Dit is ons nieuw hondje Kira, een kruising van een waterhond en een Podenko. Ze is sinds 7 februari 2024 bij ons en druk bezig ons hart te veroveren. Het is een lief, aanhankelijk hondje, dat zich op een week snel aan ons heeft aangepast. Ze is heel vinnig en nieuwsgierig, een heel ander hondje dan Noleke.
This is our new dog Kira, a cross between a water dog and a Podenko. She has been with us since February 7, 2024 and is busy winning our hearts. She is a sweet, affectionate dog who quickly adapted to us within a week. She is very quick and curious, a very different dog than Noleke.
DEAR VISITOR,
MY BLOG EXISTS ALREADY 13 YEARS AND 2 MONTH.
ON 06/08/2024 MORE THAN 2.161.100
VISITORS FROM 135 DIFFERENT NATIONS ALREADY FOUND THEIR WAY TO MY BLOG.
THAT IS AN AVERAGE OF 400GUESTS PER DAY.
THANK YOU FOR VISITING MY BLOG AND HOPE YOU ENJOY EACH TIME.
The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
Druk op onderstaande knop om te reageren in mijn forum
Zoeken in blog
Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
Een interessant adres?
UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld In België had je vooral BUFON of het Belgisch UFO-Netwerk, dat zich met UFO's bezighoudt. BEZOEK DUS ZEKER VOOR ALLE OBJECTIEVE INFORMATIE , enkel nog beschikbaar via Facebook en deze blog.
Verder heb je ook het Belgisch-Ufo-meldpunt en Caelestia, die prachtig, doch ZEER kritisch werk leveren, ja soms zelfs héél sceptisch...
Voor Nederland kan je de mooie site www.ufowijzer.nl bezoeken van Paul Harmans. Een mooie site met veel informatie en artikels.
MUFON of het Mutual UFO Network Inc is een Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in alle USA-staten en diverse landen.
MUFON's mission is the analytical and scientific investigation of the UFO- Phenomenon for the benefit of humanity...
Je kan ook hun site bekijken onder www.mufon.com.
Ze geven een maandelijks tijdschrift uit, namelijk The MUFON UFO-Journal.
Since 02/01/2020 is Pieter ex-president (=voorzitter) of BUFON, but also ex-National Director MUFON / Flanders and the Netherlands. We work together with the French MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP.
ER IS EEN NIEUWE GROEPERING DIE ZICH BUFON NOEMT, MAAR DIE HEBBEN NIETS MET ONZE GROEP TE MAKEN. DEZE COLLEGA'S GEBRUIKEN DE NAAM BUFON VOOR HUN SITE... Ik wens hen veel succes met de verdere uitbouw van hun groep. Zij kunnen de naam BUFON wel geregistreerd hebben, maar het rijke verleden van BUFON kunnen ze niet wegnemen...
14-09-2024
Earth’s New Visitor: Asteroid to Become Temporary Mini-moon for Two Months
Earth’s New Visitor: Asteroid to Become Temporary Mini-moon for Two Months
Starting on September 29, 2024, Earth will briefly have a second "moon" as a small asteroid, 2024 PT5, gets captured by our planet's gravity. This mini-moon will stick around for nearly two months before continuing its journey through space.
What is a Mmini-moon, and How Does it Form?
A mini-moon occurs when a small celestial object, such as an asteroid, is temporarily caught in Earth's gravitational pull. Unlike our permanent Moon, these objects don't stay in orbit for long. Their orbits are unstable, and after a brief stint as Earth's companion, they eventually break free. This phenomenon is rare but not unheard of. In the past, a few other objects have become mini-moons for short periods, offering researchers valuable insights into the gravitational dynamics between Earth and small asteroids.
Mini-moons form under specific conditions—when an asteroid approaches Earth at just the right speed and trajectory to get pulled into a temporary orbit. Even slight variations in speed or angle can determine whether an object will circle the Earth or continue on its path. By studying these interactions, astronomers can learn more about how gravity influences smaller bodies in our solar system.
Asteroid 2024 PT5: Earth’s Fleeting Companion
Asteroid 2024 PT5 was first discovered on August 7, 2024, by the Asteroid Terrestrial-Impact Last Alert System (ATLAS). Measuring about 33 feet (10 meters) in diameter, this small asteroid will make a temporary loop around Earth starting on September 29, staying in orbit until November 25, 2024. According to researchers Carlos and Raúl de la Fuente Marcos, 2024 PT5 will not complete a full orbit. Instead, it will make a brief flyby, classified as a temporarily captured flyby, before breaking free of Earth’s gravitational influence and returning to its original orbit around the Sun.
Related video:
Watch How NASA’s Lucy Spacecraft Flew By Asteroid Dinkinesh (Space)
Though 2024 PT5’s stay is short, it presents a unique opportunity for astronomers to study how Earth’s gravity can alter the paths of small asteroids. This asteroid is part of the Arjuna group, a collection of near-Earth objects with orbits similar to Earth’s. Its relatively low velocity and close approach will make it possible for our planet to temporarily pull it into its orbit.
Amateur astronomer Tony Dunn shared a simulation of 2024 PT5's path on X (formerly Twitter), illustrating the asteroid's brief time as Earth’s mini-moon:
Will You be Able to See the Mini-moon?
Despite the excitement surrounding Earth’s temporary mini-moon, 2024 PT5 is far too small and dim to be seen with the naked eye. With a magnitude of 22, it will remain invisible even to most backyard telescopes. Objects need a magnitude of 6 or lower to be visible without specialized equipment, so only advanced observatories will be able to track its path.
Though it may not be visible, astronomers will closely monitor the asteroid’s movements using radar and other technologies. Observing how Earth’s gravity influences 2024 PT5 can provide valuable data for understanding how asteroids behave when they approach Earth. For space agencies, tracking mini-moons like this could also play a role in future asteroid exploration missions.
Why Mini-moons Matter for Science
While mini-moons like 2024 PT5 are small and fleeting, they offer critical insights into the dynamics of near-Earth objects. Understanding how Earth temporarily captures these asteroids helps astronomers refine models of gravitational interaction, improving predictions for how other asteroids might behave when passing close to our planet. This knowledge is crucial, particularly for preparing to deal with potentially hazardous objects that could pose a threat in the future.
Moreover, mini-moons are of interest to the growing field of asteroid mining and space exploration. These small objects, being relatively close and easy to access, offer promising targets for missions that aim to study or even extract valuable resources from asteroids. As technology advances, mini-moons could become testbeds for new exploration techniques, helping pave the way for more ambitious space missions.
While 2024 PT5’s time as Earth’s mini-moon may be brief, its presence highlights the fascinating and ever-changing dynamics of our planet’s interaction with small celestial bodies.
Will This Killer Asteroid Hit Earth in 2029? Scientists Say They'll Know for Sure by 2027
Getty / Futurism
Rocky Future
Don't panic, but the odds of a massive asteroid named Apophis smashing into Earth just got just a smidge higher.
Originally projected to harmlessly fly past us in a close approach, a new study published in The Planetary Science Journal suggests that there's actually a fraction of a chance that the 1,100-foot hunk of rock could collide with our planet after all, in the far off year of 2029.
The odds are less than one in a billion, fortunately, and would require the unfolding of a cosmic pool trick-shot to happen, but going from no chance to slim chance is still unnerving when we're talking about a mini-apocalypse on our hands.
Fortunately, Apophis — ominously named after the ancient Egyptian deity of Chaos — isn't considered big enough to wipe out human civilization outright, but it's certainly big enough to obliterate an entire city. But the real killer, most likely, will be the wait: we can't rule out the possibility of an impact until 2027, according to the study.
Bump Bump
First, we should note that Apophis, which astronomers have been observing since its discovery in 2004, isn't currently on a warpath for Earth. The study's sole author Paul Wiegert, an astronomer at Canada's Western University, found that it's still projected to fly past our planet at a distance of several Earth radii on April 13, 2029. Very close — it'll come between us and the Moon — but no cigar.
What's new, however, is the possibility that the trajectory could change if Apophis collides into another object along the way, like a smaller asteroid. According to Wiegert, almost none of the calculations on its trajectory so far have accounted for this happening since we haven't found any other asteroids that could cross paths with it. Even a study that did investigate this, which Wiegert published in March, found that the odds of this happening were "zero."
He's now recanting that. According to his latest findings, Wiegert says that Apophis could bump into tiny asteroids too small for us to see yet. If one of these wayward objects were just eleven feet across in size, that would be hefty enough to nudge it on a collision course with our planet in 2029.
And if it struck an object even just two feet across, it could also put it on a collision course — but at a later date, perhaps in 2036 or 2068.
Wait and See
Still, these impacts, even if they occur, would have to be perfectly placed to turn Apophis into an Earth-seeking missile. The odds, Wiegert calculated, is less than one in two billion. Even the odds of an impact occurring and causing a significant deflection — that doesn't necessarily put Apophis on a collision course — are less than one in one million.
Because Apophis is currently in the daytime sky, observing it with telescopes won't be possible until 2027. Even with a clear view, however, confirming that it was struck by something will be tricky, since by then most of the visible aftereffects will have dissipated, Wiegert wrote.
Still, he's optimistic that simple, direct observations of the asteroid that year will be enough to safely put the impact risk to rest — or perhaps to confirm our impending doom. Until then, it's out of our hands.
These small galaxies are either crammed with stars or they host gigantic black holes. The data astronomers have collected continues to puzzle them.
Supermassive black holes grow by pulling in matter around them.
(Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
Astronomers exploring the faraway universe with the James Webb Space Telescope,NASA's most powerful telescope, have found a class of galaxies that challenges even the most skillful creatures in mimicry — like the mimic octopus. This creature can impersonate other marine animals to avoid predators. Need to be a flatfish? No problem. A sea snake? Easy.
