Red, purple and green streamers of the aurora borealis dazzled viewers in North America on Friday and were seen much farther south than normal, with people in California, Arizona and Texas reporting they could see it, according to AccuWeather, Inc. Typically, the spectacular display is only visible in northern locales like Alaska, North Dakota, Canada and Iceland.
Science
Universe-Breaking Galaxies, Source of Dark Energy, Mars Anniversary – Universe Today
Perseverance has been on Mars for two years. Are black holes the source of dark energy? Universe-breaking galaxies found. And an early warning system for asteroids.
Mars Anniversary
NASA’s Perseverance Rover is about to begin its third year exploring Mars. NASA released this cool two-year animation of images from the rover’s Front Left Hazard Avoidance Camera to celebrate. During the timelapse, you can see various rocks that Perseverance stopped to study with its robotic arm and sensors. The rover initially landed in Jezero Crater on Feb. 18th, 2020, and has now travelled almost 15 km and taken 18 samples of rocks, regolith, and even the Martian atmosphere.
More about Percy’s 2 years on Mars.
“The Universe Breakers”: Six Galaxies That are Too Big, Too Early
New images from JWST show six galaxies at a time when the Universe was only 3% of its current age, 500-700 million years after the Big Bang. They should be baby galaxies, but they contain 100 times more stellar mass than astronomers were expecting to see soon after the beginning of the Universe. If true, this calls the current thinking of galaxy formation into question or challenges most models of cosmology.
More about the “impossible” galaxies.
A 500-Meter-Long Asteroid Flew Past Earth and Astronomers Were Watching
An asteroid the size of the Empire State Building flew past Earth on Feb. 3rd, coming within 1.8 million km of our planet. For context, that’s about five times the distance between the Earth and the Moon. Astronomers turned the Goldstone Solar System Radar dish on the space rock, mapping its surface. The asteroid, called 2011 AG5, is one of the most elongated objects ever seen, with a length-to-width ratio of 10:3. It’ll have another close flyby in 2040 when it comes within three times the Earth-Moon distance.
More about close asteroid flyby.
Source of Dark Energy
A new paper was released suggesting that there might be a link between dark energy and the growth of supermassive black holes. Researchers speculate that, in fact, black holes can be the source of dark energy. If true (which we yet need to prove) this can be ground-breaking.
To shed more light on the research here’s an in-depth interview with Dr Chris Pearson from STFC RAL Space, who is a co-author of the paper.
More about black holes and dark energy.
New Spacecraft Can See Into the Permanently Shadowed Craters on the Moon
The permanently shadowed craters at the Moon’s south pole are exciting because they contain vast reserves of water ice that future human explorers could use. But studying these craters is difficult because they’re in shadow and have no direct illumination falling inside them. NASA’s new ShadowCam instrument is at the Moon, flying with Korea’s Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter. ShadowCam can see in such low light that it can reveal incredible details in these shadowed craters as if they were lit in sunlight.
ESA’s Early Warning System for Asteroids
ESA is considering their own mission to search for potentially dangerous asteroids. The spacecraft will be called NEOMIR and it will go to the Earth-Sun L1 Lagrange point. This way it will be able to see incoming space rocks that will otherwise be missed because of the Sun blinding the telescopes. NEOMIR will also operate in the infrared, which will make its task even easier.
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A coronal mass ejection, an explosion of magnetic fields and plasma from the sun’s atmosphere, hit Earth early Friday with more force than initially forecast. These events can disrupt Earth’s magnetic field causing auroral displays, as well as disrupting satellites, communication and electric grids.
Read more: A Swedish Resort Lets You See the Northern Lights From Your Room
The US Space Weather Prediction Center had originally expected a G2 level storm Friday on its five-step scale, the event measured in at G4, one of the strongest triggered on Earth since 2017.
The impacts from the coronal mass ejection have trailed off, but energy coming from what scientists call a “coronal hole” will continue at least through Saturday and that could mean the aurora could be seen by viewers across Europe, Asia and North America through Sunday, the UK Met Office said on its website.
There are currently eight sunspot clusters visible on the side of the sun facing Earth, however another coronal mass ejection blasting toward us isn’t forecast, the UK Met Office said.
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An asteroid dubbed “city killer” for its size will pass harmlessly between the moon and the Earth Saturday evening.
The asteroid 2023 DZ2 will pass at a distance of over 100,000 miles, less than half the distance between the Earth and the moon. It’s about 160 feet long — about the size of an airliner. An asteroid that size could cause significant damage if it hit a populated area, hence its nickname.
“While close approaches are a regular occurrence, one by an asteroid of this size (140-310 ft) happens only about once per decade, providing a unique opportunity for science,” NASA Asteroid Watch tweeted.
Astronomers from the International Asteroid Warning Network, established about 10 years ago to coordinate international responses to potential near-Earth object impact threats, will be monitoring and learning from this asteroid.
NASA Asteroid Watch called the opportunity “good practice” in case “a potential asteroid threat were ever discovered.”
Near-Earth objects are asteroids or comets that pass close to the Earth’s orbit, and they generally come from objects that are affected by other planets’ gravity, moving them into orbits that push them close to Earth, according to the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs.
The European Space Agency maintains a risk list of 1,460 objects, which catalogs every object with a non-zero chance of hitting Earth over the next 100 years. Asteroid 2023 DZ2, which is in orbit around the sun, is not on the risk list.
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On Saturday, the 2023DZ2 will come within a third of the distance from the Earth to the Moon.
A large asteroid will safely zoom between Earth and the Moon on Saturday, a once-in-a-decade event that will be used as a training exercise for planetary defence efforts, according to the European Space Agency.
The asteroid, named 2023 DZ2, is estimated to be 40 to 70 metres (130 to 230 feet) wide, roughly the size of the Parthenon, and big enough to wipe out a large city if it hit our planet.
At 19:49 GMT on Saturday, it will come within a third of the distance from the Earth to the Moon, said Richard Moissl, the head of the ESA’s planetary defence office.
Though that is “very close”, there is nothing to worry about, he told AFP news agency.
Small asteroids fly past every day, but one of this size coming so close to Earth only happens about once every 10 years, he added.
The asteroid will pass 175,000km (109,000 miles) from Earth at a speed of 28,000 kilometres per hour (17,400 miles per hour). The Moon is roughly 385,000km (239,228 miles) away.
An observatory in La Palma, one of Spain’s Canary Islands, first spotted the asteroid on February 27.
Last week, the United Nations-endorsed International Asteroid Warning Network decided it would take advantage of the close look, carrying out a “rapid characterisation” of 2023 DZ2, Moissl said. That means astronomers around the world will analyse the asteroid with a range of instruments such as spectrometers and radars.
The goal is to find out just how much we can learn about such an asteroid in only a week, Moissl said. It will also serve as training for how the network “would react to a threat” possibly heading our way in the future, he added.
The asteroid will again swing past Earth in 2026, but poses no threat of impact for at least the next 100 years – which is how far out its trajectory has been calculated.
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