Table of contents for No. 115 in All About Space

WELCOME ©Getty There’s a hole in the universe. Granted, it’s not a physical hole that leads us to a place that’s outside the cosmos – it’s a void where there isn’t a great deal going on. And that’s because there’s supposedly nothing there: no matter, no stars, no galaxies, no black holes. Zilch. So what’s going on inside it, and how did it get there? That’s one discussion I had with All About Space’s Art Editor, Jonathan Wells, and the answer is quite illuminating to say the least. Turn to page 14 for everything you need to know (and the current research) into one of the weirdest places in the universe. Also in this issue, we’ve created a quick bluffer’s guide to understanding the fundamental properties of nature at a…

European Space Agency announces call for ‘parastronauts’ with disabilities Words by Chelsea Gohd ©ESA The European Space Agency (ESA) is diversifying its astronaut pool with its first call for astronauts open to candidates with physical disabilities. In this call for new astronauts, the agency’s first recruitment drive in over a decade, the ESA announced that it plans to accept four to six career astronauts, who will be permanent ESA staff, and about 20 ‘reserve astronauts’, who could fly for shorter missions to destinations like the International Space Station. As part of this call for astronaut applicants, ESA director general Jan Wörner revealed that the agency is aiming to bring its first ‘parastronaut,’ or astronaut with physical disabilities, on board. “The ESA is ready to invest in defining the necessary adaptations…

Lumpy 13.6-kilogram meteorite that crashed in Sweden recovered in local village Words by Stephanie Pappas A half-melted hunk of iron-rich rock found in Uppsala, Sweden, is part of a meteorite that fell there in November 2020. The lumpy meteorite is about the size of a loaf of bread, and weighs around 13.6 kilograms. It was once part of a larger space rock, probably weighing more than 8.1 tonnes, that created a dramatic fireball over Uppsala on 7 November 2020. After that fireball impacted, scientists at the Swedish Museum of Natural History calculated the likely landing site and found some small fragments of iron meteorite near the village of Ådalen. These tiny metallic fragments were only about three millimetres (0.11 inches) long, but the investigation also turned up a boulder and…

CITIZEN SCIENCE PROJECTS TO TRY AT HOME From classifying galaxies to identifying features on the Red Planet, All About Space reveals how you can contribute to science Written by Daisy Dobrijevic ©Getty HOW YOU CAN GET INVOLVED If you are interested in becoming a citizen scientist there are a variety of projects that you can get involved in – depending on how ‘hands-on’ you want to be Citizen science is a great way to gather and analyse large amounts of data with the aid of the general public. Collaboration between scientists and citizens has played an important role across scientific disciplines, especially in regards to space science. You don’t need to have any prior knowledge to be a citizen scientist, just a willingness to participate and a desire to aid…

Moon water IS THE MOON GETTING MORE WATER? Surprising new sources of water are springing up, aiding hope of sustainable lunar living Reported by James Romero ©Adrian Mann Lunar water was a myth before it was a mystery. Like Earth, the Moon formed on the wrong side of the Solar System’s snow line, the imaginary boundary beyond which water ice was available for planetary assembly. Later, the exposed, Sun-scorched surface of our atmosphereless Moon continued to provide a hostile environment for water. It’s perhaps unsurprising that when samples brought back by the Apollo missions were shown to contain trace amounts of the stuff, the verdict was terrestrial contamination. However, in the 1990s, two NASA orbiters, Clementine and Lunar Prospector, provided strong hints of surface water at the poles. This was…

HOW THE MOON IS GETTING MORE WATER Recently two new sources of water have emerged that are making the lunar surface wetter © Alamy 1 A solar source The solar wind – which permeates the Solar System – originates in the Sun’s upper atmosphere and is made up of a stream of charged particles, primarily protons and electrons. 2 Magnetic deflection Upon arrival at Earth, the solar wind is largely deflected by our magnetic field. If not for this protection, the solar wind would strip Earth’s atmosphere away, just like it did on Mars. 3 Raining hydrogen ions on the Moon On the exposed lunar surface, solar wind protons could be freeing up oxygen ions within surface mineral oxides to bond with other incoming hydrogen ions to form water. 4…

