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49 Articles

On 28 June 2012, I was browsing the newsstand in my local WHSmiths in Tonbridge. I was on my lunch hour as a staff writer at Astronomy Now when I saw the very first issue of All About Space. The rest, they say, is history. Fast forward to November 2013, I made my way to Bournemouth, where the magazine was being published under Imagine Publishing, after enthusiastically accepting a job offer as a staff writer. By issue 44, I had become All About Space’s editor, loving every moment of communicating with you right up until today. My team and I have enjoyed bringing you the latest news from around the universe, not just in words, but in beautiful illustrations and photography. All good things must come to an end, and…

30 August 2024 The Andromeda Galaxy glows rosy red in a gorgeous new image The rosy-red structures of a nearby galaxy glow brightly in a new image from the Hubble Space Telescope. The Andromeda Galaxy – the Milky Way’s closest galactic neighbour – is located about 2.5 million light years away. Measuring approximately 152,000 light years across, it has nearly the same mass as our Milky Way. A recent Hubble image, released on 30 August, captures a detailed view of the northeast region of the famed galaxy, including its intricately woven spiral arms and swathes of ionised gas that fuel star formation. “The combination of stellar nurseries and supernovae creates a dynamic environment that excites the surrounding hydrogen gas, flourishing it into a garden of star-studded roses,” NASA officials said.…

A sprinkling of cosmic dust may have helped kick-start life on Earth

Cosmic dust may have helped kick-start life on Earth. New findings challenge a widely held assumption that this wasn’t a plausible explanation. The origin of life on Earth has long remained a mystery. Many theories suggest that life emerged from prebiotic chemistry, in which organic compounds formed and repeatedly self-organised until life as we know it developed. However, scientists have noted that the rocks that make up Earth’s surface are relatively deficient in reactive and soluble forms of the essential elements needed for this prebiotic process, such as phosphorus, sulphur, nitrogen and carbon. In fact, life on Earth is engaged in “fierce competition” for the limited reservoirs of these elements, scientists wrote in a paper published in the journal Nature Astronomy earlier this year. So how could life have evolved…

A sprinkling of cosmic dust may have helped kick-start life on Earth

Starliner astronauts on why their craft returned to Earth without them

Boeing’s Starliner capsule might have been able to finish its mission as planned if time had been on its side. Starliner launched on 5 June on its first-ever crewed flight, a trial run that sent NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore to the International Space Station (ISS). The duo were supposed to live on the orbiting laboratory for just a week or so, but NASA extended their stay to about three months while studying thruster issues that cropped up during Starliner’s rendezvous with the ISS. Ultimately, the agency concluded that bringing Williams and Wilmore home on Starliner was just too risky, so the capsule returned to Earth uncrewed on 6 September. Its former crew will come home next February on a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule. But that decision was…

Starliner astronauts on why their craft returned to Earth without them

Iron winds and molten metal rain ravage a hellish hot Jupiter exoplanet

The discovery of iron winds on WASP-76 b demonstrates just how truly ‘alien’ some planets beyond our Solar System are. Located around 634 light years away from Earth in the constellation of Pisces, the strange and hostile extrasolar planet, or exoplanet, has temperatures of around 2,400 degrees Celsius (4,350 degrees Fahrenheit) – hot enough to vaporise iron and cause iron rains to pummel the planet’s surface. These intimidating temperatures arise from WASP-76 b’s proximity to its star, which classifies it as a hot Jupiter planet. This proximity also causes the planet to be tidally locked to its star, meaning one side always faces its host, blasting it with radiation in perpetuity. Recently, a team of scientists from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) and the PlanetS National Centres of Competence in…

Iron winds and molten metal rain ravage a hellish hot Jupiter exoplanet

A tiny NASA satellite detects its first massive gamma-ray burst

A NASA cubesat designed to search for the universe’s most powerful and violent explosions has successfully detected its first massive burst, space agency officials announced. BurstCube, a shoebox-sized satellite placed into orbit in April to detect and study gamma-ray bursts, or GRBs, spotted a ‘mega blast’ in the small, dim constellation of Microscopium in the southern sky. The cosmic blast occurred on 29 June and in less than two seconds shone a quintillion times brighter than the Sun. “We’re excited to collect science data,” Sean Semper, who is BurstCube’s lead engineer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, said in a statement. “It’s an important milestone for the team and for the many early career engineers and scientists that have been part of the mission.” BurstCube is designed to…

