Indholdsfortegnelse for No. 68 i All About Space

LAUNCH PAD Moon suspected to hold water Evidence of liquid deep within our natural satellite’s interior could aid future human exploration of the lunar surface “It may be that the bulk interior of the Moon is wet" Although ice exists at the Moon’s poles, scientists have long thought our natural satellite to be generally dry. New research, however, suggests that large amounts of water could be trapped beneath the lunar surface. If this is the case, then it not only aids future Moon missions and potential colonisation, it raises the possibility of some form of alien life residing there. To reach their conclusion, scientists at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, USA, studied lunar pyroclastic deposits by analysing satellite data. They found that this material – which is formed out…

Mysteries of the Sun © NASA, © Peters &Zabransky, © Kristian Pikner, JHU/APL Why is the Sun’s outermost layer hotter than its surface? The Sun’s surface is blisteringly hot, sweltering at temperatures that hit over 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit, but its atmosphere is even hotter. Our current understanding is that the further you move away from a source, the cooler the environment gets, however, with the Sun, this is not the case. Why does it unpredictably spew out torrents of energised particles? These particles impact the Solar System, in particular, the Earth’s magnetosphere, which creates the aurora. It also presents a hazard to spacecraft and astronauts, and can trigger storms that have been known to disable satellites and knock out terrestrial electric power grids for periods of time. Understand the structure…

Search for Planet Nine Have we found PLANET NINE? Recent research has turned up evidence that could make or break the existence of one or more worlds at the edge of the Solar System Written by Abigail Beall © Tobias Roetsch © Tim Abott, CTIO/NOAO “ We still believe that there are two or more planets beyond Pluto” Raul de la Fuente Marcos At the very edge of our Solar System, twenty times further away than Neptune, and 700 times the distance from Earth to the Sun, there lies a mystery. A planet, ten times more massive than our own, could be lurking. Now, as evidence is being gathered, we may have already discovered this world without realising it yet. Once upon a time there were nine planets in our…

STARGAZER Moon tour Rupes Recta ‘The Straight Wall’ How to find the most dramatic cliff on the face of the Moon… © ESO; B. Tafreshi If you have a small telescope or a powerful pair of binoculars and look to the lower left of the great triple crater chain of Ptolemaeus, Alphonsus and Arzachel, you will see (depending on the time of the month) either a short, dark line or a short, bright line. Moon atlases and phone apps identify it as ‘Rupes Recta.’ It doesn’t look much at first glance, nothing more than a dark pencil line or a white chalk scratch drawn on the Moon’s ash grey face, but Rupes Recta has another name, and is one of the most famous and beloved features on the whole of…

Prepare your telescope Optimising your instrument Care for your telescope by following these steps Check that the inside of your telescope tube is clean and free from debris including spiders and cobwebs! If you need to remove a mirror for cleaning or re-coating, make sure that you know exactly what you are doing, and take care to mark the orientation of the mirror in the cell and the tube, so it goes back the way it should be. Finally, don't be afraid to ask for help if you are not sure about what you are doing, as you don’t want to tarnish your trusty telescope and miss something incredible. 1 Put together a list Make a list of all the things you think you need to do to get your…

The Great American Eclipse Where can I see the eclipse? While everywhere in the USA will see a partial eclipse, only those within the Path of Totality will fully experience it © FreeVectorMaps.com Eclipse at sunrise An eclipsed Sun will rise north of Hawaii, with the Moon shadow then racing towards the USA Partial eclipse zones All of the USA, Canada and Mexico will see a partial eclipse. Eclipse at sunset A total eclipse just before sunset will cause two twilights in quick succession south of Cape Verde Moon shadow speed The shadow will move at 3,600 kilometres per hour (2,240 miles per hour) as it arrives in the USA, slowing to 2,179 kilometres per hour (1,354 miles per hour)…

