Table of contents for No. 96 in All About Space

Spinning a Mars rover on its back © NASA/JPL-Caltech As engineers continue to piece together NASA’s next Martian explorer, the Mars 2020 rover, they took it for a spin in the Spacecraft Assembly Facility at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. While spinning clockwise and counter-clockwise at a speed of one revolution per minute, engineers examined the rover for its centre of gravity, trying to decipher how the weight of the 1,040-kilogram (2,300-pound) vehicle is distributed in an attempt to balance it out. Determining the centre of gravity is a vital test, essential in making sure the spacecraft reaches the Red Planet safely and securely.…

Diving into caves will help explore space © ESA/A. Romeo The European Space Agency (ESA) has put together a creative and innovative training course that will help develop important astronautic skills. It is known as the Cooperative Adventure for Valuing and Exercising human behaviour and performance Skills, or CAVES, training course. For three weeks astronauts – or ‘cavenauts’ – will conduct real science experiments and operations in order to improve their communication, problem-solving and teamwork skills. This course will try its best to mirror life on board the International Space Station without actually going into space.…

Making the jump to light speed © A. Ghizzi Panizza/ESO This image bears a remarkable resemblance to Star Wars as the crew of the Millennium Falcon made the jump to light speed, the dots of light beginning to streak across the screen. Sadly, nothing quite as exciting is happening in this image – no one is jumping in their spacecraft and gearing up to travel at light speeds to the centre of the Milky Way. In fact, this was taken by astronomers at the European Southern Observatory, who captured this view of our marvellous galaxy using a zooming technique, revealing its band of illuminated dust, whilst having starlight streak across the view.…

NASA targets second half of 2024 for human Moon landing © NASA For six months NASA has been chasing big plans to land humans near the south pole of the Moon in 2024. That deadline came from vice president Mike Pence in March and represented a significant increase in speed from the human Moon landing's previous timeline, targeting 2028. The project has since been dubbed the Artemis program, a nod to the fact that NASA plans to include a female astronaut in the Moon landing for the first time. But despite the pressured schedule, NASA wasn't specific about when in 2024 it hopes to accomplish the feat. On 12 September the agency offered its first hint when Greg Chavers, acting deputy program manager for human landing system at NASA's Marshall…

Jupiter-smacking space rock Astronomers get the goods on Something slammed into the king of planets on 7 August, generating a flash that was spotted by Texas-based amateur astronomer Ethan Chappel. Now, six weeks later, astronomers have put together a sketch of the assailant. The impactor was likely 12 to 16 metres (39 to 52 feet) wide, with a mass of around 408 metric tons (450 tons), according to analyses conducted by Ramanakumar Sankar and Csaba Palotai of the Florida Institute of Technology. © NASA The object's density was therefore similar to that of stony-iron meteorites, suggesting the impactor was an asteroid rather than a comet. The asteroid broke apart about 50 miles (80 kilometres) above Jupiter's cloud tops, unleashing the energetic equivalent of 240 kilotons of TNT, Sankar and Palotai…

Making of our cosmic backyard The formation of the Solar System would have produced many more large objects than the eight major planets and handful of dwarfs we know today Collapsing cloud The Solar System began when a huge cloud of interstellar gas and dust called a nebula began to collapse around 5 billion years ago. Knots of denser gas began to form in the cloud, and as their gravity grew stronger they separated into distinct globules that grew denser over time. Protoplanetary nebula As the globule became more concentrated towards the centre it span more rapidly, while collisions between clumps of gas and dust caused it to form a flattened disc. The Sun's radiation pressure halted the collapse and drove volatile materials away from the inner Solar System. Planetary…

Internet on Mars HOW WE’LL BUILD THE INTERNET ON MARS There could be colonists on the Red Planet by 2025, but will there be Wi-Fi? Reported by Leo Bear-McGuinness © Getty In 1971, David Bowie asked if there was life on Mars. In 2019 that kind of wide-eyed sentiment is a little dated. As the once-mysterious planet becomes the commercial trophy of intrepid billionaires, the questions concerning Mars are turning to the pragmatic. Life’s good, Silicon Valley says, but will there be Wi-Fi? And while dispiritingly earthly, it’s a fair question to ask. After all, Elon Musk has stated that his SpaceX vessels could transport Mars-bound passengers “in 2024 with the arrival in 2025”. But without the ability to share a spacefaring selfie on Instagram, will anyone even bother going?…

