Table of contents for No. 100 in All About Space

It's our 100th issue! © ESO In June 2012, the very first issue of All About Space was launched – and I remember it like it was yesterday. At the time I was serving as a staff writer for UK magazine Astronomy Now, but I was immediately intrigued by its energy, vibrant design and how it effortlessly delved into some of the most complex topics in the universe. Flicking through its 100 glossy pages, I just knew I had to get involved. That day came in November 2013 when I joined as a full-time staff writer, and what a ride it has been: from interviewing NASA astronauts to jetting off to Tenerife, Poland and America to get the latest space scoops for our readers, All About Space has – month-by-month…

LAUNCH PAD YOUR FIRST CONTACT WITH THE UNIVERSE NASA’s planet hunter uncovers Earth-size world in habitable zone Words by Mike Wall © NASA The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has discovered a roughly Earth-size planet in the habitable zone of its host star, the zone of orbital distances where liquid water could be stable on a world’s surface. The newfound exoplanet, known as TOI 700 d, lies just 101.5 light years from Earth, making it a good candidate for follow-up observations by other instruments, scientists added. TESS found three different planets circling the star TOI 700 – TOI meaning ‘Tess Object of Interest’ – a red dwarf about 40 per cent as massive, 40 per cent as wide and 50 per cent as hot as Earth’s Sun. The innermost world,…

LAUNCH PAD YOUR FIRST CONTACT WITH THE UNIVERSE Hubble turns 30 this year: how astronomers will celebrate Astronomers kicked off 2020 by welcoming the 30th anniversary of NASA’s venerable Hubble Space Telescope at their largest annual gathering. During the first full day of the 235th American Astronomical Society conference, a team of scientists affiliated with the instrument shared their highlights from the mission. Hubble has produced not just scientific results, but also a host of iconic images of the universe around us. “We flooded the world with jaw-dropping pictures,” Ray Villard, a long-time public affairs officer working on Hubble for the Space Telescope Science Institute that runs it, said during the event. “These pictures, they really have redefined the universe for the public, and they speak to the public at…

Planck stars STRANGEST STAR IN THE UNIVERSE Black holes might be collapsing stars that are exploding in slow motion Reported by Jonathan O’Callaghan © Tobias Roetsch What happens inside a black hole? That is a question that has long plagued astronomers, with numerous theories put forward, and numerous problems. Black holes have a gravitational pull so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape. This leads to a problem known as the ‘information paradox’ where information could disappear forever inside a black hole, something that doesn’t hold up against our laws of physics. But an emerging theory put forward a few years ago proposes an unusual solution to this problem: that black holes are not what we think, and instead contain an object known as a ‘Planck star’ –…

What we need to know about Planck stars How long do they take to explode? While we think Planck stars are stellar explosions in slow motion, we aren’t entirely sure how long they take. We’ll need to know that if we ever want to spot one. Where are they? If Planck stars do really exist, it might be possible to spot some of them exploding in our night sky. However, we haven’t been able to track any down as of yet. Were they in the early universe? It’s possible Planck stars were present in the early universe, in the form of primordial black holes. If we can find some of these, we might be able to find a Planck star. Have we seen some already? Planck stars are thought to…

Focus on ISS surgery STATION GETS ‘OPEN-HEART SURGERY’ The ISS computers get new life after an on-board circuit board transplant © Getty “Having spare parts and being able to make repairs in space may help the ISS survive until 2030” Russian and European engineers have confirmed the success of their ‘open-heart surgery’ on the computer lifeline of the International Space Station (ISS). Teams from both the Russian space agency Roscosmos and the European Space Agency (ESA) developed a method in which an astronaut or cosmonaut aboard the space lab could upgrade the computers that keep the ISS on track and in the right position, known collectively as the Data Management System. It’s a task that ESA representatives described in a statement as “the equivalent of open-heart surgery on Earth!” Engineers…

