Innholdsfortegnelse for No. 148 i All About Space

ISSUE 148 SCAN HERE TO GET OUR DAILY NEWSLETTER ISSUE 149 ON SALE 2 NOVEMBER It’s said that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. Einstein’s theory of special relativity states that massless photons travelling within a vacuum are so fast, at speeds of 299,338 kilometres (186,000 miles) per second, that nothing in the universe can exceed them. Of course, physicists are continually trying to push the boundaries of our knowledge, as you’ll discover in our cover feature this issue. Will Einstein’s theory continue to stand the test of time? Elsewhere this issue, we reveal the top stargazing events of 2024 that can’t be missed. From solar and lunar eclipses to meteor showers and conjunctions, there’s something for everyone to observe, whether you have a telescope, binocular or…

Astronomers have caught a tug of war between a massive galaxy and its smaller dwarf galaxy neighbour. The larger galaxy engaged in this cosmic tussle is the massive barred-spiral galaxy NGC 1532, also known as Haley’s Coronet. It’s located about 55 million light years away from Earth in the direction of the southern constellation of Eridanus, iconic for its striking resemblance to a river. The much smaller dwarf galaxy is NGC 1531, which falls around 42 million light years away from our Solar System and is being dragged towards its doom. Beyond highlighting the very one-sided cosmic struggle between these galaxies, the image, captured by the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) on the Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, could also reveal how galaxies grow by cannibalising…

New electronic devices designed to power the antennae of the world’s largest radio telescope are so quiet that they’ll cause less disturbance than a mobile phone on the Moon. The new electronic devices, called SMART boxes, were developed for the Square Kilometre Array’s (SKA) low-frequency telescope, a network of radio dishes currently under construction in Western Australia. Together with its mid-frequency counterpart, which is being built in South Africa, the SKA-Low telescope will be the world’s largest and most sensitive radio telescope once it comes online later this decade. SKA-Low’s 131,072 dipole antennae will be able to detect the faintest radio signals coming from the most distant reaches of the universe. But this exquisite sensitivity means that the array, located in a remote, barely inhabited area about 500 miles (800…

After Apollo 8 made the first flight around the Moon during Christmas 1968, Pan American Airways opened a waiting list for a planned service to the Moon. Over 93,000 people signed up for the list, and it only closed when Pan Am folded in 1991. While this early optimism failed to deliver, there are now a number of projects working towards private space stations, and they do have space tourism and space hotels as part of their plans. One of the biggest leaders was Bigelow Aerospace of Las Vegas, funded by a hotel billionaire, before its closure in 2021. Robert Bigelow made his fortune building the Budget Suites of America chain of hotels. Interested in space technology since childhood, he started Bigelow Aerospace in 1999 to take on a NASA…

If humans disappeared from the world, and you could come back to Earth to see what had happened one year later, the first thing you’d notice wouldn’t be with your eyes… it would be with your ears. The world would be quiet. And you would realise how much noise people make. Our buildings are noisy. Our cars are noisy. Our sky is noisy. All of that noise would stop. After a year without people, the sky would be bluer, the air clearer. The wind and the rain would scrub clean the surface of Earth; all the smog and dust that humans make would be gone. Imagine that first year, when your house would sit unbothered. Inside your house, no water would be in your faucets. Water systems require constant pumping.…

The first mission to make use of NASA’s Gateway space station will be Artemis IV, now T scheduled to launch in 2028. NASA and its international partners see Gateway as a key platform to support the agency’s Artemis Moon program and to build the technology required for future deep-space missions. Although the first elements of the small space station are expected to launch before the Artemis III mission lifts off in 2025 or 2026, NASA previously said that those astronauts will not use Gateway to “make that mission have a higher probability of success.” Instead, the astronauts of the Artemis IV mission, who will attempt the program’s second landing on the Moon in 2028, will be the first ones to live and work in the small lunar outpost. The first…

New research suggests that a settlement on Mars could get up and running with far N fewer settlers than previously predicted. The study also looked at what personality types are best adapted to longterm stays on the Red Planet. The research, conducted by scientists from George Mason University in Virginia and other institutions, looked at the challenges that would face Mars settlers as they build and maintain a self-sustaining human presence. The research comes as space agencies across the globe begin planning future long-stay space missions on the Moon and eventually on the Red Planet. As the study has it, under two dozen people are needed to start a future Mars settlement. “From our multiple simulations and scenarios, we found that an initial population of 22 was the minimum required…

