Space News for August 31, 2018: New Horizons Sees its Next Target!

Universe Today
Aug 31, 2018 · 7 min read

New Horizons Sees Ultima Thule for the First Time!

You know how you can’t wait for a holiday to arrive? Absolutely nothing in space exploration has me more excited than the upcoming flyby of New Horizons with its next target in the Kuiper Belt: Ultima Thule. This is a 30-km wide icy object and… that’s all we know about it. It was specifically discovered as part of a survey by the Hubble Space Telescope to find additional targets for New Horizons.

The actual flyby is going to happen on January 1, 2019, so we’re just over 4 months away from seeing this world up close. But NASA’s New Horizons has already taken its first picture. Sure, it’s just a tiny blob on the side of a star, but over the next 4 months we’re going to see this get bigger and bigger until New Horizons flies past at just a few thousand kilometers away.

We’re working on a video all about New Horizons, and what possible return missions could happen to Pluto, so stay tuned…

Thanks!

Fraser Cain
Publisher
Universe Today

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How Are We Searching For Dark Matter? And How Do We Even Know It’s Real?

Whenever I mention dark matter in anyway in the Guide to Space, or in a questions show, I get a bunch of responses that have essentially the same point. Astronomers are just speculating, why do they even think dark matter is a thing?

In this video I want to do two things. First, I’m going to spend some time explaining how astronomers realized that dark matter is something real. In fact, the evidence is overwhelming, and I’m going to get into it. And then I’m going to talk about the fascinating work going on around the world to search for dark matter. What are the individual experiments, observatories and projects which are trying to chip away at this mystery.

Missed some of our other videos? We did a live QA on Monday, with questions from the fans including “When will Betelgeuse explode?” and is there anywhere else in the Universe that’s perfectly habitable for us here on Earth?

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Dramatic Map of Particles in the World’s Atmosphere

I’m a huge fan of the scientific visualizations that NASA makes, and this one is no exception. It’s a worldwide map of aerosols in the atmosphere. Any tiny particle kicked up into the air. In North America and Africa, you can see raging forest fires. Dust storms in the Northern Africa and South Asia. Even particles of salt kicked up by storms in the oceans. Stunning.

Did Scientists Actually Spot Evidence Of Another Universe?

Did you hear the news that astronomers have discovered evidence of another Universe peaking through the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation? Were you skeptical? That’s probably best. Jesse Shanahan explains what was actually detected and what the researchers think this could be. And she also explains why most of the astrophysics community largely ignored the paper.

How Will the Universe End? New Video from PBS Space Time

Oh the Universe. You’re living in it right now. It formed 13.8 billion years ago, and it’s going to last forever? Maybe? Maybe not. Here’s a great new video from PBS Space Time answering that age old question: How Will the Universe End? With a bang? Whimper? Something in between? You’ll have to watch.

There are so Many Water-Worlds Out There

As astronomers search the Universe for other habitable worlds, they’ve been looking for places like our own Earth. Rocky worlds in the habitable zone of their stars. But new research from a group of German astronomers is predicting that we might have it wrong; water worlds could be the most common kinds of planets out there, some with 50% water compared to just 0.2% like Earth. Go ahead and make the Kevin Costner jokes, I know you’re thinking them.

Every Part of my Next Sentence is Awesome. Canadian Scientists are Using Lasers to Cool Down Antimatter

Antimatter is tricky stuff. The moment it touches regular matter, it annihilates with a blast of radiation. And yet there are so many open questions, like, why was there more matter than antimatter in the Universe? And, how does it interact with gravity? A team of Canadian scientists are trying to answer this question by using lasers to cool down atoms of antihydrogen to make it easier to work with.

Another Juno Flyby, Another Amazing Sequence of Images of Jupiter

Juno continues to make its regular flybys of Jupiter. Its latest series of images was taken on July 15/16, when the spacecraft came within 6,200 kilometers of the planet. The raw images from this flyby were tweaked and tuned by Gerald Eichstädt and Seán Doran to produce this stunning series of photos.

This is a 3D map of 400,000 Hot Massive Stars Located Within 10,000 Light-Years From the Sun, Thanks to Gaia!

The European Space Agency’s Gaia mission launched back in 2013, and it’s been carefully mapping out stars in the Milky Way ever since. Eventually it should know where about 1% of the galaxy is, and how it’s moving. Astronomers created this map of about 400,000 massive hot stars surrounding the Sun.

The Universe Is Disappearing, And There’s Nothing We Can Do To Stop It

You probably know that the Universe is expanding. Not only that, but dark energy is accelerating that expansion. Because of this, the vast majority of the Universe will eventually be moving away from us so quickly that we’ll never be able to catch up with it. Distant galaxies and galaxy clusters will be gone forever, and we’ll be stuck in our local cluster. Ethan Siegel lays out our sad future.

Construction on the Orion Capsule is Done. Next it’ll be Sent to Florida for Final Assembly

The future of NASA’s deep space exploration depends on the new Orion Crew Capsule, which will carry three astronauts beyond low Earth orbit. We just learned that Lockheed Martin has wrapped up construction of the Orion Capsule, and now it’s going to be sent out to Florida for integration into the large Space Launch System rocket. Exciting steps forward.

Are We Witnessing the Start of Solar Cycle 25?

Last week’s powerful solar storm reminded us that the Sun is still an unpredictable star. We’re currently in the solar minimum, a time of lower activity on the Sun. But does this new solar storm indicate that we’re transitioning into the beginning of Solar Cycle 25? Will we start seeing more activity on the Sun as the days go on?

Other Interesting Space Stuff

Amazing Astrophotography on @universetoday

Look at this stunning photograph by @victor_alvarado_photos. It was taken from a mountain in Costa Rica called Cerro de La Muerte. You can see a raging thunderstorm down on the horizon, but a perfectly clear Milky Way rising above.

We have featured nearly 1,000 astrophotographers on our Instagram page, which has more than 134,000 followers. Want to do a takeover? Use the hashtag #universetoday and I’ll check out your photos.

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