Upcoming Mission: Dragonfly

Posted on April 7, 2024 by Adriana Santos
Artist’s rendition of what the surface of Titan could look like from: Smithsonian Magazine

Since our class is coming to a close, I have been curious about future astronomical missions. What will the students who take ASTR 2110 learn that we do not have access to yet?

One of NASA’s upcoming missions in partnership with Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, is called Dragonfly and it will be observing the surface of Saturn’s moon Titan! Expected to launch in 2028, Dragonfly will journey to Titan and go down through its calm atmosphere to observe the ocean world! This will provide insight as to the kinds of chemical interactions that might have occurred before Earth was inhabitable.

We already have some knowledge of Titan from Voyager II, the Hubble Space Telescope, and the Cassini spacecraft. Cassini taught us about the surface of Titan including lakes, rivers, liquid ethane and methane seas, and sand dunes. It even showed that Titan might have some sort of rain.

Dragonfly is going to sample materials from these different terrains on Titan’s surface to determine if there is or could be habitability on the moon. While in flight Dragonfly will determine more about the contents of Titan’s atmosphere and provide us with images of the surface.

It makes sense why NASA would want to launch a mission like this; it will tell us about a world somewhat similar to ours, one with an ocean. We have been wondering why some planets do not have water and just how much liquid water is important to sustaining life. The Dragonfly mission will give us insight into the conditions needed to sustain life through the presence of liquid water. Dragonfly will no doubt prove to be super helpful to make sense of our own planet.

So what do you think about the Dragonfly mission? Will the results of this in 5 years from now change what we learn about the Giant Planet Moons? I think that the students in ASTR 2110 in the year 2030 are in for some great treats after these missions. It really shows just how fascinating space exploration is, we are always learning more and enhancing our education!

To learn even more about the mission and watch some explainer videos, visit the Dragonfly website here!

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The Kuiper Belt

Posted on April 7, 2024 by Ethan Jones
Kuiper Belt NASA

The Kuiper Belt was foreign to me before this class. I had never heard of it and because of that it stuck out to me. The basics of the Kuiper Belt is that it is the large region beyond Neptune. It stretches from about 30au-50au from the Sun. So far NASA says that only 2000 objects have been categorized. Which is astonishingly small for how big it is, but they estimate that there are hundreds of thousands of objects in it. Another interesting fact about the Kuiper Belt is that many of its objects have moons. This of course includes Pluto but other objects in it also have moons. The Kuiper Belt remains one of the most interesting but understudied parts of our solar system. I encourage everyone to look it up at some point and see if it interests you as well.

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The Differences Between our Jovian Planets – Blog #6 – Cameron Klein

Posted on April 7, 2024 by Cameron Klein
What are the Jovian Planets?

As I read through section 11.1 in our textbook, I realized that I did not comprehend as much as I would have liked about the differences between our Jovian planets. Therefore, I feel as though doing more research about them and writing this blog post will serve as an amazing study tool! This blog post is all about the composition and atmospheric differences between the Jovian planets in our solar system!

We know that all of the Jovian planets have rapid rotation rates, and we measure them by tracking releases from particles in their magnetic fields. Astronomers have discovered something interesting about the rotation rates of these Jovian planets: they vary based on their latitudes! The equatorial regions of Jovian planets rotate faster than the rest of the planet. However, this extremely fast rotation on Jovian planets causes equatorial bulges. The sizes of these equatorial bulges depend on the balance between the inward pull of gravity and the outward push of rotation. This equatorial bulge helps to keep orbiting objects (including moons and rings ) in line with the planet’s equator!

