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Most Powerful Space Telescope Ever Will Be Launched In 2018

April 22, 2015 By John Birks Leave a Comment

NASA and its international colleagues are constructing an even more powerful tool than the Hubble telescope, whose 25th anniversary is this week, in order to see deeper into the universe.

The James Webb Space Telescope will be 100 times more powerful than Hubble, and its mission will launch in 2018. Its purpose is to offer astronomers an unprecedented look at the first galaxies that came to be in the early universe.

“JWST will be able to see back to about 200 million years after the Big Bang. The telescope is a powerful time machine with infrared vision that will peek back over 13.5 billion years to see the first stars and galaxies forming out of the darkness,” NASA said on its website.

The project has meant huge costs, now at around $8.8bn, far higher than the first estimate of $3.5bn. NASA has promised to limit the expenses with its next-generation telescope before the October 2018 launch.

“We will be able, with these capabilities, to look in very dark parts of the universe where stars are being born,” said Webb telescope observatory project scientist Mark Clampin.

The James Webb Space Telescope is a joint project of NASA, the Canadian and European space agencies. It will carry four instruments, like spectrometers and high-tech cameras which can capture extremely weak signals.

Infra-red will aid it observe distant celestial structures, and its camera has the ability to remain open for long periods, said Matt Greenhouse, JWST project scientist for the science instruments.

The new telescope should contribute to the search for life in the universe by analyzing planets outside the solar system, called exoplanets, that could have water and be at a suitable distance to prevent boiling or freezing.

Kepler Space telescope, launched by NASA in 2009, has aided astronomers to discover thousands of exoplanets. JWST is expected to extend that research even further.

“Webb is quite big enough to have a high probability of finding bio signatures in the atmosphere of exoplanets, evidence of life,” Greenhouse explained, adding that the equipment on board will examine the exoplanets and their atmosphere.

Unlike the Hubble Space Telescope, which is orbiting the Earth, the JWST head to a place named LaGrange point 2, which is 1.5 million kilometers away in space.

That distance will help to keep the telescope cold, and also prevent it from being blinded by its own infra-red light and protect it from radiation.

“It will follow the Earth around the Sun over the course of the year. So it’s in a Sun center orbit instead of an Earth center orbit,” added Greenhouse.

The revolutionary telescope will be launched on board of Ariane 5 rocket, made by the European Space Agency, from French Guiana in October 2018.

Image Source: Twitter

What Is The ”Supervoid”, The Biggest Thing in The Universe

April 21, 2015 By Matthew Slotkin Leave a Comment

Scientists discovered the most enigmatic components of modern cosmology, the the cosmic microwave background (CMB) Cold Spot, which lies at the furthest-most reaches of the observable universe.

Found in 2004, this strange space object has been the focus of many hypotheses and theories. Some believe it might be the presence of another universe. Others think it is an instrumental error. In a recent study, astronomers may have discovered strong evidence about the origin of the Cold Spot’s and, according to the the new theory, the multiverse hypothesis is not required.

When the Cold Spot was first discovered by NASA’s Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), scientists rapidly realized that the feature is the greatest structure ever observed in the cosmos. But with just one space telescope taking all the measurements, a fear that something like instrumental error could be responsible.

The European Planck telescope, which was also launched to analyze slight temperature changes in the CMB, also observed the Cold Spot. Despite some beliefs that the space object could be an error which comes up because our statistical analysis methods are flawed, the general hypothesis is that the Cold Spot is real.

One of the most extreme hypotheses that gives an explanation for the Cold Spot is focused around the multiverse. Derived from superstring theory, the multiverse suggests that our universe is just one of a number universes in a soup of universes. The Cold Spot could be one of the neighboring universes which squeezing up against our own.

the multiverse theory is one of the more extreme cosmological thoughts, but there are also other explanations for the Cold Spot. One such idea that now appears to have gained popularity is that of the presence of a “supervoid” in the universe between us and the Cold Spot.

This supervoid is immense, being almost 1.8 billion light-years wide. This vast supervoid is the largest structure ever discovered by humanity.

