Can We Survive an Asteroid Collision?

By Bill White on www.survivopedia.com

There are always TEOTWAWKI survival scenarios that capture the survival community’s imagination. For a number of years that’s been an EMP, although back around 2014 the possibility of an Ebola pandemic rose to the forefront. The epidemic in Northwest Africa had a lot of people concerned, especially since it was the largest outbreak of Ebola on record. But back 30 or 40 years ago, before we were aware of EMP, the big one that everyone was concerned about was an asteroid hitting the Earth.

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Part of this renewed interest can be laid at the doorstep of NASA, our government’s space agency, which has upped their asteroid detection game in recent years. Just recently, NASA upgraded their asteroid tracking capability, giving them “full sky” tracking capability. This is now done by radar, rather than through the use of telescopes, a much more accurate means of determining an asteroid’s course track. A single hour’s worth of radar data provides sufficient data to accurately project the asteroid’s path for years to come.

I suppose that the idea of a rogue asteroid destroying the Earth does have some historic president, considering that scientists believe that the extinction of the dinosaurs was caused by an asteroid impacting with the Earth. This impact is believed to have caused an ice age, with the colder climate killing off the giant reptiles.

This may not make much sense, unless you understand what would happen if such an asteroid or comet hit the Earth. These asteroids, which are made up of a mixture of clay, rock, minerals and sometimes even ice, travel at an average speed of about 25 kilometers per second. Those that get captured by the Earth’s gravity accelerate as they come down, reaching about 30 kilometers per second. To put that into perspective, that works out to 98,425 feet per second. Rifle bullets, which vary in velocity, travel at an average of 3,900 feet per second, 1/25 of that speed.

With that high a velocity, any asteroid hitting the surface of the Earth would have an incredible amount of kinetic energy; enough so that the apparent explosion from the asteroid’s impact could be greater than that generated by a nuclear bomb. The material of the asteroid, as well as the rocks and dirt at the impact point would be pulverized, creating a huge blast wave, traveling out from the epicenter. Then, just like happens with an atomic explosion, that blast wave would collapse back on itself, creating a mushroom cloud.

The characteristic mushroom cloud from an atomic explosion is filled with dust and debris, kicked up by the explosion, just as it would be in the case of a large asteroid impact. This is carried up into the upper atmosphere and eventually comes back down as fallout. There would be fallout too, in this case, but it would not be radioactive.

We have a very good idea of what that dust in the upper atmosphere does, because of what’s known as the Year Without a Summer, which happened in 1816. Mount Tambora, a volcano in what was then known as the Dutch East Indies erupted, spewing tons of ash into the upper atmosphere. During the three years that it took for that ash to fall back to earth, the amount of sunlight reaching the surface was diminished by 0.4 – 0.7°C. While that didn’t have much of an impact, the loss of sunlight reduced harvests considerably in 1816, causing widespread famine.

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While there is no historic record of the Chicxulub Impactor, as the asteroid that ended the reign of the dinosaurs is known, the dust and debris kicked up into the upper atmosphere by its impact probably had a similar effect, although to a much greater degree. This asteroid, which was 3.1 miles in diameter, hit off the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula, near the city of Mérida, Mexico, leaving a crater that is 110 miles (180 km) in diameter and over 12 miles (20 km) in depth. Scientists have estimated that the kinetic impact equaled an explosion equivalent to 100,000 gigatons of TNT. By comparison, the Tzar Bomb, the largest nuclear bomb ever built, was only the equivalent of 50 million tons of TNT, one-two-thousandth of the explosive force.

The asteroid that made this crater is estimated to have been 10 kilometers, or six miles, in diameter. Not only did it throw up massive amounts of pulverized dust into the upper atmosphere, but more recent research indicates that it also caused the biggest earthquakes the Earth has ever known, releasing some 50,000 times more energy than the magnitude 9.1 earthquake that hit Sumtra in 2004. That was the third largest earthquake in recorded history.

By comparison, the asteroids that NASA tracks as “Near Earth Objects” (NEOs) are much smaller, with sizes ranging from 4 meters up to 320 meters in 2022. Pretty much all of those are large enough that they would survive passing through our atmosphere and hit the Earth, if they were on a collision course. But NASA classifies any asteroid or comet that passes within 1.3 au of the Earth. An AU or astronomical unit, is the distance from the Earth to the Sun. That’s 150 million kilometers or 93 million miles. Not quite close enough to do much damage.

Some 17,000 meteorites hit the Earth each year; but most are not much more than dust by the time they make landfall, having burnt up as they passed through our atmosphere. Few are large enough to cause any damage at all by the time they reach the surface and there is only one recorded case of one actually hitting a person, Ann Hodges, in 1954. In addition to being slowed by passing through the atmosphere, the Hodes meteorite was slowed by passing through the roof of her home, a radio and hitting the blanket she was under. It still left a grapefruit-sized bruise.

Few meteorites large enough to be noticed, let alone cause damage hit the Earth. In 1908, an asteroid or comet came into contact with the Earth’s atmosphere and exploded over Russia. The resulting explosion was equivalent to 12 megatons of TNT, flatting an estimated 80 million trees over an area of 2,150 square kilometers (830 square miles).

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The Chelyabinsk meteor, which measured roughly the size of a six-story office building, came down over Chelyabinsk, Russia in 2013 and was caught on film. It was undetected ahead of time, because it came from the direction of the sun, making it difficult to stop by astronomical observation. Most of the meteorite was lost in an air burst, which had the explosive power of 400 to 500 kilotons of TNT. That was enough to cause damage to 7,200 buildings and was recorded as far away as Antarctica.

Yet these events are extremely rare. While it is always possible that another meteorite, large enough to cause considerable damage, could hit the Earth in our lifetime, these events have historically happened only every few hundred years. A meteorite large enough to destroy life on Earth would have to be 60 miles wide (96 kilometers), roughly twenty times the size of the Chicxulub Impactor that wiped out the dinosaurs.

There is obviously little that you or I can do to protect ourselves from such an event. Considering the explosive power of these impacts, it would be physically impossible to fortify a home to withstand them or build a bunker that would allow us to survive at ground zero. Such a bunker would have to be buried 12 miles underground, far deeper than the deepest hole that mankind has ever drilled.

There is some good news though; NASA is hard at work, turning science-fiction into reality. In September of 2022, NASA crashed a spacecraft into an asteroid, in an attempt to alter its course. The small asteroid chosen was Dimorphos, an asteroid 525 feet in diameter (160 meters) and one of a pair of asteroids some 6.8 million miles away. The spacecraft impacted this asteroid at 3.8 miles per second, giving it only 0.5% of the asteroid’s momentum. Even so, it managed to altar the asteroid’s orbit around its twin by 23 minutes. Considering that they had pre-determined that anything more than 73 seconds would be a success; this test can be considered an outstanding success.

Considering the small mass and velocity of the spacecraft, it appears that the material ejected from the asteroid by the kinetic explosion works out to somewhere between 10 and 100 times the mass of the spacecraft itself. Such a huge increase in performance was obviously due to the mass and velocity of the asteroid itself.

While this does not mean that NASA has a weapon ready to protect the Earth from a destructive asteroid aimed right at us; but it is a major step in the right direction. This was nothing more than a proof of concept. Now the concept needs to be developed and turned into a real weapon.