When astronomers analyzed the first Webb images of the remote parts of the universe, they spotted a never-before-seen group of galaxies. These galaxies — some hundreds of them and called the Little Red Dots — are very red and compact, and visible only during about 1 billion years of cosmic history. Like the mimic octopus, the Little Red Dots puzzle astronomers, because they look like different astrophysical objects. They're either massively heavy galaxies or modestly sized ones, each containing a supermassive black hole at its core.
As an astrophysicistwho studies faraway galaxies andblack holes, I am interested in understanding the nature of these little galaxies. What powers their light and what are they, really?
The mimicking contest
Astronomers analyze the light our telescopes receive from faraway galaxies to assess their physical properties, such as the number of stars they contain. We can use the properties of their light to study the Little Red Dots and figure out whether they're made up of lots of stars or whether they have a black hole inside them.
Sometimes, the spectrum contains emission lines, which are ranges of frequencies where more intense light emission occurs. In this case, we can use the spectrum's shape to predict whether the galaxy is harboring a supermassive black hole and estimate its mass.
Similarly, studying X-ray emisson from the galaxy can reveal a supermassive black hole's presence.
As the ultimate masters of disguise, the Little Red Dots appear as different astrophysical objects, depending on whether astronomers choose to study them using X-rays, emission lines or something else.
The information astronomers have collected so far from the Little Red Dots' spectra and emission lines has led to two diverging models explaining their nature. These objects are either extremely dense galaxies containing billions of stars or they host a supermassive black hole.
The two hypotheses
In the stars-only hypothesis, the Little Red Dots contain massive amounts of stars — up to 100 billion stars. That's approximately the same number of stars as in the Milky Way — a much larger galaxy.
Imagine standing alone in a huge, empty room. This vast, quiet space represents the region of the universe in the vicinity of our solar system where stars are sparsely scattered. Now, picture that same room, but packed with the entire population of China.
This packed room is what the core of the densest Little Red Dots would feel like. These astrophysical objects may be the densest stellar environments in the entire universe. Astronomers aren't even sure whether such stellar systems can physically exist.
Then, there is the black hole hypothesis. The majority of Little Red Dots display clear signs of the presence of a supermassive black hole in their center. Astronomers can tell whether there's a black hole in the galaxy by looking at large emission lines in their spectra, created by gas around the black hole swirling at high speed.
Black holes typically have a mass of about 0.1% of the stellar mass of their host galaxies. But some of these Little Red Dots harbor a black hole almost as massive as their entire galaxy. Astronomers call these overmassive black holes, because their existence defies the conventional ratio typically observed in galaxies..
Unravelling The Mysteries Of Black Holes | Monster Black Hole | Spark
There's another catch, though. Unlike ordinary black holes, those presumably present in the Little Red Dotsdon't showany sign of X-ray emission.Even in the deepest, high-energy images available, where astronomers should be able to easily observe these black holes, there's no trace of them.
Few solutions and plenty of hopes
The fact that the black holes are too big, or overmassive, might not be a problem for our understanding of the universe, but rather the best indication of how the first black holes in the universe were born. In fact, if the first black holes that ever formed were very massive — about 100,000 times the mass of the Sun — theoretical models suggest that their ratio of black hole mass to the mass of the host galaxy could stay high for a long time after formation.
So how can astronomers discover the true nature of these little specks of light that are shining at the beginning of time? As in the case of our master of disguise — the octopus — the secret resides in observing their behavior.
Using the Webb telescope and more powerful X-ray telescopes to take additional observations will eventually uncover a feature that astronomers can attribute to only one of the two scenarios.
For example, if astronomers clearly detected X-ray or radio emission, or infrared light emitted from around where the black hole might be, they'd know the black hole hypothesis is the right one.
Just like how our marine friend can pretend to be a starfish, eventually it will move its tentacles and reveal its true nature.
Lying in one of the most ancient regions of the observable universe, they found, were hundreds of galaxies that have come to be known as the "Little Red Dots."
These aren't ordinary galaxies. As Smithsonian Institution astrophysicist Fabio Pacucci explains in an essay for The Conversation, these compact red structures, which are only about two percent the size of the Milky Way, puzzle astronomers. The issue is that they can't determine what they are, because observing them through different mediums each points to them being a different kind of object.
Deepening the mystery, the Little Red Dots were only visible for a period of around one billion years, about 600 to 800 million years after the Big Bang. Now, they're nowhere to be found, and determining exactly what they are will be crucial to figuring out where they fit into the evolution of our universe.
Mystery of Interior
There are two leading hypotheses on the Little Red Dots.
One proposes that they're incredibly dense galaxies packed with up to 100 billion stars. That's as many as the Milky Way, despite being just a fraction of the size of our galaxy.
To put that into perspective, Pacucci says this would be like packing the population of China into a huge single room.
"These astrophysical objects may be the densest stellar environments in the entire universe," he wrote (whether that would even be physically possible is unclear.)
Except that observations suggest that these would have to be "overmassive" — or too big for what should be possible based on the scale of the surrounding galaxy, with some being nearly as heavy as them.
Two-Faced
This leads us to one of the Little Red Dots' most puzzling attributes, according to Pacucci: they appear like different objects depending on how you examine them.
A vital indicator of the presence of supermassive black holes are telltale emission lines in light spectra, and when examined this way, the compact galaxies clearly appear to have them — if not be dominated by them.
But if they contain supermassive black holes, the Little Red Dots should also be blasting out x-rays. More recent research, however, has shown that these puzzling galaxies show no sign of such x-rays, favoring the "stars-only" hypothesis. So, black holes or no black holes — which is it?
Pacucci speculates that it's possible that the sheer density of material surrounding the Little Red Dots' black holes are blocking its x-ray emissions, or it could be that they're being emitted in a different spectrum than what we're used to.
In any case, the implications are fascinating. We could be looking at unprecedentedly dense star-filled galaxies, or evidence that "overmassive" black holes may have been the first ones in the universe.
NASA Activates Ancient Thrusters on Voyager 1, the Most Distant Human Object in Existence
NASA Activates Ancient Thrusters on Voyager 1, the Most Distant Human Object in Existence
It's incredible that it still has fuel left.
NASA engineers have pulled off an incredible feat, switching the agency's ancient Voyager 1 probe to a different set of thrusters.
Big Money Thrustas
NASA engineers have pulled off an incredible feat: switching the agency's ancient Voyager 1 probe — the farthest human-made object in existence — to a different set of thrusters.
The feat, heavily complicated by therecord 15.3 billion milesof outer space separating the probe from ground control, took weeks of careful planning.
Some of the 46-year-old spacecraft's thrusters started getting gunked up with silicon dioxide, the apparent result of a rubber diaphragm breaking down inside its fuel tank. The material reduced the thrusters' efficiency, forcing NASA to come up with a workaround.
Their solution: reactivate a different set of thrusters to keep it going.
The feat, successfully completed in late August, gives Voyager 1 yet another lease on life. The probe has been on life support for quite some time now — but it's still not giving up.
A model of NASA’s Voyager spacecraft. The twin Voyagers have been flying since 1977 and are exploring the outer regions of our solar system.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
Dead Space
Voyager 1 has three sets of thrusters, which were designed to help it perform several planetary flybys. However, now that it's on a straight path away from the solar system, "its thruster needs are simpler, and either thruster branch can be used to point the spacecraft at Earth," according to NASA.
It's not the first time engineers have had to switch to a different set of thrusters. Both in 2002 and 2018, teams swapped the probe to a different branch due to similar material buildup.
The team's latest move was to swap to an attitude propulsion thruster branch, which had already been partially clogged, but to a lesser degree.
Complicating matters are power supply and temperature issues. Having "turned off all non-essential onboard systems, including some heaters" to conserve power, both Voyager 1 and its twin Voyager 2 have grown colder.
Consequently, engineers had to warm up the thrusters before bringing them back online to avoid any damage. However, turning on the heater could put too much stress on the spacecraft's dwindling power supplies.
Fortunately, the team confirmed on August 27 that their final plan — turning off one of the main heaters to free up power for the thruster heaters — had worked, allowing Voyager 1 to keep edging into interstellar space.
"All the decisions we will have to make going forward are going to require a lot more analysis and caution than they once did," said Voyager's project manager Suzanne Dodd in a statement.
Nobody knows how long Voyager 1 will hold on. The spacecraft has more than exceeded expectations, having fulfilled its original mission to explore Jupiter, Saturn, and Saturn's largest moon, Titan, decades ago.
But NASA remains optimistic.
"My motto for a long time was 50 years or bust," astronomer Stamatios Krimigis, who has worked on the Voyager 1 mission since the 1970s, told NPR in March, "but we're sort of approaching that."
Martian ‘spiders’ are small, dark, spider-shaped features up to 1 km (0.6 miles) across. The leading theory is that they form when spring sunshine falls on layers of carbon dioxide deposited over the dark winter months. Thanks to new experiments, a team of scientists at NASA has, for the first time, re-created those formation processes in simulated Martian temperatures and air pressure.
Examples of the ‘Kieffer zoo’ features proposed to be formed by seasonal carbon dioxide sublimation dynamics on Mars: (a) ‘thin’ spiders within the south polar layered deposits; (b) dark spots on top of a layer of translucent carbon dioxide slab ice covering a cluster of ‘fat’ spiders at Martian ‘Inca City;’ (c) ‘fried eggs’ showing rings of dark dust surrounded by bright halos; (d) patterned ground within the high south polar latitudes with dark oriented fans indicative of wind direction and some bright, white fans; (e) bright halos surrounding Swiss cheese depressions; (f) ‘lace terrain,’ a type of patterned ground suggested to be polygonally patterned ground later scoured and eroded by surface-flowing carbon dioxide gas from the Kieffer model.
