Innehållsförteckning för No. 72 från All About Space

LAUNCH PAD YOUR FIRST CONTACT WITH THE UNIVERSE Ground telescope finds ‘zombie star’ that refuses to die Astronomers are amazed to find a supernova isn't playing by the rules – getting brighter rather than fading away © European Southern Observatory/M. Kornmesser “ The supernova offers astronomers their greatest thrill: something they do not understand” Long-held wisdom that supernovae shine for months as they explode has been turned on its head following the discovery of a ‘zombie star’ that's still shining bright years later. Astronomers at Las Cumbres Observatory, California have been startled to discover that the supernova known as iPTF14hls has not merely peaked and faded over the course of 100 days as expected, but has actually been growing dimmer and brighter for two years. Scientists are now seeking to…

Dwarf planet Ceres probably had an ancient ocean Minerals containing water suggest geologic activity and a lot of past liquid water ©NASA/JPL/Caltech Two insightful studies into the dwarf planet Ceres have found evidence to suggest it may have once had a global ocean. According to the team working on NASA's Dawn mission, which is studying two of the three known protoplanets of the asteroid belt, Ceres' crust is a mixture of ice, salts and hydrated material that were subject to past and possibly recent geologic activity – and that the crust represents most of the ancient ocean. In a statement, the team goes on to claim that a second study has also shown there is a softer, easily deformable layer beneath its rigid surface crust, which they say is another…

UNMISSABLE SPACE EVENTS 2018 The mission launches, flybys and stargazing spectacles you shouldn't miss Written by Abigail Beall © NASA/JPL-Caltech; Sciepro/Science Photo Library; ESA October 2018 BepiColombo heads for Mercury A joint mission between Europe and Japan’s space agencies, ESA and JAXA, BepiColumbo will head where no other European missions have been before; an adventure towards the Sun. BepiColumbo is made up of two orbiters and after a seven-year journey to Mercury, they will separate and orbit the Solar System’s smallest and least understood planet. At an average of only 58 million kilometres (36 million miles) from the Sun, once they arrive the orbiters will endure temperatures of over 350 degrees Celcius as they try to gather information about Mercury’s composition, atmosphere and magnetosphere to piece together the history of…

Trips to the International Space Station © Anthony Arrigo/SpaceWeather.com 9 February The year’s first ISS cargo mission The Dragon CRS-1 spacecraft will go on a cargo delivery mission to the International Space Station, launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9. 27 June Another Russian cargo delivery The 70th Progress cargo ship will launch on a Russian Soyuz rocket carrying cargo to the Space Station. TBA in August Boeing’s first ISS mission An Atlas 5 rocket will launch Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner, carrying two astronauts, to the ISS. 13 February A Russian ISS cargo delivery A Soyuz rocket will launch the 69th Progress mission, taking the second cargo delivery of the year to the ISS. 10 March The first crew of the year to the ISS A Russian Soyuz rocket will take a…

Dark versus light The terrestrial world is a planet of contrasts, but not necessarily in the ways you’d think © Tobias Roetsch The daytime side of Venus This image of daytime Venus was taken using the Ultraviolet Imager (UVI) on Japan’s Akatsuki craft, at a frequency of 360 nanometres. The unexpected winds of change The super-rotation observed on the night side of Venus is noticeably more irregular, unpredictable and features unmoving phenomena. Unexpected nighttime structures High-velocity filaments seen on the upper clouds of Venus, triggered by unmoving phenomena called 'stationary waves' or 'gravity waves' over steep mountainous areas. Winds faster than the planet The super-rotation on the dayside of Venus is observably strong and largely uniform in speed, size and location. Clouds anchored in the atmosphere ‘Stationary waves’, also known…

Ganymede Ganymede in orbit Ganymede orbits Jupiter at an average distance of 1.07 million kilometres (665,000 miles), taking only 7.1 Earth days to complete one orbit. Three out of the four Galilean moons have oddly organised orbits, also known as an orbital resonance. In this case, for every orbit Ganymede completes, Europa completes two orbits around the gas giant and Io completes four orbits around Jupiter simultaneously. Ganymede in numbers 16105,262 km The year Ganymede was discovered by Galileo Galilei The diameter of Ganymede, making it the largest moon in the Solar System 1,070,400km The distance of Ganymede’s orbit around Jupiter 2022 The year the JUICE spacecraft will be launched to study Ganymede up close 0.15 The strength of Ganymede’s gravity relative to Earth’s 0.025 The mass of Ganymede relative…