Mars Helicopter Scout HELICOPTER SCOUT INSTALLED ON MARS ROVER The first-ever off-Earth 'chopper' just hooked up with its travelling companion Reported by Mike Wall © NASA Engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, attached the tiny Mars Helicopter Scout to the agency's car-sized Mars 2020 rover on 28 August, agency officials announced. The duo will launch together in July 2020, touching down inside the Red Planet's Jezero Crater in February 2021. Once on Mars the solar-powered, 1.8 kilogram (four pound) helicopter will detach and begin flying test sorties. “Our job is to prove that autonomous, controlled flight can be executed in the extremely thin Martian atmosphere,” MiMi Aung, project manager of the Mars Helicopter, said in a statement. Mars' air is just one per cent as dense…

What is HD 140283 made up of? Since the star was one of the first to be formed, it is very different to those which have formed later in the universe's life It has very little iron The star contains just 1/250th of the iron content of our Sun, which means it had to have formed when the element was less common. It contains more oxygen With a high oxygen-to-iron ratio, there is evidence to suggest that it formed when the universe was abundant in oxygen very early on. There are traces of lithium A detectable amount of lithium within HD 140283 is due to it having not evolved into a red giant. Lithium was one of the universe's first elements to form. Hydrogen is abundant When astronomers used a…

USER MANUAL Juno spacecraft For NASA and its Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Jupiter Near-Polar Orbiter (Juno) is more than just another analytical study far out in the depths of space – it’s a step forwards for alternative fuels in deep space travel and could very well change the way we design such craft in the decades to come. “Juno is investigating the core mass of Jupiter in the hope of understanding how such an object formed” Interestingly, the estimated $1.1 billion (£760 million) programme isn’t the first NASA effort to study the imposing gas giant sitting far across the expanse of our Solar System. From 1995 to 2003, the proverbial ‘old faithful’ Galileo probe was held in Jovian orbit for a staggering eight years before eventually being deorbited and torn…

HOW TO… Get a spacecraft into an orbit 1 The big launch On 5 August 2011, Juno lifts off from Cape Canaveral aboard an Atlas V 551 rocket. After one minute and 33 seconds, the two main boosters detach and fall away. The main engine falls away at four minutes and 26 seconds, and after just 40 minutes Juno is out of Earth orbit. 2 Earth flyby Two years later, the Juno spacecraft performs an Earth flyby on 9 October 2013. This gives the craft the large speed boost it needs to reach Jovian space. The flyby brings the craft within 559 kilometres (347 miles) of Earth before flinging it back out into deep space. 3 Entering Jovian orbit On 5 July 2016, Juno approached Jupiter and began an orbital…

How life could have come from Mars Lithopanspermia could have brought ancient life from Mars to Earth, which could make us all Martians © Tobias Roetsch Kickstart the journey With life existing on Mars, an impact from a comet or asteroid could have ejected a piece of the Red Planet with microorganisms encased inside. Introduction to Earth The final step of the journey is entry through Earth’s atmosphere and impact on the surface, entailing extreme temperatures that could potentially kill the microbial life. Transit through space Frozen within the Martian rock, microorganisms have to survive the 225 million kilometres (140 million miles) to Earth, avoiding damage in the form of collisions and cosmic radiation.…

Deep sky challenge Autumn around the flying horse Gorgeous galaxies for cooler, crisp nights © Wiki © NASA Now autumn is truly here and the dark nights have finally returned, it’s time to start looking deep, deep into space, through the starry veil of our own Milky Way galaxy at some of the wonders that lie beyond its boundaries. Looking towards Pegasus means looking up out of the plane of our galaxy, away from the nebulae and star clusters embedded in its frothy spiral arms and out into intergalactic space. This month’s challenges are all faraway galaxies that might not be among the faintest deep-sky objects known, but are all quite close to each other in the sky, which allows you to go on a galactic tour without having to…