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One of the biggest challenges facing NASA is one of aiming the spacecraft; something that they fortunately have lots of experience with. Dimorphos was hit at a point in its orbit when it was coming right at the course track of the spacecraft. That simulates the course track to be expected from an asteroid heading towards the Earth. There would still be some cross-ranging to be concerned about, as both the orbital path of the Earth and the orbital path of the asteroid could have to be taken into consideration. But again, that’s something that NASA has been doing for years. At the time of impact, there would be no cross-ranging, as the point of impact would be somewhere between the original detection point and the Earth, with the asteroid heading towards where the Earth would end up being when it arrived.

Yes, the math is enough to give a world-class headache to you and me. I guess that just proves we’re not rocket scientists. On the other hand, the people working on this program are actual rocket scientists, who I am sure are much better at the math, than I am.

ALL RELATED VIDEOS, selected and posted by peter2011

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/ }

09-12-2022 om 00:37 geschreven door peter  

An artist’s impression of the planet 55 Cnc e (smaller, dark orange circle) blocking the light from its rotating host star.

Image Credit: Maggie Chiang/Simons Foundation

BY EVAN GOUGH

A new study published in Nature Astronomy shows how 55 Cancri e must have formed further away from the star in its solar system’s cooler reaches. The study is “Measured spin-orbit alignment of ultra-short-period super-Earth 55 Cancri e.” The lead author is Lily Zhao, a research fellow at the Flatiron Institute’s Center for Computational Astrophysics (CCA) in New York City.

55 Cancri is a binary star system about 41 light-years away. One star (55 Cancri A) is a K-type main sequence star, and the other (55 Cancri B) is a red dwarf. 55 Cancri e isn’t the only planet in the system. It has four siblings.

The new paper is based on observations made with the EXtreme PREcision Spectrograph (EXPRES) instrument on the 4.3-m Lowell Observatory Discovery Telescope at the Lowell Observatory in Arizona. It’s built for precise radial velocity measurements of planets as they orbit their stars.

As the study title suggests, the spin-orbit of planets is vital in understanding planets and their place in the evolution of the solar system they belong to. It’s particularly important when it comes to planets like 55 Cancri e because astronomers don’t understand how planets like it end up so close to their stars. More on that later.

55 Cancri e is known for being extremely close to its main sequence star, Cancri 55 A, most often referred to as simply Cancri 55. Cancri 55 is smaller and less massive than the Sun, so it’s also a little cooler. But that doesn’t matter to the planet.

55 Cancri e is classified as a super-Earth, but it’s far from Earth-like. (Many exoplanets are interesting because of potential habitability but don’t even mention habitability in this case.) It orbits so closely to the star that its surface is molten and reaches a temperature of 2000 Celsius. (3600 F.) It travels so rapidly that its year is only 17.5 hours long.

Because it’s so close to its star and orbits so quickly, 55 Cancri e is called an ultra-short period (USP) planet. Planets that complete an orbit in less than 24 hours are USPs.

The planet wasn’t always a blistering, molten inferno. That’s because it didn’t form in its current location.

“Astronomers expect that this planet formed much farther away and then spiralled into its current orbit,” said Debra Fischer. She’s from the National Science Foundation’s Division of Astronomical Sciences and is a senior author of the paper. “That journey could have kicked the planet out of the equatorial plane of the star, but this result shows the planet held on tight.”

But even though the planet formed further from the Sun than where it resides now, and it’s a super-Earth, it likely was never habitable. 55 Cancri e “… was likely so hot that nothing we’re aware of would be able to survive on the surface,” said lead author Zhao.

55 Cancri e isn’t the only planet to change orbit over time. The same thing happened in our Solar System. The Grand Tack Hypothesis says that Jupiter formed at 3.5 AU, migrated inward to 1.5 AU, then back out to 5.2 AU, where it orbits today. The Grand Tack Hypothesis explains a few things about our Solar System, including why Mars is so small.

Jupiter’s migrations helped shape the Solar System and may have influenced Mars’ fate. If Mars was once habitable, and it’s looking more and more like it was, Jupiter’s migration had to have affected it somehow. So understanding how exoplanets like 55 Cancri e migrate over time should help us understand exoplanet habitability in other solar systems. Such information is critical to finding just how common Earth-like environments might be in the universe and, by extension, how abundant extraterrestrial life may be.

The oddball planet is fascinating because it’s so unlike our planet or any other planet in our Solar System. For curious scientists, it’s more than just an oddball. They want to know how it ended up so close to its star.

That brings us back to the unusual planet’s spin-axis alignment.

It may seem counterintuitive that astronomers use a spectrograph, which measures light, to determine a planet’s motion. But it works because of the Doppler effect. The Doppler effect explains how light moving away from us is red-shifted and light moving toward us is blue-shifted. Cancri 55 e’s host star is spinning, meaning the light from the receding side is red-shifted. Conversely, the light from the approaching side is blue-shifted.

As Cancri 55 e transits in front of the star, the EXPRES instrument at the Lowell Observatory measures the star’s light precisely. Those measurements reveal apparent, but not real, deviations in the planet’s radial velocity, and those deviations tell astronomers about the planet’s orbit and spin relative to the star’s. The authors explain it best when they write, “Capturing the resultant net red/blueshift reveals the orientation of the planet’s orbital normal vector with respect to its host star’s spin vector, that is, the sky-projected stellar spin-orbit alignment or the stellar obliquity.”

The specific effect that the team measured when the planet transits the star is the Rossiter–McLaughlin (RM) effect. Explaining that in detail would mean going down a rabbit hole, and it’s beyond the scope of this article. But the image below does shed some light on it. It’s sufficient to say that the nature of the light changes, and EXPRES can measure it precisely, more precisely than older instruments.

Even though the planet’s actual radial velocity doesn’t change, the measured apparent change still shows the slight gravitational change that the planet induces on the star. Without that information, it isn’t easy to piece together Cancri 55 e’s story and how it got so close to its star. Because, as we know, it cannot have formed there.

The key finding is that Cancri 55 e orbits along its star’s equator while its four siblings don’t. Remember that the Cancri 55 system is a binary system, and the small red dwarf in the binary pair is quite distant from the larger star. But it still exerts its weaker gravity on the system, which explains why all five stars likely had an orbit not precisely aligned with the larger star’s rotation. Since it’s highly likely that the planet initially had the same orbital plane as its siblings, it shows that as it migrated inward, the primary star’s gravitational force pulled the planet into alignment with the star’s equator.

As far as what led Cancri 55 e to start its migration toward the star, there could be several causes. Planets are in constant motion, and when there are five of them, they exert influence on each other which can cause planets to migrate. It’s also possible that the planet formed out of the circumstellar disk with an initial misalignment.

“We’ve learned about how this multiplanet system — one of the systems with the most planets that we’ve found — got into its current state,” said study lead author Lily Zhao.

While this study can’t conclude exactly what caused Cancri 55 e to get so close to its star, it’s still important. Previous measurements of its spin-orbit alignment gave contradictory results because the instruments used to measure the alignment weren’t as precise.

Several theories attempt to explain how Ultra-Short Period planets end up in hellish locations. One theory says that due to the distant red dwarf, all of the planets should be misaligned with the primary star’s rotation. Another says that secular resonance between 55 Cancri e and the other planets excited the planet’s orbital eccentricity and inclination, misaligning it with the other planets and the star. But thanks to the precise measurements possible with EXPRES, the team has narrowed it down.

