Indholdsfortegnelse for No. 73 i All About Space

Welcome @ Jamie Pham / Alamy Stock Photo  Did you know that the Milky Way is actually pretty weird? As you'll discover this issue, astronomers have found that our home galaxy isn't like the other galactic structures in the cosmos – and they're very worried. Turn to page 40 for the latest findings from our brand new surveys. “ We use the Milky Way as a yardstick for the rest of the universe. If it's not typical then we need to know” Marla Geha You may have just seen in 2018 with the popping of champagne corks, party poppers, food and balloons, but this month, we're looking even further ahead to the discoveries we're likely to be making in the next decade or so. We had the likes of physicists…

News in Brief © NASA/JPL CMB scientists awarded major prize Researchers who worked on NASA's pioneering WMAP space mission which mapped the cosmic microwave background have been awarded the 2018 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics. Their work dated the age of the universe to about 13.8 billion years, as well as its basic composition and rate of accelerating expansion. Voyager 1's fired up after almost 40 years NASA's Voyager 1 has fired up its thrusters for the first time in 37 years. The trajectory correction manoeuvre thrusters on the spacecraft – which was launched just over 40 years ago – were found to be working well. Musk to send Tesla car to Mars Elon Musk has laid out plans to launch his Tesla Roadster car into Mars orbit on board…

Interview Messages to space Communicating with the unknown One of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI)'s focused institutes, Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence (METI) International, has now taken a much more active approach by messaging a nearby star with a potentially habitable planet Interviewed by Lee Cavendish © NASA; Per Bifrost; Arne Nordmann  Where did you send the message from? “ [The signal] is designed to communicate a few things in greater depth, as opposed to trying to cover a wide range of topics” We chose the ‘EISCAT’ transmitter, which is the ‘European Incoherent Scatter Scientific Association’ in Tromsø, Norway. It's located north of the Arctic Circle, and one of the phenomenon they look at is the Northern Lights, or Aurora Borealis. The facility operates by transmitting radio signals and studying them…

100,000 light years The Milk y Way The Milky is the only galaxy we can examine from the inside, and doing so is vital © Tobias Roetsch The Solar System The Sun and its planets are located in the Milky Way's Orion Arm, born some 4.6 billion years ago. The Halo Surrounding the disc is a near-spherical halo which contains much of the galaxy's dark matter, along with ancient star groups called globular clusters. The Local Group The Milky Way belongs to a group of galaxies known as The Local Group. It contains more than 50 galaxies, including Andromeda and Triangulum. The disc More resemblant of a pancake, the disc is home to most of the Milky Way's stars, but also contains gas and dust in its spiral arms. Under…

M A R S THE RED PLANET © NASA/ JPL/USGS; Detlev Van Ravenswaay/Science Photo Library North pole Mars' northern polar cap is thought to contain the Red Planet's largest supply of water ice. It's cut by a swirl of deep valleys, and the permanent cap of dust and ice is 1,100-kilometres across and up to three-kilometres deep. Phobos Phobos is the larger of Mars' two moons, and orbits the Red Planet three times a day. Its most distinguishing feature is a 9.7-kilometres (6-miles) Stickney crater, observed as a streaky pattern. Phobos is expected to crash into the Martian surface or shatter into a ring in roughly 50 million years. The name is derived from the Greek for fear. Deimos Much less irregular in shape than fellow sibling, Phobos, Deimos has…

Your kids might live on Mars. Here's how they'll survive Stephen Petranek, editor-in-chief of Breakthrough Technology Alert Will we all be living on Mars in the near future? Award-winning journalist, Stephen Petranek, firmly believes it’s not a question of if, but when. His future-gazing talk looks at how we might survive on the Red Planet, and makes some pretty bold predictions about when this might actually become a reality. As well as reviewing the reasons why humans need to make the long journey to Mars, he discusses the physical differences between the potential Earth 2.0 and our home planet, comparing the size, temperature, atmosphere and gravity. While acknowledging humankind’s poor track record of successful unmanned missions to Mars, he sets out the challenges of making this trip, including surviving in…

