Table of contents for No. 88 in All About Space

Welcome © Martin Jones / Alamy Stock Photo Over at All About Space, we're looking forward to the 50th anniversary of an incredibly important mission: the Apollo 11 Moon landing. The day that humankind first stepped foot on the lunar surface back in July 1969. But we couldn't have got there without the help of the Apollo missions before Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins got blasted off into space to make history. From the tragedy of the Apollo 1 fire to Apollo 8's first manned lunar orbit, Apollo 9 is of no exception. This issue All About Space's resident writer Lee Cavendish chats to Apollo 9's Lunar Module pilot about the story of how he and fellow astronauts Commander James McDivitt and Command Module pilot David Scott put…

InSight sets up its shield ©NASA/JPL-Caltech NASA’s InSight arrived at the Martian surface on 26 November 2018 and has taken its time in setting up its equipment. On 19 December the seismometer was placed on the surface of the Red Planet to listen out for any Marsquakes. Another milestone was made on 2 February 2019 as InSight successfully placed the Wind and Thermal Shield over the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) in order to protect it and maintain optimal conditions for data collection, the most important being control of the temperature.…

Capturing a galaxy's demise © ESA/Hubble & NASA The Hubble Space Telescope and the Subaru Telescope in Hawaii have shown a spiral galaxy approaching its demise, appearing to fall into the Coma Cluster of galaxies. The red blast is the jet of hydrogen gas being torn away from the spiral galaxy D100 in a process known as ‘ram-pressure stripping’. The intense combined gravity of the Coma Cluster will continue to strip D100 of its material. Astronomers predict this has already been happening for the last 300 million years.…

Hubble discovers 'living fossil' galaxy in our Milky Way's backyard Words by Mike Wall The Hubble Space Telescope has discovered a dwarf galaxy in our own cosmic backyard, a mere 30 million light years from the Milky Way. The find was fortuitous. An international team of astronomers were using Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys instrument to study white dwarfs – superdense stellar corpses – in the globular cluster NGC 6752, which is part of the Milky Way. The Hubble images revealed an odd clump of stars. Analyses of the stars' brightnesses and temperatures indicated that they lay beyond NGC 6752 and were, in fact, part of a previously unknown galaxy. The researchers determined that this galaxy – nicknamed Bedin 1 after discovery team leader L. R. Bedin of the INAF-Osservatorio…

Scientists spot hint of a giant crash in alien system Words by Meghan Bartels Scientists peering at an alien solar system have spotted a pair of planets so different that their traits – namely the imbalance in their density – may be evidence of a massive collision. The planets, which were first discovered in 2014, orbit a star called Kepler-107 with two other companions. The two innermost planets, Kepler-107 b and c, seemed to be about the same size, and scientists revisited them in order to try to determine their mass. The planets were originally detected with the Kepler space telescope through the transit method. But a different technique commonly used to identify exoplanets is the radial velocity method, which tracks small wiggles in the star's movement that are caused…

How an ice giant is made Uranus formed in a similar way to the other Solar System planets before something hit it © Jacob Kegerreis; Tobias Roetsch Cloud of gas and dust collapses An interstellar cloud of gas and dust, known as a solar nebula, collapsed in on itself and began to spin. Our Sun began to shine in the centre of this spinning disc as the temperature and pressure triggered thermonuclear fusion. Material comes together Heavier material in the spinning disc of gas and dust starts to form into clumps. Closer to the Sun these materials include rock and iron, but beyond the frost line, which lies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, there are solid ‘ices’ like water, methane and ammonia. Atmosphere Uranus looks bluish-green through a…

What if Uranus hadn’t been tipped over? If it hadn’t been hit, the planet might now be missing what makes it unique © NASA/JPL; Science Photo Library / Alamy Stock Photo More atmosphere Though Uranus retained an atmosphere after its collision, it might have had even more before that could have been lost in the violent impact. Upright tilt Astronomers expect Uranus started off with a much more slight tilt, if it had one at all. If it hadn’t been hit it would have stayed that way. A warmer exterior The ice giant’s cool appearance could be caused by a layer that was deposited by the impactor, trapping heat in a potentially warm core. Boring magnetic field The impactor being incorporated into Uranus is one hypothesis to explain its wonky…