A tiny NASA satellite detects its first massive gamma-ray burst

NASA’s Juno probe spots a massive new volcano on Jupiter’s moon Io

Researchers have spotted a huge new active volcano on Jupiter’s moon Io by comparing images taken by two NASA missions more than a quarter of a century apart. The images of the new volcano were taken by NASA’s Juno spacecraft and its JunoCam as it made a flyby of Io – the Solar System’s most volcanic body – on 3 February this year. The images were captured on the nightside of Io, illuminated only by reflected sunlight from Jupiter. A comparison with Galileo spacecraft imagery of the same area just south of Io’s equator, taken in November 1997, revealed that there was previously no volcanic feature in that location, meaning the vast feature and its after-effects have appeared at some point during the last 27 years. The findings, which reinforce…

NASA’s Juno probe spots a massive new volcano on Jupiter’s moon Io

A long-lost moon could explain Mars’ weird shape and extreme terrain

A long-lost moon could explain why Mars is so different from the other rocky planets in the Solar System. Today Mars has two tiny moons. But early in its history, the Red Planet may have had a much larger moon, which might be responsible for Mars’ weird shape and extreme terrain, Michael Efroimsky, an astronomer at the US Naval Observatory in Washington DC, proposes in a paper that has been submitted to the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets and is available as a preprint via arXiv. Mars hosts some of the most extreme terrain in the Solar System, including the largest canyon, the tallest mountain and the greatest highland region. This highland region, known as the Tharsis bulge or Tharsis rise, dominates Mars’ western hemisphere near its equator. The Tharsis…

A long-lost moon could explain Mars’ weird shape and extreme terrain

WIN CELESTRON SKYMASTER 20x80

If you’re looking for a rich, high-resolution experience when watching the night sky – or even for daytime terrestrial observing – then there is no better resource to have in your arsenal than a good binocular. The Celestron SkyMaster 20x80 is of a superior quality, fitted with high-quality BAK-4 prisms and multi-coated optics for exquisite views. Designed to bring the sight of distant objects into incredibly clear and sharp focus – whether you’re watching the local wildlife or uncovering the members of the beautiful Pleiades star cluster – these binoculars are ideal for seasoned astronomers and those just getting started in observing, while the lightweight design provides an excellent opportunity to establish a ‘grab-and-go’ approach to astronomy. To be in with a chance of winning, answer this question: What type…

WIN CELESTRON SKYMASTER 20x80

THE FINAL FRONTIER

The importance of the Sun to our little region of space is immeasurable, providing the light and energy that made life on Earth possible billions of years ago and that continue to sustain us today. However, our star’s influence only extends so far. Beyond the reach of the Sun is a region of the cosmos called interstellar space. Though the first impression of this region may be a cold, empty stretch of space, the truth is that interstellar space is fascinating, exciting and not totally empty. In many ways, interstellar space represents the ‘final frontier’ for space exploration, the dream of humanity extending its reach further than its own star and beyond its home planetary system. The distance to interstellar space and the distance to the next star is also…

THE FINAL FRONTIER

BEYOND THE BORDER

1 Heliopause This area is the boundary of the heliosphere, the bubble that’s surrounding the Sun. The contents of the heliopause are the furthest point from our star to be influenced by its material and its magnetic field. 2 Voyager1 Launched in 1977 to explore the Solar System’s outer planets, Voyager 1 went on to become the first spacecraft to enter interstellar space in August 2012. It’s now over 24 billion kilometres (15 miles) away from Earth. 3 Voyager2 Launched 16 days before Voyager 1, this spacecraft entered interstellar space six years later and allowed a second, closer analysis of its environment. The recorded temperature at the other side of the heliopause was about 30,000 degrees Celsius (54,000 degrees Fahrenheit) – much hotter than expected. 4 Termination shock In this area, particles…

BEYOND THE BORDER

WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT ‘OUMUAMUA

It’s likely wrapped in organic insulation ‘Oumuamua is made up of organic ices such as frozen carbon dioxide, methane and methanol. Thanks to long-term exposure to cosmic radiation, a dark-red outer crust some half a metre thick appears to have formed over it. It’s tumbling Light-curve observations showed ‘Oumuamua to have wild swings in brightness, indicating an irregular, excited tumbling motion that is rarely seen in celestial bodies. It spins on its axis every 7.34 hours. It moves really quickly ‘Oumuamua was discovered travelling at 87.3 kilometres (54.2 miles) per second. Since it was on its way out of our Solar System when it was discovered, it soon became too faint to see. It’s a natural object Although there had been suggestions that ‘Oumuamua could be an alien-made spacecraft, no…

WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT ‘OUMUAMUA

DEEP-SPACE PROBES

3 December 1973 First spacecraft to Jupiter 1 Pioneer 10 came close enough to the giant planet to acquire a gravitational boost that ensured it would eventually escape from the Solar System into interstellar space. 1 September 1979 Inside Saturn’s rings 2 Pioneer 11 flew past Jupiter too, but it then went on to the next planet out, passing within 20,920 kilometres (13,000 miles) of Saturn – well inside the planet’s rings. 12 November 1980 Exploring the Saturnian system 3 Voyager 1 also visited Jupiter and Saturn, but with much more sophisticated instruments than Pioneer 11, taking spectacular close-up images of the ringed planet and its moon Titan. 24 January 1986 The rings of Uranus 4 Voyager 2 was the first probe to reach Uranus, the icy seventh planet, capturing…

DEEP-SPACE PROBES

INTERSTELLAR ROAD MAP

THE LOCATIONS Alpha Centauri Distance from Earth: 4.3 light years Current travel time: 30,000 years Interstellar speed travel time: 43 years This three-star system includes Proxima Centauri, which is the nearest star to Earth after the Sun. It’s confirmed there are at least two planets around this star. Barnard’s Star Distance from Earth: 5.96 light years Current travel time: 42,500 years Interstellar speed travel time: 60 years One of the fastest moving stars in the galaxy, this is also the closest star to Earth, after the Sun, that is visible from the Northern Hemisphere. Wolf 359 Distance from Earth: 7.8 light years Current travel time: 55,500 years Interstellar speed travel time: 78 years This red dwarf is located in the constellation of Leo and can only be seen through a…

INTERSTELLAR ROAD MAP

The Kankoh-maru, named after the steam-powered Japanese Kankō Maru warship, is ambitious in its design to say the least. If it reaches fruition, this bizarre egg-shaped vehicle will take off and land by vertical takeoff, vertical landing (VTVL) as a single-stage-to-orbit (SSTO) spacecraft. The whole thing is reusable, and with each launch the Kankoh-maru can take 50 people into orbit. The vehicle was first proposed by the Japanese Rocket Society in 1993. Since then a variety of tests on VTVL vehicles, albeit ones much smaller than the Kankoh-maru, have been carried out to test the feasibility of such a design. The good news? VTVL can successfully take a vehicle into the air and land it safely on Earth. A recent development in this regard is SpaceX’s Falcon 9 technology, which…

MARS LEAKS FASTER WHEN IT’S CLOSER TO THE SUN

Seasonal changes can have a dramatic effect on how quickly Mars loses its water to space, a joint study between the Hubble Space Telescope and NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission has shown. Over 3 billion years ago, Mars was warm and wet, with large bodies of water on its surface and a thicker atmosphere. Today, however, Mars is desolate, cold and dry. So what happened to all the water? Plenty of Mars’ water is still on the Red Planet. Vast reservoirs appear to be locked up deep underground at depths between 11.5 and 20 kilometres (7.1 and 12.4 miles). There’s enough water inside Mars for a global equivalent layer (GEL), which essentially refers to how deep a planet-wide ocean it would create, between one and two kilometres…

MARS LEAKS FASTER WHEN IT’S CLOSER TO THE SUN

Eileen Collins “It was a difficult mission… we were the first to see Mir”

How did you become interested in space exploration? It all started when I was nine years old; I was in fourth grade, reading an article in a magazine about the Gemini program. They were profiling the astronauts and the missions, and that was when I really – as far back as I remember – found myself very interested in the space program. While I attended summer camp as a child I would visit the glider field and we’d watch the gliders take off. So there was a little bit of aviation in my background, and I think that’s maybe the roots of my getting interested in aviation and space. Were you proud to be selected as the first female Space Shuttle pilot? Back in 1989 I interviewed for the job…

Eileen Collins “It was a difficult mission… we were the first to see Mir”

NASA’S SOLAR SAIL SUCCESSFULLY SPREADS ITS WINGS IN SPACE

More than four months after launching to space, a solar-sailing spacecraft has successfully spread its wings above our planet. NASA’s Advanced Composite Solar Sail System (ACS3) caught a ride to space on 24 April on Rocket Lab’s Electron vehicle, and at the end of August, NASA shared in a release that its mission operators verified the technology reached full deployment in space. On 29 August, the team obtained data indicating the test of the sail-hoisting boom system was a success. Just like the wind guides a sailboat on the water, it only takes a slight amount of sunlight to guide solar sails through space. Though photons don’t have mass, they can force momentum when they hit an object – and that’s what a solar sail takes advantage of. Thankfully for…

