Space

The bells of joyful news have begun ringing-- after quite the hiatus, the EM drive has returned!  Researchers from China’s space agency have released a video through state media in which they show what appears to be a fully functioning EM drive. For those who are unfamiliar to the EM drive, here’s the crash course. An EM drive, also known as a radio frequency resonant cavity thruster, is theorized to be able to generate thrust without the need of a propellant. The thrust is of the electromagnetic world that is produced from bouncing microwaves back and forth inside a cavity. Think of it like this -- a person is sitting inside of a box and they are faced with a task to make the box move. They do so by pushing out the walls and moving around inside of the box. Also, to top it all off, the total momentum generated by the drive increases as it moves. If an EM drive is to enter our current world of reality, it would be revolutionary, to say the least. Faster space travel and cheaper spacef

University of Cambridge physicists have developed a theoretical foundation for the existence of wormholes, which are pipelines that connect two dissimilar places in space-time. Time travel and instant communication across great distances may become possible if a piece of data or a physical object could pass through the wormhole. "But there's a problem: Einstein's wormholes are extremely unsteady, and they don't stay open long enough for something to pass over."  In 1988, physicists reached the deduction that a type of negative energy called Casimir energy might keep wormholes open. The hypothetical solution established at Cambridge has to do with the properties of quantum energy, which conveys that even vacuums are teaming by means of waves of energy. “Does this mean we have the technology for building a wormhole?” asks Matt Visser at the Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand. “The answer is still no.” Still, he is intrigued by Butcher ’s work . “From a

VENUS has been chosen as the destination for two new NASA missions to investigate the planet's atmosphere and geological features, following the discovery of " enough water to support plentiful life " by NASA. The space agency has announced it will send two robotic missions to the planet by the end of the decade. NASA administrator Bill Nelson said the probes — named Davinci+ and Veritas — will offer the " chance to investigate a planet we haven't been to in more than 30 years ". The missions to Earth’s closest planetary neighbour were picked following a peer-review process and will explore how the once habitable world became a “ hot, hellish, unforgiving ” planet. It comes just months after astronomers from the UK controversially detected phosphine gas 30 miles up in Venus’ clouds, leading researchers to suggest it was a sign of alien life. Scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) also previously found that Venus may have once had a s

Isn’t it beautiful? This is an illustrated logarithmic scale conception of the observable Universe with the Solar System at the centre. Encircling the Solar System are the inner and outer planets, Kuiper belt, Oort cloud, Alpha Centauri star, Perseus Arm, Milky Way galaxy, Andromeda galaxy, other nearby galaxies, the cosmic web, cosmic microwave radiation, and invisible plasma produced by the Big Bang at the very edges. See below for uncropped and zoomable versions. Created by musician and artist Pablo Carlos Budassi, the image is based on logarithmic maps of the Universe put together by Princeton University researchers, as well as images produced by NASA based on observations made by their telescopes and roving spacecraft.

A black hole millions of times the mass of the sun is rushing towards Earth, threatening to wipe out life as we know it. The black hole is travelling at 110 kilometres per second towards us and is located at the centre of the Andromeda Galaxy, the Milky Way's nearest and much larger neighbour. A supermassive black hole at the centre of most galaxies is surrounded by stars and helps keep everything in place. However, due to the enormous gravitational pull of the Milky Way and Andromeda, they are being dragged toward each other and will collide one day. " There's a black hole in the centre of the Milky Way ," writes Fraser Cain, publisher of the astronomy website Universe Today, for Phys.org. “And not just any black hole, it’s a supermassive black hole with more than 4.1 million times the mass of the Sun. It’s right over there, in the direction of the Sagittarius constellation.  Located just 26,000 light-years away. And as we speak, it’s in the process of tearing apart