What secrets lie in the Large Magellanic Cloud? © NASA/JPL-Caltech A sight unfamiliar to many astronomers in the Northern Hemisphere: the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a relatively nearby dwarf galaxy captured by the Milky Way’s gravity that lies just 163,000 light years from Earth. This image was taken by the European Southern Observatory’s Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy, or VISTA for short. This Chile-based telescope snapped the LMC in impressive unprecedented detail as part of the VISTA Magellanic Cloud (VMC) survey. The 'scan' will examine the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds to determine their star formation history, uncovering more about their three-dimensional structures.…

A galaxy's energetic outburst © ESO/R. Leaman/D. Gadotti/K. Sandstrom/D. Calzetti This barred-spiral galaxy was discovered in 1781 by a French astronomer called Pierre Méchain and is known as NGC 3351 or Messier 95. A collaborative effort resulted in this image of Messier 95, which can help tell astronomers a bit about ‘stellar feedback’ – the term used to describe the redistribution of energy into the interstellar medium. The interstellar medium is the gas between stars, and the exceptionally illuminated regions in this image inform astronomers about the large amounts of stellar production. In this process, massive bubbles of hot gas are being ejected into the interstellar medium, both hindering and encouraging the birth of stars.…

Saturn’s rings may be ancient after all Words by Mike Wall © NASA For years scientists have argued about the age of Saturn's famous rings: are they ancient, dating to the birth of the planet itself? Or did the ring system form more recently? This latter hypothesis has been gaining steam in the last few years, with multiple papers reporting that the rings could be even younger than the dinosaurs. Such studies cite the rings' composition – more than 95 per cent pure water ice – and total mass, which NASA's Cassini mission pegged at about 15.4 million billion metric tons shortly after the probe's epic ‘grand finale’ at Saturn in 2017. For perspective, 15.4 million billion metric tons is about 40 per cent the mass of the Saturn moon…

Hidden planets quickfire Astronomers hunt for clues of worlds that could have existed Ghostly fragment If a giant interplanetary collision created the Moon, could debris from the impact survive elsewhere? Astronomers have suggested that the strange nearby asteroid 2002 AA29 might be such a remnant. A second Moon According to a 2011 study, the ‘Big Splash’ that created Earth’s Moon also produced a second satellite that eventually crashed into the larger Moon’s far side. Mars impactor Some astronomers think that an impact from a smaller rogue planet could have formed the vast, flat plain that covers most of the northern hemisphere of Mars. Lonely wanderers According to some estimates there could be as many wandering planets, lost in interstellar space after being ejected from their solar systems, as there are…

How we’ll build internet on Mars From satellite swarms to space statutes, here are all the ingredients for a Martian internet © Adrian Mann Send satellites to surround Mars Corresponding to Earth’s programme, a network of satellites around Mars could act as the receiving end of any laser-driven internet communication to the Red Planet. Establish a satellite network around Earth Existing plans like SpaceX’s Starlink program could provide the foundations for an orbital collection point which could source internet data from across the planet and prime it for space travel. Test an intermediary satellite To begin an intermediary satellite network, a smaller satellite could be placed between the Earth and the Moon to test the concept’s viability. Establish new protocols As space fills up, new rules will be needed to…

Past, present and future exoplanet missions CHEOPS isn’t the first space telescope studying other worlds, nor will it be the last 2003 MOST Launch date: 2003 End date: 2019 The Microvariability and Oscillations of Stars mission was Canada’s first space telescope and one of the earliest space-based exoplanet hunters. It was also quite small, picking up the nickname ‘the Humble Space Telescope’. In 2011 it detected transits of the star 55 Cancri A by an exoplanet – up to five are now thought to orbit the star. 2009 Kepler Launch date: 2009 End date: 2018 A telescope specifically designed to detect planets around other stars, Kepler is notable for promising much, but massively over-delivering on its mission. Originally planned to last 3.5 years, Kepler eventually ran out of fuel nine…

