Innehållsförteckning för No. 136 från All About Space

SCAN HERE TO GET OUR DAILY NEWSLETTER Join us as we take a tour around the Solar System’s ‘forgotten planets – the icy Uranus and Neptune. But why am I calling them forgotten? It’s because of all the worlds in our solar neighbourhood, they seem to get the least attention. While they may look bland on the surface, you’ll discover that they’re anything but in this issue. They have fascinating interiors, impressive storm systems and incredible features that make them worthwhile of further study. But there’s so much more to know; that’s why the likes of NASA and the European Space Agency are long overdue the launch of a mission to whizz past them to gather data, or even swing into orbit around their frigid limbs for an up-close look.…

The ocean inside Saturn’s moon Enceladus may be enriched with phosphorus, an important element for life as we know it. Phosphorus is a vital component of life’s biochemistry. It joins with sugars to provide a ‘backbone’ to DNA, bonding the four nucleobases to the double helix. Phosphorus is also used in cell membranes and bones, as well as in a molecule called adenosine triphosphate, which carries metabolic energy around the body. Yet previous studies had suggested that phosphorus would be rare on Enceladus. Scientists caught a glimpse of the ocean’s makeup via the huge water geysers that spray out through deep vents. On numerous occasions prior to its mission ending in 2017, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft flew through and ‘tasted’ these geysers, analysing the chemical components. The spacecraft detected elements and…

When it comes to searching for newly born planets that are tens, if not hundreds, if not thousands of light years away, we don’t often get too lucky. Planets are formed in thick clouds of dust and gas, known as protoplanetary discs, that swirl around a star. As such, it’s very difficult to observe young planets directly through all the debris. Instead scientists must rely on clues that might infer the presence of a protoplanet, but most of those clues are pretty circumstantial at best. But Feng Long, a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, has discovered a new clue that might indicate a protoplanet’s existence – material at the Lagrange points. Sifting through data from Chile’s Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) pertaining to protoplanetary disc LkCa 15,…

Many can point out the saucepan shape of the Big Dipper, though they may not be aware it’s also part of Ursa Major, the Great Bear. Ursa Major is one of 88 official modern constellations, but as with most its origins are ancient. The first evidence we have of humans trying to make sense of the layout of the stars are stone tablets from the Babylonian civilisation around 3000 BCE; the Babylonian tradition influenced the civilisations developing around the eastern Mediterranean, and the Greeks adopted these older patterns into classical astronomy around the 4th century BCE. Following the collapse of the western civilisations, astronomy was preserved and developed in the Islamic world – many of our current star names, like Aldebaran and Betelgeuse, come from Arabic. New constellations were added…

Buying a telescope that fits all of your needs without leaving a dent in your finances is a balancing act that many astronomers can find daunting – especially those that are new to the hobby. It’s often easy to go for the telescope that does the most and has the heftiest price tag, but this can sometimes result in disaster. Especially so if you find yourself getting frustrated with using your new instrument, so much so that your shiny new impulse buy is soon gathering dust in a corner of your house. Of course, the other extreme is that you might spend so little on your telescope that you end up conning yourself. That is, buying a telescope from a catalogue or website that is nothing more than a toy…

The constellations of winter have started to make themselves known. Orion, Cetus, Canis Major and Taurus in particular make a dramatic entrance in the darker skies, appearing to push the autumn star patterns out of view, but still providing the perfect opportunity to observe a selection of targets across two seasons. In particular, the Andromeda Galaxy (Messier 31) and its satellites are still easy targets for those with telescopes with at least a small aperture, while all-time-favourite deep-sky object the Orion Nebula (Messier 42) is easy to spot with the naked eye from a dark-sky site or with binoculars and telescopes in light-polluted skies. Using the sky chart This chart is for use at 22:00 mid-month and is set for 52 degrees latitude. 1 Hold the chart above your head…

1 Vont Spark LED Headlamp Cost: £17.99 / $13.99 From: Vont 1 For a very easy-on-the-wallet headlamp, this is versatile and good quality. What’s more, it comes with a lifetime warranty for peace of mind. This two pack comes with a set of batteries, which makes it even better value. The Vont Spark has seven different lighting settings, activated by cycling through. The red light is activated by holding the button down for three seconds, then cycling between low, strobe or SOS mode. Once the selection has been made and left on for an extended period, the headlamp will allow the user to turn it off with one touch, meaning you don't have to cycle through all the modes. It has a comfortable headband and a 45-degree tilt so you…

