In a major announcement this week, researchers with the Kepler Space Telescope science team have confirmed the existence of 1,284 new planets that had originally been found by Kepler. This is a huge leap in the number of confirmed planets, bringing the total to over 2,300. The previous science data collection done by Kepler was completed in 2013, so why is this new news? Well the exciting part is that these are confirmed planets. Usually when Kepler detects a signal indicating a potential planet, it needs to be verified by using some of the larger ground-based telescopes. Kepler is not immune...
NASA has been zeroing in on certain features of dwarf planet Ceres and looked at them in more detail. Here are the most surprising as well as what we know so far. There are a few other great videos in this playlist, but the first one gives a great summary of what has been seen so far. The most surprising and interesting feature of Ceres in my opinion has been the Occator crater. With the enigmatic bright spots that have been observed since the Dawn spacecraft approached Ceres, we are seeing them in finer detail than ever before, and we...
With the recent discovery of gravitational waves, we now have a target for probing the very early universe, close to the big bang. This is because gravitational waves can travel across the universe unimpeded, meaning those created after the big bang are still bouncing around today. It’s like the big bang was the ringing of a giant bell, and the ringing can still be heard. But all of our Easter eggs are not in one basket. There is another way to probe the very early universe, one we haven’t found yet, because it involves particles that are very tiny and...
After falling continuously for an entire year, Scott Kelly is ready to hit the ground. With the goal of studying the long-term effects of microgravity on humans, his year is space has been something to keep an eye on. Always in good spirits, he is probably excited to come home, albeit apprehensive due to the dangers of returning to gravity after such a long time. Next Tuesday, March 1st, he will experience significant forces once again as he undocks from the ISS and is ferried home by the Soyuz capsule. Like wearing a weighted suit, coming home will be an...
We know that galaxies like our Milky Way are far more massive than we can see. The dark matter in the Milky Way makes up 90% of it’s total mass. Another way of saying this is the Mass to Light ratio, comparing the total mass inferred by the rotation speed of the galaxy to the total mass of stars in the galaxy. This ratio, M/L, for the Milky Way, is about 10. But for a galaxy cluster, the M/L ratio is more like 100. Galaxy clusters are not just dense collections of stars and massive galaxies, they are also immense...
Inhabited entirely by robots, Mars is the enigmatic planet that is under intense exploration by humanity. The curiosity rover has been making it’s way closer to Mount Sharp in the Gale Crater, intending to slowly climb the mountain, sampling rocks from different eras in Mars’ history along the way. One of the last regions to cross before beginning its ascent is the region known as the Bagnold dunes, strange dark features similar to sand dunes on Earth. Photos from Curiosity show the beauty and detail in the dark features. The dark dunes have very interesting ripple features, similar to those...
As the results from Pluto and its system of moons continues to pour in, we are seeing a lot of scientists keeping busy in excitement as they interpret the data and work to understand the complexities of the recently illuminated dwarf planet. The fascinating images that have returned have also been interpreted and manipulated in ways that show fascinating features and unexpected views. A recent rendering shows a complete rotation of Pluto and Charon from images taken by New Horizons. Since it takes Pluto 6 days, 9 hours, and 36 minutes to rotate, New Horizons couldn’t take high resolution images...
