Table of contents for No. 154 in All About Space

SCAN HERE TO GET OUR DAILY NEWSLETTER While Jupiter graces the cover this issue, it also features quite prevalently in our planetary guide. Dazzling at magnitude -2.1 in the evening sky, the gas giant makes for easy pickings, whether you have a telescope, binocular or are just using the naked eye. What’s particularly exciting about observing the Jovian world over the coming weeks is that it won’t be alone as twilight comes around; it will snuggle up to Uranus, which will be an impressive sight seen through binoculars of at least 10x50 magnification. The duo will begin five degrees or so apart, and by mid-April will be less than a degree apart, visible in the same binocular field of view. From our perspective here on Earth, Comet Pons-Brooks is scheduled…

The Hubble Space Telescope has stepped on the tails of 12 interacting galaxies and found them to be studded with the shining diamonds of young star clusters – scientists compare the phenomena to cosmic strings of pearls. When spiral galaxies interact, either through direct collisions or close encounters, their spiral arms unravel. The gravitational force that a galaxy wields is vast, so when two galaxies become close, the gravitational tides that are raised tug on those spiral arms, pulling them out to form long ‘tails’ that can stretch for many tens of thousands of light years. Because spiral arms are loaded with gas and dust, when they are pulled out to form a so-called tidal tail, that gas and dust becomes stirred up. This can ignite a firestorm of star…

Stars intruding into the Sun’s cosmic backyard could have shifted Earth’s orbit in the distant past, triggering major climate events in our planet’s history. The gravitational influence of these intruder stars has also impacted the orbits of other planets in the Solar System, causing minor deviations called perturbations. “Perturbations – a minor deviation in the course of a celestial body caused by the gravitational attraction of a neighbouring body – from passing stars alter the longterm orbital evolution of the Sun’s planets, including Earth,” research team leader Nathan Kaib, a senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute in Arizona, said. “One reason this is important is because the geologic record shows that changes in Earth’s orbital eccentricity accompany fluctuations in Earth’s climate. If we want to best search for the…

Droids could soon be placed on satellites in geostationary orbit around Earth to make the job of repairing and maintaining them easier and cheaper. Organisations like the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) are looking at the possibility of installing robots on satellites before they are launched into orbit. Once on board, these droids would be responsible for a number of tasks, including inspecting the satellites, fixing any problems and performing orbit adjustments. This initiative would slash the cost of dealing with problems with satellites that orbit at a distance of 35,400 kilometres (22,000 miles) above Earth. Satellites operating in low-Earth orbit (LEO) are able to be repaired by conventional means because they are within easy reach of Earth, but the height of geostationary orbit means that any repair missions…

Sweet new research suggests that newly forming planets may have a flattened shape similar to that of a popular British candy. A team of researchers from the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) used computer simulations to model the formation of planets in dense gas discs around young stars. Comparing these models with actual observations, they discovered that the young planets took on shapes that defied expectations. “We have been studying planet formation for a long time, but never before had we thought to check the shape of the planets as they form in the simulations. We had always assumed that they were spherical,” said team member Dimitris Stamatellos, an astrophysicist at UCLan. “We were very surprised that they turned out to be oblate spheroids, pretty similar to Smarties!” Smarties are…

As the Sun sets over a dormant volcano in Hawaii, the domes of two of the world’s biggest A telescopes are thrown into silhouette. Night falls and they slowly open, revealing the cutting-edge technology inside. Their mirrors drink in ancient light falling to Earth from the centre of the Milky Way, arching like a dusty rainbow from one horizon to the other. But what exactly are the twin telescopes of the W. M. Keck Observatory looking for from atop Mauna Kea? The simple answer is something new. There’s a joke among physicists that nothing has really changed for over a hundred years. The early 20th century was a remarkable time for theoretical physics. Revolutions in our understanding led to the development of quantum physics and Einstein’s general theory of relativity…

The physicist Enrico Fermi died 70 years ago, but he certainly left a strong legacy. As well as being the creator of the world’s first nuclear reactor, the Italian Nobel laureate also pointed out an apparent contradiction: the fact that life is predicted to exist elsewhere in the universe and yet there has been no scientific evidence of extraterrestrial life found so far. Dubbed the Fermi paradox, the discrepancy questions why aliens haven’t made contact with us. “Where is everybody?” Fermi asked, making a rather valid point. As we now know, there are billions of planets orbiting around stars in just our own galaxy, and there’s a high probability that a good number of them would be like Earth. The assumption is that an intelligent civilisation would have at…