Image credit: HiRISE / NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory / University of Arizona.
Present-day Mars is a dynamic planet, rich with surface change despite its tenuous atmosphere and cold climate.
In winter, a significant portion of Mars’ primarily carbon dioxide-atmosphere accumulates onto the surface as frost.
In the spring, it sublimes, revealing some morphologies that are unlike anything seen on Earth.
These include dark dalmatian spots and oriented fans, ‘fried eggs,’ gullies sometimes accompanied by dark digitate flows and bright ‘halos’ in spring, dendritic ‘spiders’, sand furrows on active dunes, and growing dendritic troughs.
These features have been detected on loose material around the south pole and on interdune material toward the south polar midlatitudes. However, some minor phenomena have been detected in the north.
Araneiform features on the surface of Mars, as imaged by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in 2009.
Many of these features compose the so-called ‘Kieffer zoo,’ a collection of surface expressions first described in 2003 and proposed to be created by the solid-state greenhouse effect.
“In the Kieffer model, sunlight penetrates translucent slab ice in spring and thermal-wavelength radiation gets trapped, heating the regolith beneath the ice and causing the impermeable ice slab to sublimate from its base,” explained Dr. Lauren Mc Keown of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and colleagues.
“Through this process, spiders are proposed to be eroded via high-velocity gas scouring the sub-slab regolith, while fans and variations of spots are strewn on the ice surface, deposited by a plume of dust and gas.”
The study authors were able to create the full cycle of the Kieffer model in a lab and confirm the formation of several types of Kieffer zoo features.
“The hardest part of conducting the experiments was re-creating conditions found on the Martian polar surface: extremely low air pressure and temperatures as low as minus 185 degrees Celsius (minus 301 degrees Fahrenheit),” they said.
“To do that, we used a liquid-nitrogen-cooled test chamber: the Dirty Under-vacuum Simulation Testbed for Icy Environments (DUSTIE).”
“For the experiments, we chilled Martian soil simulant in a container submerged within a liquid nitrogen bath.”
“We placed it in the DUSTIE chamber, where the air pressure was reduced to be similar to that of Mars’ southern hemisphere.”
“Carbon dioxide gas then flowed into the chamber and condensed from gas to ice over the course of three to five hours.”
“It took many tries before we found just the right conditions for the ice to become thick and translucent enough for the experiments to work.”
NASA’s Webb Reveals Distorted Galaxy Forming Cosmic Question Mark
NASA’s Webb Reveals Distorted Galaxy Forming Cosmic Question Mark
The galaxy cluster MACS-J0417.5-1154. Full image below.
Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, V. Estrada-Carpenter (Saint Mary's University).
It’s 7 billion years ago, and the universe’s heyday of star formation is beginning to slow. What might our Milky Way galaxy have looked like at that time? Astronomers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have found clues in the form of a cosmic question mark, the result of a rare alignment across light-years of space.
“We know of only three or four occurrences of similar gravitational lens configurations in the observable universe, which makes this find exciting, as it demonstrates the power of Webb and suggests maybe now we will find more of these,” said astronomer Guillaume Desprez of Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, a member of the team presenting the Webb results.
Image A: Lensed Question Mark (NIRCam)
The galaxy cluster MACS-J0417.5-1154 is so massive it is warping the fabric of space-time and distorting the appearance of galaxies behind it, an effect known as gravitational lensing. This natural phenomenon magnifies distant galaxies and can also make them appear in an image multiple times, as NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope saw here. Two distant, interacting galaxies — a face-on spiral and a dusty red galaxy seen from the side — appear multiple times, tracing a familiar shape across the sky. Active star formation, and the face-on galaxy’s remarkably intact spiral shape, indicate that these galaxies’ interaction is just beginning.
NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, V. Estrada-Carpenter (Saint Mary's University).
While this region has been observed previously with NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, the dusty red galaxy that forms the intriguing question-mark shape only came into view with Webb. This is a result of the wavelengths of light that Hubble detects getting trapped in cosmic dust, while longer wavelengths of infrared light are able to pass through and be detected by Webb’s instruments.
Astronomers used both telescopes to observe the galaxy cluster MACS-J0417.5-1154, which acts like a magnifying glass because the cluster is so massive it warps the fabric of space-time. This allows astronomers to see enhanced detail in much more distant galaxies behind the cluster. However, the same gravitational effects that magnify the galaxies also cause distortion, resulting in galaxies that appear smeared across the sky in arcs and even appear multiple times. These optical illusions in space are called gravitational lensing.
The red galaxy revealed by Webb, along with a spiral galaxy it is interacting with that was previously detected by Hubble, are being magnified and distorted in an unusual way, which requires a particular, rare alignment between the distant galaxies, the lens, and the observer — something astronomers call a hyperbolic umbilic gravitational lens. This accounts for the five images of the galaxy pair seen in Webb’s image, four of which trace the top of the question mark. The dot of the question mark is an unrelated galaxy that happens to be in the right place and space-time, from our perspective.
Image B: Hubble and Webb Side by Side
In addition to producing a case study of the Webb NIRISS (Near-Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph) instrument’s ability to detect star formation locations within a galaxy billions of light-years away, the research team also couldn’t resist highlighting the question mark shape. “This is just cool looking. Amazing images like this are why I got into astronomy when I was young,” said astronomer Marcin Sawicki of Saint Mary’s University, one of the lead researchers on the team.
“Knowing when, where, and how star formation occurs within galaxies is crucial to understanding how galaxies have evolved over the history of the universe,” said astronomer Vicente Estrada-Carpenter of Saint Mary’s University, who used both Hubble’s ultraviolet and Webb’s infrared data to show where new stars are forming in the galaxies. The results show that star formation is widespread in both. The spectral data also confirmed that the newfound dusty galaxy is located at the same distance as the face-on spiral galaxy, and they are likely beginning to interact.
“Both galaxies in the Question Mark Pair show active star formation in several compact regions, likely a result of gas from the two galaxies colliding,” said Estrada-Carpenter. “However, neither galaxy’s shape appears too disrupted, so we are probably seeing the beginning of their interaction with each other.”
“These galaxies, seen billions of years ago when star formation was at its peak, are similar to the mass that the Milky Way galaxy would have been at that time. Webb is allowing us to study what the teenage years of our own galaxy would have been like,” said Sawicki.
Image C: Wide Field - Lensed Question Mark (NIRCam)
Wide Field View: The galaxy cluster MACS-J0417.5-1154 is so massive it is warping the fabric of space-time and distorting the appearance of galaxies behind it, an effect known as gravitational lensing. This natural phenomenon magnifies distant galaxies and can also make them appear in an image multiple times, as NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope saw here. Two distant, interacting galaxies — a face-on spiral and a dusty red galaxy seen from the side — appear multiple times, tracing a familiar shape across the sky. Active star formation, and the face-on galaxy’s remarkably intact spiral shape, indicate that these galaxies’ interaction is just beginning.
NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, V. Estrada-Carpenter (Saint Mary's University).
The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).
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Vergeleken met een paar decennia geleden weten we nu veel meer over het heelal en zijn samenstelling, geschiedenis en toekomst. Maar ondanks de antwoorden die zijn gevonden dankzij de voortdurende ontdekkingen van wetenschappers en de beelden van telescopen, blijven er nog veel vraagtekens bestaan. Letterlijk, soms. In feite is de ontdekking van een vraagteken in de ruimte, gefotografeerd door de James Webb Space Telescope, recent. Wat is het precies? En probeert het universum ons echt iets te vertellen? Laten we het samen ontdekken!
Een ongelooflijke zwaartekrachtlens
Als je naar de foto kijkt die door de JWST is gemaakt, lijkt het echt op een enorm vraagteken in de ruimte. Probeert het universum ook met ons te communiceren? Nou, ja en nee, want het vraagteken dat we zien is in werkelijkheid een geval van pareidolia, dat wil zeggen een illusie die ons ertoe brengt bekende objecten in willekeurige vormen te zien. En in feite bestaat het vreemde kosmische object uit drie sterrenstelsels die dit visuele effect bieden dankzij een zwaartekrachtlens.
Een zwaartekrachtlens, een effect dat al door Einstein werd voorspeld, is een verschijnsel dat optreedt wanneer het pad van licht van een object dat ver van ons vandaan is, wordt vervormd als gevolg van de vervorming van de ruimtetijd. Als licht een enorme massa passeert, buigt de ruimtetijd en dus ook het licht, waardoor gekromde sterrenstelsels, vreemde visuele effecten... en vraagtekens in de ruimte ontstaan.
Drie sterrenstelsels voor een vraag
NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, V. Estrada-Carpenter (Saint Mary's University)
De foto die is gemaakt door de James Webb Space Telescope laat drie sterrenstelsels zien die in onze ogen een vraagteken in de ruimte vormen. Twee daarvan vormen de bovenkant van het bijzondere symbool: de eerste zit vol kosmisch stof en is rood van kleur, terwijl de tweede een wit spiraalvormig sterrenstelsel is. Tot slot is er de stip die wordt gevormd door een derde sterrenstelsel dat perfect is uitgelijnd met de telescoop. Jaren geleden had zelfs de Hubble dezelfde scène gefotografeerd, maar het detailniveau daarvan was veel lager dan dat van de JWST, waardoor het sommige details die we nu kunnen zien, niet kon vastleggen.
