Innholdsfortegnelse for No. 124 i All About Space

WELCOME If you’ve always wanted to know everything there is to know about Mars, then you’ll love our cover feature – it’s a complete guide to the Red Planet, revealing missions that have visited its surface or will do in the future, its moons, what’s on its surface and all other facts and pieces of information in between. Turn to page 14; I can guarantee you’ll discover something you didn’t know about the fourth world from the Sun. Also this issue, we uncover that the ice giants – Neptune and Uranus – are even weirder than astronomers thought. They’ve been discovered to be leaking gas into space, leaving them with less ammonia in their atmospheres than expected. Grappling with the latest data, though, researchers at the Université Côte d’Azur in…

NEW MISSION WILL MEASURE HOW MUCH HEAT EARTH IS TRAPPING FROM CLIMATE CHANGE Words by Tereza Pultarova © ESA A new space mission will measure how much heat gets trapped in Earth’s atmosphere to help gauge whether humanity is making any progress in tackling the worst effects of climate change. The mission, called TRUTHS – for Traceable Radiometry Underpinning Terrestrial-and Helio-Studies – is currently being prepared by the European Space Agency (ESA) and its partners. It will study the so-called Earth energy balance – the difference between how much energy arrives at the planet from the Sun and how much gets reflected back into space. The more heat Earth keeps, the warmer it gets, and it’s dangerous greenhouse gases that create conditions for the planet to trap more of the…

WEIRD COSMIC OBJECT KEEPS EXPLODING OVER AND OVER, AND SCIENTISTS DON’T KNOW WHY Words by Adam Mann A mysterious object has shot out 1,652 blasts of energy over a short period. Though researchers are still stumped as to what caused the repeated eruptions, they hope their observations will help them get closer to an answer. The entity is a fast radio burst (FRB), an enigmatic phenomenon first observed in 2007. FRBs produce pulses in the radio part of the electromagnetic spectrum; these pulses last only a few thousandths of a second, but produce as much energy as the Sun does in a year. © Getty Some FRBs emit energy just once, but several – including an object called FRB 121102, located in a dwarf galaxy 3 billion light years away…

KEY MARS MISSIONS Robots have been unlocking Mars’ secrets for decades All Images © NASA/JPL-Caltech unless stated otherwise x2 Images © NASA/JPL-Caltech…

Focus on Pluto’s atmosphere PLUTO’S ATMOSPHERE IS STARTING TO DISAPPEAR The dwarf’s nitrogen-rich atmosphere is going through a strange transformation Reported by Chelsea Gohd © Getty “NITROGEN ICE RESERVOIRS ON PLUTO’S SURFACE WERE KEPT WARM BY STORED HEAT”LESLIE YOUNG © NASA The icy dwarf planet, which lies over 4.8 billion kilometres (3 billion miles) away from Earth in the Kuiper Belt, caught astronomers’ attention as it passed in front of a star back in 2018. With the star backlighting Pluto, a team of researchers was able to make observations of the dwarf planet and its atmosphere. With this unique view, they came to a surprising conclusion: they found evidence that Pluto’s atmosphere is starting to disappear. Using telescopes at multiple sites in both the US and Mexico, the team observed…

User manual DART DART MISSION © NASA THE SPECS Planned launch: 24 November 2021 Launch rocket: SpaceX Falcon 9 Target: Didymos and Dimorphos Operators: NASA Orbital inclination: Halo orbit Estimated cost: $313.9 million (£227.9 million) DART impact: 26 September to 2 October 2022 Distance from Earth: 11 million kilometres (6.8 million miles) NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) is an ambitious project designed to test a method of deflecting an asteroid for the purpose of planetary defence using the kinetic impactor technique. DART is to launch between 24 November 2021 and 12 February 2022, though the delayed launch window won’t impact the spacecraft’s scheduled arrival time at its target in late September 2022. DART’s target is a binary near-Earth asteroid: Didymos and its moonlet Dimorphos. DART is the first planetary…