ROMAN VS HUBBLE ©NASA Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope Launching: 2025 Weight: 4,166 kilograms Field of view: 0.28 square degrees Type of telescope: Three-mirror anastigmat Wavebands: Near-infrared, visible light What it will do: Study the far universe for evidence of expansion due to dark energy, and nearer stars for exoplanets through gravitational lensing. It will directly image closer stars for the first images and spectra of their giant planets. ©Adrian Mann Hubble Space Telescope Launched: 1990 Weight: 11,110 kilograms Field of view: 0.0561 square degrees Type of telescope: Ritchey-Chrétien reflector Wavebands: Near-infrared, visible light, ultraviolet What it’s done: Made discoveries both inside and outside the Solar System. It’s measured cosmic distances more accurately than ever before and helped prove that black holes are common at galactic centres.…

THE THEORIES What could be keeping the Chandler wobble going on Mars? 1 Past evidence of surface water On Earth, the Chandler wobble is excited, in part, by pressure at the bottom of the ocean, but Mars does not have surface water today. It lost flowing liquid billions of years ago, but it was once awash with water in the form of lakes and oceans. Could that have aided the wobbly rotation? As it stands, it would require much further study. ©NASA 2 Internal issues Researchers have considered whether the excitations are produced by core-mantle interactions or marsquakes. Neither can be excluded at this stage, but the scientists believe them to be unlikely. Past research has already suggested that marsquakes are too small to excite polar motion to an observable…

STARGAZER This month’s planets The Red Planet remains an easy target, while Uranus presents itself as an interesting sight Planet of the month Comparing how Mars looks now to how it looked last autumn, when it was at opposition and much closer to the Earth, is like comparing a candle to a car headlight, but the Red Planet is still an easy naked-eye object, and it’s in a very interesting and busy part of the night sky, too. As March draws to a close, Mars is shining at magnitude +1.2, making it still as bright as the star Pollux, but strikingly fainter than the sky’s brightest stars, which it was outshining last October. At the start of our observing period Mars will become visible to the naked eye soon after…

LAUNCH PAD YOUR FIRST CONTACT WITH THE UNIVERSE ©ESA/Hubble & NASA 15 FEBRUARY 2021 Baby star’s tantrum These wispy jets ejected across space are one of the rarer sights in the night sky, known as Herbig-Haro objects. This image captures two such objects, catalogued as HH 46 and HH 47, in the constellation of Vela (the Sails) 1,400 light years away. These emissions are ejected from newly born stars and are rapidly expelled across space at speeds of over 150 kilometres (93 miles) per second. The jets then collide with the surrounding gas, creating the bright shock waves, which have been imaged here by Hubble. 22 FEBRUARY 2021 Evil eye The Hubble Space Telescope has captured this striking image of NGC 4826, a spiral galaxy often referred to as the…

Company plans to start building private Voyager space station with artificial gravity in 2025 Words by Jeff Spry Orbital Assembly Corporation (OAC) recently unveiled new details about its ambitious Voyager Station, projected to be the first commercial space station operating with artificial gravity. OAC, a manufacturing firm centred on the colonisation of space, discussed Voyager during a press junket in January. The virtual event served as an update for interested investors, marketing partners and enthusiastic holidaymakers hoping to someday book a room aboard the rotating Voyager Station. During the event, the company revealed its schedule for the next chapter of human space exploration. Its team of skilled NASA veterans, pilots, engineers and architects intends to assemble a ‘space hotel’ in low-Earth orbit that rotates fast enough to generate artificial gravity…

NASA delays launch of DART mission Words by Samantha Mathewson NASA has delayed the launch of its first-ever planetary defence mission, aimed at deflecting potentially hazardous asteroids from colliding with Earth. The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) will send a spacecraft to test crash into near-Earth binary asteroid system Didymos in 2022. NASA announced that this year’s primary launch window of 21 July to 24 August is no longer an option. Instead the space agency is targeting a backup window that opens 24 November and runs to 15 February 2022. The decision to postpone the launch was made by NASA Science Mission Directorate (SMD) senior leadership following a risk assessment of the DART project schedule. Delaying the launch of the mission will not affect the spacecraft’s arrival at its target…

Future tech Aldrin’s castle ALDRIN’S CASTLE Travelling to Mars could be dangerous and uncomfortable, but Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin has a plan to do it in style When Apollo 11 landed on the Moon in 1969, many at NASA felt there was a good chance they’d be landing astronauts on Mars by 1984. But government priorities changed, and the only part of NASA’s grand exploration plan to come to fruition was the Space Shuttle, which taxied astronauts to the International Space Station and no further. Both George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush tried to recapture the spirit, pitching missions to the Red Planet that would have arrived in 2018, but these never became a reality. All of these plans and expectations floundered as budgets were cut, and…

