Category Astronomy/Space

NASA’s Roman Mission Gets Cosmic ‘Sneak Peek’ From Supercomputers

This graphic highlights part of a new simulation of what NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope could see when it launches by May 2027. The background spans about 0.11 square degrees (roughly equivalent to half of the area of sky covered by a full Moon), representing less than half the area Roman will see in a single snapshot. The inset zooms in to a region 300 times smaller, showcasing a swath of brilliant synthetic galaxies at Roman’s full resolution. Having such a realistic simulation helps scientists study the physics behind cosmic images –– both synthetic ones like these and future real ones. Researchers will use the observations for many types of science, including testing our understanding of the origin, evolution, and ultimate fate of the universe.
C. Hirata and K...
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Webb Telescope reveals Asteroid Collision in Neighboring Star System

Beta Pictoris
Two different space telescopes took snapshots 20 years apart of the same area around the star called Beta Pictoris. Scientists theorize that the massive amount of dust seen in the 2004–05 image from the Spitzer Space Telescope indicates a collision of asteroids that had largely cleared by the time the James Webb Space Telescope captured its images in 2023.
IMAGE CREDIT: ROBERTO MOLAR CANDANOSA/JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY, WITH BETA PICTORIS CONCEPT ART BY LYNETTE COOK/NASA

Astronomers have captured what appears to be a snapshot of a massive collision of giant asteroids in Beta Pictoris, a neighboring star system known for its early age and tumultuous planet-forming activity.

The observations spotlight the volatile processes that shape star systems like our own, offering a unique glim...

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New Method could Allow Multi-Robot Teams to Autonomously and Reliably Explore other Planets

A method that could allow multi-robot teams to autonomously and reliably explore other planets
The rocker bogie runt rover has been selected as it has a small form factor and utilises off the shelf components. Credit: Sarah Swinton

While roboticists have developed increasingly sophisticated systems over the past decades, ensuring that these systems can autonomously operate in real-world settings without mishaps often proves challenging. This is particularly difficult when these robots are designed to be deployed in complex environments, including space and other planets.

Researchers at the University of Glasgow recently developed a new methodology that could allow teams of multiple rovers to autonomously and reliably explore other planets...

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Researcher Suggests that Gravity can exist Without Mass, Mitigating the need for hypothetical Dark Matter

gravity
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Dark matter is a hypothetical form of matter that is implied by gravitational effects that can’t be explained by general relativity unless more matter is present in the universe than can be seen. It remains virtually as mysterious as it was nearly a century ago when first suggested by Dutch astronomer Jan Oort in 1932 to explain the so-called “missing mass” necessary for things like galaxies to clump together.

Now Dr. Richard Lieu at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) has published a paper in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society that shows, for the first time, how gravity can exist without mass, providing an alternative theory that could potentially mitigate the need for dark matter.

“My own inspiration came from my pursuit fo...

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