HOW TO DEFEND EARTH AGAINST AN ASTEROID © Nicholas Forder 1 Find the asteroid Ground and spacebased telescopes are used to identify near Earth-objects (NEOs) that could pose a threat when entering Earth’s neighbourhood. 2 Track the asteroid When an NEO is detected, scientists map its orbit and make repeated observations to assess whether it’s on a collision course with Earth. 3 Characterise the asteroid Scientists then characterise the asteroid to determine orbit trajectory, size, shape, mass and composition to better understand how to deflect it. 4 Deflect the asteroid There are three main techniques to deflect an asteroid: use gravity to pull the asteroid off course, smash a spacecraft into the asteroid or use lasers to vaporise the asteroid. 5 Global coordination An impact would affect the world, and…

Focus on Moon rocks FRESH MOON ROCKS ARE YOUNGER THAN THE APOLLO SAMPLES Chang’e 5’s delivery has brought new insights about our celestial companion Reported by Andrew Jones New analyses of Moon rocks delivered to Earth by China’s Chang’e 5 mission confirm that volcanism occurred later than previously known, but also deepen the mysteries surrounding that activity. Chang’e 5 collected 1.73 kilograms of rock from a region called Oceanus Procellarum on the near side of the Moon in December 2020. The mission team targeted this landing area because of its apparent lower density of craters, suggesting it was significantly younger than areas sampled by the Apollo and Soviet Luna missions. The samples were first processed and catalogued, and the first batch of samples was approved for release in June. Since…

ASK Space Our experts answer your questions SOLAR SYSTEM Why is the Sun’s atmosphere hotter than its surface? The Sun’s atmosphere is hotter than its surface because of energy transported and deposited by the Sun’s magnetic field. The magnetic field is created in the solar interior and carried outwards to fill the atmosphere by the motion of hot bubbles of plasma in the Sun. In the atmosphere, the field lines are constantly moved by the motions of the magnetic footpoints at the Sun’s surface. These motions cause waves and reconfiguration of the atmospheric field. These in turn act to heat the atmospheric plasma. Since the atmosphere is a plasma – a gas of electrons and protons not combined into atoms – the magnetic field and the gas are interconnected; if…

Astrophotography for beginners TOP TIPS AND ADVICE Tricks to make your astrophotography images really stand out FOREGROUND If you’re trying to balance light between the foreground and the night sky, we suggest you take multiple exposures and merge the images when you edit, as you will require different settings to get the best of each. You may even find that getting your foreground shots an hour or so earlier, during the blue hour, will help, as there is more light to work with for your foreground objects. This isn’t always possible, though. REFLECTIONS If you’re shooting the night sky near a lake and the weather is still, there’s a great opportunity to reflect the stars in the water. There are several ways to do this, depending on the conditions. We…

LAUNCH PAD YOUR FIRST CONTACT WITH THE UNIVERSE © ESA/Hubble & NASA 1 NOVEMBER 2021 A second look Around 180 million light years away in the constellation of Indus lies NGC 6984, a spiral galaxy with dark lanes of gas and dust. Its star-studded arms are brimming with bright star-forming regions. This stunning image was captured by the Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3, but it’s not the first time Hubble has taken its picture; the galaxy was also imaged in 2013. By combining the 2013 observations with the new data, a more detailed image with a greater range of colours has been created. © NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona 19 OCTOBER 2021 Mars’ icy past revealed The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has captured an image revealing Mars’ icy past. These U-shaped…

ASTRONOMERS DETECT WATER IN ONE OF THE OLDEST KNOWN GALAXIES Words by Tereza Pultarova Astronomers have detected traces of water in one of the oldest known galaxies, proving for the first time that the life-giving substance played a role in the formation of the earliest stars. The galaxy, called SPT0311-58, is located some 12.88 billion light years from Earth, meaning that our telescopes see it as it looked only 1 billion years after the Big Bang. Astronomers estimate that the galaxy is only 780 million years old, an age at which stars formed at a much higher rate than they do in more mature galaxies. The observation, the most distant detection of water in the universe, was made by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), a powerful radio telescope in…

