Tabla de contenidos para No. 134 en All About Space

Have you ever seen a really amazing fact about the universe and thought that it sounded too mind-boggling to be true? I have! While the cosmos really is an incredible place, with many strange goings on that seem to defy expectations, there can often be misinformation about – myths that have continued to exist from generation to generation. This issue, we’ve uncovered the top 20 myths about space, so the next time you’re confronted with a ‘fact’, you can turn to page 14 to reveal whether it’s really fact or fiction. Elsewhere in the issue, we get up close and personal with the gigantic structures known as galaxies and how to build one. This issue, you’ll discover that there are a collection that seem to swirl peacefully in the vastness…

The James Webb Space Telescope’s predecessor, the trusty Hubble Space Telescope, is showing us why it shouldn’t be forgotten now its successor is beaming back images. NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), who co-manage Hubble, have just released a new spectacular image of globular cluster NGC 6638, a star cluster in the constellation of Sagittarius. The image was created from observations by Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 and the Advanced Camera for Surveys. Prior to Hubble, it was nearly impossible to discern the individual stars in a globular cluster – adense collection of ancient stars numbering in the tens of thousands to millions. Because ground-based telescopes have to peer through Earth’s atmosphere in order to see stars, their view can become distorted. That’s less of an issue for Hubble,…

Oxygen is vital for life support, producing fuels and supporting agriculture. Being able to harvest it on Mars will be vital for future crewed missions. But producing oxygen on the Red Planet is challenging. Although there’s plenty of the element in the Martian atmosphere, it’s locked up in carbon dioxide molecules, which are very difficult to break. And any oxygen produced from this then needs to be separated from a gas mixture that also contains, among other things, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide. Plasma contains free charged particles, including electrons which are light and easily accelerated to very high energies with electric fields. “When bullet-like electrons collide with a carbon dioxide molecule, they can directly decompose it or transfer energy to make it vibrate,” said Vasco Guerra, a physicist at…

Getting into space is hard. With the engines and rockets we have now, the majority of the weight of a rocket at launch is fuel and oxidiser to overcome Earth’s gravity. And if we want to go beyond Earth orbit, the problem gets even worse. If you could fuel up your interplanetary mission in orbit instead of having to launch everything in one go, the cost of individual missions could be cut significantly. With this in mind, a team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has proposed an intermediate concept that could build up propellant depots with traditional missions. Led by Professor Jeffrey Hoffman, himself a veteran of five Space Shuttle missions, the team proposes to take advantage of contingency propellants that would be carried on lunar missions anyway.…

Scientists using new computational methods have come up with a fresh insight into the potential workings of the complex atmosphere of Venus. The planet is shrouded in thick clouds made up mostly of sulphuric acid. These clouds reflect most of the sunlight shining on the planet, making it the brightest object in the sky after the Sun and Moon. However, spacecraft and Earthbased observations have also detected an unknown absorber of ultraviolet light present in the atmosphere. Following the use of sophisticated computational modelling, a team of scientists now suggests a new pathway for creating disulfur – an allotrope of sulphur consisting of two sulphur atoms – within the clouds of Venus. Disulfur leads to the formation of other sulphur allotropes and subsequently cyclic, or ring-structured, molecules of eight sulphur…

NEWS FROM EUROPA Table salt on the surface Europa has had visitors, notably NASA’s Voyager and Galileo. On their flybys of the moon, analyses showed that the icy crust consisted of water ice and a substance originally thought to be magnesium sulphate. After revisiting the surface using the W. M. Keck Observatory based in Hawaii and Hubble, astronomers now know that it wasn’t magnesium sulphate and is actually sodium chloride – more commonly known as table salt. It was laboratory tests by Kevin Hand at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory that revealed that irradiated ocean salts under Europa-like conditions exhibit distinct features and a yellowish colour – table salt exhibits this colour on the surface of Europa, confirming its presence. Setbacks for the next explorer Unfortunately, the Europa Clipper mission, an…