“The close alignment of the ultra-short-period, super-Earth 55 Cnc e’s orbit normal with its host star’s spin axis places constraints on theories for how USPs migrate to their present-day positions and how they interact with other planets in compact multiplanet systems,” the authors write in their conclusion. “This measurement additionally gives clues as to why none of the other known planets around 55 Cnc transit and the possible role of 55 Cnc’s distant stellar companion.”

As is usually the case, better data leads to better conclusions. In this case, the powerful EXPRES instrument helped the team understand this unusual planet better. “The EXPRES data used in this analysis have a consistent and often a higher signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), as well as lower uncertainties than the RV measurements previously used,” they write. Here they’re referring to instruments like HARPS, the High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher, another spectrometer designed to find exoplanets.

The team concludes that the close alignment between the planet’s orbit and the host star’s axis favours one explanation over others. “The close alignment of 55 Cnc e’s orbit normal with its host star’s stellar axis preliminarily favours the low eccentricity and planetary obliquity tide models.” Low eccentricity means the planet’s orbit wasn’t completely circular but didn’t deviate much from a circle. Planetary obliquity is the angle between a planet’s orbit and its spin axis. And that’s as deep as we’re going.

Remember that this star system is 41 light-years away—an enormous distance! And even though Cancri 55 e is several times more massive than Earth, it’s still impossibly tiny from this far away. That’s why improved instruments like EXPRESS are so important in astronomy.

“Our precision with EXPRES today is more than 1,000 times better than what we had 25 years ago when I started working as a planet hunter,” Fischer said. “Improving measurement precision was the primary goal of my career because it allows us to detect smaller planets as we search for Earth analogs.”

EXPRES is newer than HARPS and reveals more detail in transiting exoplanets than HARPS can. And the detail is helping us understand solar system dynamics in remote systems like Cancri 55 and may eventually help explain our own Solar System’s history. “With this robust measurement using EXPRES data, we can place constraints on the different proposed dynamical histories for the 55 Cnc system.”

More:

• Press Release: How the ‘Hell Planet’ Got So Hot
• Press Release: Yale device delivers data from ‘Hell Planet,’ leads astronomers to its orbit
• Published Research: Measured spin-orbit alignment of ultra-short-period super-Earth 55 Cancri e
• Universe Today: Super-Earth Conditions Simulated in the Lab to Discover if They’re Habitable

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

09-12-2022 om 00:00 geschreven door peter  

SpaceX claims that Starshield will be focused on three main areas: Earth observation, communications, and hosted payload. This means they will develop, launch, and maintain custom satellites using Starlink technology and launch capability. They are offering SCaaS — Satellite Constellations as a Service — aimed at the B2G market.

With Starlink, SpaceX was their own customer. They ordered a constellation capable of delivering space internet connectivity on LEO from themselves, and they delivered it. With Starshield, SpaceX is ready to take orders from others.

Taking Starlink to The Next Level

Starshield will build upon the technology already available for Starlink. Satellites will feature a modular design. This means SpaceX will be able to integrate a variety of payloads depending on the customer’s specific needs. It will also use “additional high-assurance cryptographic capability to host classified payloads” on top of the end-to-end encryption available with Starlink. Starshield satellites will also use laser communication to talk to each other. It’s probably safe to say that Starshield will also use the existing Starlink network for communication if that’s what’s needed.

Working with the US government isn’t something new for SpaceX. They already do multiple launches for NASA, US Air Force, and US Space Force. With Starshield, they intend to expand this relationship. Thus getting even more government contracts. We heard multiple times from SpaceX and Elon himself that Starlink is a project intended to provide a lot of cash flow for the company. This way, they should be able to afford all their ‘Occupy Mars’ plans and other not-so-profitable ideas. Adding the government to the list of customers should surely help with that.

With Starshield in place, SpaceX will have even more vertical integration. They are the first private company that provides a full-stack approach to satellite constellations. SpaceX develops, launches, maintains, and services all its satellites. If you want to see how such an approach can benefit you, just look at Apple. It is the most valuable and, arguably, one of the most influential companies in the world. Many of their current successes came because of their very hardcore vertical integration.

NASA Has No Alternative to SpaceX At The Moment

At the moment, NASA depends on SpaceX a lot. Crew Dragon is the USA’s only spacecraft capable of delivering astronauts to the ISS, as Starliner continues to experience problems. Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy make up more than 2/3 of the USA’s launches in 2022. Other rockets that may provide completion, like Vulcan or New Glenn, suffer multiple delays. But the situation can get even worse soon, as Starship will become operational.

When NASA awarded the HLS contract solely to SpaceX and further extended it later, they put themselves in a very dependent position. It’s obvious that the main space activity for the upcoming decade will revolve around Artemis. This is NASA’s flagship program that will generate the most hype, have the biggest contracts, etc. And it all depends on the success of SpaceX’s Starship. At least through Artemis III and Artemis IV, which are now planned for 2025 and 2027, respectively, and may be further delayed.

The Lunar version of Starship is designed to require multiple LEO refuelings to perform a landing on the Moon. This means that the fully stacked Starship system will need to perform multiple flights quickly. The only way to do that is to master rapid reusability. And the only way to do that is to have a working heat shield that will withstand reentry and won’t need too much servicing between flights; to have a fully working SuperHeavy with all its 33 Raptor V2 engines; to have a working Mechazilla that catches both Starship and SuperHeavy multiple times; as well as all the other bits and pieces that make Starship work.

Failing any of these things is a blocker for the entire Artemis program, as it further delays human landing on the Moon. Therefore, NASA now fully depends on the entire Starship project. It has no alternatives in the near future, as it’s the only landing option for both Aremis III and Artemis IV.

Starshield Makes Dependancy on Starship Even Worse

With the HLS contract, SpaceX got NASA (and thus the US government) dependent on Starship. This means they are directly interested in the success of the project. So, there’s a strong incentive for NASA and other government structures to remove all hurdles that the Starship project can potentially face.

SpaceX themselves are also dependent on Starship’s success. It’s the only way to launch Starlink V2, as they are too big and heavy to fit in Falcon rockets. SpaceX doesn’t explicitly say whether Starshield will share a platform with the first or the second generation of Starlinks; the latter might likely be the case. If so, then Starshield will tighten the knot of the US government’s dependency on Starship even harder.

He Who Fights Too Long Against Dragons Becomes A Dragon Himself

SpaceX is now in a very dominant position in the space industry. Falcon rockets are responsible for over a third of all successful launches in 2022 in the world. Starlink has a huge head start over its competition, with over 3200 active satellites already in orbit. Without SpaceX, there will be no human landings on the Moon.

If Starship delivers on its promises of 100 tons to LEO with rapid reusability, it will significantly drop the launch costs for SpaceX. This will allow them to further increase their dominance in the markets they are already in and possibly get into new ones. And with the US government and NASA being so dependent on Starship because of Artemis and potentially Starshield, the regulators will have a stimulus to support SpaceX’s monopoly instead of properly regulating it and encouraging completion.

Monopolies are never good in the long term. And SpaceX is clearly on the course of becoming a very strong one. So, no matter how great SpaceX may seem, we desperately need NASA and other government structures to support the competition and encourage its success. Only this way the entire industry can benefit in long term.