Methuselah HOW CAN A STAR BE OLDER THAN THE UNIVERSE? Astronomers seeking an accurate age for the cosmos continue to be baffled by an ancient star that appears to be even older Reported by David Crookes © Getty Lev Savitskiy For more than 100 years, astronomers have been observing a curious star located some 190 light years away from Earth in the constellation Libra. It rapidly journeys across the sky at 1.3 million kilometres (800,000 miles) per hour. But, more interesting than that, HD 140283 – or Methuselah as it's commonly known – is also one of the universe's oldest known stars. In 2000 scientists sought to date it using observations via the European Space Agency's (ESA) Hipparcos satellite that estimated an age of 16 billion years old. Such…

Anatomy of Juno Its instruments may not be revolutionary, but they have proven vital in the study of the gas giant © Adrian Mann Jovian Auroral Distributions Experiment (JADE) JADE is identifying the processes that produce Jupiter’s aurorae and helping to create a three-dimensional map of the planet’s magnetosphere. JunoCam The JunoCam is Juno’s one-stop camera for capturing images of Jupiter’s chaotic atmosphere and cloud tops. Ultraviolet spectrograph (UVS) The UVS serves Juno by imaging and identifying ultraviolet emissions within the atmosphere of Jupiter. Jupiter Energetic Particle Detector Instrument (JEDI) Along with having perhaps the best acronym in all of space engineering, JEDI is a group of sensors that measures charged particles. Gravity Science The Juno Gravity Science tool is probing the mass properties of Jupiter as well as performing…

Life’s cosmic origin LIFE’S COSMIC ORIGIN Asteroids and comet impacts are commonly associated with panic and disaster, but what if they proved to be a good thing? Reported by Lee Cavendish © Tobias Roetsch The most fundamental and philosophical mystery around has got to surround where life came from. It is one thing to discuss how life grew from a single-cell organism to this global presence of intelligent life, but to then ask how the first single-cell organism arrived in the first place further complicates things. Here we’ll explore one possibility, the introduction of the ingredients via asteroids and comets. Let’s examine the timeline based on known facts about the Solar System and Earth. The Sun, the planets and all the comets and asteroids scattered across the Solar System came…

ASK Space Our experts answer your questions ©Migrated from AssetBank, Jo Smolaga “A period of rapid expansion, ‘cosmic inflation’, likely happened before the hot Big Bang” COSMOLOGY Could dark matter have existed before the Big Bang? Depends on what is meant by the Big Bang. If it refers to a hypothetical ‘Big Bang singularity’ where time began, then no. If it refers to the ‘hot Big Bang’, then the answer can be yes. What cosmologists mean by the term is the state in which the universe was 13.8 billion years ago. At that point the universe was compressed into a tiny volume, hence its matter content – the matter that today comprises galaxies, stars, planets and us – was very dense and hot. This ‘hot Big Bang’ state left behind…

STARGAZER In the shops The latest books, apps, software, tech and accessories for space and astronomy fans alike Book An Introduction to Radio Astronomy Cost: £59.99 (hardback) From: Cambridge University Press Radio astronomy is an active and rapidly expanding field due to advances in computing techniques, with several important new instruments on the horizon. This text provides a thorough introduction to radio astronomy and its contribution to our understanding of the universe, bridging the gap between basic introductions and research-level treatments. It begins by covering the fundamentals physics of radio techniques, before moving on to single-dish telescopes and aperture synthesis arrays. Fully updated and extensively rewritten, the fourth edition places greater emphasis on techniques, with detailed discussion of interferometry in particular, and comprehensive coverage of digital techniques in the appendices.…

LAUNCH PAD YOUR FIRST CONTACT WITH THE UNIVERSE Saturn seen through the eyes of Hubble © NASA/ESA/A This high-resolution picture of the Solar System's second-largest planet boasts a spectacular view of its 'crowning glory'. Paired with its icy ring structure, the hexagonal storm that swirls in Saturn's northern hemisphere is immediately obvious, along with several shades of amber stretching across its face. The hexagonal feature at the top of Saturn is so large that it is capable of fitting four Earths inside it without too much trouble!…