Now that we have covered the most basic differences, we can move on to the differences between the two planets’ compositions! As we learned during class, Jupiter and Saturn are considered gas giants, while Uranus and Neptune are considered ice giants. Therefore, it makes sense that Jupiter and Saturn are composed of mainly hydrogen and helium, while Uranus and Neptune are made of mostly hydrogen compounds, water, methane, and ammonia. As a matter of fact, Jupiter has such vast amounts of hydrogen and helium that it is called a “failed star.” If Jupiter’s gravity were stronger to heat its interior and create extreme levels of density, it would have the potential to generate nuclear fusion! Jupiter has reached the largest possible radius that it can, and thus, whenever any mass is added to it, the mass would not add to its radius, but the planet would just compress and become more dense.

When looking inside the interiors of Jovian planets, you will find rocky cores and ices.  Jupiter’s interior layers are extremely interesting and differ from each other in the phase of their hydrogen. Additionally, unlike other Jovian planets, Jupiter’s temperature increases with depth! It has three levels of hydrogen: gaseous hydrogen, liquid hydrogen, and metallic hydrogen. Saturn has a similar interior to Jupiter, but its layers of gaseous and liquid hydrogen are thicker, while its metallic hydrogen is thicker. Uranus and Neptune never have high enough pressures to form liquid or metallic hydrogen, so they only have a gaseous layer of hydrogen.

This was just a glimpse into the differences between all of the Jovian planets, and there is still so much more to learn! With our test coming up, I hope that this taught you some new information and encouraged you to delve more into the topic for your own enjoyment 🙂

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Comets – Blog Post #5 – Cameron Klein

Posted on April 7, 2024 by Cameron Klein
Comet to Approach Earth for First Time since Neanderthals Lived

After learning briefly about asteroids and comets during previous units, I became intrigued by them. I had known a little bit about comets and where they are located within our solar system, but as I was reading about this in our textbook, I realized just how much more there was to learn. Comets are extremely interesting aspects of our solar system above, and in order to gain a complete understanding of the interworking of our universe, understanding the properties of comets is a great place to start.

To begin discussing comets in our solar system, it is beneficial to state the fundamental definition of a comet: a chunk of ice combined with rocky dust and other chemicals. To determine what the majority of comets are composed of, we turn to spectra (which we have discussed in previous units). From analyzing the spectra of various comets, astronomers have concluded that most comets contain hydrogen compounds, water, carbon dioxide, and carbon monoxide. However, these components on comets that make up their ice-rich properties do not necessarily stay in ice form for long…

When the comets are far away from the Sun, they are frozen. Due to the fact that they are not being heated by the Sun’s rays, they are frozen until they move any closer. In this frozen state, the center of the comets is called the nucleus. However, because comets are orbiting the Sun, the closer that they get to the Sun, the faster they go, and as this happens, their temperature increases. As their temperature increases, the ice vaporizes into gas! This gas takes dust particles out of the nucleus and helps to create the comet’s coma. As this coma grows, the comet forms a tail. These tails face away from the Sun for the majority of the time, and they come in two different forms: plasma tails and dust tails.

Plasma tails are made up of ionized gasses (ionized by UV light), and dust tails are dust-size particles that are not affected by the solar wind and are pushed outward by sunlight! During this process, comets cannot stay as big as they originally were forever because their ice is melting. Therefore, it makes logical sense that comets lose .1% of ice every time they pass around the Sun. Additionally, as a comet passes the Sun, the dust particles that are too heavy land on the comet’s surface — darkening it, blocking the outflow of gas, and preventing its tail from growing. 

Now that we know a lot about these comets, only one more question remains: where do they come from? Astronomers trace the orbits of comets backward to find out where they originate from, and they determine that most comets must come from the Oort Cloud! The Oort Cloud is thought to have around one trillion comets. Some comets also come from the Kuiper Belt, a region with fewer comets. 

This post provided a lot of information about comets, and I hope that you all learned something valuable from it. Knowing about comets is crucial to understanding our solar system as a whole, and I can’t wait to hear your questions about them!