NASA has recently captured an eerie audio clip that represents actual sound waves rippling through the gas and plasma in the Perseus galaxy cluster, located 250 million light years from Earth.  This mysterious pulsating light, known as GPM J1839–10, has been blinking in space every 21 minutes since at least 1988, and scientists are still trying to figure out what it is. The common belief that space is silent stems from the fact that most of it is a vacuum, providing no medium for sound waves to travel. However, the Perseus galaxy cluster has so much gas that actual sound waves have been detected. These acoustic signals were first identified in 2003 in data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, but they have never been brought into the hearing range of the human ear until now. The misconception that there is no sound in space originates because most space is a ~vacuum, providing no way for sound waves to travel. A galaxy cluster has so much gas that we've picked up actual sound. He

There is a reserve of water the size of 140 trillion oceans lurking in a faraway supermassive black hole, the universe's largest deposit of water and 4,000 times the amount found in the Milky Way.  This amount of water was discovered by two teams of astronomers 12 billion light-years away, where it appears as vapor dispersed across hundreds of light-years. The reservoir was discovered in a quasar's gaseous area, which is a brilliant compact region in the heart of a galaxy powered by a black hole. This finding demonstrates that water may be present throughout the cosmos, even at the start.  While this is not surprising to experts, water has never been discovered this far out before. The light from the quasar (specifically, the APM 08279+5255 quasar in the constellation Lynx) took 12 billion years to reach Earth, implying that this mass of water existed when the universe was just 1.6 billion years old. One group used the Z-Spec instrument at the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory

A team of researchers has discovered that Uranus was subject to a colossal pounding by an object twice the size of Earth Introduction: The Mysterious Planet Uranus The seventh planet from the sun, Uranus, has long been an enigma for astronomers and scientists alike. With its unusual tilt and peculiar characteristics, this gas giant has raised countless questions about its formation and history. Recent studies suggest that Uranus has suffered a colossal pounding, which might explain its unique features. This article delves into the details of this extraordinary event and its implications on our understanding of the solar system. The Colossal Pounding: Unraveling Uranus' Past Scientists have hypothesized that Uranus experienced a massive impact, possibly with an object twice the size of Earth, which led to its extreme axial tilt of 98 degrees. This colossal pounding would have significantly altered the planet's rotation, causing it to spin on its side. Such a violent event would

There is no place like earth here, yet billions of years ago, there may have been.  There is no place like earth here, yet billions of years ago, there may have been.  On March 27, 1972, Venera-8, a Soviet atmospheric space probe and lander, surveyed the surface of our planetary neighbor, Venus. It was the planet's second spacecraft to successfully land. Surprisingly, despite our inability to see the planet's surface from orbit, Venera-8 produced some eye-opening findings concerning the visibility of Venus' surface and supplied critical geochemical data that support the planet's designation as Earth's sister. Many people consider Mars to be Earth's younger sister, despite the fact that Mars is 34 million miles away. However, at the closest point in its orbit to Earth, Venus is 25 million miles closer to our planet. Earth and Venus are likewise close in size and mass, but the Red Planet is around half the size of Earth. Earth and Venus seem to have been twin sist

NASA verified that the biggest comet ever detected has a diameter of around 85 miles and is now officially the largest comet ever spotted after Hubble Space Telescope studies. C/2014 UN271 (Bernardinelli-Bernstein (BB) was discovered in 2014 by two astronomers, Pedro Bernardinelli and Gary Bernstein, using Dark Energy Survey archived pictures. BB's diameter was previously estimated to be between 62 and 124 miles, but NASA has officially verified the comet's nucleus diameter to be 85 miles wide using the Hubble Space Telescope. According to NASA's blog, BB has surpassed the previous record-holder comet C/2002 VQ94, which has an approximate nucleus diameter of 85 miles. The space agency adds that the comet has been hurtling toward Earth for a million years and will pose no danger to the planet when it reaches its closest approach in 2031, coming within a billion miles of Earth or around the distance between Earth and Saturn. Consider that if the whole area of BB is considered

As an astrophysicist, I am always struck by the fact that even the wildest science-fiction stories tend to be distinctly human in character.  No matter how exotic the locale or how unusual the scientific concepts, most science fiction ends up being about quintessentially human (or human-like) interactions, problems, foibles and challenges. Updated version of the previous article. This is what we usually respond to; it is what we can best understand. In practice, this means that the most science fiction takes place in a relatively relatable settings, on a planet or the spacecraft. The real challenge is to tie the story to human emotions, and human sizes and timescales, while still capturing the enormous scales of the Universe itself. Just how large the Universe actually is never fails to boggle the mind. We say that the observable Universe extends for tens of billions of light years, but the only way to really comprehend this, as humans, is to break matters down into a series of steps,