STARGAZER Astroshots of the month Send your astrophotography images to space@spaceanswers.com for a chance to see them featured in All About Space Warren Keller West Virginia, USA Telescope: 16-inch RCOS Ritchey-Chrétien owned by the University of North America “I began exploring the night sky at the age of 15 years old with an eight-inch Newtonian during the 1960s. It wasn’t until 1998 that I got my first taste of astroimaging with film, and in 2003 I switched to a CCD for capturing the treasures of the night sky. Artistic by nature, it’s less about cosmology and more about the thrill of the hunt for the myriad beautiful shapes and colours throughout the universe. My astrophotography tutorial business has given thousands a quick start to taking their own great photos.” Jeff…

Dark matter likely to be cold and heavy The new finding casts doubt on the consensus that the mysterious substance is light and fuzzy © Vid Iršič, University of Washington The idea that dark matter is cold has been lent credence by a new study, casting fresh doubt on a relatively new theory claiming it to be 'fuzzy'. An international team of cosmologists studied data from the vast, near-empty space between galaxies. By labelling dark matter as 'cold,' they are backing a theory dating back to the 1980s. Cold dark matter suggests the dark matter molecules are heavy and sit still – much like water molecules frozen in ice. Rather than whizz around near the speed of light, they are thought to be pulled together by gravity, creating lumps. This…

Mirror universe HAVE WE FOUND A MIRROR UNIVERSE? Could there be a backwards cosmos where time runs from the future to the past? Written by Colin Stuart © Tobias Roetsch © Tobias Roetsch, NASA / WMAP Science Team, ESA © Tobias Roetsch, Rebekka Hearl; Alamy, Fermilab “ The arrow of time is the direction in which records of the past are generated – history books are written and fossils are formed” Tim Koslowski Can you remember the past, or read about Henry VIII's wives? What about recalling what you had for breakfast tomorrow, or who was on the British throne in 2100? Our experience of time comes with a very distinctive direction – events flow like a relentless river, from yesterday to tomorrow. Never the other way around. In the…

Welcome to the multiverse Big Crunch Universes that fall back on themselves end in a similar hot, dense state to the Big Bang itself. Some cosmologists speculate that this kind of 'Big Crunch' could give rise to another universe in turn. Big Bang Universes begin with a Big Bang that may be triggered by a chance fluctuation in the quantum foam, or a collision between branes. Closed universe The development of an individual universe is determined by fundamental properties such as the strength of gravity and the amount of matter contained within it. Raw material The background fabric of the multiverse would be beyond time and space, perhaps in the form of many-dimensional 'branes', or as an all-pervading 'quantum foam'. Short-lived universe Some universes may be so massive that the…

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe will need to withstand… © NASA ON EARTH A temperature of 54 degrees Celsius Radiation equivalent to 1,366 watts per metre squared A speed of 28,968km/h (18,000mph) NEAR THE SUN Temperatures between 500,000 and 1.9mn degrees Celsius Radiation equivalent to 649 kilowatts per metre squared A speed of 724,204km/h (450,000mph) Being bombarded by space particles travelling over 1236km/h (768mph) Solar wind travelling between 1.1mn km/h (683,508mph) and 3.47mn km/h (2.15mn mph) Solar storms between 1,158,728 km/h (720,000 mph) and 5.8mn km/h (3.6 mn mph)…

Nemesis Where this controversial star would be located, if it really does exist ©NASA Where Nemesis would be now If it existed, Nemesis would now be at its furthest point, its aphelion, about three light years away from our Sun. When did the asteroid impact? The Chicxulub asteroid is thought to have hit Earth about 66 million years ago, wiping out 75 per cent of all life on Earth. How big was the asteroid? The dinosaur impactor is thought to have been about ten to 15 kilometers (six to nine miles) in diameter, enough to cause a lot of damage. How big is the crater? The resultant crater from the impact measures more than 180 kilometers (110 miles) across, and is 20 kilometers (12 miles) deep. Where the asteroid hit…

Life but not as we know it LIFE BUT NOT AS WE KNOW IT These are the life forms we should be hunting for – and they could be closer than we thought Written by Lee Cavendish © Stocktrek Images, Inc. / Alamy Stock Photo Life as we know it is a peculiar thing. It's determined by so many environmental factors, resulting in the nature and intelligent life we now know. It began 3.8 billion years ago, when the Earth was only 700 million years old, covered with single-celled bacteria. This evolved into the birds flying in the sky, the fish swimming around the vast oceans, animals of every colour adventuring around the land, but most important of all, it led to the evolution of humans. Even the simplest life…