Focus on Cassini WHAT’S NEW AT SATURN? Cassini is the gift that keeps on giving when it comes to discoveries Reported by Lee Cavendish It’s been over a year since the demise of NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, yet astronomers are still carefully analysing the data it transmitted back to Earth in an attempt to answer the many questions that surround the ringed gas giant. In the space of less than a week scientists made two separate discoveries about fundamental aspects of the planet: how long is a day on Saturn, and how old are its rings? Determining a day on Saturn is harder than it appears. On Earth it is simply how long it takes for the whole body to complete one rotation, whereas Saturn’s gaseous exterior makes it difficult to…

The Milky Way’s smash up The LMC follows a complex path as it orbits our home galaxy, but there’s only one way it can end 1. Close pass When it’ll happen: The recent past The LMC passed by the Milky Way at a distance of 130,000 light years, close enough to lose some of its gas envelope to the gravity of our much larger home. 2. LMC heads away When it’ll happen: Now The Large Magellanic Cloud’s path takes it further away, to around 160,000 light years. There’s no escape though. 3. LMC turns around When it’ll happen: 1 billion years in the future The looping path the LMC takes around the Milky Way means it will start to move closer to us again. 4. An even closer pass When…

ASK Space Our experts answer your questions SPACE EXPLORATION What are the fundamental characteristics needed for someone to become a successful astronaut? Some of the simple things are an outrageously healthy body, because you have to be able to pass the hardest physical in the world to be deemed safe to send to the space station, and the second is a proven ability to learn complicated things. We tend to choose folks who have an advanced university degree, because if you have a PhD in polymer chemistry then you’ve shown you can learn complicated things. The third is a proven ability to make good decisions when the irreversible consequences are high. So how do you choose someone who has shown that they’re not only a healthy student, but also someone…

STARGAZER This month’s planets Jupiter rules the morning skies this March, while other members of the Solar System take the night watch Planet of the month Jupiter Constellation:Ophiuchus Magnitude: -2.0 AM/PM: AM If you have binoculars you should definitely point them towards Jupiter this month. Although the planet is enormous it is too far away for binoculars to reveal its disc, but they will show you some of its extended family of moons. It has been said many times that Jupiter is like a miniature Solar System orbiting the Sun because of its large number of moons; at the last count it had 79 moons in orbit around it. Many are really small, but the four largest – known as the Galilean Satellites because they were discovered by Galileo in…

Use Stellarium Making the most of your software Why Stellarium is such a popular program with astronomers One obvious appeal is it’s free, but that’s not the main reason. It has lots of features, but isn’t cluttered like many other programs or apps – it shows the night sky realistically without too many lines and symbols. Stellarium also lets you import the details of newly discovered Solar System objects without too much fuss, so you can find out when a new comet will be visible from where you live. 1 Head over to stellarium.org Download Stellarium from its own dedicated website, making sure to download a version which will run properly on your machine. 2 Find your location Select your home location either by finding it on the map or…

Holiday destinations from space ©NASA Orbiting Earth at a speed of about 28,000 kilometres (17,500 miles) per hour, completing one orbit every 90 minutes, provides astronauts with a lot of countries to look at and affords them the opportunity to consider where looks best for their next holiday. In this edition of country-spotting from the International Space Station, the astronauts were checking out portions of Cuba, the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands from 405 kilometres (252 miles) altitude. Can any holiday really compare to a trip into space though?…

Rise above the storm © NASA/JPL-Caltec NASA’s Juno spacecraft continues to swoop over the clouds of our Solar System’s largest planet, Jupiter. In its recent flyby just a few days before Christmas, Juno captured a photograph of the planet’s southern hemisphere and gained an interesting up-close view of a couple of the king of the Solar System's storms. The Great Red Spot is seen here from an almost side-on view. Raging next to it is another massive storm named Oval BA, politely boasting a more muted colour that blends in with the cloud tops. Oval BA is believed to have formed from the merger of three smaller storms in 2000, but still remains half the size of the famous ruddy Great Red Spot.…

What hit Uranus? The impactor Simulations mean we can make an educated guess at what hit Uranus Not quite a planet Uranus’ impactor was likely a protoplanet that never accumulated enough mass to form into a planet in its own right. Twice the size of Earth Simulations show that an object would need to be twice the size of Earth, if it struck Uranus with a glancing blow, to cause the tilt. Embedded in the planet The rock and ice from the impactor is likely to have become part of the planet itself, or its moons, after the collision. Rock and ice The impactor that hit Uranus was probably made up of rock and ice, some of which would have become incorporated into the planet on impact.…

