Universal updates around the world...and way, way beyond
Long-time readers know that space news is my favorite kind of news. Well, it’s been a fairly crazy month for space-related news so rather than pick just one story, here are three of the biggest:
Voyager 2 Gets Patched
Remember Voyager 2? It was launched back in 1977, went on a “Grand Tour” of the outer solar system in the 1980s, and has been sending back data ever since. A couple of years ago, it became one of only two man-made objects to ever leave the solar system and enter interstellar space. (Voyager 1 is the other.) It’s been sending back data non-stop for almost 43 years now!
Well, in late January of this year, Voyager 2 experienced a little hiccup and failed to execute a planned rotational maneuver. One thing led to another with the end result being it shut off its scientific instruments to save energy. This was not good.
Fortunately, the mission specialists at NASA felt they could fix the issue and get everything working again…and they did! As of now, Voyager 2 is once again sending back data on the void between the stars, providing us with some of the most unique information in human history.
What makes this story so amazing is Voyager 2 is almost 14 billion miles away. That means that it takes over 17 hours for a signal to get to the probe, and just as long for a return signal to reach us.
If you’ve ever tried to trouble-shoot a computer problem long distance for your parents or grandparents, you know how frustrating that can be. Just imagine doing that over 14 billion miles, with the possibility of “bricking” one of the most unique and valuable computers in existence. It’s absolutely incredible that the folks at NASA regularly pull off this sort of thing. Kudos to them.
FRB Phone Home
Last year, I wrote about the existence of Fast Radio Bursts, or “FRBs”, coming from outer space. These radio signals are so named because they are very powerful and very fast, usually lasting less than a second.
As of now we still don’t know what they are exactly, precisely because they are so short and fast. They also tend not to repeat themselves which makes detecting them something of a crap shoot.
That changed recently however, as scientists at the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) radio telescope in British Columbia, Canada, announced that they found an FRB that repeats every sixteen days.
This FRB, which is the closest one yet discovered (just 500 million light years away), presents regular bursts for four days, then nothing for twelve days and then starts again.
Of course, such an odd pattern might feel like it has an intelligence behind it, but scientists are about 99.9 percent certain there’s a natural phenomena at work here. They just don’t know what it is…yet.
Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse!!!
Betelgeuse is a star in the constellation of Orion. Usually, it’s one of the brightest (and largest) stars in the night sky. Last year however, astronomers noticed that Betelgeuse was getting dimmer. A lot dimmer. Plus it’s been shedding material and changing shape. All this has led some astronomers to think that maybe, just maybe, Betelgeuse is about to go supernova.
Large stars go supernova when they finally burn through all their nuclear fuel. In that moment, the force of gravity wins the day and causes the star to collapse. This results in a massive series of shock waves which bounce off the center of the star (which, at this point is usually pure iron) and cause the outer layers of the star to explode back out into space.
If this happens to Betelgeuse, it will quickly become almost as bright as the moon in the night sky and will cast actual shadows at night. It will be years before the light from the Supernova fades and the night sky returns to normal.
Or, it might not happen at all, at least not in our lifetimes. Betelgeuse has a history of dimming and getting brighter but the shedding of material and shape-changing is new, which has astronomers literally buzzing with excitement for what might come next.
If you want to check it out yourself, just step outside and look up at Orion’s belt. Betelgeuse is visible to the naked eye and you never know…you might just happen to catch the largest, most spectacular firework anyone has ever seen!
Steven W. Disbrow is a programmer who specializes in e-commerce and mobile systems development, an entrepreneur, comic-book nerd, writer, improviser, actor, sometime television personality and parent of two human children.