It’s time to check out some of the most AMAZING space discoveries and achievements
this year.
Let’s get into it.
Number ten, the black widow neutron star.
A new record-setting neutron star was just discovered sitting at a distance of around
three thousand light- years from Earth within the constellation of Sextans.
But this neutron star didn’t use to be a record breaker, it was once a pair of binary
stars in a system together.
The larger of the pair has been feeding on its partner and a large amount of dust and
gas swirling in this star system.
The behemoth of a neutron star is approximately two point three five times the mass of the
sun and is spinning at the rate of seven hundred and seven times PER SECOND.
Its size is an oddity in terms of neutron stars and may be EXTREMELY close to the size
limit before it would collapse in on itself creating a black hole.
This discovery is giving astronomers a FANTASTIC look into the bizarre world of quantum gravity
within superdense material.
Neutron stars are so dense that just one cubic inch of their matter would weigh OVER ten
billion tons.
Number nine, NASA created oxygen on Mars.
One of the challenges that we face when looking toward the future of space travel is how to
have enough oxygen for space travelers to breathe while traveling in an oxygen-free
environment.
NASA just had a GIGANTIC leap forward in the quest for oxygen.
With the help of an MIT-led team, their Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment,
MOXIE, they were able to take the carbon-dioxide-rich atmosphere and produce breathable oxygen.
While their experiment was only on a small scale producing around six grams per hour,
the same amount of oxygen as an average tree.
The team believes that by scaling this project up, they will be able to generate enough oxygen
to sustain a settlement of humans on the red planet’s surface in addition to fueling
a rocket for a return trip to Earth.
MOXIE’s production of oxygen is just the first experiment planned to demonstrate “in-situ
resource utilization” which is the idea of using what is available on a planet to
sustain exploration rather than relying on resources transported from Earth.
What else will astronomers come up with to make the dream of space travel a reality?
Number eight, oceans beneath one of Saturn’s moons.
What was once believed to be a solid hunk of ice orbiting around the ringed giant Saturn,
astronomers have not found evidence that the moon Mimas has MASSIVE reserves of liquid
water deep beneath its icy crust.
Researchers have attributed the existence of water to the moon’s ECCENTRIC orbit which
leads to a tugging force stretching the moon along the equator as it circles the gas giant.
This gravitational tug is thought to generate enough heat within the moon’s body that
the interior ice has melted into a vast ocean that may be as far as twenty- two to thirty-two
kilometers thick according to both the astronomers calculations based on current models and computer
simulations.
Will future crafts be able to use Mimas as a pit stop to fill up their water reserves?
Number seven, galaxies close by are much smaller than believed.
The James Webb Space Telescope FINALLY became operational this year and has already ENTHRALLED
the globe with its breathtaking and mind boggling images of deep space.
It has already made groundbreaking discoveries that have altered the way astronomers look
at our universe.
One of these discoveries occurred when astronomers were looking through the evolution of the
universe and noticed some differences from Webb’s images when compared to Hubble.
Many of the galaxies that appeared MASSIVE when Hubble imaged them, have come through
much smaller in Webb’s images.
Astronomers are currently thinking that this may be due to a lack of understanding of galactic
evolution.
The size of galaxies may evolve over time in a much more complicated process than scientists
have anticipated.
What else will Webb make us rethink?
Number six, this asteroid holds an unimaginable amount of wealth.
An asteroid named Sixteen Psyche has come into the crosshairs of NASA as they plan a
space probe to explore the asteroid that is in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
This particular asteroid recently caught the eye of astronomers around the world due to
its unique makeup.
It is a metal-rich asteroid that is thought to have originated as the core of a shattered
planetesimal, one of the early building blocks of a planet.
Using visible and infrared wavelengths, astronomers at NASA were able to discover that this two
hundred and twenty-five kilometers diameter asteroid is full of precious metals and is
worth an estimated ten QUINTILLION dollars which is over a THOUSAND times more money
than the economy of the entire world.
If there is a way to harvest the metals from this asteroid, there would be a nearly endless
supply of fine metals for the foreseeable future.
While the probe is scheduled to launch in twenty twenty-two, it will not arrive at its
target until sometime during twenty twenty-six.
Number five, two black holes merged into one.
Black holes are extremely massive remnants of giant old stars that ended their lives
in a supernova while their core collapses in on itself and creates an object dense enough
to RIP the fabric of spacetime.