Water molecules have been detected on the surface of an asteroid for the first time, revealing new clues about the distribution of water in our Solar System. Scientists studied four silicate-rich asteroids using data gathered by the now-retired Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), a telescope-outfitted plane operated by NASA and the German Aerospace Center. Observations by the Faint Object infraRed CAmera for the SOFIA Telescope (FORCAST) showed that two of the asteroids – Iris and Massalia – exhibit a specific wavelength of light that indicated the presence of water molecules at their surface. “Asteroids are leftovers from the planetary formation process, so their compositions vary depending on where they formed in the solar nebula,” study lead author Anicia Arredondo of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas,…

T his month we turn our attention to look at a notable visual partnership – one that’s easily viewed through virtually any optical equipment. It involves two very striking craters and a majestic mountain range that runs from north to south across several hundred kilometres of the Moon’s upper northeastern quadrant, between the latitudes of 50 degrees and 30 degrees north. Prominent craters Aristoteles and Eudoxus form a striking duo when seen through any telescope, particularly when they are illuminated by an early morning or late evening Sun. Indeed, the crater pair can be spotted whenever they are illuminated by the Sun – even through binoculars at full Moon – since both take the form of bright, well-defined rings when viewed under a high illumination. Aristoteles, the larger and more…

Born in the Punjab province of India in 1910, Chandrasekhar’s stellar career in physics got off to an early start. His B education took him through one of the oldest secondary schools in southern India, the Hindu High School in Chennai, before he moved on to Presidency College, where he wrote his first paper, called The Compton Scattering and the New Statistics. He graduated in June 1930 and was awarded a scholarship in July to study at the University of Cambridge in England. It was here he began to make waves in the field of astronomy. As someone who was primarily concerned with systems and the methods in which scientists study and structure their research, Chandrasekhar was able to turn his intensely logical mind to bringing greater definition to existing…

A new view from the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT) captures the abundant star-forming region at the centre of the Milky Way. The VLT, located in Chile’s Atacama Desert, snapped an infrared image of a region called Sagittarius C, which is located about 300 light years from the Milky Way’s central supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A*. Sagittarius C is home to hundreds of thousands of stars, a large number of which are visible in the newly released image. “The centre of the Milky Way is the most prolific star-forming region in the entire galaxy,” said ESO officials. “However, astronomers have only found a fraction of the young stars they expected here.” Even more newborn stars are believed to be located in this region, which is a prolific…

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has zoomed in on one side of a cosmic tug of war that will rage between two galaxies for tens of millions of years. Frustratingly, this is one competition in which a clear winner may never emerge, as the two galaxies could well be drawn together to merge into one at the end of this gravitational contest. The galaxy imaged by Hubble is the spiral galaxy NGC 5427. Along with its opponent, the similarly sized spiral galaxy NGC 5426, the galaxy makes up the pairing Arp 271, located around 130 million light years from Earth in the constellation of Virgo. While NGC 5426 is just out of frame in this image, its effects are definitely clear. At the bottom right of the spiral galaxy, a lane…

Astronauts can now get a bit of simulated fresh air while working out in space. A new virtual-reality (VR) headset paired with a new exercise bike lets International Space Station (ISS) astronauts experience their favourite cycling routes on Earth. Denmark’s Andreas Mogensen, for example, has five routes to choose from in locations ranging from Copenhagen to Svanninge Bakker. “It’s actually one of my absolute favourite activities on board the space station,” Mogensen, commander of the ISS’ current Expedition 70 and a European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut, said. “It really makes a difference. There’s something about when you see yourself biking up a hill in the virtual-reality headset; you just have more motivation to pedal a little bit harder.” The HTC VIVE Focus 3 adds to a growing set of VR…

Scientists have determined a way to measure gravity on microscopic levels, perhaps bringing them closer to forming a theory of ‘quantum gravity’ and solving some major cosmic mysteries. Quantum physics offers scientists the best description of the universe on subatomic scales, while Einstein’s theory of general relativity brings about the best description of physics on huge cosmic scales. As robust and accurate as these two theories have become, they’ve refused to unite. One of the primary reasons for this dilemma is that while three of the universe’s four fundamental forces – electromagnetism, the strong nuclear force and the weak nuclear force – have quantum descriptions, there’s no quantum theory of the fourth: gravity. But now an international team has made headway in addressing this imbalance by successfully detecting a weak…

While space-based telescopes like the James Webb Space Telescope and the Hubble Space Telescope often dominate W the headlines, humanity’s understanding of the Solar System, our galaxy and the wider universe have been massively influenced by telescopes that are firmly rooted on terra firma. Often, these telescopes are located at the summits of mountains, high above Earth’s weather systems, thus limiting the impact of our planet’s atmosphere on observations of the universe. Sometimes they are located in remote regions where the electromagnetic buzz of our species doesn’t obscure radiation from celestial sources. Indeed, some of these instruments would confuse and challenge even the person who first patented the telescope in 1608, Hans Lippershey, not just with their immense scale but also with their outlandish appearance. All About Space celebrates the…

