by the light from the Sun, we can get a sense of depth of the heavy craters on the surface....
Our Solar System is so much more than just the eight planets that inhabit it. One of the things I learned a bit later in my career as an astronomer (my teenage years; been doing this for awhile) is how unique and diverse the natural satellites are. Our own moon seems somewhat tame, and it’s easy to think the same of all moons. Many of them are boring quiescent rocks with little more scientific value than asteroids, but the largest hide deep and profound secrets that we are just starting to unlock. Four moons in our solar system are larger...
Space Junk is a growing problem. Even though there is a lot of room in low Earth orbit, it’s estimated that 3,000 tons of space debris is floating around at different altitudes and speeds, posing a significant threat to present and future orbital infrastructure. The number of objects classed as space junk doubled in 2014 to 4000 individual pieces, mostly due to collisions between objects already in space. Most of this space junk is old derelict satellites and rocket bodies and engines leftover from 50 years of space exploration. Because of the wide variety of altitudes, trajectories, and speeds, it can...
As the capsule separates from the first stage rocket, the second stage booster takes over and sends Dragon into orbit around the Earth to rendezvous with it’s target a few hours from now. At this point the mission is a complete success from NASA’s perspective, but to Elon Musk and the rest of the SpaceX team, the real challenge is just beginning. They have to land that first stage rocket on a 300 x 170 foot barge in the vast ocean, or risk losing millions of dollars in their investment. Here’s how it went. Okay not so well, but arguably...
More than two-thirds of stars are not solitary like our Sun. They are binary systems, meaning they contain two stars that orbit each other about their common centre of gravity. Stars like our Sun are much more rare, and we are not sure what the difference in formation is between binary and solitary systems. Binary systems are much more useful from a scientific perspective, as we can study their orbital period and separation to infer a wide range of properties such as masses and distances. A special class of stars, called RR Lyrae variable stars, have puzzled astronomers for years...
Mercury, the smallest planet in the solar system, and closest to the Sun, is only a little bit bigger than Earth’s Moon. But the Moon is comparatively reflective object. Mercury is thought to be made of the same rock as the Moon, so what is the difference? Why do objects in our Solar system have different brightnesses? The key is in a property called albedo. It’s basically how much light an object reflects, measured as a fraction. For example, the Moon reflects 12% of the light the Sun shines on it, so it has an albedo of 0.12. The albedo...
When Canadian Astronaut Chris Hadfield was in space, on the International Space Station (ISS), he stayed there for six months, the standard length of stay for an astronaut. On the ISS, three of the six-person crew are replaced every three months. After returning to Earth, Hadfield could barely walk. He had lost bone density and muscle mass, his immune system weakened, cardiovascular functions slowed, and he produced less red blood cells. The lack of gravity is bad for humans, The longest a human being has ever been in space was Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov, who was in space for a staggering...
Yesterday I posted some of my own photos of the Moon and Mars in conjunction from the night before. Last night I went out again knowing that there was another planetary conjunction in the works. The Moon was now with Venus. People on the internet and in person were asking me “Mars? I thought the Moon was near Venus,” and “Venus? I thought the Moon was near Mars.” It really speaks to the fact that most people don’t realize how quickly the sky changes from the point of view of an Earthbound observer. So what happened between the Mars-Moon and...
