Innehållsförteckning för No. 76 från All About Space

LAUNCH PAD New space telescope to study Mars The James Webb Space Telescope is set to target the Red Planet to reveal fresh secrets and potential signs of life NASA’s James Webb Telescope will be used to study how Mars turned from a wet to a dry planet in a bid to discover fresh clues about its past and present habitability. The space agency says the telescope will be able to take a snapshot of the entire disk of Mars at once, allowing astronomers to see how much water escapes into space. Webb, which is seen as the successor to Hubble, will watch the normal-water-to-heavy-water ratio (H20 to D2O) during the different seasons and gather data at different times and locations. It will test the theory that D2O – which…

Black holes are leaking! What happens in parallel universes? The ‘many-worlds’ isn't the only type of multiple cosmos considered by physicists © NASA / WMAP Science Team ; ESA; Tobias Roetsch Level 1 Where an identical Earth exists There is a limit to how far we can see into space. We can only see places from which light has had chance to reach us since the Big Bang. If you could venture beyond this cosmic horizon you might end up reaching another part of the universe where atoms are arranged in precisely the same fashion as they are here – another Earth and another you. Level 2 The expanding universe we can’t reach String theory – the idea that everything around us is made up of tiny vibrating strings –…

Michio Kaku MICHIO KAKU’S GUIDE TO THE COMPLEX UNIVERSE From working with the world’s most prestigious television shows to writing best-selling books, Kaku now untangles the more complex ideas of physics and future space travel - just for you! PROFILE Dr Michio Kaku Michio Kaku is professor of theoretical physics at the City College of New York, where he has taught for over a quarter of a century. He is also co-founder of string field theory, a sub-branch of the original string theory. Kaku’s inspiration was Einstein’s unanswered quest for the ‘Theory of Everything’. This would explain both the behaviour of particles and the behaviour of black holes. This inspiration has led him to an extensive career in popularising science, working on television, radio and New York bestselling books, including…

The arrow of time Another way of looking at the arrow of time is through the lens of possibilities – when we say that ‘entropy increases’, we mean that things have a wider variety of possible states in the future than they do in the past An orderly egg An unbroken egg can be unbroken and perfect in just one way – so we can say that it has relatively low entropy. Network of cracks If we crack the egg, its shell can break in different ways – the cracked egg has higher entropy than the whole one. Smashed to bits Dropping the egg breaks it apart and can result in a wide variety of different results (highest entropy). If we pick up all the pieces and drop them again,…

Make NASA great again? Trump administration proposal President Donald Trump really wants to shoot for the Moon Increase funding for NASA The 2019 budget for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration is proposed to increase by $500 million, or 2.6 per cent, to $19.6 billion. Head for the Moon The Trump administration is squarely focused on launching American astronauts from US soil and landing them on the Moon, starting with robotic missions in the next few years. Refocus technology development programs The emphasis is on supporting space exploration activities, so some space technology development programs will be axed in favour of those fitting the new bill. Build stronger commercial partnerships A new $150 million program will begin to support commercial partners and encourage them to develop capabilities that can be…

Focus on OPPORTUNITY BREAKS A MARTIAN RECORD For the 5,000th time, NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover has seen a Red Planet sunrise during its journey across alien terrain © NASA/JPL-Caltech On the 16 February 2018, NASA celebrated its Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity seeing in its 5,000th Martian day, also referred to as a sol, on the Red Planet. The rover, having now surpassed its initial mission by over 4,910 sols, is still being powered by the rays of our Sun as it makes its way across Mars’ dry and rocky surface. Opportunity and its sister rover, Spirit, both landed on the surface of Mars in January 2004. Spirit couldn’t cut it in comparison to the longevity of Opportunity; it only lasted until 22 May 2011 and travelled a total of 7.7…

