Talk about a Halloween treat.
A recently discovered comet will be blazing by the Earth in broad daylight just in time for Halloween, astronomers say.
Comet C/2024 S1, first found at the end of September, will pass around the Earth on Oct. 24, according to planetary astronomer James Wray of the Georgia Institute of Technology, who advises to “look low in the eastern sky just before sunrise.”
Researchers have discovered the Neptunian Ridge, a region packed with planets, located between the Neptunian Desert and Savannah. This finding sheds light on how planets migrate and evolve in different environments.
A new ‘map’ of distant planets has been unveiled by scientists from The University of Warwick, which finds a ridge of planets in deep space, separating a desert of planets from a more populated savannah.
Researchers from Warwick and other universities examined Neptunian exoplanets – these planets share similar characteristics to our own Neptune, but orbit outside of our solar system.
“Through our simulated impacts, we found that the pure water froze too quickly in a vacuum to effect meaningful change, but salt and water mixtures, or brines, stayed liquid and flowing for a minimum of one hour,” said Dr. Michael J. Poston.
How does extra salty water, also known as briny water, form and evolve on worlds without atmospheres, such as asteroids and moons? This is what a recent study published in The Planetary Science Journal hopes to address as a team of researchers investigated how briny water could still flow for a period of time on the asteroid Vesta after large impacts resulted in the melting of subsurface ice. This study holds the potential to help researchers better understand the geological and chemical processes on planetary bodies without atmospheres and what this could mean for finding life as we know it.
“We wanted to investigate our previously proposed idea that ice underneath the surface of an airless world could be excavated and melted by an impact and then flow along the walls of the impact crater to form distinct surface features,” said Dr. Jennifer Scully, who is a planetary geologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and a co-author on the study.
For the study, the researchers used a JPL test chamber to analyze how liquid samples responded to rapid drops in atmospheric pressure on the asteroid Vesta, thus simulating the conditions of a high-speed impact, which also includes the very brief creation of an atmosphere resulting from that impact. In the end, the researchers made some intriguing findings that could help scientists better understand the geological and chemical processes that occur on planetary bodies without atmospheres.
Thanks for watching Matter!
🔔 Hit the bell next to Subscribe so you never miss a video!
❤️ Like, Comment and Subscribe if you are new to the channel!
Scientists FINALLY FOUND a new way to travel faster than light!
The idea of using “warp drive” technology, which used to be just a fantasy, is now becoming a real scientific topic. This is a big shift in how we think about exploring space. Think about it: right now, space travel is super slow. For example, Voyager one, a spacecraft launched in nineteen seventy-seven, took thirty-five years just to leave our solar system. But if we could travel faster than light, the possibilities for exploration would skyrocket. We could go from being stuck on Earth to becoming explorers of the whole universe. But we have to ask ourselves: are the same laws of physics that hold us back also hiding the secret to breaking free?
This concept could change the game for space travel, showing us that the physicist’s speed limit might not be as final as we thought. If we stop thinking about speed in the traditional way and focus on bending space itself, we might be able to do what once seemed impossible. The potential is mind-blowing. If we could actually make this work, it would transform our relationship with space. Suddenly, interstellar travel wouldn’t be just a dream—it could become a reality. We could visit distant galaxies, study planets far from our solar system, and even start colonies on other worlds.
The Cosmicflows team has been studying the movements of 56,000 galaxies, revealing a potential shift in the scale of our galactic basin of attraction. A team of international researchers guided by astronomers at University of Hawai’i Institute for Astronomy is challenging our understanding of the universe with groundbreaking findings that suggest our cosmic neighborhood may be far larger than previously thought.
A decade ago, the team concluded that our galaxy, the Milky Way, resides within a massive basin of attraction called Laniākea, stretching 500 million light-years across.
However, new data suggests that this understanding may only scratch the surface.
Astronomers from the European University Cyprus and the University of Hawaii have investigated a recently discovered obscured hyperluminous quasar known as COS-87259. Results of the study, published October 14 in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, shed more light on the properties of this quasar.
A plasma jet from galaxy M87 appears to move five times faster than light.
In the world of astronomy, a peculiar and seemingly impossible phenomenon is unfolding in galaxy M87. A beam of plasma, or energy, is shooting out from the galaxy’s core and appears to travel at five times the speed of light, as observed by the Hubble Space Telescope. Though this illusion has been known since 1995, it continues to challenge our understanding of the universe’s laws, particularly the cosmic speed limit that states nothing can move faster than light.
Since the first sighting of the first-discovered and largest asteroid in our solar system was made in 1801 by Giuseppe Piazzi, astronomers and planetary scientists have pondered the make-up of this asteroid/dwarf planet. Its heavily battered and dimpled surface is covered in impact craters. Scientists have long argued that visible craters on the surface meant that Ceres could not be very icy.
Researchers at Purdue University and the NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) now believe Ceres is a very icy object that possibly was once a muddy ocean world. This discovery that Ceres has a dirty ice crust is led by Ian Pamerleau, Ph.D. student, and Mike Sori, assistant professor in Purdue’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences who published their findings in Nature Astronomy. The duo along with Jennifer Scully, research scientist with JPL, used computer simulations of how craters on Ceres deform over billions of years.
“We think that there’s lots of water-ice near Ceres surface, and that it gets gradually less icy as you go deeper and deeper,” Sori said. “People used to think that if Ceres was very icy, the craters would deform quickly over time, like glaciers flowing on Earth, or like gooey flowing honey. However, we’ve shown through our simulations that ice can be much stronger in conditions on Ceres than previously predicted if you mix in just a little bit of solid rock.”
The X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV) has been shrouded in mystery since its maiden flight in 2011.
Designed by Boeing and operated by the US Space Force (USSF), this remotely operated, reusable space plane is designed to operate in Low-Earth Orbit (LEO), 240 to 800 kilometers (150 to 500 miles) above the Earth, and test reusable vehicle technologies that support long-term space objectives.
On December 29th, 2023, the X-37B began its seventh mission (OTV-7) and has reportedly been conducting experiments on the effects of space radiation and testing Space Domain Awareness (SDA) technologies.