Bovendien zijn de eerste twee sterrenstelsels ongeveer 7 miljard lichtjaar van ons verwijderd, dus wat wij zien is wat er ongeveer 7 miljard jaar geleden is gebeurd. Het is heel goed mogelijk dat die twee sterrenstelsels vandaag zijn gefuseerd of al ver weg zijn, maar dat kunnen we niet weten. Nog niet, tenminste.
Voorbij het kosmische vraagteken
De ontdekking van een vraagteken in de ruimte is, afgezien van simpele humor of een subtiele metafoor, buitengewoon. Allereerst laat het opnieuw dat ongelooflijke instrument zien dat de JWST is, zelfs vergeleken met de Hubble-telescoop die ook de hemel blijft afspeuren. Ten tweede is het observeren van een zwaartekrachtlens altijd een kans voor astronomen en astrofysici, omdat het hen in staat stelt verder te kijken dan onoverkomelijke sterrenstelsels en te bestuderen wat daarachter ligt.
Kortom, deze ontdekking lijkt misschien eenvoudig en banaal: het was tenslotte gewoon een kwestie van het analyseren en inkleuren van enkele beelden verkregen op het infraroodspectrum, en het bekijken van de verschillende delen. Maar in werkelijkheid is de reikwijdte ervan veel breder: het toont opnieuw aan dat het vandaag de dag mogelijk is om het universum als nooit tevoren te zien en misschien enkele van de meest ondoorgrondelijke mysteries ervan te beantwoorden. Beginnend met de juiste vraagtekens.
SpaceX Drains Air From Spacecraft While Astronauts Are Inside
SpaceX Drains Air From Spacecraft While Astronauts Are Inside
Story by Victor Tangermann
SpaceX Drains Air From Spacecraft While Astronauts Are Inside
One Small Step
SpaceX's all-civilian Polaris Dawn mission has pulled off an incredible feat: the first-ever commercial spacewalk.
After fully depressurizing their entire spacecraft, billionaire and mission commander Jared Isaacman and crewmate Sarah Gillis carefully clambered outside their Crew Dragon capsule early Thursday morning to have a once-in-a-lifetime peek at the Earth below.
Footage shows Isaacman standing up and stretching his arms while holding onto the spacecraft's "Skywalker" platform, a pool ladder-like structure to ensure he and Gillis could keep in constant contact with the capsule.
The stunt was performed at an altitude of 458 miles, almost twice the height of the International Space Station's usual orbit.
"SpaceX, back at home we have a lot of work to do, but from here it looks like a perfect world," Isaacman told mission control while getting an unparalleled view of Australia.
Giant Private Leap
Another video of the stunt shows a first-person perspective of Isaacman climbing out as SpaceX employees cheered him on at the company's headquarters. In total, Isaacman and Gillis spent roughly eight minutes outside the capsule.
Prior to venturing outside, the crew began slowly lowering the pressure inside the spacecraft to become accustomed to the thin air. Hours into their journey, the cabin pressure was lowered to 8.6 psi, which is just above the conditions at the base camp of Mount Everest. They also began to breathe pure oxygen through the connections of their spacesuits.
Related video:
SpaceX Completes 1st-Ever Spacewalk By A Commercial Company As Part Of Polaris Dawn Mission (Dailymotion)
SpaceX to launch Polaris Dawn mission featuring 1st commercial spacewalk
By the time Isaacman and Gillis ventured outside, the pressure inside their suits was a mere 5 psi, just below the summit of Mount Everest.
But even with SpaceX's newfangled extravehicular activities (EVA) suit, Isaacman and Gillis were still fully connected to their Dragon spacecraft via an umbilical, providing them with a steady supply of oxygen and thermal controls.
The mission isn't just historic as the first commercial spacewalk. Just hours into their mission, the Polaris Dawn crew reached an apogee of 869 miles — roughly three times the altitude of the space station — marking the farthest from Earth that any human has ventured since NASA's Apollo missions half a century ago.
The spacewalk is yet another major achievement for the Elon Musk-led SpaceX, setting the stage for similar missions to come.
And NASA is absolutely thrilled as well.
"Today’s success represents a giant leap forward for the commercial space industry and NASA's long-term goal to build a vibrant U.S. space economy," said NASA administrator Bill Nelson in a statement.
Japans ruimtevaartbedrijf ispace wil maanlanding herdefiniëren met Hakuto-R Missie 2
Japans ruimtevaartbedrijf ispace wil maanlanding herdefiniëren met Hakuto-R Missie 2
Artikel door businessam.be
apans ruimtevaartbedrijf ispace wil maanlanding herdefiniëren met Hakuto-R Missie 2
Key takeaways
Tweede maanlandingsmissie, “Hakuto-R Missie 2”, voorlopig gepland voor december.
Het ruimtevaartuig zal worden afgeleverd via een SpaceX Falcon 9 raket vanuit Florida en zal proberen de maan te raken na ongeveer vier tot vijf maanden ruimtevlucht.
Het doel van de missie is om het goed te maken na de mislukte eerste poging in april 2023 door een misrekening van de hoogte.
Het Japanse ruimteverkenningsbedrijf ispace heeft plannen aangekondigd voor een tweede maanlandingsmissie, voorlopig gepland voor december. De “Hakuto-R Missie 2” zal bestaan uit het afleveren van een ruimtevaartuig via een SpaceX Falcon 9 raket vanuit Florida en een maanlanding proberen te maken na een ruimtevlucht van ongeveer vier tot vijf maanden.
Na de mislukte eerste poging in april 2023 als gevolg van een misrekening met de hoogte, is ispace erop gebrand om zichzelf te verlossen. Het bedrijf is gemotiveerd door het succes van Intuitive Machines, dat in februari ’s werelds eerste particuliere maanlanding realiseerde.
Achtergrond en motivatie
Ispace, opgericht in 2010, heeft ongeveer 300 mensen in dienst in Japan, de Verenigde Staten en Luxemburg. Net als andere landen onderzoekt Japan de maan op zoek naar water, brandstof en andere bronnen die het menselijk leven in de toekomst kunnen ondersteunen.
In de afgelopen jaren zijn verschillende landen, waaronder India, Japan en China, met succes op de maan geland. De Verenigde Staten plannen hun eerste maanlanding met astronauten sinds 1972 als onderdeel van het Artemis-programma, gepland voor 2026.
ispace HAKUTO-R Mission 1: Landing Live Stream
Why Japan's Moon Lander Crashed Due to An Unbelievable Computer Bug
The experimental fusion reactor sustained temperatures of 180 million degrees Fahrenheit for a record-breaking 48 seconds.
The inside of a tokamak fusion reactor.
(Image credit: Monty Rakusen/Getty Images)
South Korea's "artificial sun" has set a new fusion record after superheating aplasma loop to 180 million degrees Fahrenheit (100 million degrees Celsius) for 48 seconds, scientists have announced.
The Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR) reactor broke the previous world record of 31 seconds, which was set by the same reactor in 2021.The breakthrough is a small but impressive step on the long road to a source of near-unlimited clean energy.
Scientists have been trying to harness the power of nuclear fusion — the process by which stars burn — for more than 70 years. By fusing hydrogen atoms to make helium under extremely high pressures and temperatures, so-called main-sequence stars convert matter into light and heat, generating enormous amounts of energy without producing greenhouse gases or long-lasting radioactive waste.
But replicating the conditions found inside the hearts of stars is no simple task. The most common design for fusion reactors — the tokamak — works by superheating plasma (one of the four states of matter, consisting of positive ions and negatively charged free electrons) and trapping it inside a donut-shaped reactor chamber with powerful magnetic fields.
Keeping the turbulent and superheated coils of plasma in place long enough for nuclear fusion to happen, however, has been a painstaking process. Soviet scientist Natan Yavlinsky designed the first tokamak in 1958, but no one has ever managed to create a reactor that is able to put out more energy than it takes in.
One of the main stumbling blocks has been how to handle a plasma that's hot enough to fuse. Fusion reactors require very high temperatures — many times hotter than the sun — because they have to operate at much lower pressures than where fusion naturally takes place inside the cores of stars. The core of the actual sun, for example, reaches temperatures of around 27 million F (15 million C) but has pressures roughly equal to 340 billion times the air pressure at sea level on Earth.
Cooking plasma to these temperatures is the relatively easy part, but finding a way to corral it so that it doesn't burn through the reactor without also ruining the fusion process is technically tricky. This is usually done either with lasers or magnetic fields.
To extend their plasma's burning time from the previous record-breaking run, the scientists tweaked aspects of their reactor's design, including replacing carbon with tungsten to improve the efficiency of the tokamak’s "divertors," which extract heat and ash from the reactor.
"Despite being the first experiment run in the environment of the new tungsten divertors, thorough hardware testing and campaign preparation enabled us to achieve results surpassing those of previous KSTAR records in a short period," Si-Woo Yoon, the director of the KSTAR Research Center, said in a statement.
KSTAR scientists are aiming to push the reactor to sustain temperatures of 180 million F for 300 seconds by 2026.
The record joins others made by competing fusion reactors around the world, including one by the U.S. government-funded National Ignition Facility (NIF), which sparked headlines after the reactor core briefly put out more energy than was put into it.
If humans are ever going to become a spacefaring species then we need to figure out a few more efficient ways to traverse the cosmos. That’s why NASA’s latest futuristic solar sail tech should be raising eyebrows.
Photo Credit: Wiki Commons By NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center, Public Domain
More reality than fiction
Solar sails may seem more science fiction than reality, but just four months after a new NASA solar sail project hitched a ride into space, it spread out its sails and proved that the concept could be a viable option for space travel.