Glitched universe THE GLITCH AT THE END OF THE UNIVERSE The laws of physics could be very different in both space and time, according to recent research Reported by Abigail Beall © NASA/JPL When it comes to the laws of physics, you could be forgiven for thinking there are rules which apply no matter where you are in time or space. After all, this is what we are taught. But everything you think you know about the universe could be wrong, thanks to a glitch. The laws of physics may be different across the universe, in both space and time. This is according to a theory that has been in testing for the past 21 years which, if proven correct, could rewrite the laws of physics altogether. There is a…

Glitched universe Universe's glitch The cosmos might look completely different the further you move from Earth © ESO; Nicholas Forder The fine-structure constant On Earth, alpha is just right for life to exist. Any larger and atoms would fall apart; any smaller and molecular bonding could not happen. Alpha on Earth On Earth we know alpha to a high degree of certainty; one divided by alpha is 137.035999074, with an uncertainty of just 0.000000044. 6 billion years ago The first results suggested that between 12 and 6 billion years ago alpha had increased by an average of six parts in a million. 10 billion years ago In 2011 and 2012 results came out that suggested alpha could vary by one part in 100,000 when you look 10 billion years ago.…

Apollo 9 The story of APOLLO 9 The 50th anniversary of the Earth-orbiting mission that saw testing of vital equipment, paving the way for humankind's first step onto the Moon Reported by Lee Cavendish © Martin Jones / Alamy Stock Photo The Apollo program paved the way for human space exploration and inspired a generation of future astronauts, scientists and engineers. Apollo 11, the mission that saw Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin step foot on the Moon, wasn’t possible without the ten other missions before it. Here All About Space celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 9 mission that saw James A. McDivitt, David R. Scott and Russell “Rusty” Schweickart conduct the first tests of the crewed Lunar Module (LM) and Command Service Module (CSM) along with the portable…

Galactic crash THE MILKY WAY’S BIG CRASH One of our satellite galaxies is travelling much faster than we thought - and it's aiming to hit our home galaxy Reported by Ian Evenden © Nicholas Forder What are you doing in about 2.4 billion years? If you’re free, you might be in for a treat when one of the Milky Way’s satellite galaxies drops in. Known since prehistory, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is one of the most easily spotted of the Milky Way’s 59 known satellites. As long as you’re in the Southern Hemisphere it’s visible with the naked eye along with its diminutive sibling, the Small Magellanic Cloud. Satellite galaxies orbit larger ones, caught up in their gravity and occasionally merging with them. The LMC is a fast-moving galaxy,…

Focus on EXOMARS ROVER NAMED FOR ROSALIND FRANKLIN Scheduled for touchdown in 2021, the spacecraft honours the biologist’s research, which was crucial in determining the structure of DNA Reported by Meghan Bartels © ESA; MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology “The rover is designed to search for traces of habitability and of life by roaming the Martian surface” The European Space Agency (ESA) has named its next Mars rover, due to touchdown on the Red Planet in March 2021, in honour of British scientist Rosalind Franklin, whose research was crucial to scientists in determining the structure of DNA. Built in the United Kingdom, the rover is designed to search for traces of habitability and of life by roaming the Martian surface and drilling into the top two metres (6.5 feet) of…

Focus on Ryugu JAPAN SNATCHES ITS ASTEROID SAMPLE Hayabusa2 has successfully scooped up some ‘dirty snowball’ The Hayabusa2 spacecraft, which has been studying the near-Earth asteroid Ryugu up close since last June, has made its first sample-grabbing dive. February's operation was originally scheduled to take place in October, but mission team members delayed the activity to give themselves more time to take stock of Ryugu's unexpectedly complex and rugged surface. Hayabusa2 will make two additional sample-grabbing sorties after this month's activity, including one trip to snag material from a fresh crater. The spacecraft will create this crater itself by sending a ‘kinetic impactor’ barrelling into Ryugu. © JAXA; Akihiro Ikeshita The various bits of Ryugu material will travel to Earth in a special return capsule in December 2020, if current…

Instant Expert Redshifting galaxies explained What does it mean when an astronomical object is redshifted? All About Space has found the perfect astronomer to reveal all The galaxy at rest Astronomers will be able to identify the simplest elements in a galaxy, such as hydrogen and oxygen. Thanks to laboratory analysis scientists can also deduce what the rest of the emission lines of these elements would look like when a galaxy is at rest. This is used as a frame of reference when deducing the motion of a galaxy. ©NASA/ESA; Carlos Clarivan / Science Photo Library Redshifting galaxy If the galaxy is moving away from us then its light will be stretched, making the light appear redder. This motion will also cause emission lines in the galaxy’s spectra to be…

