Astronomy
NASA’s Hubble finds water in space!
If this turns out to be true, if NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope truly managed to find water in space, on another planet but Earth, then it has just made history. The scientists have been searching for water in space and on other planets since the first shy attempts in space and despite the fact that Ganymede is technically not a planet, but a celestial body caught in the immensely powerful magnetic field of Jupiter, it is still groundbreaking information.
Thus far, the information sent back to Earth by Hubble is the best evidence regarding water existing on other alien worlds in our solar system. According to it, Ganymede may not have just a sea, but an entire subterranean ocean, one that is larger than all Earth’s oceans combined. And, as we all know, if water exists somewhere, then life should not be very far from it.
John Grunsfeld, one of the scientists monitoring and receiving all the information Hubble is sending to Earth said that „this discovery marks a significant milestone, highlighting what only Hubble can accomplish. In its 25 years in orbit, Hubble has made many scientific discoveries in our solar system. A deep ocean under the icy crust of Ganymede opens up further exciting possibilities for life beyond Earth.”
Now, you are probably asking yourself what is so special about Ganymede? Hell, most people haven’t even heard of it until now and considering the fact that it is not a planet, this is understandable. But why is there the possibillity for this moon to have an entire ocean on its surface, while other planets such as Mars don’t?
Let’s jot down a few known facts about Ganymede:
- Ganymede is the largest moon in our entire solar system.
- It has its own magnetic field, despite being embedded into Jupiter’s magnetic field. With the size of Jupiter, what body wouldn’t?
- This magnetic field surrounding the body causes aurorae, which as we know, are ribbons of hot electrified gas that glows and that appear primarily in the South and North Pole of the moon.
- When Jupiter’s magnetic field changes, the aurorae on Ganymede tends to “rock”, providing spectacular views, much like it happens on Earth when the northern lights appear on the sky in the Scandinavian region.
This “rocking” of the aurorea has given the scientists the idea that there may be some saltwater on the moon and with Hubble’s recent discoveries, the possibility has never been higher. The idea is that Ganymede’s aurorea wouldn’t “rock” as it does if it wouldn’t have a huge amount of saltwater beneath the crust, which will affect its magnetic field. Jupiter’s magnetic field, no matter how powerful, is simply not enough to cause this “rocking” effect.
Joachim Saur is one of the most important names that you have to remember. He and his team from Cologne, Germany, brainstormed how to look inside other planets and check whether they have water underneath their surface. Then, one of the members came up with the idea of using Hubble’s telescope and watch the aurorae that they already knew formed at the two Poles and see whether it changes. As explained above, if the aurorae shifts or “rocks”, then something affects the magnetic field, which in this case may be saltwater.
Based on the information sent by the Hubble Space Telescope, in order to create such a powerful magnetic field the ocean has to be at least 60 miles (100 km) deep, which is much deeper than any ocean on Earth. The scientists also suspect it is buried underneath a heavy crust of ice.
This is not the first time scientists have tried to find water in space and particularly, on Ganymede. Back in the 1970s, the first suspicions began to appear, while in 2002 NASA’s Galileo mission began measuring the magnetic field that surrounds the moon. Since this was the first attempt at measuring a magnetic field in space, the space images sent by Galileo to Earth did not reveal that much. It would take years before concrete proof would arrive to Earth.
Now, since this truly is groundbreaking information, maybe it’s time to start preparing messages and a welcoming scenario for the aliens that may hide on Ganymede. What do you think? Let us know in the comments below!
Astronomy
Witness the rare celestial event of Mars and Jupiter reaching their closest proximity in the sky this week, a phenomenon that will not occur again until 2033.
Mars and Jupiter will be only 0.3 degrees apart in the sky on August 14. From our point of view, this passage is very close. If you miss it, you won’t be able to see another one until 2033.
When two objects pass each other in the sky from our point of view, this is called a conjunction. Every time two planets came together, the closer one would block out the other because they would all be moving in a perfectly flat plane. The orbits of the planets are slightly different from those of the other planets, though, so they move slightly to the north and south of each other. Every time, that gap is a different size.
When two things happen close together, the results are especially stunning. Jupiter and Saturn were close enough to each other in 2020 that they could be seen in the same field of view through a telescope. This is a treat for people who like to observe the sky.
Being 0.5 degrees wide, the full moon will fit in any view that can hold the whole moon. This pair will also look good before and after the full moon.
But even with the naked eye, a close conjunction can make the sky look even more amazing. The contrast between the red of Mars and the white of Jupiter will be especially striking. However, Mars’ brightness changes a lot. When it’s at its brightest, it’s about the same brightness as Jupiter. Right now, it’s 16 times less bright. They are so bright that, unless there are clouds, you should be able to see them from all but the dirtiest cities.
Most people in the world will miss this sight, though, because they can’t see the pair of planets in the evening from anywhere on Earth. The exact time they rise depends on where you live, but it’s usually between midnight and 3 am. To see this, you will mostly need to get up before astronomical twilight starts so that you have time to get through the thickest part of the atmosphere.