Is our universe the only universe? Professor Brian Greene, professor of mathematics and physics, Columbia University  This action-packed talk explores the possibility that our universe is part of a vast complex of universes called the multiverse. The animated lecture is given by theoretical physicist Brian Greene, perhaps the best-known proponent of superstring theory, the idea that tiny strands of energy vibrating in a higher dimensional space-time create every single particle and force in the universe. He breaks down the complicated idea into three parts, starting with the idea that space is expanding, and how Nobel Prize-winning research in the 1990s discovered that rather than slowing down, this expansion rate is getting faster. The talk reveals how this is driven by mysterious ‘dark energy’, and explains how string theory fits in…

Space TED Talks Look up for a change Lucianne Walkowicz, stellar astronomer on NASA’s Kepler mission  The night sky provides an incredible view, but what if we’re not able to see it? In this talk, Lucianne Walkowicz speaks about how light pollution is ruining our extraordinary view of space. While there is a tendency to believe that this loss is an inevitable result of technological progress, Walkowicz, who works on NASA’s exoplanethunting Kepler mission, says that this need not be the case, and that the night sky should be treated as a natural resource that must be preserved. The intense light from urban settlements around the globe is so distinct it can be photographed from space. But, most of the energy used to light outdoor spaces is wasted, says Walkowicz,…

Naked eye targets This month’s naked eye targets January’s sky is a treasure chest of bright stars and glittering star clusters… Mizar and Alcor Look closely at the star Mizar in the centre of the Big Dipper’s curved handle and you’ll see it is actually a pair of stars. Mizar’s much fainter companion is Alcor. This famous double star is known by some as ‘The Horse and Rider’. Beehive Cluster (M44) Messier 44, also dubbed the Beehive Cluster or Praesepe, is an open star cluster in the middle of the constellation of Cancer, the Crab. A smudge to the naked eye, binoculars and telescopes reveal it is a group of almost 1,000 stars, one-and-a-half-times as wide as the Moon. The easiest way to find Messier 44 is by drawing a…

Deep sky challenge Observe the unicorn’s sparkling treasures Winter skies are rich in deep-sky objects for your telescope to hunt down and enjoy. Here are just a select few... © Will Tirion; ESO; Judy Schmidt Just to the east of the constellation of Orion (the Hunter) is a dimmer constellation called Monoceros (the Unicorn). Although none of the stars that make up the group are particularly bright, this constellation sits in the band of the Milky Way, and is therefore rich in nebulae and star clusters. It contains some fairly well-known objects such as the Cone Nebula, the more famous Rosette Nebula, and Hubble's Variable Nebula; this is a rich region of the sky to go exploring with a telescope of almost any size. 1 Rosette Nebula (NGC 2238) The…

STARGAZER The Northern Hemisphere The New Year has arrived with some of the very best night sky targets, studded in long winter nights © Wil Tirion;; ESA; NASA; Christos Doudoulakis; Peterkennett Whether you just got your first telescope for Christmas or you've long been observing, there are some wonderful targets to seek out in the New Year. Orion (the Hunter) and Taurus (the Bull) remain prominent in the sky, offering splendid sights including red supergiant Betelgeuse, brilliant blue-white Rigel, the Pleiades star cluster (Messier 45), orange giant Aldebaran and of course, the Crab Nebula (Messier 1). Look southeast and you’ll spot a celestial Great Dog: a seemingly basic-looking pattern of stars, Canis Major features several binary systems and supergiant stars. It’s also home to open cluster Messier 41, which contains…

Our contributors include... Colin Stuart Astronomer & author According to recent research, the Milky Way isn't like any other galaxy we've ever come across before. Colin finds out what that means for our current theories. Lee Cavendish Staff Writer & astronomer Lee uncovers what the world's most influential scientists think will be the next big breakthroughs – if it all goes to plan we may crack big mysteries. Libby Plummer Science and technology journalist & writer Libby's got some ideas worth spreading this issue, with a pick of the very best space TED talks. Head to page 58 and be sure to watch them now! Stuart Atkinson Astronomer & science writer Stuart provides your guide on this month's planets and the deep-sky targets you should be observing during the first…

The fight for Mars “Mars belongs to Elon” How Elon Musk is planning to create a Red Planet colony 1. Build a really big rocket SpaceX is creating the Big Falcon Rocket (BFR) – a rocket larger than any that have gone before. Weighing a total of 4,400 tons at liftoff, and standing at 106 metres (347ft) tall and nine metres (30ft) in diameter, it will have a liftoff thrust of 5,400 tons. It will also have 31 Raptor engines and be fully reusable, helping to dramatically reduce costs. SpaceX hopes to have it ready for use in the early 2020s. 2 Create a humongous spaceship At the tip of the BFR is the payload: the section where passengers will stay and where the cargo will be stored. It will…