Space debris THE FUTURE OF SPACE DEBRIS Orbits around Earth are becoming dangerously overcrowded, but the space community is taking action… Reported by Richard Edwards © Getty 4 October 1957 became one of the most important dates in space exploration when the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik. It was the day the Space Age officially began, but an otherwise glorious technological achievement brought with it an unfortunate consequence – the mission left behind the first space debris in history. Over the last six decades space traffic has increased massively. That’s inevitably meant that the volume of space debris – defined as non-functioning human-made objects either in Earth orbit or re-entering the atmosphere – has grown with it. It’s the problematic downside of our expanding ambitions in space. The desirable low-Earth…

The Sun STAR PROFILE The Sun The Solar System would be nothing if it weren’t for the power and influence of our nearest star © Tobias Roetsch The Milky Way is home to billions of stars, and the universe is home to billions of galaxies. In the vast and infinite cosmos, our star – the Sun – has created a residential spot we call the Solar System. The Sun is the true centre of the Solar System: not only does everything else orbit around it, from asteroids to gas giants, but it makes up 99.8 per cent of the Solar System’s mass and is 108 times the diameter of Earth. This colossus was formed 4.6 billion years ago from a cloud of dust and gas. After this cloud began to…

Hoag’s Object MYSTERIES OF THE UNIVERSE THE IMPOSSIBLE GALAXY Hoag’s Object is strange enough as it is, but astronomers can also see a galaxy within the galaxy within a galaxy Reported by David Crookes © Tobias Roetsch The universe is a gorgeous place, but some images have a greater power to stop you in your tracks than others. “Hoag’s Object is fascinating because of its aesthetic value; it’s just a beautiful thing,” Dr Noah Brosch tells All About Space about one particular intergalactic gem. Indeed, one glimpse at its perfect circular ring of blue stars around a golden central ball and there’s no denying that most people would find it hard to tear their eyes away. The ring-shaped galaxy was discovered by American astronomer Arthur Hoag in 1950. He had…

ARE WE WRONG ABOUT HUBBLE’S CONSTANT? Disagreement on the speed of the universe’s expansion continues according to recent research Reported by Adam Mann © Getty © ESO “At issue is a number known as the Hubble constant, first calculated by American astronomer Edwin Hubble” By looking at how the light from distant bright objects is bent, researchers have increased the discrepancy between different methods for calculating the expansion rate of the universe. “The measurements are consistent with indicating a crisis in cosmology,” Geoff Chih-Fan Chen, a cosmologist at the University of California, Davis, said. At issue is a number known as the Hubble constant, first calculated by American astronomer Edwin Hubble nearly a century ago after he realised that every galaxy in the universe was zipping away from Earth at…

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

James Webb Telescope on track for March 2021 launch NASA’s next flagship space telescope is still on track for a launch in March 2021 despite longstanding scheduling concerns, according to agency personnel. The James Webb Space Telescope has been notoriously prone to delays and cost overruns, but during two town hall meetings here at the 235th American Astronomical Society meeting, NASA leaders emphasised that the launch date set in June 2018 still holds. A second major telescope is also continuing to meet its timeline, targeting a launch in the mid-2020s. “This past year was an exciting year for James Webb,” said Paul Hertz, director of the astrophysics division of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. “This is your next great observatory.” But before it can become NASA’s next great observatory, Webb needs…

Bluffer’s guide: loop quantum gravity How to make two of our competing laws of physics match up with each other Laws of physics In physics, the Standard Model is a broad theory to explain forces and particles in the universe, while general relativity explains how gravity works. © Getty Head to head The Standard Model and general relativity are not compatible. One can’t explain the other. Something else must be going on to make them work together. © CERN The peace maker Loop quantum gravity attempts to make quantum mechanics – which governs the very smallest things in the universe – compatible with gravity. © Getty Loop the loop It works by breaking down space into smaller bits. It suggests space-time is not a continuous sheet, but rather lots of…

Venus 22 THINGS YOU DID N’T KNOW ABOUT VENUS Earth’s sister planet is an intriguing and mysterious world, with more to it than meets the eye Written by Lee Cavendish © NASA/JPL 1 VENUS 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 Mayans and Greeks. The name ‘Venus’ comes from the Roman goddess of love and beauty. 2 PRESSURE THE ’S ON! Walking around Venus would be an unbearable experience for several reasons, but one of them is the…