Climate change CAN WE STOP EARTH HEATING UP? The SCoPEx high-altitude balloon mission will investigate a controversial way to reduce global temperatures Reported by Andrew May In 2021, Earth hits a bleak milestone. The concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere will hit 150 per cent of its value in preindustrial times. That excess will be the consequence of human activities, the direct cause of the current climate emergency. If global temperatures are to remain no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels, according to the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world needs to decrease net emissions of CO2 to zero by 2050. But even this won’t put a sudden brake on the temperature rise, because it takes time for CO2…

PLANET EARTH: WHY IS IT HEATING UP? Human activity is causing a rise in global temperatures via the greenhouse effect © Tobias Roetsch 1 GREENHOUSE EFFECT Beneficial up to a point, heat-trapping gases become a problem if they keep increasing. 2 CARBON DIOXIDE One greenhouse gas in particular is increasing due to human industrial activity. 3 FOSSIL FUELS IN VEHICLES Cars, aircraft and other forms of transport produce CO2 by burning petroleum-based fuels. 4 INDUSTRIAL PROCESSES Heating, electricity production and similar activities generate CO2 through the burning of fossil fuels. 5 TREES AND GREENERY Extensive deforestation produces large quantities of CO2 through combustion and decomposition of biomass.…

ALL ABOUT THE MOON Recent seismic and gravity measurements from lunar orbiters have revealed the different layers of the Moon © Alamy 1 An ancient magnetic field Analyses of lunar samples showed the lunar crust contains evidence of a mysterious ancient magnetic field, though what produced it remains unknown. 2 A low-density skin The lunar crust is made up of lighter minerals like feldspars that crystallised out of the Moon’s ancient surface-wide magma ocean as it cooled. 3 The main mantie The majority of the Moon is mantle, made up of denser minerals like olivine and pyroxene. It is within this vast layer that we think ‘moonquakes’ originate. 4 Lower mantle Between the core and mantle is the partially melted lower mantle. The gradual change in composition towards denser minerals…

WHERE IS THERE WATER ON THE MOON? © NASA 1 Watery chemistry in Clavius crater Last year’s detection of water molecules in Clavius crater, one of the largest craters visible from Earth, hinted at some degree of surface-wide hydration of the lunar regolith. 2 Tonnes and tonnes of dirty polar ice The Lunar and Planetary Institute’s Paul Spudis used Chandrayaan-1’s radar data to estimate that 600 million tonnes of water ice could be locked up in just 40 polar locales. 3 Not exactly poles apart The pole-to-pole orbit of Chandrayaan-1 allowed NASA’s onboard Moon Mineralogy Mapper instrument to map the surface ice across the Moon’s southern pole. 4 A wispy, watery atmosphere It is believed that water molecules freed from lunar regolith grains by the warming Sun might bounce across…

Quantum physics 10 THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT QUANTUM PHYSICS YOUR CHEAT SHEET TO THE SPOOKY SIDE OF THE UNIVERSE Written by Colin Stuart ©Getty 1 THE QUANTUM WORLD IS LUMPY The quantum world has a lot in common with shoes. You can’t just go to a shop and pick out trainers that are an exact match for your feet. Instead you’re forced to choose between pairs that come in predetermined sizes. The subatomic world is similar. Albert Einstein won a Nobel Prize for proving that energy is quantised. Just as you can only buy shoes in multiples of half a size, so energy only comes in multiples of the same ‘quanta’ – hence the name quantum physics. The quanta here is the Planck constant, named after Max Planck, the…

ANATOMY OF NASA’S ROMAN SPACE TELESCOPE NASA; Getty 1 Solar array and sunshield This will generate power, as well as keeping sunlight out of the telescope’s aperture. 2 Wide-Field Instrument The 300MP camera that’s at the heart of the Roman mission. 3 Coronagraph instrument On the opposite side to the WFI, this instrument blocks out light from nearby stars to reveal the planets in orbit around them. 4 Serviceable in space The observatory is designed to be serviceable by robots, unlike Hubble which has required four crewed service missions. 5 High-gain antenna This will be used for sending huge amounts of data back to Earth. 6 Outer barrel assembly The shape of the telescope is designed to deflect sunlight away from the detectors.…