The Great American Eclipse Observer’s guide to the Great American Eclipse …wherever you are in the world Those in the right place at the right time on 21 August will glimpse the solar corona for a few magical minutes. However, you can still get in on the action wherever you are on the planet Written by Jamie Carter © Evan Zucker A total solar eclipse offers the most captivating and fleeting astronomical sight of all: the solar corona. Invisible at all other times because of the glare of the Sun's disk, this outer atmosphere is only revealed to onlookers for a couple of minutes in the middle of a total solar eclipse, when the Moon blocks 100 per cent of the Sun's light. This will happen in some parts of…

STARGAZER Bresser Solarix 76/350 with solar filter An all-round telescope for the beginner that won’t break the bank, this Newtonian also allows for basic astrophotography “The Bresser Solarix is ideal for those who are looking to make their first steps into astronomy” “ The 20mm eyepiece provided good views of Jupiter and its four Galilean moons ” If you’re new to the hobby of astronomy, and are looking for something that’s both portable and won’t break the bank, then the Bresser Solarix is worth a look. It promotes the observation of a wide selection of astronomical targets, giving beginners a taster of planetary, solar and deep-sky viewing as well as allowing the practise of basic astrophotography using your smartphone. The Newtonian comes with a low-power 20mm and high-power 4mm eyepiece,…

LAUNCH PAD YOUR FIRST CONTACT WITH THE UNIVERSE © NASA, ESA, M. Postman (STScI), and the CLASH team Capturing a galaxy with a gravitational trick of the light Combining the power of the ‘natural lens’ that is gravitational lensing, astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have made an impressive discovery: the very first example of a compact, yet massive, fast-spinning, disc-shaped galaxy that ceased making stars only a few billion years after the Big Bang, the event that kick-started the birth of our universe. In this image, this extremely massive foreground galaxy cluster MACS J2129-0741 magnifies, brightens and distorts the distant background galaxy, MACS 2129-1 in the upper-right corner of this shot. The finding challenges our current understanding of how massive galaxies form and evolve and is the first direct…

SpaceX drops propulsive landing for its Mars mission The decision will have an impact on the private space company's plans to use the Dragon craft SpaceX CEO and founder Elon Musk says the private company will not be allowing its Dragon capsules to make a propulsive landing. Although the original plans were to use the spacecraft's built-in Super Draco thrusters and four landing legs to soft-land (propulsive landings involve using rocket engines to go down instead, slowing the descent), Dragon will instead continue to make splashdowns using parachutes. This, Musk explained, was due to concerns over safety. The company's decision to make such a change to plans it outlined last year will have an impact on its proposals to eventually land on Mars. Musk tweeted that the idea was to…

Mirror universe Backwards universe If a cosmos where time runs backwards exists, then it would have been born from the Big Bang at the same time as ours © Tobias Roetsch “We mean there are two halves, but different things can happen in different halves.” Jim Hartle Possible planets It may be possible for stars, planets and people to form where there's a reversed time arrow, but we'd never be able to meet them. Backwards arrow Order tends to disorder in both halves, but because the arrow of time is reversed, our past is in their future. Inflation Both regions would have emerged after a period of rapid, exponential growth known as inflation, which gave rise to multiple universes. Cosmic Microwave Background Inflation blew up tiny quantum fluctuations so that…

Mission to TOUCH THE SUN NASA's audacious Parker Solar Probe will explore the most hostile territory in the Solar System – the solar corona Written by Russ Swan © NASA “ It will travel eight times closer to the Sun than any previous spacecraft, and become the fastest human-made object in history" The Sun is the most familiar object in the heavens. The subject of centuries of casual observations and decades of scientific study, it still presents something of a mystery. Temperatures on its visible surface, the photosphere, are about 5,500 degrees Celsius (9,932 Fahrenheit). Inside, where fusion reactions generate unimaginable amounts of energy, temperatures reach a hellish 15 million Celsius (27 million Fahrenheit). It might seem obvious that the corona, the star's wispy atmosphere, which is visible from Earth…