STARGAZER Spring grand tour Pack your stargazing bags for an excursion of the wonders of the spring sky… Written by Stuart Atkinson In the 1970s and 1980s, the Voyager space probes embarked on an ambitious and sweeping ‘grand tour’ of the outer Solar System. During their tour they swung around and past Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and finally Neptune, transforming what had been dots in the sky into real worlds. This month we’re going to show you how you can go on your own grand tour – not of the worlds that orbit far from the Sun, but of the night sky. The spring sky offers amateur astronomers and sky watchers a treasure chest of celestial wonders and delights, and many are easy to find. By ‘star-hopping’ carefully from constellation to…

Werner Heisenberg He won the Nobel Prize for his revelations in the field of physics © ullstein bild / Getty Werner Heisenberg is one of the key innovators when it comes to quantum mechanics, a subsection of science that explains the behaviour of the smallest particles composing the entire universe. His groundbreaking work in a time of raging war changed the world of physics for the better. Born on 5 December 1901 in Würzburg, Germany, Heisenberg began his journey into physics and mathematics in the early 1920s, where he studied the subjects extensively at universities such as Munich, Göttingen and Copenhagen. At these institutes he worked with some of the world’s finest minds, including Niels Bohr and Max Born. Throughout the 1920s there was an influx of discoveries surrounding the…

Our contributors include... Colin Stuart Astronomer & author Black holes could be leaking information! But are they oozing it into another universe? Colin spoke to the experts with the details over on page 16. Lee Cavendish Staff Writer & astronomer What's next for the Hubble Space Telescope? Lee chats to the NASA scientists behind the mission to uncover the details. Michio Kaku Physicist & futurist The physicist uncovers whether we’re living in a hologram, what he thinks of Elon Musk’s decision to launch a Tesla into space and gives you the ultimate guide to string theory. Luis Villazon Space science writer Luis speaks to the planetary scientists who have revealed why our solar neighbourhood is a really weird place as far as planetary systems go. Turn to page 26.…

What the experts say… “It is unlikely that we’ll be able to see any earlier into the history of stars in our lifetimes. This project shows that a promising new technique can work and has paved the way for decades of new astrophysical discoveries." Judd Bowman, Arizona State University School of Earth and Science Exploration “The unexpected depth of 21cm absorption is exciting because it should make spatial fluctuations in this signal easier to observe. These fluctuations can tell us about variations in density in the early universe, which seed the formation of cosmic structure.” Andrew Robertson, Institute for Computational Cosmology, Durham University “This surprising signal indicates the presence of two actors: the first stars, and dark matter. The first stars in the universe turned on the radio signal, while…

Black holes are leaking! Theories of a black hole Physicists have devised a wide range of ideas for what happens to information entering these high-gravity objects ©Nicholas Forder; Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Iamges; Harald Ritsch/ Science Photo Library 1 Pair production In a well-known quantum effect, pairs of particles can spontaneously appear out of the energy of the empty vacuum. 2 Inevitable annihilation Normally these particles meet again very quickly and turn back into energy, effectively before the universe has a chance to realise the energy was missing. 3 On the event horizon Hawking realised that if the pair is produced on the event horizon then one particle would stay in the black hole, but the other could escape. 4 Mass dependency Hawking showed that the nature of this Hawking radiation –…

Our odd Solar System Worlds just like our own We've found many exoplanets thanks to advancements in technology, but are they anything like us? Kepler-442 A K-type main sequence star some 1,115-light-years away. Only one planet has been found around it so far, but it is a ‘warm terran’ which is estimated to be 2.3-times the mass of the Earth with an orbital period of 112.3 days. Its gravity would feel about 30 per cent greater than Earth's. Gliese 667 Just 22-light-years away is the triple star system Gliese 667. The smallest of the three stars orbits fairly far away from the other two and may have up to seven planets, including one 3.8-times Earth’s mass that lies in the habitable zone. Kepler-438 This red dwarf in the constellation of…