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

08-12-2022 om 23:55 geschreven door peter  

Carbonaceous chondrites like the Allende meteorite contain significant amounts of water and amino acids. Could they have delivered amino acids to early Earth and spurred on the development of life?

Image Credit: By Shiny Things - originally posted to Flickr as AMNH - Meteorite, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4196153

Meteorites Bathed in Gamma Rays Produce More Amino Acids and Could Have Helped Life get Going on Earth

Our modern telescopes are more powerful than their predecessors, and our research is more focused than ever. We keep discovering new things about the Solar System and finding answers to long-standing questions. But one of the big questions we still don’t have an answer for is: ‘How did life on Earth begin?’

We won’t answer the question of life’s origins in one dramatic act. Instead, we’re chipping away at it, slowly piecing together an answer over generations. We know life has building blocks, molecules critical to life gaining a foothold here on Earth and, hopefully, elsewhere. Amino acids are some of those building blocks.

Amino acids play a critical role in life on Earth, though we don’t know exactly how they fit into a timeline of life’s origins. We’ve found them in space, which has led to speculation that they originated there and then found their way to Earth as biological building blocks.

A new study fills in part of the picture by showing that meteorites bathed in gamma rays produce more amino acids.

There are hundreds of amino acids, but only 22 appear in the genetic code. Glycine is one of the simplest amino acids in the genetic code, and scientists have found glycine in objects in space. They’ve seen it in comets, interstellar dust clouds, and meteorites that fell to Earth, which led to the idea that meteorites contributed to the appearance of life on Earth.

A new study shows that when meteorites are bathed in gamma rays, they produce more amino acids. The study is “Gamma-Ray-Induced Amino Acid Formation in Aqueous Small Bodies in the Early Solar System,” and it was published in ACS Central Science, the journal of the American Chemical Society. The lead author is Yoko Kebukawa, an associate professor in the Department of Chemistry at Yokohama National University.

When Earth formed, the Solar System was a much more chaotic place. Meteorites flew through space, slamming into things like particles in an accelerator. Many of them struck Earth. There are fewer of them now, though they still fall to Earth. When they do, people find some of them, and many have found their way to scientists’ labs. Over time, scientists have classified meteorites into different families.

There are three top-level categories of meteorites: stony meteorites, iron meteorites, and stony-iron meteorites which are a combination of both types. There are further classifications based on chemical compositions, isotopes, and mineralogy.

Carbonaceous chondrites (CCs) are a type of stony meteorite and are some of the most primitive. The name is a bit confusing. Scientists thought they contained carbon because of their dark and grey appearance, but they actually contain less carbon than other meteorites. However, CCs contain something more important than carbon: they’re known for containing water and other molecules, including amino acids.

That, along with their ancient age, makes them important because they hold clues to the early Solar System, back when Earth was settling down, and life was getting started.

There seems little doubt that carbonaceous chondrites contained amino acids back then and that they would’ve delivered them to the young Earth. But how did the amino acids form?

That’s the question behind the new study.

Lead author Kebukawa showed in previous research that reactions between simple molecules such as ammonia and formaldehyde could create macromolecules, including amino acids. But only in the presence of liquid water and only when there’s heat to drive reactions. We know carbonaceous chondrites contain water, but where did the heat come from?

It could’ve come from one of the two naturally-occurring isotopes of aluminum: ²⁶Al.

²⁶Al is cosmogenic, meaning it was created when cosmic rays bombarded meteor fragments. It was relatively abundant back when the Solar System was forming but has now decayed.

²⁶Al is unstable and releases gamma rays as it decays. Scientists think the heat from that decay is responsible for the melting and differentiation of some asteroids after they formed in the early Solar System. But the heat could’ve also driven the production of amino acids in meteors.

Kebukawa and her colleagues tested this idea in their laboratory. They combined compounds like formaldehyde and ammonia, both common chemicals in space, and exposed them to gamma rays. Not gamma rays from ²⁶Al but from more readily available ⁶⁰Co (cobalt-60). ⁶⁰Co is a synthetic radioisotope produced in nuclear reactors. It’s used in radiation therapy, sterilizing medical instruments, and other things.

Since it produces gamma rays as it decays, the researchers used ⁶⁰Co as a proxy for primordial ²⁶Al.

The researchers found that the gamma rays increased the production of some amino acids as the gamma-ray exposure increased.

Amino acids are divided into four categories: alpha, beta, gamma, and delta. Alpha amino acids are the most essential amino acids because they’re used to synthesize proteins. Glycine (Gly), Alanine (Ala), Leucine (Leu), Serine (Ser), Asparagine (Asp), Isoleucine (Ile), and Glutamine (Glu) are all alpha amino acids produced in the experiment. The quantities of these essential amino acids rose in the irradiation solutions as the total gamma-ray dose increased.

What do these laboratory results mean in the real world?

The researchers took their results and calculated a plausible level of amino acid production in meteorites. They focused on a specific family of meteorites called CM chondrites, the most commonly recovered carbonaceous chondrite type. The M stands for the Mighei meteorite, and their calculations are for the parent body of all CM chondrites. Their analyses also take into account the decay of amino acids over time.

The team calculated the production of alpha-alanine and beta-alanine, a component of things like vitamin B₅. They calculated the yields of amino acids in the liquid phase and the whole rock. Their work shows that it would’ve taken between 1,000 and 100,000 years to produce the amount of alanine and ?-alanine found in the Murchison meteorite, the most well-studied Mighei meteorite.

In the paper’s conclusion, the researchers explain their results. “Our findings point to the possibility of gamma-ray-induced amino acid formation from ubiquitous, simple molecules such as formaldehyde and ammonia in the presence of water inside small bodies during the early stages of the formation of the Solar System.” Note the prudent use of the word “possibility.”

“The gamma-ray-induced production of amino acids could be a novel prebiotic amino acid formation pathway that could have contributed to the origins of life on early Earth, as building blocks of life were delivered through the fall of meteorites.”

The idea that meteorites could’ve brought amino acids to the Earth and helped spur on life is not new. But this study strengthens that idea and is another piece of the intricate puzzle that is life on Earth.

More:

• Press Release: Meteorites plus gamma rays could have given Earth the building blocks for life
• Published Research: Gamma-Ray-Induced Amino Acid Formation in Aqueous Small Bodies in the Early Solar System
• Universe Today: One of Life’s Building Blocks can Form in Space

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

08-12-2022 om 23:34 geschreven door peter  

Three Mile UFO Over Hanoi, Vietnam On Nov 30, 2022, Photos, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: Nov 30, 2022

Location of sighting: Hanoi, Vietnam

 

Often misidentified as a Linear cloud, this UFO is cloaked within a cloud, but the setting sun light hits its shields which contain the cloud within create an iridescent rainbow of colors. This ship is huge, about 3 miles across and could easily hold tens of thousands of alien occupants. I know what you are thinking, I was taught to believe its scientifically explainable, that its just a cloud. Don't be sheep. Even aliens are relying on you being predictable, its the unpredictable people who change this world. 

Scott C. Waring - Taiwan 

{ https://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ }

08-12-2022 om 22:43 geschreven door peter  

Is An Alien Contact About To Happen In Porto Alegre, Brazil, Video, UFO Sighting News.