Photo Credit: Wiki Commons By Andrzej Mirecki, Own Work, CC BY-SA 3.0
It won’t be taking us to Mars anytime soon Obviously, solar sails will not be able to take humans to other planets quite yet, but the technology could be used for a wide variety of missions in space. But how exactly does a sail work in the vacuum of space (a place with no wind)?
Not like the sails back on Earth Solar sails aren’t exactly like the sails on a boat here on Earth but the concept is quite similar according to Space.com. Just like how wind can guide a sailboat, solar energy (photons) can be harnessed to help guide vessels through space.
How does a solar sail work? “It only takes a slight amount of sunlight to guide solar sails through space,” Space.com noted, adding that although “photons don't have mass, they can force momentum when they hit an object,” which is how solar sails can move objects in space.
Photo Credit: Wiki Commons By Scott Andrews, Public Domain
Launched into space in April 2024 On April 24th, the Advanced Composite Solar Sail System (ACS3) headed up to space with Rocket Lab's Electron vehicle, and on August 29th, the ACS3 spread its solar sails in space for the first time, and it was captured by cameras fixed to its sails.
Photo Credit: NASA
The solar sails are fully deployed NASA published the first image from the ACS3’s sail deployment on September 5th, and it was a sight to see—even if its orientation was a bit confusing, something that NASA noted in its press release alongside the image.
Photo Credit: Wiki Commons By NASA Ames Research Center / NASA/Aero Animation/Ben Schweighart
The mission’s success is pretty awesome “The success so far of this mission is pretty awesome because solar sail technology is an incredibly impressive concept both in practice and in theory,” reported Live Science’s Monisha Ravisetti. But now the real work has begun for NASA's ACS3 team.
Photo Credit: NASA/Aero Animation/Ben Schweighart
The ACS3 will be put to the test NASA’s new solar sail system will be put to the test over the next few weeks according to Space.com’s Meredith Garofalo, who reported that the maneuverability of the system will be observed so that more can be learned about how to improve the system.
Photo Credit: Wiki Commons By NASA, Public Domain
Valuable information will be gathered Raising and lowering the orbit of the Advanced Composite Solar Sail System spacecraft will provide valuable information that may help guide future concepts of operations and designs for solar sail-equipped science and exploration missions,” NASA noted.
Half the size of a tennis court
The ACS3 spacecraft orbits the Earth at nearly double the altitude of the International Space Station according to NASA, which also pointed out its sails span roughly 860 square feet or about 80 square meters (half the size of a tennis court for reference).
Photo Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls
Visible with the naked eye “Now, with the sail fully extended, the Solar Sail System may be visible to some keen skywatchers on Earth who look up at the right time,” a NASA press release noted. So be sure to try and spot the spacecraft the next time you’re gazing up at the stars! It looks like a diamond according to NASA.
If humans are ever going to become a spacefaring species then we need to figure out a few more efficient ways to traverse the cosmos. That’s why NASA’s latest futuristic solar sail tech should be raising eyebrows.
Photo Credit: Wiki Commons By NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center, Public Domain
More reality than fiction
Solar sails may seem more science fiction than reality, but just four months after a new NASA solar sail project hitched a ride into space, it spread out its sails and proved that the concept could be a viable option for space travel.
Photo Credit: Wiki Commons By Andrzej Mirecki, Own Work, CC BY-SA 3.0
It won’t be taking us to Mars anytime soon Obviously, solar sails will not be able to take humans to other planets quite yet, but the technology could be used for a wide variety of missions in space. But how exactly does a sail work in the vacuum of space (a place with no wind)?
Not like the sails back on Earth Solar sails aren’t exactly like the sails on a boat here on Earth but the concept is quite similar according to Space.com. Just like how wind can guide a sailboat, solar energy (photons) can be harnessed to help guide vessels through space.
How does a solar sail work? “It only takes a slight amount of sunlight to guide solar sails through space,” Space.com noted, adding that although “photons don't have mass, they can force momentum when they hit an object,” which is how solar sails can move objects in space.
Photo Credit: Wiki Commons By Scott Andrews, Public Domain
Launched into space in April 2024 On April 24th, the Advanced Composite Solar Sail System (ACS3) headed up to space with Rocket Lab's Electron vehicle, and on August 29th, the ACS3 spread its solar sails in space for the first time, and it was captured by cameras fixed to its sails.
Photo Credit: NASA
The solar sails are fully deployed NASA published the first image from the ACS3’s sail deployment on September 5th, and it was a sight to see—even if its orientation was a bit confusing, something that NASA noted in its press release alongside the image.
Photo Credit: Wiki Commons By NASA Ames Research Center / NASA/Aero Animation/Ben Schweighart
The mission’s success is pretty awesome “The success so far of this mission is pretty awesome because solar sail technology is an incredibly impressive concept both in practice and in theory,” reported Live Science’s Monisha Ravisetti. But now the real work has begun for NASA's ACS3 team.
SpaceX-Polaris crew exits capsule for first private spacewalk
SpaceX-Polaris crew exits capsule for first private spacewalk
Story by Joey Roulette
FILE PHOTO: Anna Menon, Scott Poteet, commander Jared Isaacman and Sarah Gillis, crew members of Polaris Dawn, a private human spaceflight mission, attend a press conference at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S. August 19, 2024.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A crew of four aboard a SpaceX capsule embarked on the world's first private spacewalk on Thursday, as an astronaut eased out of the Crew Dragon spacecraft on a tether into the vacuum of space, hundreds of miles from Earth.
Billionaire Jared Isaacman, 41, exited first about 6:52 a.m. ET (1052 GMT). After he returned a few minutes later, SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis, 30, was scheduled to take her turn in space, all their maneuvers streaming live on the company's website.
"Back at home we all have a lot of work to do, but from here, Earth sure looks like a perfect world," Isaacman said after emerging from the spacecraft, the planet glittering in half shadow below him.
Before the spacewalk began, the capsule was completely depressurized, with the whole crew relying on their slim, SpaceX-developed spacesuits for oxygen, provided via an umbilical connection to Crew Dragon.
The spacewalk was scheduled to last only about 30 minutes, but the procedures to prepare for it and to finish it safely last about two hours. It was meant to test the new spacesuit designs and procedures for the capsule, among other things.
Related video:
SpaceX Polaris Dawn crew set to begin first private spacewalk (France 24)
A still image from the video of the SpaceX Polaris Dawn mission shows crew member Jared Isaacman outside the capsule during the first-ever private spacewalk on September 12, 2024.
Isaacman, Gillis, Scott Poteet, 50, a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel, and SpaceX engineer Anna Menon, 38, had been orbiting Earth aboard Crew Dragon since Tuesday's pre-dawn launch from Florida of the Polaris Dawn mission. Menon and Poteet remained inside the spacecraft during the spacewalk.
It is the Elon Musk-led company's latest and riskiest bid to push the boundaries of commercial spaceflight.
Isaacman, a pilot and the billionaire founder of electronic payments company Shift4, is bankrolling the Polaris mission, as he did his Inspiration4 flight with SpaceX in 2021.
He has declined to say how much he is paying, but the missions are likely to cost hundreds of millions of dollars, based on Crew Dragon's price of roughly $55 million a seat for other flights.
FARTHEST SINCE APOLLO
Throughout Wednesday, the craft circled Earth at least six times in an oval orbit as shallow as 190 km (118 miles) and stretching out as far as 1,400 km (870 miles), the farthest in space that humans have traveled since the last U.S. Apollo mission in 1972.
The gumdrop-shaped spacecraft then began to lower its orbit into a peak 700-km (435-mile) position and adjust cabin pressure to ready for the spacewalk, formally called Extravehicular Activity (EVA), the Polaris program said on social media on Wednesday.
"The crew also spent a few hours demonstrating the suit’s pressurized mobility, verifying positions and accessibility in microgravity along with preparing the cabin for the EVA," it said.
Only government astronauts with several years of training have done spacewalks in the past.
There have been roughly 270 on the International Space Station (ISS) since it was set up in 2000, and 16 by Chinese astronauts on Beijing's Tiangong space station.
The Polaris crew has spent 2-1/2 years training with SpaceX mission simulations and "experiential learning" in challenging, uncomfortable environments, said Poteet.
A record 19 astronauts are now in orbit, after Russia's Soyuz MS-26 mission ferried two cosmonauts and a U.S. astronaut to the International Space Station on Wednesday, taking its headcount to 12.
Three Chinese astronauts are aboard the Tiangong space station.
The first U.S. spacewalk in 1965, aboard a Gemini capsule, used a similar procedure to the one planned for Polaris Dawn: the capsule was depressurized, the hatch opened, and a spacesuited astronaut ventured outside on a tether.
Since 2001, Crew Dragon, the only U.S. vehicle capable of reliably putting humans in orbit and returning them to Earth, has flown more than a dozen astronaut missions, mainly for NASA.
The agency seeded development of the capsule under a program meant to establish commercial, privately-built U.S. vehicles capable of ferrying astronauts with the ISS.
Also developed under that program was Boeing's Starliner capsule, but it is farther behind.
Starliner launched its first astronauts to the ISS in June in a troubled test mission that ended this month with the capsule returning empty, leaving its crew on the space station for a Crew Dragon capsule to fetch next year.
(Reporting by Joey Roulette and Gerry Doyle; Editing by Jamie Freed and Clarence Fernandez)
"Spacewalk is now complete": Eerste ruimtewandeling ooit door niet-professionele astronauten succesvol afgerond
"Spacewalk is now complete": Eerste ruimtewandeling ooit door niet-professionele astronauten succesvol afgerond
De eerste ruimtewandeling door 2 niet-professionele astronauten is succesvol afgerond. Zowel Jared Isaacman als Sarah Gillis verlieten het ruimteschip langs een luik en waren ongeveer 10 minuten in de ruimte. Ze deden dat in compleet nieuwe ruimtepakken, die nog nooit in de ruimte getest waren. Bij SpaceX kunnen ze nu gerust ademhalen, want dit was het gevaarlijkste en spannendste moment van de Polaris Dawn-missie, die dinsdag werd gelanceerd.