STARGAZER What’s in the sky? Conjunction Jargon buster A conjunction is an alignment of objects at the same celestial longitude. The conjunction of the Moon and the planets is determined with reference to the Sun. A planet is in conjunction with the Sun when it and Earth are aligned on opposite sides of the Sun. Right Ascension (RA) Right Ascension is to the sky what longitude is to the surface of the Earth, corresponding to east and west directions. Ft is measured in hours, minutes and seconds since, as the Earth rotates on its axis, we see different parts of the sky throughout the night. Declination (Dec) This tells you how high an object will rise in the sky. Like Earth’s latitude, Dec measures north and south. Ft’s measured in…

STARGAZER The Northern Hemisphere The December constellations swing into view, offering an impressive array of targets to enjoy in darker skies © Wil Tirion; ESA; NASA; Göran Nilsson & The Liverpool Telescope; David Chifiriuc If you’re a fan of splitting double stars with your telescope, then head over to the constellation of Aries (the Ram), which makes its appearance this month, bounded by the star patterns of Taurus (the Bull), Pisces (the Fishes) and Cetus (the Whale). In particular, binary star systems Lambda Arietis, Epsilon Arietis and Mesarthim are splendid targets to resolve for astronomers with medium- to large-sized telescopes. Meanwhile, orange giants Hamal (the Head of the Ram) and Botein (Little Belly) can be picked out using nothing more than the naked eye. Orion (the Hunter) is also prominent…

Virgin promise: Fly from UK to Australia in two hours – via space Forget reviving Concorde. Virgin Galactic wants even faster travel Virgin Galactic – which bills itself as the world's first commercial spaceline – is looking at plans to revolutionise flights around the globe. It wants to eventually provide superfast point-to-point passenger flights that would slash flight times to even the most far-flung locations to a couple of hours. Those on board would end up taking off in space, with a plane taking the spacecraft skywards, dropping it in mid-air and allowing it to power up and jet away. In doing so, the spacecraft could reach anywhere between Mach 3 (3,704kph/2,302mph) and Mach 5 (6,174kph/3,836mph), according to Virgin Galactic's CEO George Whitesides. It would also be something of a…

Is dark matter real? DARK MATTER DOES IT EVEN EXIST? Does the elusive substance really make up most of the mass in our universe? All About Space discovers that some physicists and astronomers are starting to have doubts Written by Giles Sparrow For almost a century, astronomers have believed that our universe is dominated by something we cannot see – a type of matter that neither emits nor absorbs light and other forms of electromagnetic radiation, and which reveals itself only through the influence of its gravity on objects we can directly observe. This ‘dark matter' is thought to vastly outweigh the 'normal matter' that emits and interacts with light – it makes galaxies and larger cosmic objects behave as if they have, on average, about six-times the mass suggested…

Dark Venus What we’ve found out about Venus It may have a thick atmosphere, but spacecraft have been able to tease out some important information about the planet © Adrian Mann; NASA; ESA; JAXA “ The atmosphere on the planet’s night side behaves very differently to that on the side of the Venus facing the Sun” IR2: The 2 micrometre camera What it discovered/observed: Equatorial jet Observed lower-altitude clouds by observing their silhouettes against the heat rising from the lower surface, and detected a high-speed jet near the equator. LIR: Long-wave infrared camera What it discovered/observed: Gravity waves The LIR first observed the near-stationary, 10,000 kilometre (6,213 mile) bow-shaped feature in the cloud layer above the highlands of Aphrodite Terra. UVI: Ultraviolet imager What it discovered/observed: Sulphur dioxide distribution The…

Star of Bethlehem What was THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM? An event that supposedly occurred thousands of years ago is suspected to be a planetary conjunction, rather than a star, that guided three wise men to a stable Written by Jonathan O'Callaghan © Maria Dryfhout / Alamy Stock Photo; RyanJLane; Science & Society Picture Library / Getty Images © Nicholas Forder; Astronomy Education Services/Gingin Observatory; NASA/CXC/RIKEN/D.Takei et al; Alexey Stiop / Alamy Stock Photo; STOCKFOLIO® / Alamy Stock Photo “If what is in the New Testament is a historical account of something, then that requires an explanation” David Weintraub We all know the story. Approximately two millennia ago, three Magi – or wise men – followed the Star of Bethlehem to Jerusalem. After consulting with King Herod of Judea, they locate…