 

Date of sighting: Nov 9, 2022

Location of sighting: Porto Alegre, Brazil

 

Watch this great catch of a flashing UFO over Brazil last week. The eyewitness posted the video to Twitter. The UFO was seen five days in a row, always the same location. Absolute awesome and very beautiful to look at. It seems that there is going to be a direct contact coming very soon to Porto Alegre, sure hope they are ready for it. 

Scott C. Waring - Taiwan 

 

Eyewitness states: 

{ https://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ }

08-12-2022 om 22:31 geschreven door peter  

Huge Rock Gets Stuck In Rover Perseverance Wheel, Dec 8, 2022, UFO Sighting News.

Date of discovery: Dec 8, 2022

Location of discovery: Mars
Source photo:

• https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/multimedia/raw-images/FLF_0639_0723682597_946ECM_N0310000FHAZ02008_06_095J 

Here's something you don't see everyday. A huge rock gets lodged inside the wheel well of the Mars rover this week. With the metal wheels being hollow, its likely this rock has been there for weeks and will likely continue rolling inside the wheel for weeks to come. I'm not sure who designed the wheels but NASA really should have taken these kinds of things into account when designing them. Already I see the two scratch marks going down from where the rock slide down the wheel. Such things can seriously damage the wheel and in turn, damage the rover. If the rover can't move its wheels, the mission is basically over. I just wanted to show you something NASA doesn't want you to see, and something you wont see in the news. 

Scott C. Waring - Taiwan 

 

{ https://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ }

08-12-2022 om 22:23 geschreven door peter  

Bob Lazar: Area 51 & Flying Saucers (FULL MOVIE)

The story of Bob Lazar. This was recently posted on YouTube to watch for free.

Bob Lazar, a former government physicist, revealed in 1989 that the US military had been secretly working on extraterrestrial spacecraft. He blew the whistle and shocked the world, but he had remained silent until now. His account was dramatized by Academy Award nominee Mickey Rourke.

Due to Lazar’s revelation, the public became aware of Area 51, which was a former secret military base. He was burdened with a revolutionary secret that required him to choose between his country’s interests and his conscience. His wife, his mother, and his close friends believed him, which is why his testimony has been regarded as one of the most controversial UFO stories of all time.

The film by Jeremy Corbell, which is about Lazar’s saga, offers a glimpse into the triumphs and struggles of a cosmic whistleblower. It follows Lazar’s claims about the government’s secret program to develop a powerful technology using recovered alien vehicles. His actions have affected his life significantly for the last three decades.

Due to his actions, his life has turned upside-down. He has tried to avoid the spotlight by maintaining a low-profile. This is why he has never allowed journalists or filmmakers into his private life.

The film by Corbell, which is about Lazar’s saga, offers a glimpse into the triumphs and struggles of a cosmic whistleblower. It will also change the way the public thinks about UFOs.

{ https://www.latest-ufo-sightings.net/ }

08-12-2022 om 22:01 geschreven door peter  

LATEST UFO SIGHTINGS AND VIDEOS

NASA Artemis 1 mission update - Moon flyby and splashdown preview

NASA's Artemis 1 Orion spacecraft performed an engine burn when it was just 79 miles (128 kilometers) above the lunar surface on Dec. 5, 2022. The burn set it on a trajectory to splashdown on Earth on Dec. 11.

Credit: NASA

See Mars get eclipsed by moon in rare occultation - time-lapse

The Griffith Observatory in California had a great view of the Mars-Moon occultation on Dec. 7, 2022. See the Red Planet slip behind the moon and re-emerge in this time-lapse.

Credit: Griffith Observatory | edited by Space.com's edited by [Steve Spaleta]

• (https://twitter.com/stevespaleta)

Wow! See Artemis 1 spacecraft's Earth-moon transit view in amazing time-lapse

Shortly before NASA's Artemis 1 Orion spacecraft performed its longest engine burn of the mission on Dec. 5, 2022, it captured this amazing view of the moon. [NASA's Artemis 1 Orion spacecraft completes crucial moon flyby maneuver for trip home]

• (https://www.space.com/artemis-1-orion...)

Credit: NASA

DOOMSDAY HIEROGLYPHICS HIDDEN IN THE PYRAMIDS | Countdown to Armageddon

Researchers believe extraterrestrial beings took part in building the great pyramids. See more in this clip from Nostradamus Effect.

• #NostradamusEffect

Why Does The Trident Missile Have A Spike On Its Nose?

The Lesser known aerospike, the aerodynamic device found on the noses of missiles which have to have blunt noses to make them short enough to fit inside submarines. At supersonic speeds these reduce the drag by 50% and added 550km to the range of a Trident missile while still letting them fit in the same missile tubes designed for the original Polaris.

How NASA Will 3D Print Houses On The Moon!

How NASA Will 3D Print Houses On The Moon! Thanks, Pinecone, for sponsoring this video! Click my exclusive link https://www.influencerlink.org/SHEQZ to start earning cash on Pinecone!

Last Video: How We Will Build An Underground Civilization On Mars!

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjJfc...

SpaceX upgrade everything for the massive engine testing and orbital flight incoming

SpaceX upgrade everything for the massive engine testing and orbital flight incoming

Work on Ship 24 Continues as Scaffolding is Removed | SpaceX Boca Chica

Crews worked on Ship 24 as the scaffolding around it was removed, work on the Orbital Launch Mount continued, and Ship 28, 29, and 30's nosecones were spotted in various stages of production.

Video and Pictures from Nic (@NicAnsuini), Nomadd (@Nomadd13), and Starbase Live. Edited by Jack (@theJackBeyer).

Scientists Have Just Landed A Probe On An Asteroid & It Sent Back Some Unreal Photographs

Humans have advanced to the stage where we can land spacecraft on the moon and other planets. However, scientists have managed a by far trickier landing; landing a probe on an asteroid!

This is a massive feat, but even more unreal are the photographs of the asteroid that the probe sent back! Which asteroid did scientists land a probe on, and what has the probe discovered on the asteroid? Stay tuned as we bring you how scientists managed to land a probe on an asteroid and the unreal photographs it sent back!

When you look up at the sky on a clear night and see many stars, you may get the impression that space is a crowded place. However, that is far from the case, as space is mostly an empty place. But it contains objects that are of interest to us!
Some, like even the closest stars, are so far away that we may never be able to send a probe there, not to talk of human-crewed missions. However, some are relatively near, like asteroids, and scientists want to study them!
We have studied asteroids for long with powerful telescopes. But how about sending a probe to investigate an asteroid? This was the thinking of NASA when it sent a probe to asteroid Bennu to get samples! But landing a probe on an asteroid is no joke!
The mission is known as Origins-Spectral Interpretation-Resource Identification-Security-Regolith Explorer! Thankfully, there is an acronym that, while not so short, is more manageable; OSIRIS-REx!
OSIRIS-REx is quite expensive, with a budget of 800 million dollars. The mission won funding while pitched against other missions to study Venus and the moon. The mission took off in September 2016 and took more than two years to finally land on Bennu, where it took detailed measurements of the asteroid's shape and mass before returning to orbit

RELATED

{ https://www.youtube.com/ }

08-12-2022 om 21:36 geschreven door peter  

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

08-12-2022 om 01:47 geschreven door peter  

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

08-12-2022 om 01:27 geschreven door peter  

Popular toy of prehistoric children revealed by new research

The common species called little owl (Athene noctua) may have inspired some engraved slate plaques. Two fledglings are shown. 