NASA’S SOLAR SAIL SUCCESSFULLY SPREADS ITS WINGS IN SPACE

15 STUNNING STAR CLUSTERS

While there are many fascinating objects in the night sky to turn a telescope towards, star clusters are bountiful starscapes – glittering clumps of hundreds to millions of stars bound together by their collective gravity and travelling through space as one. As the stars that make up a cluster were born from the same cloud of gas and dust, they have similar ages and chemical compositions. This makes star clusters useful in the study of stellar evolution, as their member stars can be compared to see how stars of different sizes and masses change over time. Star clusters fall into two categories: open and globular. Globular clusters are older – many over 10 billion years old – with an abundance of yellow and red giant stars. They possess thousands of…

15 STUNNING STAR CLUSTERS

AI IS REVEALING THE UNIVERSE’S ORIGINAL ‘SETTINGS’

Artificial intelligence is all the rage these days. When we think of AI, we’re usually thinking of uncanny deep-fake images and ChatGPT’s written responses – but astronomers are using it to make significant discoveries, too. Researchers from the Flatiron Institute’s Center for Computational Astrophysics (CCA) in New York City recently used AI to determine five cosmological parameters – the numbers that describe the entire universe in computer simulations – with unprecedented precision. These parameters can be thought of as the “settings of the universe that determine how it operates on the largest scales,” said astronomer Liam Parker, a co-author on the new work. With their AI helper, the team extracted these parameters from a dataset containing information on over 100,000 galaxies observed as part of the expansive Sloan Digital Sky…

AI IS REVEALING THE UNIVERSE’S ORIGINAL ‘SETTINGS’

HOW IT ALL BEGAN

1 The Big Bang The event that is said to have created time and space is thought to have occurred some 13.8 billion years ago. Here the universe was infinitely hot and dense before cooling and inflating. 2 Quark soup One-trillionth of a second after the Big Bang, the weak and electromagnetic forces separated, leaving us with the four major forces we know today – the strong, weak, electromagnetic and gravity. 3 Big freeze A hundred seconds after the Big Bang, the temperature dropped to the point where protons and neutrons could stick together without being torn apart. Conditions were ripe for hydrogen to form. 4 Parting company After some 300,000 years, the opaque soup began to clear. Since the temperature of the universe had dropped, photons were travelling through…

HOW IT ALL BEGAN

HOW TO BEAT LIGHT POLLUTION

Light pollution and astronomy don’t go hand in hand. If you’re a resident of a town or city, this may be a statement that has put you off buying a telescope or simply heading outside to gaze up at the night sky. It’s true that there’s no contest between a dark-sky site and a city brimming with life and streetlights: an area completely untouched by an orange artificial haze will win hands down. However, it’s not impossible for successful views of the night sky to be had from towns and cities, provided you have a little bit of know-how in cheating your way to better observing conditions. Unsure of where to start in the quest to beat light pollution? All About Space provides the ultimate tips and tricks for getting…

HOW TO BEAT LIGHT POLLUTION

GET THE BEST VIEWS IN LIGHT-POLLUTED AREAS

Light pollution is usually no match for the Moon and the brighter naked-eye planets, which can still be observed with great success from light-polluted areas. The Moon is a great target to observe not just for those who live in towns and cities, but also those who are just breaking into the hobby of astronomy – there’s plenty to explore on its rugged surface, especially as it changes from one phase to the next. If you’re looking to observe further into deep space, taking in splendid sights of star clusters, nebulae and galaxies, then it’s best to wait until a Moonless night to avoid adding more interference. It may come as no surprise that the best place to point your telescope is straight upwards, or what is usually referred to…

GET THE BEST VIEWS IN LIGHT-POLLUTED AREAS

KNOW YOUR OBSERVING CONDITIONS

Bortle scale: 9 Inner-city sky The Milky Way is not visible, while the Pleiades Cluster (Messier 45) is invisible to all but the most experienced. Only constellations with bright stars are visible, and they are missing fainter stars. Clouds are brilliantly lit. Faintest magnitude: +4.0 Sky Quality Meter reading: <18.38 Bortle scale: 7 Urban sky Our galaxy is almost invisible and objects such as the Andromeda Galaxy and the Beehive Cluster are difficult to see. The constellations with brighter stars are easily recognisable, while clouds are brilliantly lit by airglow. Faintest magnitude: +5.0 Sky Quality Meter reading: 19.99 to 18.38 Bortle scale: 5 Suburban sky The Milky Way appears washed out overhead and is lost near the horizon. The Andromeda Galaxy is detectable, as is the glow of the Orion…