The rocks making up the Geminid meteor shower may have been born through a chaotic event 18,000 years ago, making the meteoroids about ten times older than previously estimated. The Geminid shower is named after the constellation of Gemini – the position in the sky from which the meteors seem to appear. But the meteors originate from 3200 Phaethon, a bizarre blue asteroid that swings along a watermelon-shaped orbit to come within just 0.14 astronomical units of the Sun, or about one-tenth the distance between Earth and the Sun. At this point in its orbit, Phaethon acquires a peculiar, comet-like tail. For years, astronomers believed the tail was composed of rock fragments that form the dust cloud that in turn generates the Geminids. But recent observations contradict this, indicating…

1 Radio signals Researchers are mainly looking for signs of artificial radio emissions that can be distinguished from natural radio waves. This would suggest an intelligent species has developed radio technology. 2 Pollution Just as on Earth, an intelligent civilisation may well have gone through an industrial revolution. If that proves to be the case, then it’s likely the atmosphere will be polluted with chlorofluorocarbons. 3 Dyson spheres No, we’re not talking about vacuum cleaners, rather the idea that an alien civilisation may have built a large power-harnessing structure around their planet’s host star to collect energy.…

Why is space dark? COSMOLOGY The darkness of our night sky tells us more about the size, age and nature of the universe than we may expect. We are familiar with the twinkling of nearby stars in the night sky, but why does the night sky not glow with the colour and brightness of the average star? If the universe is infinite in size and age, then in every direction we look there should be a star or galaxy – well known to be powerful emitters of visible light. This puzzle is known as Olber’s paradox after 19th-century German astronomer Heinrich Olbers, and has attracted many attempts to resolve. The first part in resolving this paradox is that the universe must have a finite age. This means only a finite…

1 Regulars (Alpha Leonis) Shining at magnitude +1.4, Regulus is the brightest star in Leo but only the 21st-brightest in the sky. Roughly 79 light years away, it’s over 140 times more luminous than our Sun and sits on the end of the Sickle asterism’s handle. 2 The Sickle Named after a sharp harvesting tool farmers use to cut crops, this is one of the most famous asterisms in the sky. Some observers see the shape as a fishhook or a back-to-front question mark instead. 3 Messier 96 On a dark night with no Moon to wash away its faint light, this tenthmagnitude spiral galaxy, which is 31 million light years away, looks like a small, oval smudge in a pair of binoculars. 4 Denebola (Beta Leonis) The second-brightest star…

DETAILS Cost: £229 / $349.95 From: Celestron Type: Newtonian reflector Aperture: 5.11” Focal length: 25.6” BEST FOR... ? BEGINNERS £ MEDIUM BUDGETS PLANETARY VIEWING BRIGHT DEEP-SKY OBJECTS Choosing a telescope as a beginner is a process often fraught with pitfalls. These C days we are spoilt for choice with the enormous range of equipment available. Telescopes for beginners are wide and varied, but some are most certainly better than others. The budget Celestron AstroMaster range seeks to reveal the wonders of the cosmos to those who are perhaps just taking their first steps into exploring an interest in the night sky without breaking the bank. We tested the 130mm-aperture reflecting telescope from the range, which is at a great price for a complete telescope of this size. The AstroMaster 130EQ…

 A new visualisation from the European Space Agency (ESA) shows activity ramping up on the Sun’s surface as it approaches solar maximum this year. Every 11 years or so, the Sun experiences a peak in activity known as solar maximum due to its strong and constantly shifting magnetic fields. During this period of the solar cycle, the frequency and intensity of sunspots on the solar surface increases. Using images taken by the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) instrument on the ESA’s Solar Orbiter, astronomers compiled a visualisation that shows how the Sun has changed between February 2021 and October 2023, with the latter shown here. “As the Sun approaches the maximum in its magnetic activity cycle, we see more brilliant explosions, dark sunspots, loops of plasma and swirls of super-hot gas,”…

Astronomers have discovered two tiny moons orbiting Neptune and one circling Uranus, bringing the number of their known moons A up to 16 and 28 respectively. Uranus’ new moon, the first detected around the ice giant in over two decades and possibly the smallest of its ilk, is just eight kilometres (five miles) wide; it takes 680 days to complete one orbit around Uranus. In comparison, one of Mars’ moons, Deimos, considered to be among the tiniest known moons in our Solar System, is 13 kilometres (eight miles) wide. The new moon of the blue-green planet is currently referred to as ‘S/2023 U1’ while it awaits being named after a Shakespearean character. The brighter of Neptune’s two new moons is provisionally named ‘S/2002 N5’. At 23 kilometres (14 miles) wide,…