STARGAZER Planet of the month This month’s planets The king of the Solar System reigns supreme again in the early hours, while the Red Planet serves as an easy target for astronomers As long as you don’t mind getting up early or staying up late, this is a great month for you if you’re a Jupiter observer. The largest planet in our Solar System – so huge it could contain a thousand Earths with room to spare – rises well before the Sun and dominates the pre-dawn sky. It will be shining very brightly in the south east, much brighter than anything else in that part of the heavens. From a location that's truly unaffected by light pollution, it will look like a distant blue-white lantern, and even if you’re…

STARGAZER How to… Make the most of the Geminid meteor shower Don’t miss one of the greatest spectacles of the year – provided you have fair observing conditions, here’s how to ensure optimum viewing ©Pluto / Alamy Stock Photo " Your best chance of catching them is after midnight and around 2.00am" You’ll need: • Warm clothing • Red torch • Notebook • Compass Shooting stars are, without a doubt, some of the most spectacular events we can see in the night sky. Where on any given night we might see an occasional flash of light dart across the heavens, there are several well-known 'showers' of meteors that occur on specific nights every year. The Geminids are one of these, and can often produce bright, fast-moving streaks of light of…

STARGAZER How to… Choose your binoculars for astronomy One of the most useful instruments for observing, here’s how to make the right choice in finding the ideal one " There are many deep-sky objects that look better through binoculars" You’ll need: • Be aware of your budget • Know what you’re interested in viewing • This guide! Binoculars make great 'grab-and-go' instruments for the astronomer. Depending on the size and type, they can show you many craters on the Moon, the moons of Jupiter and the grandeur of the Milky Way. In fact, there are many deep-sky objects that look better through binoculars than through some telescopes! When choosing binoculars for astronomy, the important parameter is the aperture – or the diameter of the front lens. For comfortable hand-holding you…

Your astrophotography Astroshots of the month Send your astrophotography images to space@spaceanswers.com for a chance to see them featured in All About Space Jeff Johnson Las Cruces, New Mexico Telescope: Takahashi TOA-130F “I have a long love of astronomy and have observed the night sky for many years with binoculars and a telescope, from the age of ten. I first got involved in ‘real’ astrophotography in 1996, when I used a 35mm SLR (film) camera to take photos of Comet Hyakutake. I took a tripod out into the desert in Las Cruces and just experimented with exposures. Later, I bought a ten-inch Dobsonian for viewing, and within a week I was taking pictures through the eyepiece for fun. Within a few more weeks, I knew I wanted to get serious…

STARGAZER In the shops The latest books, apps, software, tech and accessories for space and astronomy fans alike "The Farthest is a fine testament to one of the finest space exploration missions ever launched” 1 Book The Cambridge Photographic Atlas of Galaxies Cost: £44.99 (approx $60.00) From: Cambridge University Press Galaxies are everywhere across the universe, appearing in an impressive range of sizes and shapes, that illustrate the uniform to the quirkiest of galactic structures. It is the individuality from one structure to the next that drives us to fill in the gaps of our knowledge of galaxy formation and evolution and despite the ongoing puzzle, The Cambridge Photographic Atlas of Galaxies provides a wealth of information. This atlas explains all of the features of a galaxy in the finest…

LAUNCH PAD YOUR FIRST CONTACT WITH THE UNIVERSE © ESA/NASA Orbiting above the clouds tops The International Space Station offers some of the best views a human can see in their lifetime. The European Space Agency (ESA)'s Paolo Nespoli, who serves as a flight engineer on Expedition 53, is one of the few people to know this feeling all too well, and shared this incredible image of our planet's clouds swirling underneath them. As well as taking in the breathtaking views, these astronauts are always hard at work. NASA astronauts Joe Acaba (second inset, left) and Randy Bresnik (second inset, right) completed a spacewalk totalling almost seven hours. They’re also working hard on the Spectrum project, which focuses on how living organisms could survive long-duration space flight (inset 1). ©…