KNOW YOUR OBSERVING CONDITIONS

YOUR TARGETS FOR TONIGHT

Choose your target carefully Select the right objects to observe and don’t get too hung up on magnitude. A bright galaxy with a decent brightness may be invisible since it’s diffuse, while a dim planetary target may be much easier to spot Observe after rain After a shower, night appears darker as light is no longer reflected off dust particles in the air. It’s a small advantage when observing in light-polluted areas but certainly helps Bode’s Galaxy (Messier 81) Constellation: Ursa Major Magnitude: +6.9 Messier 81 is one of the easiest and most rewarding galaxies to observe in the Northern Hemisphere, as it can be found with small instruments. Messier 5 Constellation: Serpens Magnitude: +5.6 This globular cluster, found quite easily with a sweep of your binoculars, contains about 150,000…

YOUR TARGETS FOR TONIGHT

SURPRISING CLUE ABOUT VENUS’ PAST FOUND IN ITS ATMOSPHERE

Scientists have observed something unexpected in Venus’ atmosphere – an increase in the level of deuterium relative to hydrogen. The consequences of this discovery could upend our current understanding of the amber world. As it turns out, it would affect our assumption that Venus is a perpetually barren, inhospitable planet. “Venus is often called Earth’s twin due to its similar size,” said Hiroki Karyu, a researcher at Tohoku University and one of the new study’s scientists. “Despite the similarities between the two planets, it has evolved differently. Unlike Earth, Venus has extreme surface conditions.” Liquid water is unable to exist in significant enough quantities due to the extreme temperatures and pressures beneath Venus’ thick cloud layers. “To put this into perspective, these altitudes have 150,000 times less water than comparable…

SURPRISING CLUE ABOUT VENUS’ PAST FOUND IN ITS ATMOSPHERE

ZOMBIE STARS +10 OTHER TERRIFYING SPACE OBJECTS

Space has been an inspiration behind human mythology for thousands of years, and with a little help from technology, we are capturing some images that really bring these legends to life. However, far from being evidence of the supernatural at work, the spooky space images that we are about to show you are nothing out of the ordinary. Humans can’t help but try to find meaning in meaningless shapes, and the phenomenon even has a name – ‘pareidolia’. It is why we see faces in the clouds, religious icons in our food and constellations in the night sky. The universe really is a dangerous place, where massive galaxies swallow up their neighbours and greedy stars feast on their close companions. But with the power of pareidolia, it also has witches…

ZOMBIE STARS +10 OTHER TERRIFYING SPACE OBJECTS

JAPANESE COMPANY TO DEORBIT A BIG HUNK OF SPACE JUNK BY 2029

Japanese space-sustainability company Astroscale just inked a deal to take a bus-sized rocket stage out of orbit by the end of the decade. The pioneering project, funded by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), is a continuation of Astroscale’s ADRAS-J mission, which recently completed an up-close orbital inspection of a 12-year-old upper stage of a Japanese H-IIA rocket. The new mission, called ADRAS-J2, will grab the rocket stage using a robotic arm and pull it into Earth’s atmosphere to burn up, demonstrating a critical space cleanup technology. The out-of-control nature and age of the rocket body pose challenges for its removal, but the ADRAS-J inspection showed that the rocket’s payload adapter, which will be used to grab the rocket, is intact. “Unprepared objects in orbit pose an additional challenge as…

JAPANESE COMPANY TO DEORBIT A BIG HUNK OF SPACE JUNK BY 2029

WHERE ARE ALL THE SPIRAL GALAXIES?

The Milky Way is a spiral galaxy located in the Supergalactic Plane, and while we already know it’s special because it contains Earth, it’s remarkable in other ways, too. Look across our cosmic backyard, for instance, and you’ll find the Milky Way is something of a rarity. In the Supergalatic Plane, measuring about a billion light years across, there’s a super-high concentration of galaxies, but the vast majority of them are elliptical. Spiral galaxies like the Milky Way are far less common, and astronomers have long wanted to know why. “Among the brightest galaxies, there are around twice as many ellipticals as spirals close to the Supergalactic Plane – it is not an enormous excess, but it is statistically significant,” explains Dr Till Sawala, a postdoctoral researcher at Durham University…

WHERE ARE ALL THE SPIRAL GALAXIES?

REPRODUCING REAL-LIFE OBSERVATIONS

1 Real-life observations The top image shows the distribution of the brightest galaxies in the local universe as observed in the Two Micron All-Sky Survey (2MASS), which took place between 1997 and 2001. It used telescopes at the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory in Arizona and the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. 2 Accurate reproduction SIBELIUS was presented with special initial conditions which it then acted upon to predict the distribution. The bottom image shows how the simulation reproduced the distribution of galaxies in the local universe based on those conditions. As you can see, it was accurate, allowing conclusions to be drawn. 3 The galactic evolution Frequent interactions and mergers with other galaxies within the simulation led to this final image, so it can be supposed that this is…

REPRODUCING REAL-LIFE OBSERVATIONS

HOW ARE GALAXIES FORMED?