In order to explore the prospect of travelling faster than the speed of light, NASA is now developing the first real-world test. The Alcubierre Drive, developed by Harold White and his NASA team, revolutionized the perception that travelling faster than light was only possible in science fiction.  Even if special relativity may be valid, we might not require a vehicle that can move at the speed of light in order to travel faster or at that speed. The answer might lie in putting a craft inside a space that is travelling faster than light!  As a result, the craft itself does not need a propulsion system that can propel it at the speed of light. It’s easier to think about if you think in terms of a flat escalator in an airport. The escalator moves faster than you are walking!  In this case, the space encompassing the ship would be moving faster than the ship could fly, keeping all the matter of the ship intact. Therefore, we can move faster than light, in a massless cloud of space-time. W

The supernova explosion will appear at least two more times in the next 20 years. Astronomers have discovered the third appearance of a gravitationally lensed supernova explosion dubbed Supernova Requiem. The images of the phenomenon appear alternately in a distant galaxy.  Astronomers have predicted the next two times that the remnant will be visible in the sky. The fourth appearance of the flare is expected to be visible in the sky in 2037, and the fifth – no earlier than 2041. Everything you need to know about the reappearing Supernova Requiem What is gravitational lensing? Gravitational lensing is the effect of the gravity of massive objects on the trajectories of photons. If you place a galaxy or a cluster of galaxies between the observer and the target, you will notice a distorted and brighter one or more images of the observed object. Variable radiation sources Moreover, if the radiation source is variable, such as a supernova or quasar, then such observations can be used to imp

Scientists have warned that the planets in our solar system might crash if Neptune's orbit is altered by only 0.1 percent by a passing star. The study, which was published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, shows that a "stellar flyby" - a relatively typical occurrence in the cosmos - might be sufficient to cause planets to collide. If Mercury and Jupiter's perihelion — the moment at which the planets are closest to the Sun — occur simultaneously, two outcomes are conceivable. Mercury's orbit might be perturbed, causing it to either exit the Solar System or collide with Venus, the Sun, or the Earth. These alterations will occur over millions of years, but the researchers recreated the condition around three thousand times. In over 2,000 of them, 26 concluded with the planets colliding, or Uranus, Neptune, or Mercury are entirely expelled from the Solar System. “The full extent that stellar flybys play in the evolution of planetary systems is

A team of astronomers has unexpectedly discovered two galaxies that were previously hidden from view at the edge of space and time. Yoshinobu Fudamoto, an astronomer from Waseda University's Research Institute for Science and Engineering and the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ), directed the team that made the discovery using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile. ALMA is an astronomy interferometer comprised of 66 radio telescopes capable of seeing through dust and at extremely long distances. The two new galaxies were discovered while watching two target galaxies known as REBELS-12 and REBELS-29. Bright emissions were detected hundreds of light-years away from the target galaxies. This finding encouraged the researchers to perform more investigations, leading to the discovery of two galaxies known as REBELS-12-2 and REBELS-29-2. These galaxies are obscured by a cloud of cosmic dust and are not visible in ultraviolet or optical light. Ac

A black hole with millions of times more mass than the sun is hurtling towards Earth and will one day wipe out life as we know it. The black hole is speeding towards us at 110 kilometres per second and is at the centre of the Andromeda Galaxy – the Milky Way’s nearest and much larger neighbour. At the centre of most galaxies is a supermassive black hole which stars swirl around and helps keep everything in formation. But such is the intense gravitational pull of the Milky Way and Andromeda that they are being drawn toward each other and will one day crash. Fraser Cain, publisher of space website Universe Today, wrote for Phys.org: “There’s a black hole at the centre of the Milky Way.  “And not just any black hole, it’s a supermassive black hole with more than 4.1 million times the mass of the Sun.  “It’s right over there, in the direction of the Sagittarius constellation.  “Located just 26,000 light-years away. And as we speak, it’s in the process of tearing apart entire stars and star