The past, present and future of solar exploration © Adrian Mann Sending missions to the Sun isn’t the same as sending a mission to another planet. The Sun’s radiation makes it near impossible to get up close and personal. There have been many satellites launched with the purpose of observing and understanding the Sun’s activity, the first dating back to 1960 with NASA’s Pioneer 5 spacecraft. Since then, instruments, engineering processes and our understanding of the solar environment have drastically improved. This has led to a better investigation of the Sun. A few missions that have been incredibly influential in our understanding include NASA and the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) mission – with…

HOW ODD There are many other weirdly formed galaxies out there It looks like a penguin NGC 2936 is 326 million light years away and it resembles a penguin, porpoise or dolphin depending on whose opinion you seek. It’s actually a two-galaxy system, with an egg-shaped galaxy beneath called NGC 2937. © NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team Tip your hat to this one NGC 4594 is known as the Sombrero because it resembles a wide-brimmed hat with a bulge in the centre and a dark dust lane around it. Just 28 million light years from Earth, that bulge comprises several star clusters. © NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team A giant tadpole of a galaxy This disrupted galaxy was identified by astronomers from Israel, the US and…

Explore the Milky Way EXPLORE THE MILKY WAY Take All About Space’s sightseeing tour of our galaxy and explore the sights hidden within Reported by Dave Eagle It’s easy to forget the true beauty and splendour of the Milky Way galaxy. With acres of countryside being torn down in favour of cities, the change in our planet’s landscape can only really mean one thing: light pollution. This yellow-orange hue plagues many astronomers, washing out the stunning gems that our night sky has to offer, with only the brightest objects managing to shine through the haze. With the added appearance of the Moon, it can be extremely difficult to get any observing done that a stargazer feels satisfied with. The fainter and somewhat delicate beauty of our Milky Way galaxy simply…

Explore the Milky Way Our winter galaxy We reach the outer edge of the Milky Way as we hit the darker days of the year During this much colder time of the year, we can enjoy the longer hours of night for extended tours and observations of targets in the night sky. Sadly, winter isn’t the best time of year to observe the Milky Way as our planet only looks towards the sparser regions of our galaxy – the outer portion of the disc. That’s not to say that the Milky Way doesn’t hold a degree of wonder during the winter. Stars still clump together in the splash of white that’s characteristic of our galaxy as it laces through the constellations Canis Major (the Great Dog), Monoceros (the Unicorn), Orion…

Planet of the month This month’s planets If you’re not a fan of getting an early start, you’re in luck: many of the Solar System’s offerings are visible in the evening Mercury is our Planet of the Month this issue because it won’t appear as bright in the evening sky again for the rest of the year. Mercury is considered by many astronomy enthusiasts and professional planetary astronomers to be a ‘forgotten planet’, one of the worlds which has been ignored in favour of more exciting and picturesque worlds such as mighty Jupiter, ringed Saturn and the Red Planet, Mars. They may have a point; it is a fascinating world in its own right. One day a probe – heavily armoured against the nearby Sun’s intense radiation, which is just…

LAUNCH PAD YOUR FIRST CONTACT WITH THE UNIVERSE A festive feel to Norway © ESA The Earth can offer some equally stunning sights by telescope, and this birds-eye view of Tromsø, Norway, is imaged here by the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellite. This colourful combination shows the mountains of the Scandinavian country with a festive twist, flaunting the white snow that sits on the tips of the mountains and the ‘infrared’ land, which is an indication of its vegetation. Tromsø is a remarkable place to visit as it sits near the Arctic Circle, and when the Sun sets in late November, it doesn’t rise again until January. The story behind our stars © ESO There is more to this image of the Milky Way than meets the eye.…

Five facts about black holes Here are five things we know about these unusual objects that play a crucial role in Planck stars They come in different sizes Black holes can range in size from microscopic to supermassive black holes, which are billions of times more massive than our Sun and found in the centre of galaxies. They grew really fast Black holes in the early universe somehow grew really quickly, reaching supermassive status just a billion years after the Big Bang – but scientists aren’t sure how. We’ve managed to take an image of one In April 2019, astronomers from the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) project revealed they had taken the first image of a black hole, found in the nearby M87 galaxy. Despite the name, they can be…