Is time an illusion? Time's evolution c. 3000 BCE Keeping track of the seasons Most living things on Earth have some conscious or unconscious ‘time sense' in the form of adaptations to the seasonal cycles as Earth moves around the Sun. c. 2000 BCE Water clocks The first devices used to keep track of shorter periods were water clocks. These estimated the passage of time through the accumulation of steady drips of water. c. 1500 BCE Sundials First used in ancient Egypt, sundials keep time by tracking the path of the Sun’s shadow. Differences in its path throughout the year make them inaccurate, though. c. 3000 BCE – 1200 CE Mechanical timekeepers Sophisticated water clocks began to use escapement mechanisms that harnessed the power of falling water and released it…

Is time an illusion? Time across the universe As we look out across space, the limited speed of light means we see objects as they were when light left them at some point in the past – this turns our universe into a cosmic time machine © Nicholas Forder Earth Distance: 0km (0 miles) Time at the object: Now Sagittarius A*, supermassive black hole Distance: 25,636-light-years away at the centre of the Milky Way Time at the object: 25,636 years ago (around the peak of Earth’s last Ice Age) NGC 4845 Distance: 65 million light years Time at the object: 65 million years ago (around the extinction of the dinosaurs) Cosmic microwave background radiation Distance: 46.5 billion light years* Time at the object: 13.8 billion years ago (shortly after the…

What the experts think Is NASA's fresh direction reaching for the stars or about to bump back down to Earth? Dr Mary Lynne Dittmar President and chief executive of the Coalition for Deep Space Exploration “After 45 years, it is time to return humans to the region of the Moon, even as we look toward Mars. The Coalition is proud to support NASA and to help bring about this Dr Karan Jani Gravitational wave astrophysicist “One day humanity has to decide if it wants to understand the entire universe (and use this knowledge to enhance education) or adventure on a limited patch of Solar System.” Robert Lightfoot Acting NASA Administrator “This proposal provides a renewed focus to our human spaceflight activities and expands our commercial and international partnerships, while also…

STARGAZER The Northern Hemisphere NE VULPE CULA Some bright stars of winter still linger after sunset, but spring lets you look out of the plane of the Milky Way © Wil Tirion; Cjkuhl; Hewholooks; Adam Block/Mount Lemmon SkyCenter/University of Arizona Bright yellow-white star Capella of Auriga (the Charioteer) sits low in the north-western sky this month, a striking sight at magnitude 0.08 alongside easy-to-locate Gemini's (the Twins) Castor and Pollux. Ursa Major’s ‘Big Dipper’ is the easiest asterism to find as soon as darkness falls, making it easy to use its pointer stars to find Polaris. Follow the pointers in the other direction and you will find bright-white star Regulus in Leo (the Lion), and trace your finger along the bowl and you’ll find yourself led to brilliant yellow-orange star…

LAUNCH PAD YOUR FIRST CONTACT WITH THE UNIVERSE © ESO/P. Horálek Southern star trails above Paranal Observatory Combining landscapes and stars with long exposures results in some of the best astrophotography images around. Here, one European Southern Observatory photographer Petr Horálek took this fine star trail shot of the Southern Hemisphere sky over the Paranal Observatory in Chile. Other than the obvious motion of the stars, there was also the appearance of a shooting star cutting across the circular paths. The stars in this hemisphere all rotate around their ‘North Star’ equivalent, known as Sigma Octantis. However, this star is much fainter and far less noticeable than Polaris. © ESA A shining celestial ring Even though the Great American Eclipse took place in August 2017, there are still marvellous images…

News in Brief Europa mission gets budget cut US Congress has offered the Europa Clipper mission $264.7 million – down on the $425 million NASA asked for last year. There are now growing concerns that it won't be enough to launch the spacecraft into orbit around Jupiter, especially given its been brought forward to 2025. Saturn's wind mystery solved? Saturn's winds can reach breathtaking speeds of up to 1,770 kilometres (1,100 miles) per hour, but scientists now reckon they have a good idea how they take shape. A 43-inch-wide rotating pot holding several hundred litres of water was heated from below, causing the warmed-up water to rise. Surface water, meanwhile, was cooled by evaporation and sank. Universe expanding faster than expected Precise measurements taken by the Hubble Space Telescope appear…