An alien surface's avalanche © NASA/JPL/University of Arizona Although Mars is largely considered to be a dry world, there is still water ice residing in the poles of the planet. Due to the orbit of NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), the craft is able to swoop over the north pole and examine the surface. In this instance, the orbiter happened to catch an avalanche caused by the heating of the ice and its destabilisation, sending material off a 500-metre (1,640-foot) cliff edge. This kicked up a cloud of dust mixed with ice, which was captured on camera on 29 May 2019.…

LAUNCH PAD YOUR FIRST CONTACT WITH THE UNIVERSE It’s gonna blow! Giant volcano on Jupiter moon could erupt any day The biggest volcano on Io should erupt any day now, a new study suggests. Loki Patera, a 200-kilometre (125-mile) wide lava lake on the most volcanically active body in the Solar System, has had fairly regular activity over the past few decades. And it's due for an outburst very soon. “If this behaviour remains the same, Loki should erupt in September 2019, around the same time as the EPSC-DPS meeting in Geneva,” Julie Rathbun, a senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, said in a statement on 17 September. “We correctly predicted that the last eruption would occur in May of 2018.” EPSC-DPS is a joint conference…

LAUNCH PAD YOUR FIRST CONTACT WITH THE UNIVERSE Speedy star might be running away from a rare black hole © NASA According to a study published 6 August in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, it seems a young star is running away from a hungry black hole. The star, named PG 1610+062, was first observed hurtling across the sky in a 1986 star survey. Astronomers working at the W. M. Keck Observatory atop Hawaii's Mauna Kea took the closest-ever look at the runaway. They confirmed it is one of the fastest stars ever seen shooting out of the Milky Way's galactic disc. The team calculated the star's velocity to be about 2 million kilometres (1.2 million miles) per hour, which isn't quite enough to escape the bonds of the galaxy's…

Lost worlds of the Solar System REVEALED! LOST WORLDS OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM Do new discoveries about our neighbouring planets reveal rogues that caused chaos in the early years of our cosmic backyard? Reported by Giles Sparrow © Tobias Roetsch Our Solar System usually feels like a fairly orderly place. Eight planets orbit the Sun on more or less circular paths along with two broad belts of smaller objects, the Asteroid and Kuiper Belts. Only a few stray objects – rocky near-Earth asteroids and icy comets and centaurs – stray onto wilder paths. Their encounters with the larger worlds can have violent consequences for planetary surfaces, but in the long run the planets themselves remain unaffected. Recently, however, astronomers have been questioning whether it’s always been this way, with evidence…

Our Solar System It’s becoming clear that its cosmic history has been shaped by several worlds that have vanished © Getty Saturn Mass: 95 Earths Diameter: 9.14 Earths Composition: Gases Gravity: 1.06 g The Nice model of planetary migrations suggests that close encounters with either Neptune, Uranus or a lost giant planet could have given the ringed planet its current tilt. Jupiter Mass: 318 Earths Diameter: 11 Earths Composition: Gases Gravity: 2.53 g Jupiter’s powerful gravity allowed it to exert a great effect on the other planets. At some point it may have collided with an ancient super-Earth, scattering the heavy elements of its core throughout its interior. Planet V Mass: 0.03 Earths Diameter: 0.532 Earths Composition: Rock, metal A hypothetical Planet V orbiting beyond Mars is suggested as a…

Future tech The Kilopower reactor POWERING FUTURE COLONIES A space colony needs power, and Kilopower reactors could be the answer to these interplanetary problems © Adrian Mann Titanium radiator The titanium radiator will not only protect the reactor from falling debris, but will use water heat pipes to eject waste heat into the space environment. Uranium core Uranium-235 is the material that begins producing energy through nuclear fission, but it must be handled with care to avoid an explosion. Beryllium shield Due to the high neutron reflectance throughout the required temperature and energy spectrum, beryllium was chose as the reflector material. Stirling engines Stirling converter engines will increase system performance and provide high power, potentially providing ten kilowatts of valuable energy. Sodium heat pipes These alkali pipes will transport thermal…