Credit: Juan J. Negro/Scientific Reports

Drawings of owls by present-day children were similar to the owls on the plaques, researchers said. 

Credit: Juan J. Negro/Scientific Reports

This slate plaque with an engraving of an owl was part of the study. 

Credit: Juan J. Negro/Scientific Reports

• The journal Scientific Reports published the research Thursday.

{ https://edition.cnn.com/ }

08-12-2022 om 00:55 geschreven door peter  

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

08-12-2022 om 00:27 geschreven door peter  

Uranus and Neptune are begging to be visited, but expensive missions to visit them may never be approved.

Image Credits: (L) By NASA – http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA18182, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=121128532. (R)

By Justin Cowart – https://www.flickr.com/photos/132160802@N06/29347980845/, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=82476611

BY EVAN GOUGH

The demands of deeper, scientifically fulfilling missions to Mars and the Moon are squeezing the budgets of NASA, the ESA, and other agencies. But there are fascinating worlds further out in the Solar System that are begging to be explored. Especially the ice giants Uranus and Neptune.

NASA has a strong focus on Mars and the Moon right now. The eventual Mars Sample Return mission will be resource intensive, as will the Artemis program. But the ice giants demand attention, too, even though we can never land there or gather samples from them. They played a role in the evolution of the Solar System, they’re similar to many exoplanets we find in distant solar systems, and our brief encounters with them gave us only tantalizing glimpses.

The last spacecraft to fly past Uranus was Voyager 2 in 1986, and it was the only one. It got to within 81,500 kilometres (50,600 miles) of the planet’s cloud tops. Voyager 2 was also the last and only spacecraft to fly past Neptune, coming to within 4,800 kilometres (2,983 miles) above the planet’s north pole in 1989. Imagine what dedicated orbiters could discover with modern technology.

The Hubble space telescope has tried to fill in the gaps in our understanding of the Solar System’s pair of ice giants. But it struggles to reveal details from a distance. The James Webb Space Telescope has shown its ability to study our Solar System’s planets with its fascinating images of Jupiter, but it has other jobs to do. Observations from a distance will always have their limitations and can never replace purpose-built missions.

Philip Horzempa, from LeMoyne College at Syracuse University, says that we can explore both Uranus and Neptune if we’re guided by two simple words: simple and affordable. In a white paper submitted to the National Academies of Sciences, Horzempa outlines the case for building a pair of orbiters to visit Uranus and Neptune. He explains how they needn’t be ground-breaking designs, and they needn’t be flagship missions.

Instead, NASA could rapidly develop missions to both ice giants that could gather important scientific data without breaking their budget. Launch windows are approaching for missions to both planets, and rather than propose elaborate missions that may never get approved, NASA should develop reasonable missions that can advance our understanding of both worlds.

Horzempa points out that there’s a historical precedent for this. Some of NASA’s best missions were only launched as more streamlined, cheaper versions of their original proposals. The Viking Mars landers were eventually launched as more streamlined versions of an initial mission proposal. NASA’s Grand Tour program in the 1970s called for four probes: two would’ve visited Jupiter, Saturn, and Pluto. Two more would’ve visited Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune. But the program was enormously expensive and was cancelled. Instead, NASA launched Voyager 1 and 2. The New Horizons mission and the Parker Solar Probe have similar backstories.

Timing is critical. Later this decade, there are two launch windows that can take advantage of Jupiter gravity-assist maneuvers. “In order to take advantage of the first Jupiter assist, it is imperative that Phase A should begin for a Neptune Orbiter in 2022,” Horzempa writes, so time is running out. “This abbreviated timeline dictates the use of a simple craft with no atmosphere Probe.”

Ideal missions to both planets would include orbiters and atmospheric probes. Both planets likely have solid cores, but the rest of their compositions are very strange and might include regions where methane decomposes into diamond crystals that rain downward like hailstones into oceans of liquid carbon. We’ve got a lot to learn about Uranus and Neptune and their atmospheres, but more detailed studies with probes will have to wait.

Sacrificing an atmosphere probe is a trade-off worth making if it means that a mission can be launched to take advantage of gravity-assist maneuvers, according to Horzempa. “Key to affordability is the separation of the Probe missions from the Orbiters,” he writes. This makes the orbiters more simple and cheap, which increases the likelihood that they will be approved.

Probes could still come later, Horzempa says, which can be an advantage for future atmospheric probe missions to both ice giants. “The Orbiters be given 1st priority in the launch queue. Since the Probe program will be untethered from the Orbiter effort, its mission cadence will be determined by factors unique to the study of giant planet atmospheres.”

All spacecraft are high-tech endeavours, but orbiters themselves are the most well-understood design. Rovers are enormously complex, and sample-return missions ratchet the complexity up even further, though neither of those is explicitly relevant to the ice giants. Restricting ice giant missions to orbiters only makes the missions feasible. “The Ice Giant Orbiters will build on the experience of previous such missions. By now, industry has ‘figured out’ how to construct such craft,” writes Horzempa.

For NASA, the 2020s is a decade of stiff competition for resources. Their budget will be stretched thin by Artemis, Mars Sample Return, and other programs like the Lunar Discovery program. But since missions to the ice giants can take so long, we run the risk of getting no new data from either planet for up to 40 years unless NASA acts now. “A radically new approach is called for if we are to obtain any new data in the coming 20-40 years,” Horzempa says.

One of the critical pieces for simple and affordable missions concerns the power source. Solar power is in short supply in the ice giants’ neighbourhood. Spacecraft travelling that far are designed around radioisotope thermoelectric generators. They contain radioactive isotopes that decay and release heat, which is then converted into electricity. This is the type of system that the New Horizons mission to Pluto uses.

Unfortunately, the development of the next generation of RTGs was cancelled. It was called the enhanced-MMRTG and would’ve delivered more power than previous RTGs. NASA has plans for a Next Generation RTG, but there are no firm dates attached to it and no guarantees it will be built.

This means that the standard MMRTG (Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermal Generator) and solar power are the only available options. The orbiter missions are still doable, according to Horzempa. “This limitation means that the Ice Giant craft will need to be very frugal with their power demands.” It also means that the Uranus orbiter could be forced to get by on solar power because RTGs take time to build and may be needed for other applications. (MSL Curiosity and the Perseverance rover both use MMRTGs.) For distant Neptune, an RTG is the only option.

“Two fast, simple, affordable (FSA) orbiters can be launched if one of those crafts is solar-powered,” Horzempa explains. “Physics dictates that the single MMRTG be used for the Neptune Orbiter.”

Thanks to continued technological progress, solar power is now a feasible power source for a Uranus orbiter, as long as power consumption is managed rigorously. New designs are 20% lighter and one-quarter the volume of previous panels while delivering the same power output. “The ROSA (Roll-Out Solar Array) and Mega-ROSA panels can provide 200-400 W at 20 A.U.,” writes Horzempa. “The first ROSA array was launched to the ISS in 2017 and demonstrated its capability.”

With less power available, decisions will need to be made about science payloads. The words simple and affordable are still the guiding ideas, and Horzempa outlines how science payloads can adapt. The obvious first step is to limit the number of science devices.