As Earth turns on its axis, and as it whirls around the Sun, our view of the A universe changes. Stars and constellations come and go; the planets move across the sky; comets appear in the sky then fade away; astronomical bodies align to cause occultations, or eclipses and shooting stars skip across the sky, sometimes large numbers of them in a short time, causing a meteor shower. During the year ahead there will be lots of fascinating things to see – and this special All About Space guide will help you to see them. 12 January MERCURY IS AT ITS GREATEST SEPARATION FROM THE SUN Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun, taking just 88 days to whip around it once compared to the 365 days it takes…

PLANET OF THE MONTH Jupiter is our planet of the month because it has some fascinating company in the night sky, and also because it will be ideally placed for everyone to observe, whether they’re looking at it with the naked eye or zooming in on it with a telescope. Jupiter will spend the whole of our observing period in the rather star-starved constellation of Aries, an unremarkable spray of stars to the west of Taurus. At the start of October Jupiter will be rising at sunset and will then be visible all through the night until it sinks into the west as dawn approaches. With a magnitude of -2.8, Jupiter will be a very stunning naked-eye object, looking like a bright blue-white ‘star’ a short distance to the west…

6 Messier 78 2 De Mairan’s Nebula The constellation of Orion (the Hunter) is littered with deep-sky objects to explore. There are star clusters and nebulae, and that’s not including one of the most famous star-forming regions, the Orion Nebula (Messier 42). Orion is a treasure trove for those interested in seeking out challenges for eye and telescope alike. The stunning Orion Nebula is easy to spot as one of the brightest nebulae, and is even discernible to the naked eye under the most mediocre of observing conditions. Nearby, another well-known nebula rests that is a lot trickier to spot, and really needs a filter to help make it out: Barnard 33, dubbed the Horsehead Nebula for its equine silhouette, which is created by pillars of gas and dust. 1…

A distant galaxy sparkles with the soft glow of its many tiny stars in a new photo from the Hubble Space Telescope. The galaxy, named ESO 300-16, is located about 28.7 million light years away from Earth in the constellation of Eridanus and appears as a celestial cloud of sparkling stars against the dark backdrop of space. Other galaxies and stars are also featured in the new Hubble image, providing a captivating view of this cosmic neighbourhood. “The galaxy ESO 300-16 looms over this image,” European Space Agency (ESA) officials said, adding that it “is a ghostly assemblage of stars which resembles a sparkling cloud”. This recent view of ESO 300-16 was taken using the Advanced Camera for Surveys instrument on Hubble, which is a joint mission led by NASA…

Scientists have announced yet another masterpiece taken by the James Webb Space Telescope. This time around, the space observatory has presented us with a mesmerising scene of two actively forming young stars tucked into a pocket of space about 1,470 light years away. The image showcases a striking salmon-coloured smear at its centre. This represents the area where the stars, collectively named Herbig-Haro 46/47, are found. Scientists captured everything you see here by harnessing the telescope’s infrared sensors, with the fiery oranges, pale blues and textured pinks added later to enhance the frame and make it easier to glean scientific information. You can see two conical regions of darkness on the glowing splotch’s left and right sides. Imagine how the figure is actually in three-dimensions – these structures represent shadows…

The lander “has recorded an event, appearing to be a natural one, on 26 August 2023,” the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) wrote. “The source of this event is under investigation.” The Apollo missions first detected seismic activity on the Moon, which proved that the Moon had a complex geological structure hidden deep within rather than being uniformly rocky like the Martian moons Phobos and Deimos. In recent years, advanced analysis tools and computer models have enabled scientists to sift through the data gathered by Apollo and other missions and build a clearer picture of the Moon’s mysterious interior. A 2011 NASA study revealed that the Moon’s core was likely made up of fluid iron surrounding a dense, solid iron ball. In May 2023, researchers used gravitational field data to…

Astronomers have used a principle first proposed by Einstein over 100 years ago to map the distribution of dark matter in unprecedented detail. The team’s method managed to reveal the presence of dark matter ‘clumps’ between galaxies, showing how this mysterious substance is distributed on smaller scales. Fluctuations in the observed dark matter, identified between a distant quasar and a galaxy between that quasar and Earth, could help constrain the properties of the elusive substance. Dark matter is troubling for scientists because, despite the fact it makes up about 85 per cent of our universe, it’s effectively invisible. This is because dark matter either doesn’t interact with any electromagnetic radiation, including visible light, or does so incredibly weakly. This means the particles that make up dark matter – whatever they…