Monolithic collapse This theory suggests that all galaxies formed at the same time due to a large mass of metal-poor primordial gas collapsing under its own gravity in the early universe. Large numbers of stars rapidly formed and the overall galaxy structure was established. Hierarchical clustering Also known as the bottom-up hypothesis, this theory suggests most of the early galaxies were born as spirals and that they grew through galactic mergers and accretion. Such collisions would smooth off some of the spiral galaxies, allowing elliptical galaxies to form.…

HOW ARE GALAXIES FORMED?

NASA’S DART ASTEROID IMPACT PROBABLY WON’T SPARK METEOR SHOWERS ON EARTH

Debris from the impact of NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) with the asteroid Dimorphos could reach Earth and Mars, astronomers have concluded. However, while the debris could result in meteors on Mars, it’s rather unlikely we’ll see a meteor shower on Earth. DART slammed into Dimorphos on 26 September 2022 with the intention of testing whether a kinetic impact could nudge the orbit of a potentially hazardous asteroid away from Earth one day. The test passed with flying colours: Dimorphos was pushed into a shorter orbit around its parent asteroid, Didymos. The impact, which gouged out a crater in Dimorphos, also ejected a large amount of debris. This ejecta formed a cone of escaping material that was observed up close by a small cubesat called the Light Italian Cubesat…

NASA’S DART ASTEROID IMPACT PROBABLY WON’T SPARK METEOR SHOWERS ON EARTH

Why don’t Mercury or Venus have any moons?

Planets have a region around them where orbiting objects can be gravitationally bound. In planetary science this is called the ‘Hill sphere’, named after 19th-century American astronomer George Hill, who worked on the Moon’s orbit. The size of the Hill sphere depends on how massive a planet is in comparison to the Sun and how close it is to the Sun. Any bound object must orbit inside the Hill sphere. But for its orbit to be ‘stable’ it needs to orbit at less than about one-third of the radius of the Hill sphere. We expect that all moons must orbit at less than about a third of a Hill sphere radius. There are other restrictions on where we expect to find moons. Earth’s Moon interacts tidally with Earth – it…

Why don’t Mercury or Venus have any moons?

Why don’t we see galaxies rotating?

Humans do not notice the rotational motion of galaxies because galaxies are so unimaginably large. Galaxies are so large it takes them a long time to complete one rotation. For instance, our galaxy takes about 240 million years to complete one full rotation at the location of our Sun. The rotation rate of a galaxy is extremely slow. Even though the stars in our galaxy are travelling at about 500,000 miles [804,672 kilometres] per hour relative to the centre of our galaxy, the galaxy is so large that it still takes hundreds of millions of years to complete a lap. Humans have eyes and brains that are built to notice motion involving changes in position and orientation that happen on the scales of milliseconds to hours, not years, and definitely…

Why don’t we see galaxies rotating?

Does space have a smell?

I am the creator of the fragrance Eau de Space, and I was originally approached by someone working at NASA back in 2008 with an idea to help make astronaut training more realistic by creating the smell experienced after walking in space. I don’t believe it was ever used in this way, but although I didn’t get to go into space myself or get to smell any spacesuits, I did receive transcripts of interviews with those astronauts that had walked in space. These included descriptions of what they experienced as an unusual odour when they returned to the safety of the capsule or Space Shuttle cabin. The astronauts’ descriptions were consistent: hot metal, fried steak, burnt meat – almost a barbecue. One even mentioned it being reminiscent of welding on…

Does space have a smell?

What would life be like on Earth if we orbited a white dwarf?

White dwarfs are stars that have reached the ends of their lives. They have masses similar to our Sun, but that mass is contained in an area about the size of Earth. These stars no longer have fusion going on in their cores. They cool over time, so the environment on an orbiting planet would go from warm to cold in general. The ‘habitable zone’ would be at a distance of 0.005 to 0.02 astronomical units – this is 200 to 20 times closer to the star than Mercury is to our Sun. While there could be a habitable zone, planets this close to a star are likely to be tidally locked. This means seasons and days would be very different than we have on Earth. If a planet was…

What would life be like on Earth if we orbited a white dwarf?

What causes microgravity?