As a flagship mission, the Juno mission to Jupiter holds nine scientific instruments. One of them, the JunoCam, was included solely to provide optical light images for the rest of us to enjoy and isn’t truly a science instrument. Simple and affordable orbiters to the ice giants won’t have the same payload capabilities as Juno.

But, perhaps ironically, a high-resolution camera is probably the primary instrument for missions to Uranus and Neptune.

“With a limited payload, first priority goes to imaging,” Horzempa writes. “The satellites of Uranus and Neptune are in dire need of complete, detailed photographic coverage.” Horzempa points out that creating charts is the first step in exploration, “… a tradition that is thousands of years old,” he explains.

“High-resolution and context cameras will produce those base maps,” he says, and by adding near-IR imagers, the orbiters can probe the atmospheres and the ring systems.

Decoupling probe missions from orbiter missions is one way to develop missions that are fast and affordable. But probe missions are too important to ignore completely.

Horzempa explains that while orbiter technology is well-established and can be employed more readily, probe technology has fallen behind. Proposals for a Saturn probe have been rejected, leaving that technology to languish. Before we can ever send atmospheric probes to the ice giants, we should send one to Saturn.

“The initial mission would be a Saturn Probe. That would satisfy a long-standing objective and develop the technology required for almost-identical Probes for Uranus and Neptune,” he writes. He also says that the Decadal Survey should “…advocate for combined KBO-Ice Giant Probe missions.”

In his white paper, Horzempa keeps coming back to the idea that flagship missions that try to accomplish too much at once are likely to be rejected. While flagship missions including probes are not the priority in ice giant missions, neither should probes be forgotten. The idea for orbiter-only missions to Uranus and Neptune makes more sense if there are also plans for future atmospheric probes.

“Flagship missions are wonderful, but they are useless if they are so complex that they never
get funded and never fly,” he writes. He refers to this as the ‘complexity trap.’ “Less ambitious missions will deliver less science, but they have a better chance of achieving a coveted New Start.”

NASA is considering a concept for a mission to Uranus and its moons. It’s called the Uranus Orbiter and Probe, and it’s a flagship mission that could be launched in 2031. It was being considered alongside a similar mission to Neptune called Neptune Odyssey. A flagship mission to Uranus makes logical sense because it follows similar missions to Jupiter and Saturn (Juno and Cassini.) But its potential expense means it may not be approved or developed in time. Horzempa’s argument is that we can visit both ice giants cheaply and rapidly if we trim down the missions.

Ultimately, it’s up to the Decadal Survey team to find the right mix. “This paper does not put forward a specific design but, rather, asks the Decadal team to endorse a competitive approach to the exploration of the Ice Giant systems,” Horzempa states in his conclusion. He says that NASA should set the cost, outline the objectives, and let the commercial sector tackle it. That will engender healthy competition.

There is never a shortage of worthwhile missions. Successful missions to destinations throughout the Solar System have only made us hungry for more. It’s been over 35 years since Voyager 2 performed its brief flybys of the ice giants. That spacecraft’s cameras were essentially TV cameras from the 1970s. Think of how much technology has advanced since then and how much we can learn from modern orbiters.

Horzempa makes a strong case for fast, simple, affordable missions that can take advantage of rapidly-approaching launch windows. Should NASA seize the opportunity?

More:

• White Paper: Ice Giant Exploration Philosophy: Simple, Affordable
• NASA/JPL: Images Voyager Took of Neptune
• White Paper: Gas Giant and Ice Giant Atmospheres: Focused Questions for 2023-2032

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

07-12-2022 om 23:47 geschreven door peter  

The latest composite image of supernova remnant DEM L 190, released in November 2022.

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, S. Kulkarni, Y. Chu

A new Hubble Image Reveals a Shredded Star in a Nearby Galaxy

The Hubble Space Telescope, to which we owe our current estimates for the age of the universe and the first detection of organic matter on an exoplanet, is very much doing science and still alive. It’s latest masterpiece remixes an old hit – apparently a growing trend in space science as well as space music.

Big Bada Boom

The story of this image begins roughly 165,000 years ago, when an unnamed O-type star in the Large Magellanic Cloud died in a type II supernova. Light from the explosion shot out in all directions, and about 160,000 years later a tiny cross section of that expanding sphere of light reached Earth. If humanity had modern telescopes around 3,000 BC, automated systems might have logged a blip in the southern constellation Dorado, well under the limits of human perception from such a great distance.

The supernova remnant took on a familiar form: a beautiful glowing cloud of expanding gas surrounding a pulsar – a super-dense and rapidly spinning neutron star with a powerful magnetic field. Shockwaves from the collapsing stellar core interacted with the nebula, coalescing the diffuse gas into filaments. Two especially hot and dense regions of gas shot away from the central pulsar in opposite directions, “bullets” likely fired off by the core’s powerful magnetic field. Within 5,000 years the nebula would be 75 light-years across, its heart still glowing at a million degrees.

People Are Noticing

The remnant was catalogued by Karl Henize in 1956 as part of a survey of emission nebulae in the Magellanic Clouds. Dubbed N49 (sometimes LMC N49) it was immediately recognized as a powerful radio emitter, and to this day it is the brightest supernova remnant in the Large Magellanic Cloud. On March 5, 1979 a historically powerful gamma ray burst was detected by all nine spacecraft of the interplanetary gamma-ray burst network. The source was quickly pinpointed as N49, which at this point was a usual suspect for this sort of mischief.

But The March 5 transient was so insanely powerful that a second otherwise-invisible neutron star in that region was hypothesized. The term “pulsar” wasn’t going to cut it for N49. This and other similar events spurred on the study of “soft gamma ray repeaters,” and eventually the creation of the “magnetar” classification in 1992.

The Hubble Space Telescoped first imaged N49 over 3 hours between November of 1998 and July of 2000. Three false-color images in the classic “Hubble Palette” – red for sulfur, blue for oxygen, and green for hydrogen – were captured using its Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) and superimposed on a black-and-white base image, also captured by Hubble. The composited image was used in studies mainly focused on better understanding the nebula’s structure and environment.

N49 has at least 26 other identifiers across different catalogues. The most common byname in the press is DEM L 190. The remnant has been imaged by notables like ROSAT, Chandra, and Spitzer, and was even mentioned in Chapter 9 of the companion book to Carl Sagan’s Cosmos.

The remnant’s intrigue comes not just from its brightness and powerful EM bursts, but also its asymmetry. Think of the stunning Ring Nebula, the Cat’s Eye, or the Lion Nebula. Each of these monuments to the awesome beauty of the cosmos was created by the same basic process as N49. An observer of most planetary nebulae could be forgiven for entertaining the thought of a cosmic watchmaker.

By comparison N49 looks like that watchmaker tried to flip an omelet and really messed up. Pinning down why and how the occasional stellar remnant gets so messy will help us understand stellar life cycles more completely.

Composite image of DEM L 190, released in November of 2006. Optical data from Hubble was overlaid with X-ray data from the Chandra Observatory in blue and infrared data from the Spitzer Space Telescope in red. The result suggests a dense region in the Interstellar Medium around N49 may have contributed to the uneven expansion of the planetary nebula.