Subaru Telescope USER MANUAL Subaru Telescope This optical and infrared instrument has been operating since before the turn of the century, and it continues to provide valuable astronomical observations THE SPECS First light: January 1999 Primary mirror size: 8.2 metres (26.9 feet) Primary mirror thickness: 20 centimetres (7.9 inches) Location: Mauna Kea Observatory Operator: National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) Operational time: Around 19 years Altitude: 4,139 metres (13,580 feet) Sitting on top of the dormant volcano Mauna Kea in Hawaii, the Subaru Telescope takes advantage of one of the best astronomical observation sites on the planet. When the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) commissioned the telescope back in 1991, they set out to build the best optical and infrared telescope possible, capable of discovering the secrets of the…

Space TED Talks Adventures of an asteroid hunter Dr Carrie Nugent, astronomer at the California Institute for Technology (Caltech) This enlightening talk centres on our oldest cosmic neighbours, asteroids, and their importance to us here on Earth. Not only can asteroids shed light on the beginnings of the Solar System, they also pose a massive risk to our safety. For example, in 2013 the Chelyabinsk asteroid entered the Earth’s atmosphere over a remote area of Russia and created a shockwave that shattered windows, rocked buildings and caused hundreds of injuries. A similar incident, on a much larger scale, is thought to be related to the fate of the dinosaurs. As a result, near-Earth asteroids are now constantly monitored in order to try and prevent another catastrophic strike on Earth. Carrie…

I leapt from the stratosphere. Here's how I did it Alan Eustace, computer scientist and former Senior Vice President of Knowledge at Google Best known for breaking the world record for the highest-altitude free-fall jump set by Austrian daredevil Felix Baumgartner in 2012, Alan Eustace floated up into the stratosphere attached to a balloon in 2014, before plummeting back towards Earth and parachuting to safety. Eustace made it to over 135,000 feet in a custom-built space suit before starting his descent and parachuting the final 10,000 feet. In this talk, he explains how the mission came to be as he pondered whether the stratosphere – one of the least accessible places on (or above) Earth – could be explored. Eustace talks the audience through the life-preserving features of his stratospheric…

Have we reached the end of physics? Dr Harry Cliff, particle physicist at CERN and Science Museum Fellow of Modern Science  Particle physicist Harry Cliff takes us on a mind-boggling journey to discuss the future of physics. As a scientist working on the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, Cliff is well placed to run through the basics of Einstein’s general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics, and how these groundbreaking ideas have completely transformed our understanding of the universe. Over 100 years on from Einstein's theory, physics is at another turning point, explains Cliff. Could the laws of physics prevent us from making further discoveries and stop us from every truly understanding why there is ‘something rather than nothing’? CERN’s discovery of the Higgs Boson may have proved the existence…

The search for planets beyond our Solar System Professor Sara Seager, astrophysicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology © NASA; Tobias Roetsch Astrophysicist and planetary scientist Sara Seager’s research led to the first discovery of an atmosphere on a planet outside our Solar System. In this inspiring talk, the exoplanet expert speaks about the search for potentially habitable worlds beyond our own. Thousands of exoplanets have been pinpointed during the last couple of decades, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The astonishing variety of exoplanets already discovered includes gas giants that would be far too hot to support life, in contrast with Kepler-186f, so far considered to be one of the most likely spots for discovering life. This Earth 2.0 is a so-called ‘Goldilocks’ planet, not too hot…

STARGAZER Astroshots of the month Send your astrophotography images to space@spaceanswers.com for a chance to see them featured in All About Space Terry Hancock Michigan, USA Telescope: Takahashi FSQ-106 APO refractor “My interests in astronomy and photography began some 40 years ago in Australia. Inspired by the late Sir Patrick Moore, my first telescope was a 4.5-inch Newtonian, and I enjoyed many nights in the pollution-free, dark southern night skies of the hot Australian outback. It was often so dark that the Milky Way cast a shadow on the ground. “The skies are mediocre in western Michigan, where I observe from these evenings. I pride myself in taking really long exposures of deep-sky objects, and always try to maintain a natural look.” Ehsan Rostamizadeh Kerman, Iran “Taken in June from…

