This week in space from Fraser Cain | |
I always get really excited when NASA's Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) awards are announced each year. There are relatively small prizes, awarded to "out-of-the-box" ideas in spaceflight, science and aeronautics. Phase 1 awards are for $125,000 over the course of nine months to explore an idea, and the Phase II is for $500,000 for a two-year study.
This year we've got really intriguing ideas like robotic bees that'll fly to Mars, growing structures on the surfaces of other worlds, antimatter propulsion, a hopper robot that would explore Triton, Neptune's largest Moon, a 1-km space radio telescope, and much much more.
Stay tuned to Universe Today over the next few months as we try to cover as many of these proposals as possible.
Fraser Cain
Publisher
Universe Today
As always, if you have comments or questions, or suggestions on how I can improve this newsletter, please don't hesitate to reply this email or send me an email at frasercain@gmail.com. | | 
We're familiar with gas giant planets orbiting other stars, and even super earths. But what about a planet that's more like Mercury? Astronomers announced they've found a world with the same kind of chemicals as Mercury, but 2.5 times the mass of Earth.
Does your internet connection suck? Good news, the FCC just approved SpaceX to launch their Starlink constellation of communications satellites. Their plan entails launching 4,425 satellites by 2027, which will provide high speed internet to any place on Earth.
The atmosphere of Mars makes it hard to land big payloads on the surface. It's too thick to come in fast, but too thin to provide an aerodynamic braking for large payloads. Folks at NASA are working on a big inflatable aeroshell that might be able to bleed off the energy for a spacecraft arriving at Mars.
We got all worked up by the return of Tiangong-1 over the weekend, but it turns out, human-made satellites and space junk is coming back to Earth all the time. Scientists at ESA track approximately a satellite a week, on average, that crashes back through the Earth's atmosphere.
Supersonic aircraft are loud when they cross the speed of sound, releasing a deafening sonic boom. In an effort to get supersonic speeds without the noise pollution, NASA is working with Lockheed Martin to build a quieter supersonic aircraft.
Life around a young dwarf star could be rough. In fact, it might be downright impossible. That's because these newly formed stars can release apocalyptic flares, scouring any worlds orbiting around them. Giant flares could strip the ozone layer off the Earth in just two years.
Well, it finally happened, China's Tiangong-1 space station returned to Earth on April 1, 2018 at 17:16 PST. Despite a range of targets, it chose the wide open South Pacific Ocean, in a region known as the Spaceship Cemetary, and from what we can tell, nobody saw it happen.
Check out this amazing new photograph from ESO's Very Large Telescope in Chile. It's a huge cloud of gas and dust blasted out when a star went supernova in the Small Magellanic Cloud. The new MUSE instrument on this telescope was able to locate the remnant neutron star within the cloud.
A new photograph released from the Hubble Space Telescope shows a star that was seen when the Universe was a third its current age. Astronomers had to use the gravity from a closer galaxy to act as a natural lens, to focus and magnify the light from a galaxy lined up behind it.
NASA announced a series of new proposals that they had shortlisted as part of their Innovative Advanced Concepts program, and one of them is hive of robotic bees that could be used to explore the surface of Mars.
When astronauts are strapped in and about to launch on board the Space Launch System, they'll have a way to abort at the last second. It's called the Orion Abort System, and it involves shooting off high power rockets that will get the capsule clear of the rocket at a moment's notice. It's pretty wild.
We know there's a supermassive black hole in the middle of the Milky Way with 4.1 million times the mass of the Sun, but it also looks like there are tens of thousands of stellar mass black holes buzzing around in the region too.
Other Interesting Space Stuff
Amazing Astrophotography
Here's something a little different. It's the Moon setting behind Hoboken, New Jersey, as seen across the Hudson River.The picture was taken by Ed Rojas @edred17 after careful planning to set up the perfect shot.
We feature a different astrophotographer every day on our Instagram page. Want to do a takeover? Use the hashtag #universetoday and I'll check out your photos. | | | |
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