23 September 2022 Acid lake snapped atop real-life ‘Mount Doom’ The astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) have snapped a stunning image of a snow-circled hydrothermal lake atop the real-life Mount Doom in New Zealand. Mount Ruapehu, New Zealand’s largest active volcano and the setting used to film Mount Doom in The Lord of the Rings movies, sits at the heart of Tongariro National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site located at the centre of New Zealand’s North Island. Other parts of the park were also used to portray the evil realm of Mordor in Peter Jackson’s cinematic adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien’s fantasy epic. The hydrothermal lake at the summit of Mount Ruapehu, known as Crater Lake, or Te Wai ā-moe in Māori, sits between the mountain’s…

A new image shows that two days after NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft slammed into the asteroid Dimorphos, the space rock had grown a tail of glowing debris extending thousands of miles. The comet-like tail is made of dust and debris blasted from the surface of Dimorphos, part of a double asteroid system, by the intentional impact of DART, the first mission designed to test whether such a collision could divert a hypothetical asteroid threatening to hit Earth. Dimorphos’ new tail was imaged by astronomers Teddy Kareta from Lowell Observatory and Matthew Knight from the US Naval Academy using the Southern Astrophysical Research Telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. “It’s amazing how clearly we were able to capture the structure and extent of the aftermath…

On top of Las Campanas peak, over 2,550 metres (8,500 feet) above sea level in the Atacama Desert, Chile, the next class of terrestrial supertelescope is under construction. The Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) is being built as part of the US Extremely Large Telescope Program in the same region as a number of other notable telescopes and instruments. Observatories are concentrated in this part of the world because the extremely dry air and low rainfall results in remarkably clear skies, making it one of the most suitable places for telescope astronomy in the world. The GMT project, however, will offer views of the universe that will put even the most famous space telescope, Hubble, to shame. The site of the GMT alone has seen specialised preparation far beyond that even…

THE SPECS Launch: 20 November 1998 Launch rocket: Proton-K Target: Low-Earth orbit Operators: NASA, JAXA, CSA, ESA and Roscosmos Orbital inclination: 51.6 degrees First residents: November 2000 Orbits per day: 16 on average Designed to replace the ageing Russian space station Mir, the International Space Station (ISS) remains a feat of space engineering like no other. The product of five space agencies working in unison – NASA, Roscosmos, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) – it’s been manned continuously for 22 years and is in a constant state of evolution as new parts, segments and components are replaced. Like any space-based construct it will eventually be shut down and destroyed, but until then it remains a technological marvel floating…

1VENUS HAS A RICH HISTORY Studies of Venus can be traced back to the ancient Babylonians in 1600 BCE. They tracked the movement of several planets and stars. The oldest astronomical document on record is a Babylonian diary of Venus appearances over a 21-year period. Venus played a serious part in the mythology of ancient civilisations, including the Maya and Greeks. Its name comes from the Roman goddess of love and beauty. 2THE PRESSURE’S ON Walking around on Venus would be an unbearable experience for astronauts for several reasons, but one of them is the extreme pressures on the surface. The atmosphere creates air pressure that’s over 90 times the air pressure on Earth, which is similar to the pressure around a kilometre (0.6 miles) deep in the ocean. 1…

A stronomers have spotted a bright ‘hotspot’ swirling around the supermassive black hole at the heart of our Milky Way, Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*). The team thinks the hotspot could be a bubble of hot gas orbiting Sgr A* as fast as 30 per cent the speed of light. The discovery could help astronomers and astrophysicists better understand the violent environment at the centre of the Milky Way, and around Sgr A* in particular. “We think we’re looking at a hot bubble of gas zipping around Sgr A* on an orbit similar in size to that of the planet Mercury, but making a full loop in around 70 minutes,” Maciek Wielgus, an astrophysicist at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Germany, said. Wielgus’ team collected observational data using…

04 NOV The Moon and Jupiter pass within 2°07’ of each other in Pisces 04 NOV Conjunction between the Moon and Jupiter in Pisces 04 NOV Conjunction between the Moon and Mars in Taurus 08 NOV The Moon and Uranus pass within 41.8’ of each other in Aries 08 NOV The Moon passes in front of Uranus, visible from Asia and Northern America 09 NOV Uranus reaches opposition, glowing at magnitude +5.7 in Aries “Uranus reaches opposition, glowing at magnitude +5.7 in Aries” 12 NOV Asteroid 27 Euterpe reaches opposition, glowing at magnitude +8.8 in Aries 17 NOV The Leonid meteor shower reaches its peak 18 NOV The Pleiades star cluster (Messier 45) is well placed for observation in Taurus 19 NOV Asteroid 115 Thyra reaches opposition, glowing at magnitude…