New research highlights a troubling problem with concepts of a cyclical universe that experiences infinitely alternating periods of rapid expansion and contraction. These bouncing universe models suggest the cosmos has no beginning, eliminating the need for a singularity prior to the initial period of rapid inflation needed by ‘beginning of time’ models. University at Buffalo researchers say a newly suggested bouncing universe recipe that attempts to deal with the problem of entropy – the measure of unusable energy in the universe, which can only increase – suffers from a problem that has plagued previous models of endless inflation and contraction – it still needs a beginning. “People proposed bouncing universes to make the universe infinite into the past, but what we show is that one of the newest types of…

In this issue... 78 What’s in the sky? September brings darker skies and new targets to explore 80 Planetarium Where you can find the planets this month and the phases of the Moon 82 Month’s planets Mars continues to dazzle, making it an easy target for observers 84 Moon tour This month’s full Moon affords you the opportunity to spot a unique feature 85 Naked eye and binocular targets On crisp autumn nights find galaxies, beautiful star clusters and a demonic star 86 Deep sky challenge Among the richest for deep-sky observers, September brings star clusters, nebulae and galaxies galore 88 The Northern Hemisphere The longer nights are upon us, so enjoy both Solar System and deep-sky objects 90 Your astrophotos The best of our readers’ astrophotography images 92 Review…

B orn in Chicago in 1958, Grunsfeld’s youth was filled with the drama and excitement of the Space Race. In 1980 he graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a degree in physics, followed by a doctorate in astrophysics from the University of Chicago. In his spare time Grunsfeld enjoyed mountaineering, but there was a very important place he still wished to explore - space. In March 1992 Grunsfeld was selected by NASA to become an astronaut. Determined to achieve his goal, he worked very hard, training until his first mission launched in March 1995. Aboard Space Shuttle Endeavour as a mission specialist, this 16-day mission saw Grunsfeld and his crewmates conduct a number of observations to study the far-ultraviolet spectra of astronomical objects. To achieve this they used…

Astronomers at the Gemini North telescope in Hawaii have released a stunning image that shows two spiral galaxies in the process of colliding and merging. The clashing galaxies NGC 4568 and NGC 4567 – also known as the Butterfly Galaxies due to the dual-lobed shape their interaction causes – are located 60 million light years away from Earth in the Virgo Cluster and will form a brandnew elliptical galaxy in around 500 million years. The new image gives scientists a sneak preview of what will happen in around 5 billion years when our galaxy, the Milky Way, collides with its closest large neighbour, the Andromeda Galaxy. That clash will give each galaxy a major makeover, as well as possibly flinging the Sun and the Solar System into a different region…

Scientists may have found a way of using the collisions of black holes to measure the rate at which the universe is expanding. The violent mergers of black holes launch ripples in space-time called gravitational waves, and a new technique measures changes in these signals that occur as they experience the universe’s expansion. Scientists hope to use cosmic collisions between tight binary black hole pairings as what the team term ‘spectral sirens’ to provide an alternative measurement technique for the Hubble constant. Finally settling this pressing cosmological concern could reveal how the universe has evolved and how it looked in its early years. At the heart of the spectral siren method are gravitational waves. On Earth, incredibly sensitive laser interferometers like the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), the Italian Virgo…

Studying unusual processes of how ice accumulates below ice shelves here on Earth could hold lessons for the exploration and habitability of Jupiter’s moon Europa. Researchers studied two types of underwater snow found on Earth as an analogue for understanding how Europa’s shell thickens from below. Frazil ice forms in supercooled water columns and floats upwards to accrete onto the bottom of ice shelves, while ice grows directly from under the ice shelf. The researchers determined that ice formed by these processes retains just a fraction of the salt from the water from which it formed. Frazil ice retains just 0.1 per cent of the ocean’s salinity and could be common on Europa, suggesting t hat Europa’s ice shell could be orders of magnitude p urer than previous estimates. “When…