Scientists have discovered that Saturn experiences long-lasting megastorms that persist for centuries and churn up its deep S atmosphere. Saturn had previously been considered somewhat calmer than its fellow gas giant Jupiter, which has been home to a huge storm called the Great Red Spot for hundreds of years. The megastorms of Saturn, thought to occur between every 20 and 30 years, are similar to hurricanes on Earth but are much larger. Whereas Earth’s hurricanes get energy from our planet’s oceans, the mechanism driving megastorms in the hydrogen and helium-rich atmosphere of Saturn is somewhat mysterious. But astronomers from the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Michigan have learned more about these storms on Saturn by studying disruptions in the distribution of ammonia gas in the planet’s deep…

he Hubble Space Telescope has photographed a bright stellar nursery studded with dazzling infant stars. T Taken using Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 instrument, the image captures a massive protostar called OH 339.88-1.26 lurking behind starforming clouds of dust and gas. OH 339.88-1.26 lies an estimated 8,900 light years from Earth in the southern constellation of Ara. During the protostellar phase, stars are still in the process of gathering mass from parent molecular clouds. Despite its young age, OH 339.88-1.26 is estimated to be about 20 times the mass of the Sun. “Winding lanes of dark dust thread through this image, which is also studded with bright stars crowned with criss-crossing diffraction spikes,” European Space Agency officials said in a statement. “The dark vertical streak at the centre of this…

This crater was the uncredited star of a film that was released 18 years before 2001: A Space Odyssey and stunned audiences with its realistic depiction of space exploration. That film was Destination Moon. Of course, many lunar features and landmarks have been featured in sciencefiction films and TV shows over the years. Some of the very first science-fiction films were silent movies that showed people visiting the Moon in glorified artillery shells fired from huge cannons to meet either bizarre-looking aliens or dancing girls. In the aforementioned classic 2001, astronauts excavated an enigmatic alien monolith from deep beneath the crater Clavius. In Star Trek: First Contact, the USS Enterprise’s time-travelling first officer Riker waxes lyrical to warp drive inventor Zefram Cochrane about gazing up at the terraformed Moon in…

Nikon D850 Cost: £2,699 / $2,999.95 From: Nikon 1 TheD850 offers 45.7-megapixel photos at up to nine frames per second, albeit only when using a dedicated battery grip. It’s not as high as some of the other cameras here, but you must bear in mind that this is nine frames per second of full-resolution still images at 45.7 megapixels – these images are enormous. If you’re someone who likes to switch between capturing stills and shooting video, the D850 is worth a serious look as it also shoots in 4K ultra-high definition (UHD). What’s more, this camera is extensively weather sealed, and even the battery grip is protected from dust and water. The Nikon D850 is a camera you can take anywhere, getting maximum results without fretting about the elements.…

Approximately 2,200 light years away lies the Cheerio-shaped remains of a dying star – remnants that form a structure famously known as the Ring Nebula. On 21 August, scientists announced the James Webb Space Telescope had struck gold once again with a rather beautiful new view of this iconic cosmic halo. “When we first saw the images, we were stunned by the amount of detail in them. The bright ring that gives the nebula its name is composed of about 20,000 individual clumps of dense molecular hydrogen gas, each of them about as massive as Earth,” Roger Wesson of Cardiff University said. By capturing infrared light wavelengths emitted by the nebula, Webb unveiled information about the inner ring’s filament structure, as well as approximately ten concentric ‘arcs’ in the outer…

KEEP IN TOUCH /AllAboutSpaceMagazine @spaceanswers space@spaceanswers.com Ascientist recently claimed that NASA may have inadvertently discovered life on Mars almost 50 years ago and then killed A it before realising what it was. But other experts are split on whether the new claims are a farfetched fantasy or an intriguing possible explanation for some puzzling past experiments. After landing on the Red Planet in 1976, NASA’s Viking landers may have sampled tiny, dry-resistant life forms hiding inside Martian rocks, Dirk Schulze-Makuch, an astrobiologist at Technical University Berlin, suggested in a 27 June article. If these extreme life forms did and continue to exist, the experiments carried out by the landers may have killed them before they were identified, because the tests would have “overwhelmed these potential microbes,” Schulze-Makuch said. This is…

Astronomers have discovered an immense bubble of galaxies that could be a fossilised remnant from the Big Bang. It’s located around 820 million light years from Earth and is a staggering billion light years wide. It sits within a web of galaxies and has been given the name ‘Ho’oleilana’, which is a term from the Hawaiian creation chant Kumulipo. Ho’oleilana describes the origin of structure and relates to the stars and the Moon. Massive structures such as Ho’oleilana are predicted to arise in the universe as a result of tiny ripples in the hot, dense and mostly uniform sea of matter which existed at the beginning of time. These density ripples, called baryon acoustic oscillations, grew as the universe underwent a period of rapid inflation. The ripples are also known…