Microgravity is a condition which makes people or objects appear weightless. Astronauts experience weightlessness not because gravity goes away, but because they roll with it. The International Space Station [ISS] is not far away: it’s 250 miles [400 kilometres] up. At that altitude, the pull of Earth’s gravity is still 88 per cent as strong. With nearly as much gravity as us, the ISS is constantly falling. It would hit the ground in about five minutes. But the station is zooming sideways at five miles [eight kilometres] per second. By the time it would have crashed, the station zoomed over the horizon, and the curvature of Earth moved down the goal posts. Everything inside falls at the same speed, including the astronauts, so although they are still falling, they don’t…

What causes microgravity?

Could intelligent alien life communicate with or understand us?

Conversation is impractical unless we’re very close. To understand why, imagine that the Milky Way is stuffed with a million alien societies. The nearest to us will be about 100 light years away. If we detect a signal from these cosmic neighbours and grab a microphone to ask a penetrating question, it will take at least 200 years before we can expect an answer, so don’t count on conversation. But would we be able to understand the signal we picked up? That would be interesting in the same way that reading texts penned 2,000 years ago by Julius Caesar is still interesting, even though we can’t have a conversation with him. If the aliens want us to understand, they might make the task simple. Some people have suggested that the…

Could intelligent alien life communicate with or understand us?

Could a mirror universe exist?

Some physicists have been led to consider this possibility by certain puzzling features of the fundamental laws of nature and the observed properties of the universe just after the Big Bang. In one variant of the idea, the laws of nature in the mirror universe are a reflected version of our own laws. In our universe, left-handed particles – like the neutrino – feel the weak force, while right-handed particles do not. But in the mirror universe, the opposite is true. In this variant, our universe and its partner might lie ‘next to each other’, like the two sides of a piece of toast, but might be separated from one another by a fourth dimension of space – represented by the thickness of the toast in this analogy – which…

Could a mirror universe exist?

SETI SEARCHES FOR ALIEN LIFE IN OVER 1,000 GALAXIES USING UNEXPLORED RADIO FREQUENCIES

A search of more than 1,300 galaxies for extraterrestrial signals has helped constrain expectations as to how many communicating technological civilisations may exist beyond Earth. Conducted with the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) in Australia, the search concerned itself with low radio frequencies in the 80 to 300 megahertz (MHz) range. For comparison, SETI, which stands for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, typically looks for alien signals in the 1,420 MHz hydrogen emission frequency. In fact, low frequencies are relatively unexplored for SETI. The search was conducted by Chenoa Tremblay of the SETI Institute in California and Steven Tingay, the director of the MWA from Australia’s Curtin University. The team focused on a 30-degree field of view in the constellation of Vela, the Sails, encompassing 2,880 galaxies. The redshifts – and hence…

SETI SEARCHES FOR ALIEN LIFE IN OVER 1,000 GALAXIES USING UNEXPLORED RADIO FREQUENCIES

WHAT’S IN THE SKY?

Jargon buster Conjunction 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. Declination (Dec) How high an object will rise in the sky. Like Earth’s latitude, Dec measures north and south in degrees, arcminutes and arcseconds. There are 60 arcseconds in an arcminute and 60 arcminutes in a degree. Opposition When a celestial body is in line with Earth and the Sun. During opposition, an object is visible for the whole night, rising at sunset and setting at sunrise. At this point in its orbit, the celestial object is closest to Earth, making it appear…

WHAT’S IN THE SKY?

THIS MONTH’S PLANETS

PLANET OF THE MONTH VENUS Constellation: Libra Magnitude: -3.9 AM/PM: PM Venus will be a very bright ‘evening star’, easily visible to the naked eye, but it could have some very interesting company. Venus shines brighter than any other planet in the sky for two reasons. Firstly, it’s very close to us, and secondly, it’s covered with a very dense atmosphere which acts like a mirror and reflects the Sun’s bright light. This is why Venus can appear, at its best, like a lantern blazing in the morning or evening sky. Venus might look lovely – it was named after the goddess of love because it appears so beautiful in the sky – but its appearance is deceptive. Although it’s roughly the same size as Earth, and is often called…

THIS MONTH’S PLANETS

POSIDONIUS CRATER

One of the Moon’s most sublime and recognisable craters, Posidonius can currently be viewed to good advantage, as it’s illuminated on the evening of 8 October until the 21st of the month. Measuring 95 kilometres (59 miles) across, Posidonius is a prominent crater that lies at the northeastern border of the large near-circular Mare Serenitatis, the Sea of Serenity, and the entrance to Lacus Somniorum, the Lake of Dreams, an irregular, lava-filled plain that forms a short arc parallel to the northeastern shoreline of Mare Serenitatis. When illuminated, Posidonius is easily identified through small optical instruments, and even steadily mounted 7x50 binoculars. However, the complex nature of Posidonius is only revealed under good seeing conditions and through telescopes larger than 80mm at magnifications higher than 50x. Most noticeable is the…