Future tech MARTIAN AIRSHIPS A new NASA study has the aim of exploring the Red Planet with the help of empty balloons ©Adrian Mann “VACUUM IS AN INFINITE RESOURCE, SO ALL THE AIRSHIP NEEDS IS A SOURCE OF POWER FOR A PUMP TO EMPTY THE ENVELOPE” 1 SOLAR POWER The large surface area of the airship body can be covered with solar cells to provide electricity for the pump, propulsion and the science payload. 2 MARTIAN ATMOSPHERE The Martian atmosphere offers a unique opportunity in the Solar System to exploit vacuum as a lifting agent because it is mostly cold, heavy carbon dioxide, but at a low overall pressure. 3 AERIAL AUTONOMY Martian rovers move so slowly because the 20-minute round trip delay makes it impossible to control them directly.…

Focus on Bernardinelli-Bernstein LARGEST COMET EVER DISCOVERED IS HEADED OUR WAY Bernardinelli-Bernstein is making its trip towards the Sun Reported by Brandon Specktor ©NOIRLab An enormous comet – possibly the largest one ever detected – is barrelling towards the inner Solar System with an estimated arrival time of ten years from now. The comet, known as Bernardinelli-Bernstein, or officially C/2014 UN271, is at least 100 kilometres (62 miles) across – about 1,000 times more massive than a typical comet. It’s so large that astronomers previously mistook it for a dwarf planet. A closer analysis of the object revealed that it was moving rapidly through the Oort Cloud – a vast scrap yard of icy rocks billions of miles from Earth. The object appeared to be headed our way, and it…

ASTROPHOTOGRAPHY FOR BEGINNERS IN THIS GUIDE, WE COVER EVERYTHING FROM CAMERA SETTINGS TO EQUIPMENT TO EDITING TIPS Written by Stuart Cornell ©Alamy TURN TO PAGE 76 CANON EOS RA CAMERA REVIEW It’s tough to know where to start with night-sky photography. Our astrophotography for beginners guide is here to make things a little easier for you and to demystify the process of shooting the stars. While astrophotography as a hobby can require both financial investment and plenty of patience, the results are often spectacular. You can achieve great star photos with any camera – and even some smartphones – though one of the best cameras for astrophotography will help. Once you know the basic techniques, there are so many ways to get creative with your astroimages. While it can be…

STARGAZER Planets THIS MONTH’S PLANETS Look out for a bright ‘Christmas star’ gracing the evening sky this holiday season PLANET OF THE MONTH Whether you’re a panicking last-minute Christmas shopper or a cheering New Year reveller, you will be able to see a beautiful ‘Christmas star’ in the sky this month. Throughout December, Venus will be visible as a bright evening star, glinting in the south-southwest after sunset. It will become visible as a spark of silvery-white as soon as twilight begins to darken the western sky, and it will have company during the festive period – several other planets will be in the same part of the sky, and the Moon will drift past it as well. Shining at magnitude -4.7, Venus will be brighter than every other planet…

Deep sky challenge STARGAZER ORION’S DEEP-SPACE TREASURES The mighty Hunter has a horde of little-known treasures for you to track down and enjoy Source: Wikipedia Commons © Ken Crawford As the year draws to a close, nights are often sparkling clear and still, and everyone enjoys setting up their telescope on the frosty grass and gazing in awe and wonder at the green-and-grey billows and swirls of the Orion Nebula. But Orion has much more to offer than just that 1,400-light-year-distant stellar nursery. In and around the Hunter there are more subtle, more challenging wonders to hunt down. This month we will help you point your telescope towards objects famous and obscure. Most observers have heard of the Horsehead Nebula, but few have actually seen it – we’ll help you…

Astroshots STARGAZER ASTROSHOTS OF THE MONTH Get featured in All About Space by sending your astrophotography images to space@spaceanswers.com Terry Hancock Location: Michigan Telescope: 12” Ritchey-Chrétien reflector and Takahashi E180 astrograph “My interest in astronomy and photography began some 40 years ago in Australia. Inspired by Sir Patrick Moore, my first telescope was a 4.5- inch Newtonian, and I enjoyed many nights in the pollution-free night skies of the hot Australian outback. It was often so dark that the Milky Way cast a shadow on the ground. The skies are mediocre in western Michigan where I observe from these evenings. I pride myself in taking really long exposures of deepsky objects and always try to maintain a natural look.” “IT WAS OFTEN SO DARK THAT THE MILKY WAY CAST A…

