Astro Blog

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/09/cosmic-conundrum-disks-gas-and-dust-supposedly-form-planets-don-t-seem-have-goods Source:   By Adam Mann, Science Magazine. Excerpt: Astronomers have a problem on their hands: How can you make planets if you don’t have enough of the building blocks? A new study finds that protoplanetary disks—the envelopes of dust and gas around young stars that give rise to planets—seem to contain orders of magnitude too little material to produce the planets. “This work is telling us that we really have to rethink our planetary formation theories,” says astronomer Gijs Mulders of the University of Chicago in Illinois, who was not involved in the research. ...The brightness of radio waves emitted by dust in the disk can be used to give a reasonable estimate of its overall mass. ...In the new study, astronomers led by Carlo Manara of the European Southern Observatory in Munich, Germany, used [Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA)] to compare the masses of...

https://eos.org/articles/how-well-can-the-webb-telescope-detect-signs-of-exoplanet-life Source:    By Lucas Joel, Eos/AGU. Excerpt: ...what NASA’s next-generation, space-based telescope will be able to do: “see the first light of the universe, watch galaxies collide, see stars and planets being born, find and study exoplanets.” ...recent research suggests that the [James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)] might have a tricky time detecting at least one telltale sign of life: oxygen in an exoplanet’s atmosphere. ... Noah Planavsky, a biogeochemist at Yale University, and a team of researchers recently found that a planet’s atmosphere with an extremely small amount of oxygen can still support life. This finding means there could be planets that have only minute oxygen levels—but that nonetheless harbor life—that would appear to be dead to JWST. ...JWST was not originally designed to scan distant planets for their oxygen concentrations. ...JWST’s oxygen-spotting prospects may be di...

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-45598156 Source:   By BBC News. Excerpt: Japan's space agency (JAXA) has made history by successfully landing two robotic explorers on the surface of an asteroid. The two small "rovers", which were despatched from the Hayabusa-2 spacecraft on Friday, will move around the 1km-wide space rock known as Ryugu. The asteroid's low gravity means they can hop across it, capturing temperatures and images of the surface. ...Hayabusa-2 reached the asteroid Ryugu in June this year after a three-and-a-half-year journey. ...Early on Thursday morning (GMT), Hayabusa-2 began descending towards the surface of Ryugu, preparing to eject its rovers. ...The 1kg rovers are equipped with wide-angle and stereo cameras to send back pictures. Spine-like projections from the edges of the hoppers are sensors that will measure surface temperatures on the asteroid. ...The diamond-shaped asteroid has a blackish-coloured surface, and rotates on its a...

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/20/science/nasa-tess-planets.html Source:   By Dennis Overbye, The New York Times. Excerpt: The satellite, launched in April, has already identified at least 73 stars that may harbor exoplanets, most of them new to astronomers. ...They all need to be confirmed by other astronomers....

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/08/tiny-spacecraft-are-breaking-out-earth-s-orbit Source:   By Eric Hand, Science Magazine. Excerpt: Cheap, small satellites have swarmed into Earth orbit over the past decade, cutting the cost of studying our home planet from space. Now, these spacecraft, some no bigger than a briefcase, are becoming capable enough to venture into deep space—or at least the inner solar system. Two are halfway to Mars, more than a dozen planetary probes are in development, and scientists are coming up with ever more daring ideas for doing cheap, high-risk interplanetary science. ...Small satellites can be assembled from low-cost components and released by the dozen from a single rocket. But systems key to interplanetary flight, including propulsion, communication, and navigation, have traditionally been too bulky to fit into a small package. ...A mission called Mars Cube One (MarCO), ...showcases a miniature guidance, navigation, and control system developed ...

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/11/science/parker-solar-probe-launch.html Source:   By Kenneth Chang, The New York Times. Excerpt: Atop three columns of flame at 3:31 a.m. Eastern time, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe [ http://parkersolarprobe.jhuapl.edu/ ] lifted toward space on Sunday. The launch was the second attempt to carry the spacecraft, which NASA touts will “touch the sun” one day, into orbit after a scrub early on Saturday. The probe — which will study the sun’s outer atmosphere as well as the stream of particles known as solar wind — was carried on top of a Delta IV Heavy rocket built and operated by United Launch Alliance, a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin. It is one of the most powerful rockets currently available. ...The spacecraft will eventually pass within 4 million miles of the sun’s surface, close enough to skim through the star’s outer atmosphere. ...At its closest approach, the outside of the spacecraft will reach 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit, or ab...

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/10/science/eugene-parker-solar-wind-nasa-probe.html Source:   By Kenneth Chang, The New York Times. Excerpt: CHICAGO — It was 1958. Sputnik had launched only a year earlier.... But the beach ball-size spacecraft had no instruments to measure anything in space. ...It certainly looked like the vast expanses between planets were empty. And that is what most scientists believed. But not Eugene N. Parker, then a 31-year-old, no-name professor at the University of Chicago. In a foundational paper published in The Astrophysical Journal, Dr. Parker described how charged particles streamed continuously from the sun, like the flow of water spreading outward from a circular fountain. Almost no one believed him. “The prevailing view among some people was that space was absolutely clean, nothing in it, total vacuum,” Dr. Parker recalled during an interview at his home. ...The scientists who had reviewed the paper rejected his idea as ludicrous. Dr. Parker app...