1 AN UNEXPLAINED CLUMP OF DARK MATTER Dark matter sounds ominous, but scientists believe that it comprises more than 80 per cent of all matter in the universe. It can’t be seen or directly detected because it doesn’t emit light or any type of radiation, but we’ve inferred its presence from how it affects objects that we can see. Typically, galaxies are surrounded by clouds of dark matter. Yet astronomers have found that a clump of dark matter located about 2.4 billion light years away appears to be all alone – no galaxies attached. Nearby galaxies collided and are now part of a merging galaxy cluster called Abell 520, but for some reason they left their dark matter behind. The clump was first detected in 2007 by the Canadian…

We know for certain that life exists. What we don’t know is exactly how life originated on Earth and whether life exists elsewhere. W Yet knowing how basic biological systems came into being would help scientists work out how our world became teeming with plants, insects and animals. It would also assist enormously in the search for extraterrestrial life. “Life is probably the most complex naturally occurring phenomenon in the universe, and the gap between living cells and non-living chemistry is vast,” explains Aaron Goldman, an associate professor of biology at Oberlin College in Ohio. “It’s pretty amazing that life exists at all and fascinating to think about how life, even the simplest life, could have first originated on the early Earth.” Goldman has made it his mission to work…

Astronomers have witnessed a young, Sun-like star blasting out high-energy gamma radiation A for the first time. The observation represents the first evidence that this type of low-mass star – called a TTauri star – surrounded by a planet-forming disc of gas and dust, can emit gamma radiation. In a nutshell, this type of radiation represents the most energetic form of light. Down the line, these findings could have important implications for our understanding of stars and planetary systems during their formative years. “This observational evidence is essential for understanding the origin of sources that have previously remained unknown for more than a decade, which is unquestionably a step forward in astronomy,” Agostina Filócomo, discovery team leader and an astronomer at the Universidad Nacional de La Plata, said. “It is…

In this issue... What’s in the sky? 80 What’s in the sky? With meteor shower peaks aplenty, it’s the perfect time to catch a shooting star 82 Planetarium Where you can find the planets this month and the phases of the Moon 84 Month’s planets The king of the Solar System shines brightly in the evening sky, offering a splendid view for astronomers 86 Moon tour Our destination this month is the star of one of the most famous science-fiction films ever made 87 Naked eye and binocular targets As winter looms on the horizon, relax by enjoying these celestial treats 88 Deep sky challenge Turn your telescope to the Hunter and you’ll be rewarded with a splendid selection of deep-sky targets 90 The Northern Hemisphere The clocks go back…

1 Pollux (Beta Geminorum) Pollux is the secondbrightest star in Gemini and the 17th brightest in the sky, shining at a magnitude of +1.14. It is also one of the few naked-eye stars we know has an extrasolar planet orbiting it, which is bigger than Jupiter and orbits Pollux once every 589 days. 2 Betelgeuse (Alpha Orionis) Betelgeuse is an enormous red star, with a diameter over 650 times that of our Sun. With its distinctive orange-red colour and magnitude of +0.42, the supergiant star is immediately visible to the naked eye, rising in the east after sunset during the evenings. 3 Orion Nebula (Messier 42) This is probably the most famous nebula in the entire sky. It’s a vast, glowing cloud of gas and dust – a‘stellar nursery’ where…

DETAILS From: Fifth Star Labs Cost: Free with in-app purchases Operating system: iOS Size: 324.1 megabytes Planetarium apps like Sky Guide have been around for many years, and yet their use of P augmented reality (AR) to show you the stars still has the power to hugely impress. Now ten years old, this latest version of Sky Guide, called Version X, has decided it’s time to go free… almost. Despite being filled with new visualisations and lots of up-to-the-minute content, Sky Guide now comes as a free download, though serious users will want to download one of its two in-app upgrades: Sky Guide Plus or Sky Guide Pro. Either way, what you get is easily one of the best stargazing apps around. Originally launched in 2013, the latest version of…

Hopkins served as the commander on Crew-1, which launched on 15 November 2020. The mission represented the first commercial crewed spacecraft to travel to the International Space Station. He was a flight engineer on the ISS for Expedition 64, his second long-duration space mission. On his first, Expedition 37/38, Hopkins spent 166 days in space. During that time, he logged almost 13 hours of spacewalks. Hopkins became the first US military transfer in space, as he voluntarily transferred from the US Air Force to the US Space Force. Hopkins was born in Lebanon, Missouri, on 28 December 1968 and grew up on a farm outside Richland, Missouri. After graduating from school, he attended the University of Illinois, where he completed a bachelor of science in aerospace engineering in 1991. He…