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Our Closest Stellar Neighbor

Posted on April 7, 2024 by sabrinaalperin

If I am going to be honest, my decision to dedicate this blog post to the Alpha Centauri system comes from a TV show that I watched a few years ago. Netflix’s remake of Lost in Space follows a family as they travel across the universe to Alpha Centauri to start a colony there. Captured by the idea of a habitable planet other than Earth, my fascination with exoplanets can be attributed to this show. If you have not yet seen it, I highly recommend giving it a watch!

In the vast expanse of outer space, it is a miracle that we have the technology to discover stars and planets that are trillions of miles away. Located 23.5 trillion miles away, the Alpha Centauri System is the closest star system to our solar system. It is comprised of three stars, two of which are gravitationally locked in a binary system: Alpha Centauri A (Rigil Kentaraus) and Alpha Centauri B (Toliman).Yes, it is confusing: the entire star system is referred to as Alpha Centauri as well as the individual stars. To ease this confusion, I will refer to these stars by the names in the parentheses. Rigil Kentaraus is slightly more massive than our sun and 1.5 times brighter (EarthSky)!

Photo: obtained from Space.com

The real fascination with the Alpha Centauri star system comes from the third star, Alpha Centauri C (Proxima Centauri). Out of all three stars, Proxima Centauri is the closest to Earth at 4.2 light years away. Unlike our Sun which will begin to die in 5 billion years, Proxima Centauri still has another 4 trillion years left. Even more remarkable, three planets have been detected to orbit it. Of these three, Proxima Centauri b is the most fascinating because it lies within Proxima Centauri’s habitable zone. Since Proxima Centauri is a red dwarf star and gives off much less energy than our Sun, its habitable zone spans much closer to the star than ours. Therefore, even though Proxima Centauri b is “at a distance about 5% of the distance between Earth and the sun”, it is sill within the habitable zone (Space.com).

Image: obtained from Space.com

Could life thrive on Proxima Centauri b?

Although the exoplanet is located in a region where liquid water seems possible, the planet itself may seem less hospitable. According to Universe Today, it seems that the chaotic nature of red dwarf stars like Proxima Centauri, coupled with the short distance between it and its exoplanet, Proxima Centauri b, may leave a world that receives 1000 times more solar wind radiation than Earth. Further, even though Alpha Centauri is the closest system to Earth, at speeds of 17,500 mph, it would still take more than 148,000 years to travel there (Space.com). Even if Proxima Centauri b may not be as hospitable as we had initially thought, and that we cannot reach Alpha Centauri with our current technology, studying this system reveals that our planet Earth may not be the only planet with the potential for life!

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SpaceTech – An Emerging Industry

Posted on April 7, 2024 by James Bamshad

The SpaceTech industry is filled with companies attempting to reduce costs and drive innovation in the world of space exploration. In this blog post, I will cover a few leading companies in this space.

  1. True Anomaly
    • True Anomaly is a SpaceTech based out of the United States. They are building a vehicle called Jackal, which is designed to maneuver in any orbit – GEO, MEO, or cislunar. The team at True Anomaly plans their missions extremely carefully with very specific goals. They have recently integrated AI into their vehicle to help it give off alerts.
  2. Rea Space
    • Rea Space is an Italian company in the SpaceTech industry. They make a bionic spacesuit that interacts with muscles, thus, counteracting low gravity effects. They incorporate EMSI sensors to analyze the effect on gravity on the astronauts body. It also stimulates the body to prevent muscle loss and maintain cardiovascular function.
  3. Apex
    • Apex, another US based startup, offers standardized satellite buses. Each of these manufactured buses are created and produced for specific missions, each with their own requirements. The buses range from 100 to 500kg in mass. They are based out of Los Angeles, California, and were founded within the last year and a half!
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Blog 5: Pluto and its Largest Moon