Giel Bosmans, Wim De Maeseneer
Voor de eerste keer ooit hebben 2 "gewone" mensen een ruimtewandeling kunnen maken. Ze deden dat door op zo'n 700 kilometer boven de aarde hun ruimteschip te verlaten, terwijl ze met 26.000 kilometer per uur door de ruimte vlogen. Het risicovolle onderdeel van de ruimtemissie verliep zoals gepland.
De Amerikaanse zakenman en miljardair Jared Isaacman was als gezagvoerder (en geldschieter) de eerste die het ruimteschip verliet. Daarna maakte ook de 30-jarige Amerikaanse ingenieur Sarah Gillis een ruimtewandeling.
Bekijk: "Het was een groot risico, maar het is belangrijk dat de pakken getest werden", ruimtevaartjournalist Wim De Maeseneer
Isaacman en Gillis gingen elk om de beurt ongeveer 10 minuten naar buiten. Met het openen en opnieuw sluiten van het luik en het regelen van de luchtdruk in de capsule nam alles in totaal zo'n 2 uur in beslag.
Gillis staat bij SpaceX aan het hoofd van het trainingsprogramma voor de astronauten. Zelf ging ze nog nooit de ruimte in, net als de 2 andere astronauten Scott Poteet en Anna Menon. Enkel Isaacman maakte in 2021 al eens een ruimtevlucht.
Anders dan bij de ruimtewandelingen door professionele astronauten, zweefden de astronauten niet echt door de ruimte. Ze bleven de hele tijd fysiek contact houden met het ruimteschip en gingen niet verder dan net buiten het luik. Ze bleven ook de hele tijd verbonden via een kabel die hen onder meer voorzag van zuurstof. Toch zijn ruimtewandelingen, ook onder die omstandigheden, uiterst gevaarlijk.
Veel risico
Wat deze ruimtewandeling extra risicovol maakte, is dat de gloednieuwe ruimtepakken die de astronauten droegen nog nooit getest waren in de ruimte. Het ruimteschip heeft ook geen luchtsluis, waardoor het hele ruimteschip werd blootgesteld aan het vacuüm van de ruimte. Ook de 2 astronauten die binnen bleven zitten en de wandeling begeleidden, liepen dus risico.
"Ik ga met een bang hartje kijken, ik ben er niet gerust op", vertelde ruimtevaartexpert Nancy Vermeulen op voorhand. "Het is de eerste keer dat niet-professionele, onervaren astronauten een ruimtewandeling doen. Er kan echt van alles misgaan."
"Het zijn eigenlijk 4 beginners", zei de Nederlandse astronaut André Kuipers in de podcast 'Space Cowboys'. "Ze gaan allemaal nieuwe dingen tegelijk doen. Dat is absoluut niet zonder gevaar. Normaal wordt een ruimtewandeling ook nooit zo vroeg in een ruimtevlucht gedaan, omdat je de eerste dagen ruimteziek kan worden."
Grensverleggende ruimtevlucht
De ruimtewandeling maakt deel uit van de Polaris Dawn-missie: een commerciële ruimtevlucht van SpaceX, het ruimtebedrijf van Elon Musk. De 4 zitjes aan boord zijn gekocht door de Amerikaanse zakenman en miljardair Jared Isaacman. Samen met 3 andere ruimtevaarders vliegt hij sinds dinsdag rond de aarde in een Dragon-capsule van SpaceX.
Polaris Dawn vloog op de 2e dag van de missie tot op 1.400 kilometer hoog. Het was al van de laatste maanvlucht in 1972 geleden dat een bemande ruimtemissie zo ver weg van de aarde reisde. Het was ook de eerste keer dat vrouwelijke astronauten zo ver in de ruimte zijn geweest.
Polaris Dawn and Dragon at 1,400 km above Earth – the farthest humans have traveled since the Apollo program over 50 years agopic.twitter.com/rRDeD1dY1e
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Nieuwe ruimtepakken
De pakken zijn ontworpen door SpaceX, het ruimtebedrijf van de Amerikaanse zakenman Elon Musk. Zijn uiteindelijke doel is om de mensheid ooit op Mars te laten wonen. Om daar ooit te geraken, zijn er eerst nog vele ruimtereizen nodig, ter voorbereiding. En dus ook veel ruimtepakken.
De ruimtewandeling van Polaris Dawn dient vooral als eerste test voor de nieuwe pakken: zijn de pakken soepel genoeg en werkt alle apparatuur binnenin zoals het hoort? Daarnaast is het ook belangrijk om te bekijken of de pakken genoeg beschermen tegen de kosmische straling en extreme temperaturen.
"Het idee is om zoveel mogelijk over het pak te leren als we kunnen en dit terug te geven aan de ingenieurs zodat ze het pak in de toekomst verder kunnen ontwerpen", zei Isaacman eerder in een interview.
Wie zijn de astronauten aan boord van Polaris Dawn-missie?
Gezagvoerder van de missie is Jared Isaacman(41), een Amerikaanse miljardair en CEO van Shift4-payments, een betalingsdienst. Hij is ook de grote geldschieter van het hele project. Isaacman nam in 2021 al deel aan de 'Inspiration4', de eerste volledig commerciële bemande ruimtevlucht.
Scott "Kidd" Poteet (50), een gepensioneerde luitenant-kolonel van de Amerikaanse luchtmacht, is de piloot van de missie. Poteet en Isaacman zijn goede vrienden en kennen elkaar al jaren.
Sarah Gillis (30) is een Amerikaanse ingenieur en werkt voor SpaceX. Bij het bedrijf leidt ze het trainingsprogramma voor de astronauten. Zo trainde ze ook Isaacman en de andere ruimtetoeristen van de 'Inspiration4'. Gillis zal samen met Isaacman een ruimtewandeling maken tijdens deze missie.
Ook Anna Menon (38) is een Amerikaanse ingenieur die voor SpaceX werkt. Daarvoor werkte Menon al bij de NASA voor het ISS, het internationaal ruimtestation. Tijdens de Polaris Dawn-missie zal Menon dienen als de medisch officier van het team.
De eerste ruimtewandeling ooit was door de Russische kosmonaut Aleksej Leonov op 18 maart 1965. En bijna ging het mis. Leonov raakte met moeite terug in zijn ruimteschip. Zijn pak was in het vacuüm van de ruimte helemaal opgeblazen waardoor hij bijna niet meer kon bewegen. Door wat lucht uit zijn pak te laten lopen, kon hij uiteindelijk terug naar binnen. Hij nam daardoor wel een groot risico.
Minder dan 3 maanden later volgde de Amerikaanse astronaut Edward White. Sindsdien maakten al zo'n 260 astronauten uit 12 landen een ruimtewandeling. De eerste ruimtewandeling door een vrouw gebeurde pas in 1984. In totaal hebben nog maar 16 vrouwen een ruimtewandeling gemaakt.
Van links naar rechts: Scott Poteet, Anna Menon, Sarah Gillis en Jared Isaacman
What Did We Learn From Manufacturing the ACS3 Solar Sail Mission?
We recently reported on the successful deployment of the solar sail of the Advanced Composite Solar Sail System (ACS3) technology demonstration mission. That huge achievement advances one of the most important technologies available to CubeSats – a different form of propulsion. But getting there wasn’t easy, and back in May, a team of engineers from NASA’s Langley Research Center who worked on ACS3 published a paper detailing the trials and tribulations they went through to prepare the mission for prime time. Let’s take a look at what they learned.
ACS3 was only a technology demonstration mission—it had no science payload to deal with. And that’s a good thing, too, because fitting the solar sail into the housing of a CubeSat was a challenge even without any scientific equipment.
The technology demonstrated was the deployable boom system that created an 81 square meter surface of solar sail to catch the photon particles used to propel the mission forward. That sounds much easier than it was, as is evident from the descriptions of the problems the team had to overcome.
Eventually, the mission launched in a 12U CubeSat configuration, weighing about 16 kg (36 lbs) in total mass. However, the mission was initially prototyped to fit into a 6U configuration—about half the size and weight of the 12U. With the amount of deployable material and the necessary motors to drive their deployment, the engineers couldn’t fit other essential components, like reaction wheels, to steady the CubeSat’s orientation.
However, the 12U design “came with several technical challenges,” according to the paper. One was whether to use four independent spools of material, each tied to an independent boom or one central hub spool with all four booms coiled around a central axis. As was the case with almost all engineering projects, the team’s decision wasn’t based on what was technically best. They decided to use the four independent spools since that required the least modification from the original 6U design.
Another lesson described in the paper was the timing of the launch coordination. Both the “dispenser” (i.e., the system that sends the CubeSats out into space after a successful launch) and the launch contract weren’t submitted until ACS3 was already in testing. By then, modifications had been made to the design, which made it difficult to integrate into an existing dispenser, as the team had modified the edges of the satellite to fit the sails better. But doing so messed up one of the critical touchpoints for standard CubeSat dispensers.
To make matters worse, without a known launch date and inclination, the team had to overengineer many of the CubeSat systems. They had to meet a much wider range of temperatures and shock/vibration environments. But when they finally got their launch date of April 23rd on an Electron rocket from New Zealand, the system had been engineered for an environment much harsher than what it was subjected to, causing increased cost and delays in the delivery.