Why are we doing it? Beaming the internet to Mars could cost billions of dollars. Is it worth it? © Adrian Mann Safety Separating communication pathways only increases the risk of collisions in space. A common network could enable organisations to work together to avoid such disasters. Upping the scale Putting someone on Mars may be a giant leap for humankind, but there will always be more leaps to take. A strong internet connection would undoubtedly facilitate future space exploration from the Red Planet. Better colonies Mars may be a wonder, but at some point every colonist will want to watch the latest news or hit TV series from Earth. A better internet connection could make for a better informed and content colony. A common resource Several organisations are launching…

Earth’s sister THE HUNT FOR EARTH’S SISTER An ESA mission about to blast off hopes to study exoplanets in more detail Reported by Ian Evenden © Nichoals Forder Earth is, as far as we know, unique in the universe for bearing life. What’s not unique about it is that it’s a rocky ball orbiting at a distance from its star that allows liquid water to exist on its surface. The number of these planets we know of is quite large, and is getting bigger all the time. Since the discovery of the first confirmed exoplanet in 1992, we’ve found over 4,000 planets orbiting more than 3,000 stars. Earth isn’t alone in the universe, and humanity is launching more planet-hunting missions to discover just how large its family is. One of…

Stars in their eyes Astronomers at least know HD 140283's location within the universe © NASA, ESA, A. Feild and F. Summers (STScI) Constellation of Orion The constellation of Orion is located here in the upper left with Rigel, the brightest of its stars, and Betelguese, the second brightest. Pleiades cluster This open star cluster in the constellation of Taurus is dominated by hot, blue and luminous stars formed within the last 100 million years. Our Sun From this perspective our Sun would not be visible to the naked eye, and it would have dimmed to a magnitude of +7 – this is the magnitude of HD 140283 as seen from Earth. HD 140283's position HD 140283 is a little over 190 light years away from Earth in the constellation…

Asteroids vs comets These two time capsules of the Solar System could hold the answers to the life-long question of humanity’s origin IDENTIFICATION Asteroids These types of space rocks are composed primarily of silicates, metals or a combination of the two. Comets Comets mainly contain ices with smaller amounts of rock and dust. They form a coma and a tail. LOCATION Main asteroid belt The main asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars contains most of these ancient rocks in our Solar System. Oort cloud The Oort cloud extends to the outer reaches of the Solar System and is thought to be composed of icy planetesimals. It is thought to be the origin of most long-period comets. Kuiper belt The Kuiper belt, beyond the orbit of Neptune, is the origin of…

Stargazing sites GREATEST STARGAZING SITES TO VISIT IN 2020 All About Space leaves the bright city lights to observe at the world’s darkest locations Ask any astronomer what their greatest hindrance is during a typical observing session and you’re likely to be answered quite quickly with ‘light pollution’. That’s because this misdirected and often excessive artificial light seeps into the night from lit-up towns and cities, washing out the faint dark-sky treasures that stargazers take great pleasure in imaging and gazing upon. And, with more areas becoming built up, the problem seems to be getting worse, obscuring our beautiful starry skies with an orange haze. That’s why the International Dark Sky Association (IDA) is the astronomer’s best friend. Working with parks, reserves and communities to keep areas relatively free from…

STARGAZER This month’s planets The God of War is a prime target this autumn, and well into the winter, finally breaking free from the Sun Mercury 17:00 GMT on 28 October Constellation: Libra Magnitude: -0.0 AM/PM: PM Unfortunately this won’t be a good month for any Mercury-watchers. The closest planet to the Sun – which whips around it in just 88 days, giving it the shortest year in the Solar System – is not only very low in the southwestern sky after sunset, but is so close to the Sun itself that it will be virtually impossible to see. Venus 17:00 GMT on 29 October Constellation: Virgo Magnitude: -3.9 AM/PM: PM Spotting Venus this month will be challenging, but by no means impossible. On clear, crisp, mid-October evenings you will…