A newly discovered quasar is a real record-breaker. Not only is it the brightest quasar ever seen, it’s also the brightest astronomical object ever seen. And it’s also powered by the hungriest and fastest growing black hole ever observed – one that consumes the equivalent of over one Sun’s mass a day. The quasar, J0529-4351, is located so far from Earth that its light has taken 12 billion years to reach us, meaning it’s seen as it was when the 13.8-billion-year-old universe was just under 2 billion years old. The supermassive black hole at the heart of the quasar is estimated to be between 17 and 19 billion times the mass of the Sun. Each year it eats, or accretes, the gas and dust equivalent to 370 solar masses. This…

While examining 14 years of data from NASA’s Fermi Space Telescope, a team of researchers discovered that during the last solar maximum in 2013 and 2014, the polar regions of the Sun blasted out high-energy gamma-ray radiation that was as much as ten times higher than expected. The Sun is known to shine in all wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation, including gamma rays, but this was expected to be evenly distributed across the solar face. The team that detected high activity in the polar regions currently can’t explain this imbalance. “The study of gamma-ray emissions from the Sun represents a new window to investigate and understand the physical processes that happen in the atmosphere of our star,” team leader and Institute of Astrophysics and Space Sciences researcher Bruno Arsioli said. “What…

Alittle moonlet too small to be seen from Earth could be shaping the thin rings around the distant minor planet Chariklo. Chariklo A is a centaur – a breed of small body that orbits the Sun on a path sandwiched somewhere between Jupiter and Neptune. Centaurs are thought to come in from the Oort Cloud, which is a vast halo of trillions of frozen cometary bodies that extends possibly a light year from the Sun. Over the course of millions of years, they drift inward, either to be ejected from the Solar System by the gravity of the giant planets or to transition into Jupiter-family comets – those with orbital periods of less than 20 years that are governed by the gravity of mighty Jupiter. At about 250 kilometres (155…

Titan’s underground ocean may lack the organic chemistry necessary for life, according to new astrobiological T research. Titan is Saturn’s largest moon, and the second-largest moon in the entire Solar System. It’s famous for being shrouded in a smog of petrochemicals and for possessing a veritable soup of organic molecules – those that contain carbon – on its surface. Yet despite all this fascinating chemistry, Titan is cold. It has surface temperatures no warmer than -179 degrees Celsius (-290 degrees Fahrenheit). And in these frigid conditions, chemical reactions for life progress very slowly. But deep underground where it’s warmer – the exact depth isn’t certain, but estimates suggest it’s on the order of 100 kilometres (62 miles) – a liquid ocean with a volume 12 times that of Earth’s oceans…

Why has it proven so difficult to find life in the universe? Finding potentially habitable Earth twins is difficult. This is because our current detection methods require very tiny signals to be detected, either via transits where a planet passes in front of its star, or via radial velocity methods where a planet has a gravitational tug on its star. It takes a fairly significant amount of telescope time using current facilities such as NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and various ground-based radial velocity facilities. It also simply takes a long time to look for planets that have Earth-like orbits that are around 365 days long. Determining whether any of these small planets hosts life is even more difficult. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is observing small potentially habitable…

It’s not all hearts and flowers for some ‘kissing stars’ – stars that exist in close binaries that have been locked in a waltz that has left one a shrunken husk, and the other a swollen orb. Astronomers have zoomed in on a group of such ‘odd couple’ stars, only to discover the bodies appear to have been created by a voracious and essentially cannibalistic stellar feeding process. A team led by Georgia State postdoctoral research associate Robert Klement used the Center for High Angular Resolution Astronomy (CHARA) telescope array to study spinning stars known as B emission line stars, or Be stars, spotting faint light patterns coming from tiny stripped stars known as subdwarfs. Investigating these massive stars with the CHARA Array has revealed how both subdwarf stars…

A t the start of our observing period Jupiter will be an ‘evening star’, dropping towards the west as darkness falls but still strikingly bright to the naked eye. You’ll find it beneath and a little to the right of the much-loved Pleiades star cluster and to the upper left of copper-hued and fainter Mercury. As March draws to a close Jupiter will be setting four hours after the Sun, giving you lots of time to enjoy seeing it shining in the deepening twilight. By 1 April Jupiter will still be a bright evening star, but by then it will be low in the west after sunset and you’ll only have three hours to see it before it drops beneath the horizon. It will set a little earlier each evening…