LAUNCH PAD YOUR FIRST CONTACT WITH THE UNIVERSE HABITABLE EXOPLANETS, BLACK HOLES AND INCLUSIVITY ARE TOP PRIORITIES FOR THE NEXT DECADE Words by Mike Wall © NASA/JPL-Caltech On 4 November, the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine released a decadal survey laying out scientific priorities and funding recommendations for the next ten years. The document, called Pathways to Discovery in Astronomy and Astrophysics for the 2020s, identifies three top-line items the disciplines should concentrate on: the discovery and study of habitable exoplanets, the exploration of black holes and neutron stars as windows to the early universe and a better understanding of the origin and evolution of galaxies. It also stresses the importance of making astronomy a more inclusive and diverse field. A lot of work goes into these…

LAUNCH PAD YOUR FIRST CONTACT WITH THE UNIVERSE A MASSIVE COMET EXPLODING OVER CHILE 12,000 YEARS AGO MAY HAVE CREATED STRANGE GLASSY ROCKS Words by Meghan Bartels © P.H. Schultz/Brown University A 75-kilometre (47-mile) swath of desert is strewn with strange, dark, glassy rocks that have long puzzled scientists. New research finds that those rocks are quite similar to comet particles collected by a NASA mission called Stardust. The scientists behind the work think that all those years ago, one or more huge comets exploded together in the skies over the region, causing tornado-force winds, scorching the grassy landscape and scattering the area with warped and twisted glass that still contains minerals generally found only in meteorites. “This is the first time we have clear evidence of glasses on Earth…

Focus on CO2MVS NEW SATELLITE CONSTELLATION TO TRACK GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS The new mission will monitor human-made emissions from orbit Reported by Tereza Pultarova ©ESA A new mission will track human-made emissions of greenhouse gases from space to help keep the world on track to meet climate change mitigation targets. The new mission, announced by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the European Union’s Earth-monitoring program Copernicus during the 2021 UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow on 2 November, will rely on a dedicated constellation of satellites. The constellation, called anthropogenic CO2 emissions Monitoring and Verification Support Capacity (CO2MVS), is currently being developed by the ESA and the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT). Once in orbit, the satellites will measure concentrations of the two most common…

Incredible galaxies 14 INCREDIBLE GALAXIES Out beyond our Milky Way there are galaxies shaped like jellyfish, galaxies that consume others and galaxies that seem to lack the dark matter that pervades the rest of the universe Written by Stephanie Pappas © NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage 1 PRETTY PINWHEEL MESSIER 83 Messier 83 is a large, photogenic spiral galaxy with a bar-shaped centre. It sits 15 million light years away in the constellation of Hydra. Messier 83 is weird in a couple of ways. First, it appears to have a double nucleus at its centre – perhaps the mark of two supermassive black holes holding the galaxy together, or perhaps the effect of a lopsided disc of stars orbiting a single central black hole. Secondly, Messier 83 is a supernova…

Focus on Baby planets BABY PLANETS MARINATE IN A LIFE-GIVING CYANIDE ‘SOUP’ New data may have filled gaps in our understanding of planet formation Reported by Adam Mann ©NASA/JPL-Caltech The universe may be teeming with the molecules needed for life. The results come from the most comprehensive maps ever made of the types and locations of chemicals in the gas and dust surrounding newborn stars. Stars spring from enormous clouds of gas and dust, which collapse under their own weight into disc-like structures. The centres of these discs heat up through friction and increased pressure until they ignite into fusion-powered stars, while the surrounding matter slowly clumps together into ever-larger chunks. “We have known for some time that planets form in discs around young stars and that these discs contain…

STARGAZER WHAT’S IN THE SKY? “A PLANET IS IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE SUN WHEN IT AND EARTH ARE ALIGNED ON OPPOSITE SIDES OF THE SUN” Source: Wild Commons© David St, Louis Source: Wild commons © Stephen Rahn Source: Wild commons © Astronomical Institute of the Charles University 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…