The problem with dark matter If we can't prove it's there, how do we know it exists? Dark matter isn’t ‘normal’ Even when the mass of cold interstellar gas and dust, and compact, dark bodies such as the burnt-out cores of stars are taken into account, there’s only enough normal matter to account for 1/6th of large-scale gravity. Why haven’t we detected it? If the universe is really dominated by strange particles that carry mass but don’t interact with light, then why haven’t underground particle detectors found any trace of them? Why haven’t we created it? If dark matter is so abundant, why haven’t experiments in particle accelerators, which specifically aim to create new subatomic particles, generated anything that looks like a dark matter particle? Why are rotation curves so…

Dark Venus THE DARK SIDE OF VENUS Earth’s ‘evil twin’ continues to surprise us, and shining light on its chaotic dark side has forced astronomers to rethink some of their ideas about the planet Written by Paul F Cockburn © Tobias Roetsch “ The winds and the cloud composition are somehow connected to the properties of Venus’ surface itself” Jean-Loup Bertaux Venus, the second planet out from the Sun, has long had our attention, and this is hardly surprising; it’s by far the brightest astronomical body in the sky after the Sun and the Moon - a world that's hard to miss. The most brilliant of the five planets known to ancient astronomers, clearly visible to the naked eye at both dawn and dusk, Venus has been admired for millennia.…

Future Tech Microwave Spacecraft Microwave spacecraft Thales Alenia Space has proposed a radical way to launch small satellites on a beam of microwaves “ The limitations of chemical propellants contribute to the difficultly and expense of accessing space" Imagine taking a flight where the airliner jettisoned a batch of fuel tanks and possibly an engine or two; flights would be rather unnerving, and a lot more expensive! But this what we have to do to launch stuff into space. We don't need to do this with aeroplanes, both because they need much less energy, and because they can use the air to create lift, as a reactive mass to create thrust and to provide oxygen for the engines. Launch vehicles, however, are travelling to an environment where they must take…

Explorer’s Guide Top sights to see on Ganymede © NASA/JPL “It is because of the plate tectonics that a lot of ancient craters have been lost below the surface” There is a huge contrast on the surface of Ganymede, as there are two distinctly different types of terrain. Covering 60 per cent of the Jovian moon is a relatively young, bright surface, covered by an array of ridges and grooves. Conversely, Ganymede also exhibits an old, dark, heavily cratered terrain. After investigating the density of the craters, scientists suggest that the oldest craters formed around 4 billion years ago. Scientists believe that this contradicting terrain is a result of tectonic plate activity replenishing the surface, much like we see on Earth. In this case, it’s most likely that the newer…

Some suggestions... A comet We know that Halley's Comet made an appearance in the night sky in 12 BCE. However, there are two key reasons the Star of Bethlehem is unlikely to be a comet. First, it would have appeared to change position in the sky as Earth rotated, so it wouldn't have led the wise men in a straight line to Bethlehem, but in a circle. Second, comets were seen as an evil omen, making it unlikely they would have followed it. Planetary conjunctions A planetary conjunction, or some sort of occultation, is our best bet. A conjunction between Jupiter, Saturn, the Moon and the Sun on 17 April in 6 BCE looks particularly promising. Not only is the date around the right time, but Jupiter's retrograde motion in…

STARGAZER Moon tour Eddington crater Challenge yourself this month by locating one of the trickiest impacts on the lunar surface Usually the lunar features we profile here are very easy to find, if not with the naked eye then at least through a pair of binoculars or a small telescope. They are large, bright craters, wide, dark seas or towering sunlit mountain ranges. This month’s target is going to provide you with much more of a challenge: it is small, tucked away almost on the Moon’s limb and so tricky to spot you probably won’t find it the first time you look… Eddington crater is named in honour of British astronomer Sir Arthur Eddington, one of the first astronomers to figure out the nuclear processes that take place in the…

Choosing binoculars Ensuring you’re ready to begin observing Now you have got the right binoculars, are they set up properly? Each side of the binocular needs to be aligned with the other, known as collimation, because if they are not, you will end up with a headache! Make sure that when you look through them with both eyes, you see just one perfectly circular field of view. If you feel that one eye is straining, or worse, you can see two images of the same object, either do not buy them, or take them to an expert for re-collimating. 1 Pay close attention to the specification In order to work out how 'powerful' your binoculars are, look out for a magnification marker. These numbers are usually found on the barrels.…