In Issue 134 of All About Space, now on sale, you explore 20 myths about the universe that need debunking. From whether you can see the Great Wall of China from space to why a spacecraft heats up on a retry Earth.
For this cover, All About Space takes a demystifying tour of the The universe in an attempt to debunk common misconceptions that continue to deceive us.
The latest issue also features a Q&A with British planetary scientist and science fiction writer Simon Morden about his obsession Mars and his latest scientific book on the Red Planet.
On the topic: 15 amazing places on Earth that look like they are from another planet
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Elsewhere in the issue, you’ll learn why astronauts experience muscle loss and how to survive International space station affects the human body. The feature also looks at how sending worms into space helps people stay off Earth longer.
All About Space also explores how a team of MIT researchers could find the answer to reducing launch costs by building space fuel storage. If interplanetary missions could go into orbit instead of having to launch everything at once, it could significantly reduce the cost of individual missions. All About Space explores how such an enterprise might work.
The magazine also does an in-depth review space volcanoes and how they helped shape our bodies Solar system. The Volcano feature explores the difference between the more familiar volcanoes, which spew molten rock at high temperatures, and the less familiar cryovolcanoes, colloquially known as ice volcanoes.
You can also find a detailed stargazing section filled with useful information on what to look out for the night sky. This issue includes the Deep Sky Challenge, which lists the six treasures of Autumn The Milky Way. September, one of the busiest for deep-sky observers, brings many star clusters, nebulae and galaxies.
Take a look below at the highlights of Issue 134 of All About Space.
20 world myths destroyed
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Our understanding of the workings of the universe is better than ever, but there are still a number of misconceptions that manage to fool many of us. Some of the following words may sound plausible, but almost none of them are true: The sun it is a blazing ball of yellow fire, and the temperature is higher in the summer months because we orbit closer than in the winter. Mercury is the closest planet to our star and therefore should be the hottest. The moon’s phases are caused by the Earth’s shadow, and at night we can only see one side The moon, so the other must be in eternal darkness. Stars form patterns with their close neighbors and cluster into local ones constellations. The flickering light they produce travels towards Earth in a straight line, unaffected by gravity gravity. Comets racing past with their tails pointed in the direction they came from, and how meteorites falling in the atmosphere, they heat up so much that it is dangerous to lift them from the ground.
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How to build a galaxy
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The universe is filled with galaxies. Everywhere we look, we see galaxies cluttered in space, grouped in clusters and large sheets scattered across space-time. The most distant galaxies ever seen have been identified Hubble Space Telescope is 13.4 billion light years away. But these are not even the most distant galactic structures. These are the first galaxies that hold the record for being the most distant from us. However, we will not see them yet. For this we will need the infrared skill of the newly launched James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which will be able to see galaxies as they formed just 300 or 400 million years after Big explosion — the event that gave birth to the cosmos.
Understanding how galaxies form a bit like putting together a puzzle.
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Space fuel depots
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Getting into space is difficult. With the engines and rockets we have now, most of the weight of the rocket at launch is fuel and oxidizer to overcome Earth’s gravity. And if we want to go beyond the Earth’s orbit, the problem becomes even worse. If you could replenish your interplanetary mission in orbit instead of having to launch everything at once, the cost of individual missions could be greatly reduced. With this in mind, a team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) proposed an intermediate concept that could create fuel depots with traditional missions.
Led by Professor Jeffrey Hoffman, himself a five-year veteran Space shuttle missions, the team suggests using contingency fuels that will be carried on lunar missions anyway.
Read the full feature at the latest version of All About Space (opens in a new tab).