To meet these challenges, the team took the approach of rapidly prototyping, including developing several different 3D-printed prototypes before finally making the full system out of metal. At one point, a management decision was made not to replace any insert fasteners that were never intended to be used on the final flight but ended up being included anyway because of the cost of replacing them.
Again, these kinds of management decisions are commonplace to anyone involved in an engineering project. However, it’s nice to see that, in this case, it didn’t affect the project’s overall success. Despite some indications that it might be either tumbling or wobbling, ACS3 undoubtedly achieved its primary objective of deploying its solar sail. So, after all the effort and compromises that the team at Langley and elsewhere at NASA put into it, now you just need to look up into the night sky, and you might see the fruits of their labor streaking across it.
Astronauten voeren eerste commerciële ruimtewandeling ooit uit
Astronauten voeren eerste commerciële ruimtewandeling ooit uit
Astronaut Jared Isaacman heeft de eerste commerciële ruimtewandeling uitgevoerd. De ruimtevaarder maakte die ruimtewandeling samen met Sarah Gillis vanuit een Crew Dragon-ruimteschip van SpaceX op de Polaris Dawn-missie.
Isaacman opende het luik van de Crew Dragon rond 12.50 uur Nederlandse tijd op een apogeehoogte van zo'n 700 kilometer. Isaacman verliet het ruimteschip kort daarna voor een ruimtewandeling. "Het ziet eruit als een perfecte wereld", zei Isaacman daar. De Crew Dragon heeft een enkel luik, waardoor alle vier de passagiers een ruimtepak moesten dragen. In tegenstelling tot de meeste ruimtevaartuigen en -stations van waaruit ruimtewandeling worden uitgevoerd, heeft de Crew Dragon geen luchtsluis. Dat betekent dat het zuurstofgehalte in de capsule al direct na de lancering werd opgevoerd en de luchtdruk naar beneden ging.
Isaacman, de enige astronaut met enige ervaring op de vlucht, verbleef een kleine tien minuten buiten de capsule. Hij oefende daar met verschillende lichaamsbewegingen. Nadat Isaacman weer naar binnen ging, vertrok astronaut Sarah Gillis ook naar buiten. Zij deed dezelfde oefeningen. Gillis bleef ook zo'n tien minuten buiten het ruimteschip. Beide astronauten bleven wel met hun benen in het schip en lieten dat niet los, wat ook niet de bedoeling was. Naast Isaacman en Gillis waren er ook twee andere astronauten aan boord: Scott Poteet en Anna Menon. Zij verlieten het ruimteschip niet.
De astronauten sloten het luik rond 13.18 uur Nederlandse tijd weer. De komende tijd worden daarbij het zuurstofgehalte en de luchtdruk weer teruggebracht naar hun beginwaarden.
De missie werd uitgevoerd in samenwerking met SpaceX, dat de Crew Dragon op 10 september lanceerde naar een baan om de aarde en ook de ruimtepakken maakte. Maar het was miljardair Isaacman die de missie bekostigde en uitvoerde. De Polaris-missies, waarvan deze Dawn-missie er een is, hebben als voornaamste doel om de ruimtepakken van SpaceX in de praktijk te testen. De ruimtepakken zijn aangepaste versies van de drukpakken die astronauten al dragen bij het opstijgen en landen met de Crew Dragon. De belangrijkste toevoegingen daarbij zijn nieuwe temperatuurregulatoren en een HUD waarop astronauten informatie over hun druk en temperatuur zien. Ook zijn de pakken gemaakt om wendbaarder te zijn, wat belangrijk is als astronauten in de toekomst bijvoorbeeld reparaties moeten uitvoeren aan hun ruimteschip.
Ook de Crew Dragon werd aangepast voor de missie. Er werden hand- en voetrailingen toegevoegd aan de buitenkant, waarmee de astronauten zich over de capsule kunnen verplaatsen. Ook het life support system werd aangepast zodat de astronauten zuurstof kunnen krijgen via de toevoerslangen die naar de ruimtepakken leiden.
Four private Axiom Space astronauts await liftoff in their SpaceX IVA suits.
(SpaceX)
Polaris-missies
Het Polaris-programma bestaat uiteindelijk uit drie missies. Die moeten verschillende aspecten testen waarop astronauten in de toekomst verdere ruimtereizen moeten maken met SpaceX-vaartuigen. De missie werd van tevoren als risicovol gezien; er worden veel verschillende nieuwe technieken ingezet die nooit eerder zijn getest. Bovendien zijn alle crewleden onervaren. Voor Gillis, Poteet en Menon is het hun eerste ruimtevlucht. Isaacman is de enige met ervaring, maar ook dat is niet erg veel. In 2021 was hij al een van de astronauten op de Inspiration4-missie, de eerste commerciële ruimtevaartmissie. Ook dat was aan boord van de Crew Dragon. Daarmee heeft Isaacman weliswaar ervaring met dat ruimtevaartuig, maar de missie duurde slechts drie dagen. De huidige capsule, Resilience, is dezelfde capsule als die op Inspiration4 werd gebruikt.
De ruimtewandeling is ook de verste die sinds de jaren 70 is gemaakt. Toen voerden astronauten ruimtewandelingen uit op weg naar de maan, waarbij ze op duizenden kilometers hoogte de Apollo-capsules verlieten. Polaris Dawn werd aanvankelijk in een aardbaan van 190 tot 1408 kilometer geplaatst, al werd dat voor de ruimtewandeling teruggebracht naar een lagere baan. De ruimtewandeling vond uiteindelijk plaats op een hoogte van zo'n 700 kilometer, een kleine 300 kilometer hoger dan waarop huidige ruimtestations als het International Space Station of het Chinese Tiangong nu vliegen.
A fragment of the meteorite, one of the most precious of recent years, fell onto someone's driveway in 2021
A chunk of the Winchcombe meteorite.
(Image credit: The Trustees of the Natural History Museum)
The Winchcombe meteorite, which fell to the ground in Gloucestershire in the U.K. after blazing a trail through the night sky on Feb. 28, 2021, came from an asteroid that had been heavily altered by water as well as smashed apart and reformed multiple times.
That's the conclusion of a detailed analysis of the meteorite, fragments of which were found scattered in fields near the village of Winchcombe, and even on one family's driveway. It was the first meteorite fall in the U.K. to be retrieved since 1991. Thanks to the U.K. Fireball Alliance's network of video cameras watching the sky, as well as eyewitness reports, scientists were able to triangulate the approximate area in which the meteorite had fallen.
The next day, search teams were on-site. They were able to quickly retrieve fragments of the meteorite, in some cases within hours of landfall and before Earth's atmosphere had been able to chemically alter the space rock in any serious way (although some of the fragments did exhibit terrestrial contamination, including from table salt). A total of 602 grams (21.2 ounces) worth of material was collected in total.
Winchcombe meteorite: Is this the UK's most important fireball?
Despite its fire-forward journey, the Winchcombe meteorite fragments are as pristine as one could hope for. Contained within the meteorite's composition is its secret history that scientists can tease out with sophisticated transmission electron microscopy and techniques such as electron backscatter diffraction, time of flight secondary ion mass spectrometry and atom probe tomography.
These are all methods normally brought to bear on precious material ferried to Earth by asteroid sample-return missions; the fact that scientists could employ these sensitive tools to Winchcombe piece is all thanks to how well-kept the samples are.
"This level of analysis of the Winchcombe meteorite is virtually unprecedented for materials that weren't directly returned to Earth from space missions, like moon rocks from the Apollo program or samples from the Ryugu asteroid collected by the Hayabusa 2 probe," said Leon Hicks of the University of Leicester in a statement.
The investigation showed that the fragments were made of a breccia, which is where individual chunks of rock are cemented together (not literally with cement used to build houses, but by a mixture known as a cataclastic mix). The Winchcombe meteorite is classified as a CM carbonaceous chondrite, which is a carbon-rich and stony rock. The analysis, which probed the fragments at the nanometer scale, found that the Winchcombe breccia was formed from eight different types of CM chondrite, which are the most common variation of carbonaceous chondrite.
"We were fascinated to uncover just how fragmented the breccia was within the Winchcombe sample we analyzed," said Luke Daly of the University of Glasgow, who led the research. "If you imagine the Winchcombe meteorite as a jigsaw, what we saw in the analysis was as if each of the jigsaw pieces themselves had also been cut into smaller pieces and then jumbled in a bag filled with fragments of seven other jigsaws."
Winchcombe Meteorite captured on cctv from Hull
This suggests that the Winchcombe meteorite’s parent asteroid had been smashed apart and reformed multiple times, presumably following collisions with other asteroids early in the solar system's history.
Moreover, the meteorite fragments also indicate clear evidence of having been chemically altered by liquid water before getting smashed apart. In some cases, grains altered by water were found right next to unaltered grains, so quite jumbled had the breccia become. There were also unexpectedly high abundances of carbonate materials such as aragonite, calcite and dolomite. These are carbon-based minerals, and the implication is that Winchcombe's parent asteroid once possessed a large amount of carbon-dioxide ice. Some event, perhaps a collision, melted this ice and allowed it to chemically alter the rock to form the carbonates. This could also explain puzzling carbonate-rich veins found on the surface of the asteroid Bennu by NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission.
"It gives us a clearer idea of how it must have been battered by impacts and reformed again and again over the course of its lifetime since it swirled together out of the solar nebula, billions of years ago," concluded Daly.
These findings are not the first discoveries to be made about the Winchcombe meteorite, however. Earlier this year it was revealed by several groups of scientists that advanced electron microscopy had found amino acids and nucleobases within the meteorite. Although these molecules are not directly involved in life as we know it, they are precursors to more complex amino acids that are known as biologically useful.