1 Betelgeuse Shining at magnitude +0.45, this red giant star – also designated Alpha Orionis – is the ninth-brightest star in the night sky and is easily visible to the naked eye. It’s thought that the star is due to explode in an astronomically short time. 2 Orion’s Nebula The Orion Nebula is easily visible to the naked eye in favourable observing conditions thanks to its magnitude of +4.0. Sweep 10x50 binoculars across the star-forming region and the star cluster and the Trapezium Cluster will be visible. 3 Orion’s Belt A faint chain of stars – from left to right named Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka – cuts through the centre of the constellation, making it instantly recognisable. This is probably the most famous asterism in the night sky. 4 Rigel…

Earth-like worlds with similar land-to-ocean ratios to our planet’s may be exceedingly E rare. According to a new study, Earth-like planets with about 30 per cent of their surface covered by exposed continental land may make up only one per cent of rocky worlds in stars’ habitable zones, the areas around stars where liquid water can exist on the surface. Instead, roughly 80 per cent of potentially habitable worlds are completely dominated by land, and about 20 per cent are purely ocean worlds. The researchers came to this conclusion by modelling the relationship between water in a planet’s mantle and a planet’s recycling of continental land via plate tectonics.“We Earthlings enjoy the balance between land areas and oceans on our home planet,” Tilman Spohn, executive director of the International Space…

The first husband-and-wife team to fly on Blue Origin will make a return to space. Sharon Hagle, founder of the non-profit organisation SpaceKids Global, will fly to suborbital space alongside her husband Marc during a future Blue Origin flight. The timing for the New Shepard spacecraft flight has not been disclosed yet amid an anomaly investigation during an uncrewed flight last month. “Marc and I are thrilled to venture into space for a second time, but we are even more excited to bring hope and encouragement to kids around the world who dream of going to space too,” Sharon said. The flight announcement was timed to coincide with World Space Week, which began on 4 October. Sharon also aims to bring a few people associated with SpaceKids Global to the…

1 MARS Cosmic impacts can make planets and moons more porous than thought, potentially boosting their ability to host life. Our Moon’s pockmarked surface is a testament to just how often cosmic impacts strike planets, moons and other major bodies within the Solar System. The cracks and pores that result from such pummelling can theoretically host water and potentially even microbial life. In 2012, NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) spacecraft revealed that the crust of the Moon is much less dense, and therefore more porous, than thought. The uppermost four kilometres (2.4 miles) of lunar highland crust is about 12 per cent empty space, and down to depths of about 12 miles (20 kilometres) the lunar crust still has a porosity of about four per cent, the mission…

Mars is always fascinating to see in the sky because of the special place it has in both the history of astronomy and pop culture. The first telescopes showed Mars as just a tiny, blurry disc with vague markings on its surface that appeared to come and go, leading to speculation that they were areas of vegetation changing with the seasons. Today we have space telescopes monitoring Mars from Earth orbit, and satellites in orbit around Mars itself have allowed us to map Mars in incredible detail. Landers and rovers send back photos from the surface daily, showing its beautiful rust-hued landscapes and huge open skies. If you’ve never seen Mars with your own eyes, this is the perfect time to find it. As November begins Mars will be so…

N ASA may have plans for a moonbase, but LEGO has beaten the agency to the punch with the recently released Lunar Research Base. Released alongside three other kits as part of LEGO’s Artemis–inspired range, the Lunar Research Base kit is filled with authentic details based on real space vehicles and equipment, such as the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER). With a recommended age of 7+, the Lunar Research Base is definitely aimed at kids, rather than adult collectors, but there’s plenty for all to enjoy here. It’s the second most expensive LEGO space set, which does make it one of the more expensive LEGO City kits on the market, but you do get a lot in terms of playability. The LEGO Lunar Research Base is a fun and…

When Valentina Tereshkova embarked on her groundbreaking flight on Vostok 6, she became the first woman to fly in space. Though this was a momentous occasion, the door to space exploration was still a difficult one for female cosmonauts to prise open, and it took 19 years for another woman to fly into space. This was Svetlana Savitskaya. The stars themselves seemed aligned for Savitskaya’s success as a cosmonaut, as she was the daughter of a Soviet war hero. Yevgeny Savitsky served as the deputy commander of the Soviet Air Defences, had been a flying ace in World War II and was regarded as a national hero. Under her father’s influence, Savitskaya was a clever and gifted student, and by age 16 she decided that she wished to become a…