Black holes are leaking! Our views of a black hole Traditional view Originally we thought nothing could escape from a black hole. Then, in 1974, Stephen Hawking argued that a black hole should slowly evaporate as pairs of particles are created at the event horizon and one is swallowed and the other escapes. However, his calculations showed that this Hawking radiation depends only on the black hole's mass. Any other information about the object would be completely lost to the void, in violation of the rules of quantum theory. Firewall view Later, theorists realised that this ‘information paradox’ could be resolved if the quantum link between the two particles – a property called entanglement – is suddenly severed. However, this would lead to a spike in energy all along the…

Our odd Solar System WHY OUR SOLAR SYSTEM IS SO ODD Studies of other star systems prove there really is no place like home Written by Luis Villazon © NASA/JPL-Caltech; Steven Hobbs There are at least 100 billion stars in our galaxy, and 2 trillion galaxies in the universe. Results from the Kepler Space Telescope suggests that many of these stars have planets. In view of the number of worlds out there, the Fermi paradox famously asks why we haven’t been contacted by other civilisations yet. Perhaps the answer is our Solar System is unique in ways that we hadn’t previously considered. The first planets beyond our Solar System were confirmed in 1992 by looking for stars that wobbled slightly as they were shifted off centre by the gravitational pull of…

Our odd Solar System Exoplanets in the universe Some are much more common than others © NASA; Planetary Habitability Laboratory/University of Puerto Rico/Arecibo ; Tobias Roetsch Hot Superterrans Up to 2.5-times the radius of the Earth, these planets orbit much closer to their star, and so have lost most of their early atmosphere to solar evaporation. 25.8% Hot Neptunians Neptunians have a rocky core, and are up to 50-times the mass of Earth, but also have a thick atmosphere of hydrogen and helium. 20.6% Hot Terrans Roughly the same size as Earth, but because they are in the hot zone, liquid water is not present on the exoplanet's surface. 16.0% Hot Jovians Once thought unlikely, it now seems that more than 65 per cent of Jupiter-sized planets form in their…

What’s next for Hubble? What the Hubble Space Telescope has planned for the future Seeing in Ultraviolet Hubble can make astute ultraviolet observations, so it is important to make full use of this capability while the space telescope is still fully intact. Mid-cycle proposals Researchers have the opportunity to use Hubble in between the annual proposals, only if their work is a matter of urgency. This optimises the use of Hubble. Solar System Hubble continues to make periodic observations of our Solar System’s outer planets. A particular area of interest for the future is Jupiter’s moon Europa and its plumes of water-ice. Characterising exoplanets Hubble can use its spectrograph to identify elements within the atmosphere of exoplanets. This paints a clearer picture of the exoplanet for researchers to investigate further.…

Is time an illusion? WHERE DOES TIME COME FROM? It plays a crucial role in our experience of the universe – but what is it, and could it be an illusion? Written by Giles Sparrow “ It’s that riding the wave of the increasing entropy of the universe that gives us the perception of the flow of time” Prof Sean Carroll Time is a constant part of our everyday lives – even as you read this sentence, its first words have disappeared into the past while the next paragraph looms up from the future. We’re so used to the experience of flowing time that we very rarely stop to think about what it really is or why it works in the way that it does. While most cosmologists agree that…

STARGAZER Naked eye targets This month’s naked eye targets The early spring sky offers bright stars and some challenging deep-sky objects… Messier 53 You will need a pair of binoculars and a dark, clear sky to find this magnitude 7.6 globular cluster, which is more than 58,000-light-years away. This ball of many thousands of ancient stars will look like a tiny smudge in binoculars. Arcturus (Alpha Boötes) Shining at magnitude 0.2, Arcturus is the fourth-brightest star in the sky, and is famously found by following the ‘arc’ of the Big Dipper’s handle. It is the closest giant star to Earth, 26-times the diameter of our own Sun and sits 36.7-light-years away. Algieba (Gamma Leonis) When you look at Algieba, shining in the middle of the ‘Sickle‘ of Leo, you’re looking…