István Szapudi of the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and his team have found, through the combination of data collected by Hawaii’s Pan-STARRS1 (PS1) telescope from Haleakala, Maui, and NASA’s Wide Field Survey Explorer (WISE) satellite, “the largest individual structure ever identified by humanity”. According to the researchers, this structure might be behind the creation of the anomalous Cold Spot.

Image Source: NBC News

NASA Wants To Lead The Mission To Mars

April 20, 2015 By Matthew Slotkin Leave a Comment

NASA and other private space companies like Mars One and SapceX are going to send the first to Mars, the Red Planet.

NASA recently announced the human’s journey to Mars would not be possible without the agency’s contribution.

Charles Bolden, the administrator of NASA, explained during the session with the U.S. House Committee on Science on Thursday, that the space agency is expected to send the first humans on Mars in 2030, and any other private company will not be able to do the same thing before them.

Bolden mentioned, “No commercial company without the support of NASA and government is going to get to Mars.”

NASA has send a rover which is still exploring the Red Planet’s surface and a few spacecrafts which are orbiting Mars, and this knowledge and experience will be of major help in their task of sending humans to the planet.

The gained data of Mars showed that the Red Planet may have been home to more forms of life in the past.

Bolden said before sending a manned mission it is crucial to understand the most detailed aspects of the Red Planet. He also added that NASA researchers have to find out if what happened to Mars could also happen to Earth.

Mars is believed to dispose of large water bodies, even oceans, just like Earth, but the planet lost all the liquid water as the planet slowed the generation of its magnetic field.

Mars One aims at sending humans on Mars and also to set the basis for a human colony on the Red Planet The company announced that they will make possible for humans to go to Mars in 2020s and then start up a human colony by 2027.

A space trip from Earth to Mars would take around 500 days. NASA has sent its astronauts to International Space Station for long periods, such as 12 months, in order to better understand the suitability of sending humans to Mars.

NASA, which is a government agency, announced it has the technology,information, finance, and support from the United States. Private companies would need the help of the agency for sending humans to Mars, the NASA scientists firmly believe.

For an entire month, starting April 29, NASA will organize a challenge for design ideas to keep astronauts safe during deep space missions. More than $30,000 will be given to design projects selected by NASA.

Image Source: Space

NASA Is Planning To Divert An Asteroid In 2022

April 3, 2015 By John Birks Leave a Comment

NASA and the European Space Agency are setting up a project that could save humanity from potential dangerous meteors and asteroids headed for Earth.

The two space agencies have teamed up to clear some of the near Earth objects, by starting a new asteroid targeting mission.

The European Space Agency announced it started the preliminary design work for the Asteroid Impact Mission. According to the scientists, the new project will be a great opportunity to test new technologies which could be then used for future deep space missions, but also for planetary defense methods.

ESA will carry out a mission to Didymos, a deep space binary asteroid system. The mission will focus on the asteroid moon named Didymoon, which is expected to pass-by Earth at a non-risk distance of 11 million kilometers in the year 2022.

The European Space Agency will analyze the asteroid using high resolution photographs and mappings, but will also carry out radar and thermal mapping of Didymoon. After all the research is complete, the space agency will send a lander on the asteroid.

ESA said that its Asteroid Impact Mission will focus on gathering scientific bounty and increasing information which will provide valuable observations and data about the formation of the solar system. This extraordinary mission will also set up humanity for future dangerous asteroids that might head directly to Earth.

NASA will also send a Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) in 2022, along with AIM: This means that the American scientists will deploy a probe that will crash into the surface of Didymoon.

Ian Carnelli, mission manager of ESA, explained that the results of the two missions will give the laboratory impact models to be further used on a larger scale to deeply understand the reactions that are taking place on a real asteroid when it is exposed to this type of energy.

Through the DART mission, NASA also aims to shift Didymoon’s orbit. If successful, it will be the time that any human activity has ever changed the dynamics and trajectory of a solar system object.

NASA’s DART and ESA’s AIM projects will be useful lessons for asteroid defense strategies in the future. The scientists want to achieve insights about what type of force and energy is required in order to change the paths of asteroids, especially of those space objects that are headed for Earth and could destroy life as we know it.

Image Source: Fox News

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