STARGAZER Moon tour Posidonius A large, easy-to-find crater with fascinating features on its floor If you look at the Moon through a telescope at medium to high magnification you’ll see that most lunar craters have quite boring floors. True, many have mountains in their centres – central peaks caused by lava bouncing back, sploshing up and then setting in place after they were formed. Many others have smaller craters spattered across their floors, as if they had been hit with buckshot from a shotgun. Others still have valleys or channels running across them, or walls displaying multiple ridges, shelves and terraces. This month’s tour destination has most of those, so it is well worth a look as February turns into March and spring impatiently taps us on our shoulders as…

Deep sky challenge Hidden gems in and around Cepheus One of the least famous constellations offers keen-eyed observers some fascinating and beautiful sights It’s an unspoken truth that while some constellations are slap-across-the-face gorgeous and blessed with spectacular telescopic treats – Orion, Taurus, I’m looking at you – others are just… boring. With no bright stars they are dull to the naked eye, and they have no big, bright deep-sky objects that cry out to be drooled over through a low-power eyepiece. One such constellation is Cepheus, The King. To the naked eye its faint stars make the shape of a child’s crude drawing of a house, and that’s it. However, if you swing a medium- or large-aperture telescope towards it you’ll be rewarded with views of some genuinely fascinating…

LAUNCH PAD YOUR FIRST CONTACT WITH THE UNIVERSE The aftermath of a stellar death © ESO The end of a star’s life can be just as beautiful as its birth. Seen here, the planetary nebula Abell 36 is located 780 light years away in the constellation of Virgo and has been another target for ESO’s VLT, along with the galaxies that glow in the background. At this point in the star’s life, the central star shining bright has lost the battle in maintaining a balance between its output of radiation and gravity. As a consequence, its outer layers have been expelled throughout the cosmos – this only lasts for roughly 10,000 years, which is considered merely a flash in time on cosmic timescales.…

LAUNCH PAD YOUR FIRST CONTACT WITH THE UNIVERSE Super-Earth smackdowns could explain diverse worlds © NASA; ESA; Gemini Observatory/AURA; Catastrophic collisions may explain differences in giant rocky planets around other stars. A new study suggests that the heat generated by material smashing into a planet plays an important role in removing some or all of a planet's atmosphere. A wide variety of sizes for these deadly asteroids would explain differences seen in the more massive rocky worlds. NASA's planet-hunting Kepler Space Telescope revealed a surprising number of worlds with sizes that fall between Earth and Neptune in relatively short orbits. By calculating the densities of the planets astronomers learned that many of them seem to boast massive hydrogen-helium atmospheres. However, these atmospheres seem to come in many different flavours, suggesting…

LAUNCH PAD YOUR FIRST CONTACT WITH THE UNIVERSE Interstellar object 'Oumuamua could be a 'monstrous' corpse of comet dust Words by Meghan Bartels Oumuamua, the first known visitor from beyond our Solar System, is long gone, but it's still leaving scientists guessing. A new explanation proposes that the strange object was a "monstrous fluffy dust aggregate" produced by a busted-up comet. That's the explanation laid out by Zdenek Sekanina, an astronomer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The explanation draws on observations of comets breaking apart as they get closer to the Sun. 'Oumuamua is the interstellar object that astronomers detected whizzing through our Solar System in October 2017. It was the first interstellar object scientists ever spotted, although they expect thousands more have gone unnoticed. Ever since 'Oumuamua's appearance scientists…

What hit Uranus? OLDEST SOLAR SYSTEM MYSTERY SOLVED WHAT HIT URANUS? Astronomers are beginning to understand how the ice giant came to be the weirdest planet in the Solar System Reported by Kelly Oakes The eight major planets in our Solar System are all mysterious in their own ways, but Uranus, seventh from the Sun, is particularly weird. The ice giant is tilted, its north and south poles where you would expect the planet’s equator to be. Its magnetic field is off-centre. And though you’d expect an ice giant to be cold, Uranus is even colder than scientists think it should be. Now researchers are starting to unravel how it came to be this way. Just like Saturn and Neptune, Uranus has a ring system. However, because the planet is…