1 APOLLO 11 LUNAR MODULE The first manned spacecraft to land on the Moon To perform the first Moon landing, the Apollo 11 mission used two very different spacecraft. The first was the pressurised, conical-shaped Command Module that served as the main living quarters. It was attached to an unpressurised Service Module containing the main rocket engine and propellant. At launch, the Apollo 11’s Command and Service Module (CSM) was mounted above the Lunar Module (LM) on top of the Saturn V rocket. When they moved out of Earth orbit, the CSM separated itself and turned around to attach to the docking port on the LM. On 20 July 1969 at 20:17 (UTC), Neil Armstrong and Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin touched down on the Sea of Tranquillity and deployed exploration equipment…

T he largest confirmed crater in the Solar System is the one that lies beneath Utopia Planitia, a huge plain in the northern hemisphere of Mars. With a diameter of 3,300 kilometres (2,050 miles), this huge and shallow basin must have been created by the force of a wide impactor and would have had a devastating effect on Mars at the time. But the Utopia impact happened roughly 4 billion years ago, and later geological activity has done a lot to hide it. The basin was only confirmed in 2001 using satellite maps of Martian topography. Far more easily identified as an impact basin is Hellas Planitia, an oval depression in the Red Planet’s southern hemisphere some 2,300 kilometres (1,429 miles) across. What’s more, these same maps revealed that a…

When astronauts are in space, their bodies are put under enormous pressure and strain. Aside from the mental stresses of spaceflight, astronauts are exposed to radiation and the effects of weightlessness, and loss of muscle is a major problem. Otherwise known as muscle atrophy, it affects the soft tissue in an astronaut’s lower leg, hip, back and neck as well as in the quadriceps. These muscles usually work against the forces of gravity – hence why they’re referred to as antigravity muscles – yet they’re not needed to the same degree in a weightless environment, so they weaken and deteriorate. A spaceflight lasting just 5 to 11 days will result in a muscle loss of 20 per cent, rising to 40 per cent after six months in space. It’s why…

M ars is our planet of the month again because it is now really starting to brighten in advance of it reaching opposition at the end of the year. Then it will be so close to Earth – and so well placed in the night sky – that it will be strikingly obvious to even the most inexperienced sky-watcher. But if you track it down now, make yourself familiar with the part of the sky it is in and how it is moving – if you do, you’ll enjoy that opposition show a lot more. At the start of our observing period Mars will rise around 20:45 and will be found shining in the zodiacal constellation of Taurus, where it seems to have been embedded for months now. Although Mars…

On Mars, there’s a unique kind of tumbleweed rolling across the Martian plains. These tumbleweeds aren’t plants - they’re pieces of debris from the entry, descent and landing (EDL) hardware from NASA’s Perseverance rover. The rover has been coming across many of these remnants, photographing them so that engineers can study them. During its landing on 18 February 2021, a number of hardware elements slowed the spacecraft’s speed from 20,000 kilometres (12,500 miles) per hour when it first entered the Martian atmosphere to essentially zero when it was gently placed on the surface by a sky crane – and that all happened in seven minutes. Once their jobs were complete, EDL hardware like the parachute, backshell, heat shield and the sky crane were all jettisoned from Perseverance, crashing into Mars…

Radioactive matter within the dwarf planet Ceres may help drive geological activity there. With a diameter of about 940 kilometres (585 miles), Ceres is by far the largest member of the asteroid belt. In 2015 NASA’s Dawn spacecraft became the first orbiter around Ceres. The probe revealed the dwarf planet was covered in features resembling those from tectonic activity, such as a continent-like plateau and criss-crossing fractures. Now research suggests heat from the decay of radioactive elements within Ceres might help keep it geologically active. Scientists analysed the interior of Ceres using computer models previously applied to bigger planets. Results suggested that because Ceres is relatively small, it lacked a gravitational pull strong enough to result in powerful collisions to heat it up. As such, Ceres may have started off…