Astronomers watching the sky recently got a big surprise. They discovered a big galaxy in an undiscovered region of our galaxy. It appeared seemingly out of nowhere. So, how did the galaxy, called Crater 2, achieve this feat, much like a deer leaping from intergalactic bushes to peer down our collective headlights? While Crater 2's appearance may appear sudden, he has been present the entire time. We simply ignored it. However, now that we know it exists, astronomers have discovered a few more humiliating qualities. To begin, we cannot attribute the galaxy's relative obscurity to its size. Crater 2 is so massive that it has already been designated as the fourth largest galaxy in our galaxy's orbit. We can't blame its distance either. The orbit of Crater 2 around the Milky Way places it immediately overhead. With that stated, how did we manage to miss it? Researchers at the University of Cambridge have an answer for us in a recent publication published in Monthly Notices

A neighbouring exoplanet orbiting within the habitable zone of a star only 4.2 light-years away from Earth may have a large ocean, increasing its chances of harbouring life. Since its discovery, doubts regarding the circumstances on Proxima b's surface have swirled; the planet's mass is roughly 1.3 times that of Earth, and the red dwarf star it orbits is similar in age to our sun. However, studies in recent years have both boosted and dashed hopes for its habitability. A recent study has increased the prospect that Proxima b could support life, implying that the exoplanet could survive liquid water under the correct conditions. Updated version of the previous article. “The major message from our simulations is that there’s a decent chance that the planet would be habitable,” Anthony Del Genio, a planetary scientist at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, told LiveScience. The researchers conducted what are thought to be the first climate simulations of Proxima b with a

Black holes are powerful power plants in space. They give quasars and other active galactic nuclei the energy they need to shine (AGNs). This is because of how matter and its huge gravitational and magnetic forces work together. Technically, a black hole doesn’t have a magnetic field, but the dense plasma that makes up the accretion disc around it does. As plasma spirals around a black hole, the charged particles inside it create an electric current and a magnetic field. Since the direction of plasma flow doesn’t change on its own, it’s likely that the magnetic field is pretty stable. Imagine how surprised the scientists were when they found proof that a black hole’s magnetic field had changed direction. One way to think about a magnetic field is as a magnet with a north pole and a south pole. When the direction of the imaginary pole and the magnetic field both change, this is called a magnetic reversal. This is a common thing for stars to do. Scientists have known about the 11-year cy

We have an insatiable thirst for energy. When we need to power anything that cannot be plugged in, we will have to rely on batteries, and the search for a better battery is underway in laboratories around the world. Consider that for a moment. Nuclear waste is radioactive waste produced by nuclear power plants that no one wants stored near their homes or even transported through their neighbourhoods. The obnoxious material is dangerous and lethal, takes thousands of years to totally degrade, yet we continue to generate more of it. NDB, a California-based company, claims to be able to fix both of these concerns. They claim to have created a self-powered battery composed entirely of radioactive waste with a life expectancy of 28,000 years, perfect for your future electric car or iPhone 1.6 x 104. The battery generates its own charge rather than storing energy provided elsewhere. It is made of two types of nano-diamonds, making it almost crash-proof when utilised in vehicles or other movi

China became the first country to land a spacecraft on the far side of the moon. As part of its mission, the Chang'e-4 lunar rover carried a small biosphere containing six lifeforms, including cotton seeds. Using data from the biosphere experiment, researchers generated a virtual simulation of the cotton plant, indicating that it grew two leaves before succumbing to the cold. China achieved history by landing its Chang'e-4 spacecraft on the moon's far side. The mission was also the first to experiment with growing plants on the moon, and it delivered to the lunar surface a mini-biosphere known as the Lunar Micro Ecosystem (LME). With the exception of microgravity and cosmic radiation, the conditions within this tight, cylindrical biosphere were similar to those on Earth. The LME contained the following: potato seeds cotton seedlings rapeseeds yeast fruit fly eggs A common weed is Arabidopsis thaliana. Except for cotton, all of these plants died quickly. According to a recen