Space-time's numbers The six fundamental constants that shape the universe and allow life to exist on Earth © NASA/ESA; ESO; Unmismoobjetivo Alpha The fine-structure constant, or alpha, determines the strength of electromagnetic interactions – like the bonds between electrons and other particles. Electric constant Also referred to as vacuum permittivity, the electric constant relates the units for electric charge to mechanical quantities such as length and force. Planck’s constant This relates the energy carried by a photon to its frequency. It is important in quantum mechanics and forms the basis of how we have measured the kilogram. Gravitational constant This constant, G, defines the level of attraction between two objects. For example, it determines why the Moon orbits Earth and why Earth orbits the Sun. Speed of light The speed…

FUTURE TECH Next-gen THE NEXT GENERATION OF SPACE TELESCOPES Take a look at NASA's great observatories of the future © Adrian Mann Origins Space Telescope (OST) Using its infrared imaging and spectroscopy capabilities the OST will be able to observe the early universe, as well as trace water within star and planet formation and examine potentially habitable exoplanets. Habitable Exoplanet Observatory (HabEx) HabEx will not only directly image planets around Sun-like stars, it will also measure their spectra and determine if they contain the necessary signs of life, including atmospheric composition. Lynx X-ray Observatory This X-ray observatory will be Chandra 2.0. Lynx will observe the cosmos in the same wavelength, but its improved mirror and technologies will provide more comprehensive and insightful detections. Large UV Optical Infrared Surveyor (LUVOIR) LUVOIR…

JWST JAMES WEBB WILL IT EVER LAUNCH? Beset by delays and with costs rising, the government may pull the plug Reported by David Crookes © NASA; DLR German Aerospace Center Further away Webb is not going to be orbiting the Earth. Instead it will be a staggering 1.5 million kilometres (932,000 miles) away. Webb will penetrate the dust around newly forming objects The Integrated Science Instrument Module contains the tools needed to look at the universe in infrared. Hubble's utilises optical and ultraviolet wavelengths. The primary mirror is much larger Webb has a 6.5-metre (21.3-feet) diameter primary mirror allowing for a collecting area of 4.5m2, much bigger than Hubble. Scientists will peer deeper into the universe For the first time, Webb will allow us to peer back in time at…

How to… Use Stellarium Here’s how to use one of the most popular planetarium programs available to plan your observing nights in advance “We could use software to simulate views of the sky for any time on any date” You’ll need: ✓ A PC or laptop ✓ Internet connection to download the program Before the digital revolution – when the only phones we had were tied to our living-room walls by a cable or mounted in a drafty, cobweb-draped box at the end of the street – if amateur astronomers wanted to plan an observing night in advance our options were rather limited. Monthly magazines featured star charts accompanied by notes on which planets and comets would be visible that coming month. We also used planispheres, round star charts made…

STARGAZER The Northern Hemisphere Ursa Major, the Great Bear, signals a change in the night sky as it hangs high overhead © Wil Tirion; ESO; Oliver Stein; Giuseppe Donatiello As the brilliant winter constellations – which include Orion and Canis Major – start to slip westwards, setting ever earlier, the familiar star patterns of Leo and Virgo begin to climb to centre stage. And that’s not all; Ursa Major (the Great Bear) is plain for all observers to see and contains the seven familiar stars of the Big Dipper. The Great Bear is a treasure trove, offering a selection of double stars, nebulae and galaxies to push your instrument to the limit. And, given we’re in March, you should be able to see a faint glowing triangle from the horizon…

Telescope advice Celestron PowerSeeker 127 EQ Deluxe A great beginner's telescope that will resolve details on the Moon, as well as star clusters and bright galaxies Given the precedent that Celestron has set when it comes to the excellent design and optical systems of their telescopes, we were very much looking forward to trying the PowerSeeker 127 EQ Deluxe out. Even more so since this telescope is a new addition to the market aimed at beginners to the hobby of astronomy. While many manufacturers are geared more towards Go-To and complicated ’scopes that require tools as well as the nuts and bolts to put them together, it is very refreshing to discover that we were able to put this refractor telescope together in less than ten minutes. What’s more, we…

STARGAZER In the shops The latest books, apps, software, tech and accessories for space and astronomy fans alike “Baggott assists anyone who really wants to understand modern theoretical physics” 1. Book Quantum Space Cost: £20 From: Oxford University Press There's no doubt that Jim Baggott is an excellent popular science writer, specialising in taking complex topics and having a more in-depth look at them in an engaging way. The majority of the time he achieves this with a fluid writing style that remains easily readable, though inevitably there are some aspects that are difficult for the reader to get their head around – this is certainly true of his latest title Quantum Space, which takes on loop quantum gravity. Quantum Space is the first complete and approachable account to a…