In recent years, scientists have been working on new instruments designed to pick up on
gravitational waves rippling through the fabric of the universe and trace those ripples back
to their source.
Earlier this year in April, a new paper was published in the journal Physical Review Letters
describing the merging of two black holes that were found using the Laser Interferometer
Gravitational-Wave Observatory, LIGO.
This marks the first time scientists were able to witness and study two black holes
merging into a single, more massive black hole.
After the merger, the forces generated caused the newly formed black hole to shoot off into
space at speeds approaching eight million kilometers per hour.
This new paper has shed much more light on the workings of gravity, a topic that still
has many question marks in how it's understood.
Number four, how easily x-shaped galaxies can form.
Astronomers were amazed the first time they spotted a new type of galaxy now known as
x-shaped radio galaxies.
These galaxies are known for having their mass spread out in the shape of a giant X
and were thought to undergo an EXTREMELY complex series of events to achieve their signature
shape.
But using new simulations, astrophysicists at Northwestern University were able to model
the formation of one of these galaxies and it turns out that the process of forming an
X-shaped galaxy is surprisingly simple.
Interaction between the central black hole’s jets and the gas falling into it is responsible
for these galaxies' characteristic shape.
When infalling gas deflects the jets, they get turned on and off in an ERRATIC wobbling
pattern.
This in turn causes cavities in the galaxy to form and inflate in opposite directions.
These cavities push the jets and gas out creating a unique galactic shape.
In science, even if something looks complex, it can still be controlled by simple interactions.
Number three, the most ancient planetary nebula ever found.
A planetary nebula is the remnant of an old star system that lived its life and died while
spewing its material out into the space around it.
The dust and gas that are left over form these complex and beautiful glowing CLOUDS that
can be found throughout the galaxy.
The majority of nebulae astronomers have found are relatively short lived in terms of cosmic
structures only lasting between five and twenty five thousand years because their ghostly
bodies of gas and debris disperse and fade out.
But a team lead out of the Laboratory for Space Research and the University of Hong
Kong found a special planetary nebula that has survived nearly THREE TIMES longer than
it should have.
Using clues from the emission spectrum of this nebula, the team was able to deduce that
this leftover star has been around for at least seventy thousand years.
There must be something extremely unique about the nebula and its location within the Milky
Way.
Astronomers think that its region may be a relatively safe and calm environment which
may have slowed the expansion and dispersion of this nebula.
How long will this nebula survive?
Number two, the early universe was a much more complex place than astronomers once believed.
James Webb has been sending back amazing images that have revealed something that SHOCKED
astronomers, the early universe was surprisingly complex.
We often think of the universe as starting as a soup of the very basic building blocks
and taking a long time before building ALL the complexity that we see in it today.
But the new information is challenging that idea, Webb is finding that there were massive
formations of galaxies coming together extremely early into the life of the universe, only
five hundred million years after the Big Bang.
These early galaxies display the same galactic shapes we see today like the disk-shaped galaxies
which were not thought to begin forming several billion years later.
Not only were there complex galactic structures in the early universe, but Webb’s ability
to read chemical makeup also showed astronomers that there was a RICH and DYNAMIC array of
chemicals spread throughout the universe.
This implies that the current beliefs about the speed of star formation may be off entirely
and need to be revisited.
Number one, nuclear technology could power the future of space travel.
Space is finally coming closer to humanity's grasp, but there are still several problems
that need to be overcome before we can have the Star Trek-esque future many dream of.
In order to survive for extended periods of space travel, we will need a source of energy.
Not only to power the spaceships but ALSO to power the necessary life support systems
and terraforming gear to make and keep space a liveable place.
Scientists believe that they have the answer to the problem of generating energy while
traveling through space that will also solve the issue of generating energy once settlements
begin, nuclear energy.
NASA’s scientists have recently figured out that a ship powered by a nuclear fission
reactor, which would use hydrogen as a propellant would not only reduce the amount of fuel needed
to move in space but also cut the traveling time to Mars up to twenty-five percent.
While projects looking into this technology are brand new, they have already begun to
show promising progress in development and it is only a matter of time before we will
see what nuclear-powered spaceships can really do.
Thanks for watching!
Let us know what your favorite space discovery was this year!
See you next time, on Matter!