Elon Musk VS Richard Branson As two of the most successful entrepreneurs in the world, they have the impressive CVs to match © Gregg DeGuire / Getty Images “Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough” Elon Musk Net Worth: $20.2 Billion 1983 Early talent Having taken an interest in computer programming in his earlier years, at the age of 12, Musk used his new-found skills to create a game called Blastar, which he sold to a magazine for $500. 1992-1995 Graduated from university Musk began his studies at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada where he spent two years before moving to the University of Pennsylvania. He has two degrees: one in physics and one in economics. 1995-2002 Headed up PayPal After…

The next big breakthroughs Brian Cox, Bill Nye, Michio Kaku & more on... THE NEXT BIG BREAKTHROUGHS With our quest to understand the universe excelling in every frontier, All About Space asked some of the world’s most renowned scientists what they think the next huge discovery could be Written by Lee Cavendish Throughout the years, scientific and technological advances have ensured that there's always another surprise waiting for us around the corner. So who knows what the next big scientific discovery is going to be? The short answer is, no one knows. However, All About Space has picked the brains of some of the world’s smartest minds to hazard a guess for us. These scientists discuss possibilities ranging from what technologies could arise – perhaps ushering in the dawn of…

Focus on LIGHT POLLUTION ON THE RISE According to five years of satellite data, artificial light at night is rising by two per cent each year © Evan Dawson / Alamy Stock Photo: Tobias Roetsch Five years of images snapped by the joint NASANOAA Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership satellite has revealed that artificial light at night on Earth is getting brighter, rapidly growing at a rate of two per cent year upon year. The landmark study, which was led by Christopher Kyba of the German Research Center for Geosciences (GFZ) in Potsdam, Germany, revealed that the increases were seen almost everywhere the team looked, with some of the largest gains in regions that were originally unlit. “Light is growing most rapidly in places that didn’t have a lot of light…

Subaru Telescope Anatomy of the Subaru Telescope The observatory's nine cameras and spectrographs span a range of wavelengths, utilising all four focal points © Adrian Mann; NAOJ;. “ This attention to detail results in an average surface error of just 0.012 micrometres" Secondary Mirror The secondary mirror is 1.3-metres (4.3 feet) in diameter and is used to redirect the collected light to the Nasmyth foci, without the need for coolant. Tertiary mirrors The tertiary mirrors are used to split the light into its optical and infrared constituents, directing it into the necessary Nasmyth focus point. Nasmyth Focus (Infrared) Fnfrared Camera and Spectrograph (FRCS) This uses the near-infrared wavelength (1 to 5 microns) to create images of the motion or chemical composition of more distant targets and more. 188-Element Adaptive Optics…

ET is (probably) out there – get ready Dr Seth Shostak of the SETI Institute While we’ve yet to make contact with any other form of life beyond our own planet, Seth Shostak is so confident that we’ll find ET in the coming years he bet everyone listening to his TED talk a cup of coffee if he's wrong. As a senior astronomer at SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), Shostak has been searching for signs of intelligent life in space for some time. His riveting, and at times hilarious, account of his work highlights the growing likelihood of finding aliens in the near future. Recent developments in equipment and missions, such as NASA’s Kepler exoplanet-hunting mission, enables better estimations of known planets that might hold alien life, with the search…

How to go to space, without having to go to space Angelo Vermeulen, crew commander for NASA © NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage; Tobias Roetsch; University of Hawaii Belgian visual artist Angelo Vermeulen, who is also a crew commander of the NASA-funded HI-SEAS (Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation) Mars simulation, has already completed a four-month stay in the isolated dome on Hawaii’s Mauna Loa Volcano. The idea is to prepare humans for life in deep space by investigating how crew members can successfully live together in such small and isolated places. While staying in the dome the team also carried out a number of research projects, including a food study and missions in mockup spacesuits. In his talk, Vermeulen also runs us through his art project called ‘Seeker’,…

Split double stars Pushing your telescope to the limit Here's how you can work out which stars you can comfortably resolve… Divide the diameter of your telescope's lens or mirror in millimetres by the number 120, so an aperture of 90 millimetres divided by 120 equals 1.33. This number is the arc seconds between two stars which your telescope can make out as individual objects. Double stars which are further apart will be split, but stars which are closer than 1.2 seconds of arc separation will not. 1 Train your eyes Begin your double-star observing by seeing just how well you can split naked-eye doubles using no optical aid. You should refer to a star map if you’re unsure which are visible to the naked eye. 2 Upgrade to binoculars…