The universe is packed with galaxies. Everywhere we look we see galaxies crammed into the cosmos, grouped in clusters and great sheets that are littered throughout space-time. The most distant galaxies ever seen have been identified by the Hubble Space Telescope as being 13.4 billion light years away. Yet these are not even the most distant galactic structures out there. It’s the first galaxies that hold the record for being the furthest away from us. However, we’re yet to see them. To do so we will need the infrared prowess of the recently launched James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which will be able to see galaxies as they formed just 300 or 400 million years after the Big Bang – the event that threw the cosmos into existence. Understanding how…

Some space radiation crashing into Earth has an explosive origin. Astronomers spotted wreckage from a supernova explosion potentially capable of blasting out highenergy particles – or cosmic rays – that frequently bombard Earth. Their new findings link shock waves and wreckage created by dying stars to natural high-energy proton accelerators in space, dubbed PeVatrons. These intriguing cosmic accelerators – which receive their name from their ability to boost the energies of particles to extreme petaelectronvolt (PeV) levels – have never been conclusively identified. A handful of suspected PeVatrons were already fingerprinted before this study, including one at the centre of our Milky Way. The research team says their new find of a supernova explosion’s leftovers – acloud of material called G106.3+2.7 – could be the most promising candidate yet. The…

On 5 March 1979, Voyager 1 made its closest approach to Jupiter. What it discovered astounded navigators at the Jet Propulsion O Laboratory in California. Not least of all astronomer Linda Morabito, who had been analysing an image taken by the spacecraft and saw a puzzling feature that turned out to be a volcanic plume off the limb of Io. It was 270 kilometres (170 miles) tall, spewing sulphur into the airless sky with great ferocity. This volcano came to be known as Pele, after the Hawaiian fire goddess, and its discovery was hugely significant: it was the first time that an erupting volcano had been found anywhere other than Earth. It wasn’t the first time that alien volcanoes had caught the imagination. Missions to the Moon had uncovered basalt…

1 The Double Cluster (NGC 869 and NGC 884) Look between Cassiopeia and Perseus on a clear night and you’ll sense a misty smudge of light at the corner of your eye. Binoculars show this is a pair of star clusters so close together they’re almost touching. But the ‘Double Cluster’ is misleadingly named – one cluster is twice as far away as the other. 2 Algol (Beta Persei) Between the Double Cluster and the Pleiades shines Algol, the secondbrightest star in Perseus. It’s a blue-white variable star that appears to brighten and fade every three days. Algol’s nickname, ‘the Demon Star’, is very appropriate, as it represents an eye winking in the severed head of the Gorgon Medusa. 3 Andromeda Galaxy (Messier 31) If you have good eyesight you…

The autumn skies are starting to wheel into view, offering a wonderful selection of galaxies, open and globular star clusters for those with binoculars or telescopes. Globular clusters including the Great Globular Cluster in Hercules (Messier 13) and Messier 56 in Lyra (the Harp), as well as open cluster IC 4665 in Ophiuchus (the Serpent-bearer), are splendid evening targets. If you’re keen to stay up until the early hours of the morning, you’ll be rewarded as Taurus’ Pleiades star cluster (Messier 45) and galaxies such as the Andromeda Galaxy (Messier 31), nearby Triangulum Galaxy (Messier 33) and face-on spiral Messier 74 in the constellation Pisces (the Fishes) make their appearance. Using the sky chart This chart is for use at 22:00 mid-month and is set for 52 degrees latitude. 1…

Best overall DSLR Nikon D850 Cost: £2,640 / $2,796.95 From: Amazon 1 The D850 is a bold step up from the D780, offering 45.7MP photos at up to 9FPS, 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 9FPS of full-resolution still images at 45.7MP – 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…