Credit:
X-ray: NASA/CXC/Caltech/S.Kulkarni et al.
Optical: NASA/STScI/UIUC/Y.H.Chu & R.Williams et al.
IR: NASA/JPL-Caltech/R.Gehrz et al.

Composite image of DEM L 190, released in May of 2010. Optical data from Hubble was overlaid with X-ray data from the Chandra Observatory in blue. The magnetar can be seen as a blue-white light source in the upper-middle of the image. The result shows a “bullet” in the lower-right corned and a “bullet candidate” opposite, suggesting that the supernova itself may have been asymmetrical.

Credit:
X-ray: NASA/CXC/Penn State/S.Park et al.
Optical: NASA/STScI/UIUC/Y.H.Chu & R.Williams et al.

Synthesis

As imaging technology improves, from time to time the ESA/Hubble team revisits targets. For example, back in 2003 data from two UV filters centered at 300nm & 380nm were captured at the same time as the others but were not included in the original composite. For the 2022 image they were added in, and luminosity was depicted using red light instead of white, in part to give background stars a more natural-looking color.

The past nineteen years have also seen great strides in noise reduction and data stretching algorithms, which when applied to the updated image reveal an unprecedented level of detail. Fun fact, technically none of this improves the image’s resolution, which is limited by WFPC2’s performance back in the day. But that’s just a technicality – there’s no arguing the new 2022 image shows significantly more detail.

What will this new photo reveal to discerning eyes? That’s the fun part. Maybe the more detailed filaments will help astronomers better model especially violent stellar deaths. In a few years this photo may help answer questions we don’t even have yet.

For More Information:

• ESA’s page on Revisiting a celestial fireworks display
• NASA | ESA Hubble’s page on Revisiting a Celestial Fireworks Display (Colours & filters on the bottom-right of the page)
• Up your work chat game with NASA | ESA Hubble on Giphy

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

07-12-2022 om 23:21 geschreven door peter  

FBI Documents Admit Existence of Aliens & UFO's - The UFO-Alien Occult New Age Great Deception

The Dan Bidondi Show – Spiritual Warfare The UFO-Alien Occult New Age Great Deception
FBI Documents Admit Existence of Aliens & UFO’s

Hosts Dan Bidondi & Brian Reece bring you the latest updates on the U.S. Government’s UFO reports and how the New Age occultic agenda will be pushed to bring about the great deception the Bible prophesied about.

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/ }

07-12-2022 om 22:45 geschreven door peter  

Whether you believe in predictions or not, Baba Vanga's predictions are well known for their accuracy. About 80% of Vanga's predictions turned out to be accurate.

Vangeliya Pandeva Gushterova, (1911-1996) commonly known as Baba Vanga, was a Bulgarian mystic and herbalist. Blind since early childhood, Baba Vanga spent most of her life in the Rupite area of the Kozhuh mountains in Bulgaria. 

According to her own testimony, a turning point in her life, at the ages of 12, occurred when a 'tornado' allegedly lifted her into the air and threw her into a nearby field. She was found after a long search. Witnesses described her as very frightened, and her eyes were covered with sand and dust; she was unable to open them because of the pain. There was money only for a partial operation to heal the injuries she had sustained. This resulted in a gradual loss of sight. 

According to Baba Vanga's predictions, this is going to happen in 2023 and it doesn't look good. 

A big astronomical event will occur as Earth's orbit will change. As a result of this event, it could have catastrophic consequences on Earth. 

She also claimed that the Earth will be hit by an unprecedented solar storm on a scale the world has never before seen. 

Next; aliens are about to visit planet Earth in 2023 and if that is going to happen then we could find ourselves 'covered in darkness' and millions would die, according to Baba Vanga. 

Besides astronomical events and aliens who are going to visit us, she also claimed that in 2023 we would see a nuclear power plant explosion and a 'big country' will will carry out bioweapons research on people. The result of such research will cause the death of thousands of people, also the concept of humans (lab babies) will grow in labs could become a reality.

RELATED VIDEOS, selected and posted by peter2011

{ http://ufosightingshotspot.blogspot.com/ }

07-12-2022 om 22:07 geschreven door peter  

Orbs in triangle formation in the sky above Reno, Nevada 6-Dec-2022

This triangular formation was seen and recorded over Reno, a city in the northwest section of the U.S. state of Nevada, along the Nevada-California border. This happened on 6th December 2022.

Witness report: 

Last night on 12/6/22 at 8:48 PM, we were driving off of McCaran by Easy Mile gas station and witnessed 3 floating orbs that were glowing and floating in the sky. They moved in unison with one another and were floating together. After 3 minutes two of the lights disappeared in front of me and then the third one followed about 1 minutes later.

{ https://www.latest-ufo-sightings.net/ }

07-12-2022 om 20:59 geschreven door peter  

Bright UFO making fast movements over Marion, IL 1-Dec-2022

This UFO video was filmed over Marion, Illinois on December 1st this year. Witness filmed a huge and bright object making fast and impressive movements in the sky.

{ https://www.latest-ufo-sightings.net/ }

07-12-2022 om 20:53 geschreven door peter  

LATEST UFO SIGHTINGS AND VIDEOS

Voyager 1 Detects Mysterious Sound As It Approaches Alien Star

The classic 1979 sci-fi horror film 'Alien' was advertised with the memorable tagline, space no can hear you scream. But, it did not say anything about humming.

Instruments aboard NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft, which ten years ago exited our solar system outer reaches, have detected a faint monotonous hum. What is causing this cosmic hum?

• #voyager1 #space #alien

RELATED

The Different Types Of UFO You Should Know About | Unveiled

In this video, Unveiled takes a closer look at the different types of UFO you should know about! In recent times, UFOs have been on the rise... and now even the world's governments are taking them very seriously! But not all UFO cases are the same, so here's all you need to know!

0:00 Into

0:29 Floating Orbs

2:21 Flying Pyramids

3:52 UFO Cubes

5:15 Other UFO Types

6:56 Conclusions

Gamma-ray burst from kilonova explosion detected

A long gamma-ray burst (GRB) detected using the twin Gemini Telescopes originated from a kilonova explosion triggered by a neutron star merger.

Full Story: https://www.space.com/gamma-ray-burst..

Credit: NOIRLab

China Just Shocked the Scientists of America! Nobody Would Have Expected That!

The compass, gunpowder, paper production and book printing: just a quick look at the great inventions of the ancient Chinese shows how much we still draw on the milestones of days long past. Today, however, we would like to put these remarkable achievements aside and turn our attention to the Great Wall of China - but not to the monumental protective structure you are thinking of now. Rather, we mean China's Green Wall, the project that aims to declare war on desertification! But how is it even possible to turn a bone-dry desert into a blooming oasis? What are the obstacles to be overcome and what amazing achievements have already been made? Stay tuned and see for yourself how China wants to bring the hot desert to its knees!

#TheUnknownList

Mars helicopter Ingenuity soars on its highest flight yet

The Mars helicopter Ingenuity flew to an altitude of 14 meters (~46 feet) on Dec. 3, 2022. It broke its previous record of 12 meters (~39 feet) that was originally set in July 2021 and flown again in 2 subsequent flights.

Credit: Space.com | footage and graphics: NASA/JPL-Caltech | edited by [Steve Spaleta](https://twitter.com/stevespaleta)

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07-12-2022 om 20:47 geschreven door peter