Posted on April 7, 2024 by Charles Knoll

Pluto, situated 40 astronomical units (AU) from the Sun, orbits the Sun every 248 years. Its path stands out due to its highly elliptical shape and inclination relative to the ecliptic plane, distinguishing it from the other planets. Pluto is orbited by five moons, with Charon being the largest and most notable. Charon orbits Pluto at a distance of 20,000 kilometers, which is significantly closer than the Earth-Moon distance of 400,000 kilometers. Furthermore, Charon is relatively large, being one-eighth the mass of Pluto, unlike the Moon, which is only 1/80th the mass of Earth. The creation of Charon, as well as Pluto’s other moons, is thought to have been the result of a giant impact event, similar to the theory of our Moon’s formation. A large comet colliding with Pluto could have released its less dense outer layers, forming a ring of debris surrounding Pluto.  It is hypothesized that this debris re-accreted and formed Charon and Pluto’s other moons. This hypothesis also could explain why Pluto orbits on its side around the Sun. It’s interesting to think about how Pluto and its moons came to be!

Sources: photo

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Discovering Extrasolar Planets

Posted on April 7, 2024 by sabrinaalperin

Have you ever wondered if us humans are alone in the vast expanse of the universe? Do worlds similar to those in our solar system exist? Scientists are currently looking for answers to these questions by studying extrasolar planets, or planets that orbit around other stars. Three main methods allow scientists to analyze these questions by considering how gravitational tugs on stars and changes in brightness indicate the presence of extrasolar planets.

The Astrometric Method

This method uses precise measurements to observe stellar positions. Since the masses of all stars and planets exert gravitational forces, if a star’s stellar position appears to “wobble”, it indicates the presence of an exoplanet. This “wobble” is the result of the exoplanet tugging on the star with the force of its gravity. While this might seem like a great tool, it is extremely difficult in practice: “It requires a degree of precision that has seldom been achieved even with the largest and most advanced telescopes” (The Planetary Society). Therefore, the Astrometric Method is best used to search for relatively massive planets with distant orbits around nearby stars.

Photo: The Planetary Society

The Doppler Method

As its name suggests, the Doppler Method utilizes the Doppler Effect to search for extrasolar planets. The Doppler Effect states that objects moving toward an observer emit blueshifted wavelengths and objects moving away from an observer emit redshifted wavelengths. Therefore, alternating blue and red shifts of a star indicate the presence of an extrasolar planet. Since this method searches for gravitational tugs, it tends to only work for discovering massive planets orbiting close to their star. Further, another drawback to the Doppler Method is that it requires an extremely large telescope in order to measure such small changes in Doppler Shifts.

Photo: MIT News

The Transit Method

Unlike the Astrometric Method and Doppler Method, the Transmit Method does not search for gravitational tugs acting on a star. Instead, this method studies slight changes in a star’s brightness due to orbiting planets. If a planet seems to move across the face of the star, or transit, it block’s a portion of the star’s brightness. Therefore, planet’s with larger diameters will block a larger portion of the star’s brightness. However, the difficulties of the Transit Method arise from the positioning of the orbit with respect to the observer. In order for this method to be successful, the orbital plane of the exoplanet must be head-on with the observer (The Planetary Society). Further, this method works better for planets with shorter orbital periods since the change of the planet’s brightness must be recorded at least three times to be considered valid.

Photo: The Planetary Society

As these three methods demonstrate, the search for extrasolar planets requires studying extremely small changes in stellar orbits and brightness. While an exactly Earth-like Planet may not have been discovered yet, this could simply be due to limitations in current technology. All of these methods have the most success with observing relatively large planets. If you are like me, and the idea of life on another world excites you, keep your hopes up because technological advancements that allow scientists to better study smaller planets may reveal an Earth-like world.

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Exoplanet exploration: 700 light-years away

Posted on April 6, 2024 by Adriana Santos

It might seem strange that we are currently exploring planets that are so far away from us, especially since we cannot travel to them. But, these planets, called exoplanets or extrasolar planets can teach us a lot about star-system formation. We can then take this information and apply it to our own solar system!