POSIDONIUS CRATER

NAKED EYE AND BINOCULAR TARGETS

1 Cygnus Star Cloud (Cygnus X) Running down the righthand side of Cygnus, the Cygnus Star Cloud is a mass of faint stars very obvious to the naked eye under a dark sky. When we look towards it we are looking down the length of our spiral arm within the Milky Way. 2 Deneb (Alpha Cygni) The brightest star in Cygnus, bluewhite Deneb is the 19th-brightest star in the sky. Around 2,600 light years away, it is a supergiant star which would swallow up Mars’ orbit if put in our Sun’s place. 3 The Great Rift Look at Cygnus under a dark sky and you’ll see a dark lane running down its left, almost as if someone dusted away the stars from that part of the sky. It’s actually a…

NAKED EYE AND BINOCULAR TARGETS

AUTUMN’S FADING GALAXIES

As October begins and Halloween fast approaches, signalling the coming of winter, it’s only natural to swing your telescope away from the subtle attractions of the autumn sky and use it to enjoy views of winter’s bigger, brighter and bolder deep-sky objects. But before you start diving headfirst into the swirling grey-and-green gas clouds of the Orion Nebula or squint at the Crab Nebula’s ghostly outline, why don’t you postpone winter a little longer and give some of autumn’s delights another look? If you observe from a dark sky, your small telescope will show you the two small, faint satellite galaxies of Messier 31, the famous Andromeda Galaxy. Owners of larger instruments which can provide higher magnification and gulp down more subtle starlight can also see a nebula that supposedly…

AUTUMN’S FADING GALAXIES

NORTHERN HEMISPHERE

Autumn provides a stunning selection of open and globular star clusters, galaxies and a smattering of nebulae. By mid-October the Sun will be setting by 18:15, meaning observers no longer need to stay up until the early hours of the morning to make the most of what the night sky has to offer. If you have a telescope, galaxies such as the Fireworks Galaxy (NGC 6946) in the constellation of Cepheus and the ever-beautiful Andromeda Galaxy (Messier 31) in the constellation of Andromeda, as well as the nearby Triangulum Galaxy (Messier 33) in Triangulum, will make ideal targets. 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 with the bottom of the page…

NORTHERN HEMISPHERE

SKY-WATCHER EXPLORER 130

The Sky-Watcher Explorer 130 has something most affordable telescopes lack. It ships with an equatorial mount, which when aligned with Earth’s axis allows it to more easily track objects as they appear to move across the night sky. Since most affordable telescopes can be tricky to precisely position, this gives it an immediate advantage over the competition. This Newtonian reflector also has plenty of aperture and good-quality optics that make it a good beginner’s telescope for exploring brighter deep-sky objects as well as the Moon and planets. However, the Explorer 130 does have a learning curve that’s steeper than its simpler rivals. TELESCOPE ADVICE Cost: £189 /$250 From: Sky-Watcher Type: Newtonian reflector Aperture: 5.12” Focal length: 25.59” Focal ratio: f/6.9 Total kit weight: 12.6 kilograms Mount type: German equatorial (EQ2)…

SKY-WATCHER EXPLORER 130

IN THE SHOPS: SOLAR SYSTEM TELESCOPES

Best for beginners Celestron Inspire 100AZ Cost: £259 /$359.95 From: Celestron 1 Beginners who want to explore the world of astronomy should consider starting with a traditional refractor telescope like the Inspire 100AZ, which is especially adept at viewing planets. It’s a simple telescope designed for seeing the Moon, planets and bright deep-sky objects. It doesn’t feature any fancy Go-To motors or app integration, but it does come with the basic edition of Celestron’s Starry Night software to help you learn about the night sky. We were able to see the Andromeda Galaxy (Messier 31) and some bright star clusters, but the aperture doesn’t let in as much light for anything beyond that. However, it resolves Solar System targets well. Best for imaging Celestron CPC Deluxe 1100 HD Cost: £5,499…

IN THE SHOPS: SOLAR SYSTEM TELESCOPES

Although she is now regarded as a great American hero, Shannon Lucid was actually born in China in 1943. Aged just six weeks, Lucid and her parents were taken to an internment camp and held as prisoners of war for a year. When they were finally released, the family moved to the US, but their attempts to return were hampered by the communist regime, and Oklahoma became Lucid’s home. After such an eventful childhood, it’s no wonder that the young Lucid’s dream was to discover as much of the world as possible. However, when she realised that most of the world had already been explored, she turned her attention to the skies. Inspired by the work of rocket pioneer Robert Goddard, the young woman became determined to explore the universe.…

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