Focus on PARTICLES TELEPORTED INTO SPACE Scientists in China have teleported photons from Earth's surface and into orbit for the first time © Adrian Mann; IQOQI Vienna, Austrian Academy of Sciences “ Space-scale teleportation can be realised, and is expected to play a key role in the future of distributed quantum internet” 1. Entangling and emitting the photons Using an innovative system of light-altering crystals and a one-metre telescope, the entangled photon is sent towards the Micius spacecraft. 2. Making the journey to Micius While one photon stays on Earth, the other travels 500 km, staying in its undefined quantum state. 3. Detecting the photon Once the remaining photon interacts with a third entangled photon on the ground, all three quantum states are revealed. The third photon has effectively teleported…

Sun's twin DID THE SUN’S TWIN WIPE OUT THE DINOSAURS? Some 66 million years ago, an asteroid wiped prehistoric life from our planet. All About Space uncovers if another star tied to ours could have kick-started a mass extinction Written by Jonathan O'Callaghan ©Mark Garlick/Science Photo Library “ In late 2016, astronomers announced they had found a star that was heading straight towards us. It’s predicted to come as close as 0.2 light years to our Sun” About 66 million years ago, an asteroid slammed into Earth, wiping out more than 75 per cent of all life on our planet – including the dinosaurs. What caused that asteroid to come our way has perplexed scientists. Was it just a coincidence, or were bigger powers at play? Back in 1984, a group…

Planet of the month This month’s planets Ringed gas giant Saturn is still visible during the evenings, while Jupiter continues to rule a portion of the night as summer comes to a close Saturn Constellation: Ophiuchus Magnitude: 0.4 AM/PM: PM For the amateur astronomer and casual sky-watcher, Saturn won’t be a very impressive or eye-catching object this month. With a very respectable visual magnitude of 0.4 — making it almost as bright as the popular star Arcturus — it is, technically, easily visible to the naked eye, but Saturn is not conveniently placed in the sky for observation at the moment. Exiled to the star-barren southern wastelands of the constellation Ophiuchus, with the frothy star clouds of the Milky Way to its left, and ruddy Antares and the rest of…

STARGAZER How to… Prepare your telescope for a new season of observing If you haven't used your instrument much over the summer, now's the time to get it ready for the autumn and winter You’ll need: • Soft clean cloth • Lithium grease • Screwdriver set As our main instrument that we use to connect us with the night sky, our telescopes are, without a doubt, very important; but do we lavish the care on them that they need and deserve to keep giving us those breathtaking views and images of the heavens? Telescopes are comprised of both optical components and mechanical ones, so while we may keep the optics generally clean and in good order, it is often easy to forget that the mount and drive system, if there…

How a solar eclipse is made The Sun is a disc, so when the Moon occasionally gets in its way it casts a two-part shadow on the Earth Identical apparent size The Sun is 400 times larger than the Moon, but also 400 times farther away. New Moon A solar eclipse occurs every 18 months or so when a New Moon crosses the ecliptic. Umbral shadow The narrow inner core of the Moon's shadow causes a blackout that allows eclipse chasers to see the solar corona for a few minutes. The path of totality The umbral shadow is about 112.6km (70 miles) wide, but those near its centre-line experience totality for the longest. Penumbral shadow When Earth passes through the Moon's fuzzy shadow, most people see only a partial eclipse.…

STARGAZER How to… Observe Neptune The remote ice giant comes to opposition this September, making it suitable for observation. The planet will still be a challenge, so here are some tips on the best ways to see it… You’ll need: • At least a medium-sized telescope • Star chart • Coloured filters (optional) When a planet comes to 'opposition', it means that it is opposite the Sun – from our point of view – in the sky. To be in this position, the Earth must be between the planet and the Sun, which in turn means that we are relatively close to the planet in question (as much as our respective orbits around the Sun will allow anyway). Because we are closer to another planet at this time, it will…