An artist’s impression of WASP-39b and its planet from ESAHubble.

One of these planets is WASP-39b discovered in 2011, and is 700 light-years away from us. Scientists found it by observing the dimming of light from its star, indicating something must be blocking that light from reaching us fully. Starting in 2022, WASP-39b was the first exosolar planet to be studied by the Webb telescope. It is a gas giant, with about the same mass as Saturn, but it is much puffier because of its super high temperatures since it is even closer to its star than Mercury is to our Sun! WASP-39b also has a very fast orbital period, moving around its star in just over 4 Earth days. Scientists also found a high water content as vapor in the atmosphere on WASP-39b. After studying further, scientists found carbon dioxide too. WASP-39b is definitely a planet that is unlike what we are used to, making it super exciting to continue to explore.

So now you are probably wondering what this planet could possibly tell us about our own solar system, especially since ours looks nothing like this. But, that is what scientists want to find out! Why does it look nothing like ours? How can such a large planet orbit so close to its star and have such a high water content as well as the presence of CO2? Further research will give insight as to how WASP-39b got to the position it is in today. Could it have been from large impacts? Did it plow down other planets in its path to the star? What do you think is a likely explanation for this phenomenon?

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Blog 5: WHAT MAKES A METAL?

Posted on April 6, 2024 by matthewastro

Jupiter’s magnetosphere is generated thanks to a “metallic” layer of hydrogen around its core that is electrically conductive. Saturn also has “metallic,” electrically conductive hydrogen around its core, which enables it to have a magnetosphere as well. But the quotation marks? The answer is that metallic hydrogen isn’t a metal, in the traditional sense.

A visual rendition of metallic hydrogen. By Robert Couse-Baker on Flickr under the CC BY 2.0 DEED license.

First, it’s not solid. Solid hydrogen does exist, but it is not metallic due to its lower density, which precludes it from conducting electricity. To be metallic, something must be able to conduct electricity, which is the result of electrons being arranged in such a manner that they are able to move around freely. This arrangement is usually referred to as a “sea of electrons,” in which the outermost electrons in a metal are not tightly-bound to any specific atom. As a result, they are free to move around. When electricity is conducted, the charge of a current is carried (or passed along) throughout a material by these freer electrons.

Metallic hydrogen is an extremely dense liquid that is formed from the pressures and temperatures that intensify as one travels deeper into Jupiter’s interior. Hydrogen first exists as a gas in Jupiter’s atmosphere, and then becomes molecular liquid and then finally metallic (liquid) at the lowest depths. Here, its inner atomic structure exists as sea of electrons, making metallic hydrogen highly conductive. This in turn generates a tremendous dynamo effect on Jupiter (and a less tremendous dynamo effect on Saturn, too).

Nevertheless, metallic hydrogen isn’t actually a metal. This is despite its extremely high density, electron arrangements and electrical conductivity. While these properties typify some metals, the only thing that essentially makes a metal a metal, chemically speaking is its grouping (or location) on the periodic table. You may think that this answer is unsatisfying. (It is.) But not everything in life has to be satisfying. After all, if everything were satisfying, nothing would be.

In fact, one of the largest challenges in science thus far has been creating metallic hydrogen. Scientists have attempted to use machines called diamond anvils to simulate the pressure and temperature conditions of inner Saturn and Jupiter, but have yet to agree upon a confirmed observation of metallic hydrogen. Although several scientists have claimed to have observed the metal, the scientific community is still not in agreement that it has actually been created on Earth, despite several published articles (even in journals like Nature) that claim otherwise. Producing a “metal” that is in relative abundance on the apparently lifeless worlds of Saturn and Jupiter is proving to be a herculean task for us humans, even with all of our technology. Who would’ve thought that the very first element one the periodic table, the one that is supposedly the simplest, would give us so many fascinating complications? Probably not Dmitri Mendeleev.

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