HOW MARS WOBBLES LIKE A SPINNING TOP ©NASA/JPL; Getty 1 Axis of rotation Mars rotates around its axis every 24 hours, 39 minutes and 35 seconds, which is slightly longer than on Earth, where the rotation takes 23 hours, 56 minutes and four seconds. This time defines a day on Mars, called a sol. 2 Mars’ tilt Mars is tilted 25.2 degrees relative to the plane of the Red Planet’s orbit around the Sun. Because this is close to the 23.5-degree tilt here on Earth, it experiences similar seasons. 3 A small wobble The wobble is only slight. It has an amplitude of ten centimetres (four inches) on the surface. When viewed from the north pole, it’s in a near-circular counterclockwise direction. 4 Time taken The wobble will complete its…

STARGAZER The Northern Hemisphere The heavens are alive with galaxies, star clusters and nebulae The constellations of dark winter skies make way for those famous for welcoming in the warmer spring, so if you’re a fan of observing the gems that can be seen in the constellation of Orion, then this month will be your last chance before they disappear from view. However, don’t be too dismayed – Leo (the Lion) and its stunning array of galaxies stands proudly high above the southern horizon as darkness falls. You can find the majestic lion below the base of the Plough, or Big Dipper, which forms part of Ursa Major (the Great Bear). The Leo Triplet, made up of galaxies Messier 66, Messier 65 and NGC 3628, is an easy catch for…

LAUNCH PAD Cosmologists create 4,000 virtual universes to solve Big Bang mystery Words by Stephanie Pappas YOUR FIRST CONTACT WITH THE UNIVERSE © The Institute of Statistical Mathematics Cosmologists are pressing rewind on the first instant after the Big Bang by simulating 4,000 versions of the universe on a massive supercomputer. The goal is to paint a picture of the immediate aftermath of the Big Bang, when the observable universe suddenly expanded 1 trillion trillion times in size in the tiniest sliver of a microsecond. By applying the method used for the simulations to real observations of today’s universe, researchers hope to arrive at an accurate understanding of what this inflationary period looked like. “We are trying to do something like guessing a baby photo of our universe from the…

LAUNCH PAD ‘Ghostly’ neutrino from star-shredding black hole reveals cosmic particle accelerator Words by Charles Q. Choi YOUR FIRST CONTACT WITH THE UNIVERSE © DESY Science Communication Lab A ghostly particle that smashed into Antarctica in 2019 has been traced back to a black hole tearing apart a star while acting like a giant cosmic particle accelerator. Scientists investigated the extremely high-energy neutrino they spotted on 1 October 2019 using the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. “It smashed into the Antarctic ice with a remarkable energy of more than 100 teraelectronvolts,” said researcher Anna Franckowiak. “For comparison, that’s at least ten times the maximum particle energy that can be achieved in the world’s most powerful particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider.” To discover the origins of such a powerful neutrino, the scientists…

Boötes Void HOLE IN THE UNIVERSE WHAT LURKS WITHIN THE MOST MYSTERIOUS PLACE IN THE COSMOS? ©Tobias Roetsch “If the Milky Way had been in the centre of the Boötes Void, we wouldn’t have known there were other galaxies until the 1960s.” This was a quote from American astronomer Greg Aldering in an article for Discover magazine in 1995. He was talking about a region of space that appears to be a cosmological ‘dead zone’, containing very few stars or galaxies. Galaxies have been observed for hundreds of years with telescopes, while some, such as Andromeda, Triangulum and the Magellanic Clouds, have been visible to the naked eye throughout human existence. But inside a cosmic void such as Boötes, none of that would have been the case until the development…

WHERE IS THE BOÖTES VOID? ©NASA Boötes Void Size: 330 million light years Object type: Cosmic void 1 The void’s centre lies 700 million light years away from Earth. It was discovered in 1981, and the Hercules Supercluster forms one edge. Coma Size: 20 million light years Object type: Supercluster 2 In Coma Berenices lies this supercluster containing over 3,000 galaxies. It’s the central component of the Coma Great Wall and is also part of the Coma Filament. Corona Borealis Size: 150 million light years Object type: Cosmic void 3 This void lies next to the Microscopium Void and is surrounded by the Ophiuchus, Hercules and Centaurus superclusters. It is next to the Coma Great Wall. Hydra-Centaurus Size: 250 million light years Object type: Supercluster 4 A twin-lobed supercluster that’s…