Sun facts © Tobias Roetsch 1.3 million Earths could sit within the Sun, and around 1,000 Jupiters could fit into the Sun. The Sun is classified as a main sequence star, and based on its spectral classification is also known as a G2V-type. At the equator of the Sun, it takes 25 days to complete one full rotation, but regions towards the poles take closer to 36 days. An Astronomical Unit (AU) is the distance between the Sun and Earth and is used to describe distances in the Solar System. The Sun contains traces of heavier elements such as oxygen, carbon, neon and iron. Sunspots are darker, cooler spots that appear on the Sun’s photosphere that arise from complications within the star’s magnetic field. The shape of the Sun relies…

Future tech Bruie MEET BRUIE THE UNDERWATER EXPLORER This rover could one day be searching for signs of life on icy water worlds © Adrian Mann Ice-water interface Testing of the prototype focuses on how the explorer operates in the ice-water interface and makes sure it maintains buoyancy. Deep diving The robotic explorer may need to survive for months underneath an ice sheet between ten and 19 kilometres (six and 12 miles) thick. Potential visits Some of the worlds in the Solar System that have shown signs of a subsurface ocean are Jupiter’s moons Europa, Ganymede and Callisto, as well as Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus. Search for life This aquatic explorer will be fitted with instruments and high-definition cameras that will search for alien life or understand if these off-world…

HOW HOAG’S OBJECT COULD HAVE FORMED The possible steps taken towards creating an odd ring-shaped galaxy 1 A lightweight galaxy approaches a larger one According to a study headed by François Schweizer in 1987, a lightweight galaxy may have come into close enough proximity to a heavier, elliptical galaxy for a major accretion event to have taken place. 2 Mass is transferred to Hoag’s Object At some stage – likely some 2 to 3 billion years ago – there would have been some level of interaction between the two galaxies which, short of a merger or collision, caused the mass to transfer to Hoag’s Object. 3 Forming a surrounding ring As the gravity of the heavier galaxy ripped the lighter one apart, transferred gas from the lightweight galaxy settled into…

ASK Space Our experts answer your questions SPACE EXPLORATION What are the chances of a spacecraft surviving a trip through a black hole? “ If you go to the event horizon you will go inside and very probably perish” Kip Thorne Not much chance at all. But a trip to a black hole – that is, to the vicinity of a black hole – is not a problem. If you go to the event horizon you will go inside and very probably perish, but if you go near the black hole and if the black hole is big enough, the tidal forces don’t kill you and don’t destroy your ship. A slingshot around the black hole is a very powerful way to navigate through the universe. If you have two…

Moon tour Mare Orientale One of the Moon’s most incredible but elusive features peeks around its limb this month © NASA This month’s tour destination is, in the opinion of many Moon enthusiasts, the most spectacular feature on the surface of Earth’s satellite. It resembles nothing less than an enormous archery target bullseye on the Moon – but frustratingly, we can’t really see it. We can see part of it – a hint of it – but this lunar feature is located just around the western limb of the Moon, so we only see its closest edge, and we can only see that when the Moon’s wobble – or ‘libration’ – briefly tips it towards us. A few privileged people have seen it in all its glory: the Apollo astronauts…

Your astrophotography Astroshots of the month Send your astrophotography images to space@spaceanswers.com for a chance to see them featured in All About Space Cory Schmitz Johannesburg, South Africa “Ever since space camp and a model rocketry obsession as a child, I’ve been enamoured by the universe. In 2011 I purchased my first telescope, a 10” Dobsonian, and one year later I took my first deep-space photo of the Great Globular Cluster in Hercules (M13) using a DIY equatorial platform. Since then I’ve imaged deep-sky objects, the lunar surface and planetary targets, wide-field landscapes and time-lapses.” Send your photos to… @spaceanswers space@spaceanswers.com…