The presence of water on the Winchcombe meteorite's parent asteroid could also aid in the understanding of where Earth’s water came from. The leading theory is that it was brought to Earth by impacts, but were they impacts of comets or asteroids? Carbonaceous chondrites seem the most likely source, potentially making the water-altered Winchcombe samples a key piece of evidence if future research can reveal more about whether the deuterium-to-hydrogen ratio in the asteroid's water matches that of Earth's water.
Uncovering the secrets of the Winchcombe meteorite
The research was published on April 16 in the journal Meteoritics and Planetary Science.
Lee waves on Mars are created by the wind encountering obstacles and build up on the ‘leeward’ or downwind side.
Image credit: ESA / DLR / FU Berlin.
Due to the elliptical orbit of Mars Express, its HRSC camera can not only take surface observations from low altitude to map the planet at the highest possible resolution, but also capture observations from higher altitudes at lower resolution, covering much larger parts of the surface with a typical field of view from limb to limb.
These high-altitude observations are ideal for observing atmospheric phenomena on Mars.
After more than 20 years of the Mars Express mission, an extensive amount of image data on atmospheric phenomena on Mars has been accumulated, which has a great potential for scientific exploitation.
“Clouds on Mars are just as diverse and fascinating as those we see in our skies on Earth, with some features unique to the Red Planet,” said Dr. Daniela Tirsch, a researcher at the German Aerospace Centre (DLR).
Elongated dust clouds aren’t found on Earth
ESA/DLR/FU Berlin/A. Cowart
“One of my favorite phenomena are the beautiful ‘cloud streets’ — linear rows of fleecy clouds that develop around the huge volcanic Tharsis rise and the northern lowlands in northern spring and summer.”
“While they resemble cumulus clouds on Earth, they are formed under different atmospheric conditions.”
“We also see impressive dust clouds that can spread hundreds of km — a phenomenon we luckily don’t experience on Earth.”
This image displays two atmospheric phenomena: the white curved lines are gravity wave clouds, while the brown areas are dust lifted from the ground by wind. The color shift visible in the dust lifting event might be indicative of very fast winds, a phenomenon currently under investigation by other members of the team.
Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin.
This elongated cloud has formed as a result of wind encountering the Arsia Mons mountains. It forms almost every day during a specific season, from early morning until noon.
Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin/A. Cowart.
An example of cloud streets over Vastitas Borealis, a large area near the North Pole mostly devoid of craters. .
Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin/A. Cowart
Lee waves are a special type of cloud created by the wind encountering obstacles and build up on the 'leeward' or downwind side. The geometries of the lee waves depend on the shape of the obstacles.
Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin.
Lee waves are a special type of cloud created by the wind encountering obstacles and build up on the 'leeward' or downwind side. The geometries of the lee waves depend on the shape of the obstacles.
Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin.
Dust plays a major role in the atmosphere and climate of Mars.
Rare upwelling events can leave beige, dust-laden blobs hanging in the planet’s atmosphere.
Large differences in temperature and air pressure at certain seasons can result in stronger-than-usual winds that lift large amounts of dust from the Martian surface
Dust clouds spreading from the tops of giant volcanoes take on the appearance of eruption clouds, although they are no longer active.
Large spiral dust storms and cyclone systems can also be observed each year near the Martian north pole.
Studying these phenomena is crucial to scientists in understanding the atmosphere and air mass circulation on Mars.
Rippling ‘gravity clouds’ are one of the most common formations on both Mars and the Earth.
They are seen at mid-latitudes in winter for both hemispheres, as well as over the Tharsis volcanic plateau in southern winter.
Lee waves, a special type of gravity clouds, can build up on the downwind side of ridges, mountains and other obstacles to create repeating ridge formations.
Some types of clouds studied are specific to locations and seasons; others like ‘twilight clouds’ can appear in the early morning at any place or time of year.
The new atlas will provide valuable insights into the physical nature and appearance of clouds and storms, the time of their occurrence and their location.
This knowledge will help better understand the atmospheric dynamics and the climate cycles on Mars, as well as providing input for studies of the climate on other planets such as Earth and Venus.
“As Mars Express has been extended by ESA until at least 2026, this will enable us keep filling this database and refine even further our understanding of Mars atmosphere,” Dr. Tirsch said.
Daniela Tirsch et al. 2024. Clouds and Storms as seen by HRSC – A catalogue of atmospheric phenomena on Mars. EPSC Abstracts 17, EPSC2024-44; doi: 10.5194/epsc2024-44
Niet iedereen gelooft dat het universum met de oerknal is ontstaan. Voor sommigen waren er zelfs twee oerknallen, terwijl voor anderen het universum heen en weer beweegt tussen fases van uitdijing en inkrimping zonder te worden gereduceerd tot singulariteiten. Dit is ongetwijfeld een fascinerend perspectief, hoewel moeilijk te bewijzen, dat een ander beeld oplevert vergeleken met de meest wijdverspreide theorie van vandaag. Toch hebben sommige onderzoekers recentelijk bewijs gevonden van geheim leven in het universum vóór de oerknal, dat verband houdt met zwarte gaten en donkere materie. Laten we eens kijken waar het over gaat.
Zijn zwarte gaten en donkere materie hetzelfde?
Donkere materie is lange tijd het onderwerp geweest van diepgaande studies: we weten dat het bestaat, maar we kunnen het op geen enkele manier “zien”, behalve via enkele van de effecten ervan op de omringende materie. In feite zendt, absorbeert of reflecteert donkere materie geen elektromagnetische straling, maar heeft toch wel effecten op de zwaartekracht en de rotatiesnelheid van sterrenstelsels. Het is daarom een soort materie die we alleen kunnen bestuderen via de effecten ervan, op een manier die sterk lijkt op wat er gebeurt met zwarte gaten.
En juist deze principiële overeenkomst is niet onopgemerkt gebleven: een recente studie gepubliceerd in de Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics heeft de hypothese naar voren gebracht dat donkere materie zou kunnen worden gevormd door primordiale zwarte gaten. Maar wanneer zouden deze zwarte gaten zich hebben gevormd? Voor onderzoekers bestaat er geen twijfel: vóór de oerknal.
Van de Big Bounce tot (primordiale) zwarte gaten
EHT Collaboration/Wikimedia Commons - CC BY 4.0
Vanaf hier keren we terug naar de kosmologische theorie die we in de inleiding noemden, omdat de associatie tussen oorspronkelijke zwarte gaten en donkere materie het bewijs zou kunnen vormen van de Big Bounce. Volgens deze theorie was het ontstaan van het heelal daarom niet een singulariteit gevolgd door een fase van snelle uitdijing, in een proces dat we kennen als de oerknal, maar een oscillerend patroon van uitdijingen en inkrimpingen.
Volgens onderzoekers kromp het heelal ruim 13 miljard jaar geleden tot een oneindig kleine omvang voordat het weer uitdijde, wat leidde tot een toename van de dichtheid van de materie, wat op zijn beurt bijdroeg aan de vorming van oorspronkelijke zwarte gaten. We hebben het over hemellichamen die de massa van een asteroïde hebben en een oneindig kleine diameter, maar toch groot genoeg zodat Hawkingstraling ze niet volledig wegvaagt. Zeker niet in 13 miljard jaar. Maar wat betekent dit allemaal voor het universum, voor de natuurkunde en voor donkere materie?
Aan de oorsprong van het universum?
Het aantonen dat donkere materie uit vele kleine oorspronkelijke zwarte gaten bestaat, zou een impuls kunnen geven aan de studie van dit overheersende component van het universum. Aan de andere kant zouden we kunnen stoppen met het zoeken naar deeltjes die alleen via de zwaartekracht met materie interactie hebben, en op zoek kunnen gaan naar kleine zwarte gaten verspreid over het universum: sommige doen al iets soortgelijks. En dit is niet het enige gevolg: volgens de onderzoekers komen de eigenschappen van een oscillerend universum zoals geschetst overeen met de kromming van de ruimte en de kosmische achtergrondstraling in zijn vroege stadia. Maar zo eenvoudig is het niet.
Om hun theorie te testen zal het internationale team dat aan het onderzoek heeft gewerkt zwaartekrachtgolven moeten detecteren die zijn gevormd in de vorige fase van samentrekking van het universum. Tot op heden is het onmogelijk om dit te doen, tenminste met de instrumenten die momenteel beschikbaar zijn, maar wie weet in de toekomst. Misschien kunnen de Laser Interferometer Space Antenna, of LISA, en de Einstein Telescope ons al een antwoord op deze vraag geven. En een revolutie teweegbrengen in alles wat we wisten over de oorsprong van het universum.
Beste bezoeker, Heb je zelf al ooit een vreemde waarneming gedaan, laat dit dan even weten via email aan Frederick Delaere opwww.ufomeldpunt.be. Deze onderzoekers behandelen jouw melding in volledige anonimiteit en met alle respect voor jouw privacy. Ze zijn kritisch, objectief maar open minded aangelegd en zullen jou steeds een verklaring geven voor jouw waarneming! DUS AARZEL NIET, ALS JE EEN ANTWOORD OP JOUW VRAGEN WENST, CONTACTEER FREDERICK. BIJ VOORBAAT DANK...
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Over mijzelf
Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
Ik ben een man en woon in Linter (België) en mijn beroep is Ik ben op rust..
Ik ben geboren op 18/10/1950 en ben nu dus 73 jaar jong.
Mijn hobby's zijn: Ufologie en andere esoterische onderwerpen.
Op deze blog vind je onder artikels, werk van mezelf. Mijn dank gaat ook naar André, Ingrid, Oliver, Paul, Vincent, Georges Filer en MUFON voor de bijdragen voor de verschillende categorieën...
Veel leesplezier en geef je mening over deze blog.