Climate change HOW THE MISSION WILL WORK This high-flying balloon is a technology testbed © Nicholas Forder “THE GOAL IS TO IMPROVE OUR MODELS OF THE WAY AEROSOLS FORM IN THE STRATOSPHERE”DAVID KEITH 1 HIGH-ALTITUDE HELIUM BALLOON The test will be at around 20 kilometres (12.4 miles) altitude, where balloons are often used for research. 2 GONDOLA WITH SCIENTIFIC PAYLOAD Around 600 kilograms of instruments will be carried beneath the balloon. 3 SOLAR-POWERED PROPELLERS Unlike most research balloons, this one will be self-propelled, following a carefully controlled course. 4 AEROSOL PLUME During the experimental run, SCoPEx will emit a plume of calcium carbonate aerosols. 5 INCREASED REFLECTIVITY Sunlight hitting the aerosol plume might be bounced back into space, producing a cooling effect. 6 KIRUNA, SWEDEN The flight will take place at…

Focus on Farfarout ‘FARFAROUT’ OFFICIALLY THE SOLAR SYSTEM’S MOST DISTANT OBJECT This recently discovered trans-Neptunian object lies some 140 astronomical units from the Sun ©NOIRLab The planetoid dubbed ‘Farfarout’ was first detected in 2018 at an estimated distance of 140 astronomical units (AU) from the Sun – farther away than any object had ever been observed. One AU is the average Earth-Sun distance – about 93 million miles, or 150 million kilometres. For perspective, Pluto orbits at an average distance of about 39 AU. Farfarout’s inherent brightness suggests a world roughly 400 kilometres (250 miles) wide, barely enough to qualify for dwarf planet status. But the size estimate assumes the world is largely made of ice, and that assumption could change with more observations. Speaking of more observations, the detection…

Roman Space Telescope NANCY GRACE ROMAN SPACE TELESCOPE Exoplanets, gravitational lenses and dark energy lurk in the infrared universe Reported by Ian Evenden Each time humanity launches a new space telescope, it opens up a new window to the universe. One of NASA’s latest is the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, previously the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) before being renamed after NASA’s first chief astronomer. It’s due to launch in 2025 and will attempt to answer questions about dark energy through observations of gravitational lenses, supernovae and baryon acoustic oscillations – fluctuations in the density of the visible matter in the universe. It will also survey exoplanets, directly imaging those of Jupiter size, and use gravitational microlensing to find bodies only a few times the mass of Earth’s…

MYSTERIES OF THE UNIVERSE Chandler wobble WHY IS MARS CONTINUING TO WOBBLE? Researchers confirm that the Red Planet is spinning off its axis Reported by David Crookes © Alamy: Getty Grab your telescope and gaze at Mars. Are you able to spot something unusual as you focus in on the planet, paying particular attention to its white caps? Not even a little bit? Here’s a clue: we’re referring to a teeny, tiny wobble that occurs as the poles wander from the Red Planet’s axis of rotation. Still can’t see it? Don’t worry – it’s taken scientists decades to spot some rather odd behaviour on the Red Planet. For the past 18 years, radio tracking observations determined from satellites orbiting the planet have been able to show stark evidence of the…

DETECTING MARS’ NORTH POLE WOBBLE The InSight mission seeks to provide precise measurements of the planet’s movements © NASA SEE HOW INSIGHT TOUCHED DOWN ON MARS 1 The RISE antennae Two medium-gain horn antennae are on the deck of the InSight Mars lander. Radio signals are used to measure the tiny wobble in the rotation of the planet over time as it orbits the Sun. 2 Radio science equipment RISE – standing for Rotation and Interior Structure Experiment – also includes an X-band radio transponder and a transmitter inside the lander, where they are shielded from the harsh Martian environment. 3 Gathering information The RISE radio science experiment tracks the location of the lander. The wobble indicates the nature of Mars’ core – molten-liquid metal or solid metal – and…

STARGAZER What’s in the sky? ESSENTIAL GUIDES AND ADVICE FOR AMATEUR ASTRONOMERS Red light friendly In order to preserve your night vision, you should read our observing guide under red light 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…

STARGAZER Astroshots of the month Get featured in All About Space by sending your astrophotography images to space@spaceanswers.com Houssem Ksontini Location: Tunis, Tunisia Telescope: Sky-Watcher Explorer 150P “I have always had an interest in astronomy, but it didn’t become a hobby until I discovered astrophotography and bought my very first instrument: a Newtonian telescope. While I don’t have the benefit of a GoTo mount or autoguiding, I am able to capture the beauty of a variety of deep-sky objects. When I image the Moon and other Solar System targets, I use a modified webcam combined with a Barlow lens for magnified views that afford me stunning views of targets like Mars, Saturn and Jupiter.” “WHEN I IMAGE THE MOON AND OTHER SOLAR SYSTEM TARGETS, I USE A MODIFIED WEBCAM COMBINED…