For people in Europe, Africa, west Asia, and the Americas, the closest time will be 14:53 UTC, which is during the day. The mornings before and after, though, will look almost as close.
Mars and Jupiter meet about every two and a half years, but the most recent one was almost twice as far away and could only be seen in the morning. In 2029, the gaps will be just under two degrees. The next one will be even wider, at more than a degree.
When planets are close to each other, that doesn’t always mean that their distance from each other is very small. Mars has been around the Sun for 687 days, but it is now less than 100 days past its perihelion, which means it is closer than usual. Even though Jupiter is a little closer than usual, it’s not really that close. To be as close as possible to each other, Mars has to be at its farthest point, and Jupiter has to be at its closest point. So this one is not unusual.
But if you want to see something beautiful, you will have to wait more than nine years to see it again.
To figure out if there is life in other parts of the universe, we start with Earth, where there is life now. Finding another Earth is a good way to find aliens. We have found more than 5,000 exoplanets, but we haven’t found Earth’s twin yet. This could change soon, though. Here comes the PLATO mission from the European Space Agency (ESA).
What does PLATO stand for? It stands for PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars. Its goal is very clear. It will look for nearby stars like the Sun that might have habitable worlds like Earth.
“One of the main goals is to find a way to compare Earth and the Sun.” The size of Earth is in the habitable zone of a star like the Sun. “We want to find it around a star that’s bright enough that we can really figure out how heavy it is and how big it is,” Dr. David Brown from the University of Warwick told IFLScience. “If you like, that’s our main goal.”
The telescope is not only an observatory for looking for planets, but it is also an observatory for collecting data on a huge number of stars. The mission team thinks that the fact that it can do both is a key part of why this telescope will be so important.
“You have two parts of the mission.” One is exoplanets, and the other is the stars. “From a scientific point of view, I think it’s pretty cool that these two parts are working together to make the best science we can,” Dr. Brown said.
One of the secondary goals is to make a list of all the planets that are Earth-like and all the star systems that are out there. One more goal is to find other solar systems that are like ours. Even though we don’t know for sure if our little part of the universe is truly unique, it does seem to be different from everything else.
Dr. Brown told IFLScience, “We have a bunch of other scientific goals.” “Really, how well do we know how planetary systems change and grow over time?” Planetary systems are something we’re trying to understand as a whole, not just one planet at a time.
PLATO is different in more ways than just the goals. It is not just one telescope. In fact, it’s made up of 26 different ones. Two of the cameras are fast, and the other 24 are normal cameras set up in groups of six with a small gap between them. This makes the telescope work better, has a wider field of view, and lets you quickly rule out false positives.
It can be hard to tell which of the things you find when you transit exoplanets are real and which ones are not. With the help of several telescopes, we were able to block out some of the mimics that we would have seen otherwise. “Plus, it looks pretty cool,” Dr. Brown said with excitement. “This big square with all of these telescopes pointing at you looks really cool!”
This week, Dr. Brown gave an update on PLATO at the National Astronomy Meeting at the University of Hull. The telescope is being put together and has recently passed important tests. There are no changes to the planned launch date for December 2026. An Ariane 6 rocket, the same kind that made its first launch last week, will take off from French Guiana.
Gravitational waves can be turned into sound very easily. The little chirp changes into little sounds as soon as the blocks hit each other. One of those chirps is my ringtone when my phone has sound, which doesn’t happen very often. The people at Audio Universe have now made the gravitational wave data even better.
In a 3D video, the sounds of gravitational waves hit you from the direction in the sky where it is thought they came from. The sound effects and visualization are both great. There are tiny vibrations in space-time that can hit you as you move your mouse, phone, or VR headset.
Like other sonification projects, it gives blind and visually impaired people a way to get involved in astronomy. It works well with other methods like the Tactile Universe. But that’s not the only reason why they do it.
“We want to do this for three reasons.” It helps researchers look into big, complicated datasets with lots of dimensions. It could be used to make educational materials that are immersive and interesting. Rose Shepherd from Newcastle University says, “It can also make astronomy easier for more people to understand, which is an important thing.” “Making things easier to get makes them better for everyone.”
Being able to listen to the emission lines of celestial objects is one of the most interesting things about sonification for research. As an object moves, its light spectrum peaks spread out, and sonification can make something that is barely noticeable to the eye seem very clear to the ear.
This is helpful in more than one field, though. The group has thought about how adding sound to different datasets could make them better. Warming Stripes is a cool example of this. This is a simple image that shows changes in temperature over time by using a series of stripes, from blue to red. The stripes on the right side get redder as we move from the left to the right. The left side shows decades ago. It is great to see how the climate crisis is getting worse, and now sound adds a little more to it.
“By adding sounds, it can give your data an emotional meaning.” Shepherd explained, “You can use that to show the data how you feel.” “We didn’t mean for the Warming Stripes sonification to make people feel stressed, but it was interesting to see how they reacted instead of just watching the video.”
Audio Universe is making a sonic toolkit that many people can use to make their own resources.
She gave a talk about the audio universe at the National Astronomy Meeting at the University of Hull this week.
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