06-06-2024 om 23:11 geschreven door peter  

Starship voor het eerst teruggekeerd naar aarde

Het ruimtevaartuig Starship is bij de vierde testvlucht voor het eerst succesvol teruggekeerd naar de aarde. Fabrikant SpaceX meldt op X, het voormalige Twitter, dat het ruimtevaartuig is neergekomen in de Indische Oceaan.

Starship voor het eerst teruggekeerd naar aarde

© Aangeboden door Belga

"Splashdown bevestigd", schreef SpaceX op het berichtenplatform.

Eerder kon ook de booster 'Super Heavy' een zachte landing uitvoeren.

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06-06-2024 om 21:35 geschreven door peter  

The European Space Agency has retired its Ariane 5 rocket, and all eyes are on its next generation, Ariane 6. The rocket’s pieces have been arriving at the Kourou facility in French Guiana and are now assembled.  ESA has now announced they’ll attempt a test launch on July 9th and hope to complete a second flight before the end of 2024. This new heavy-life rocket has a re-ignitable upper stage, allowing it to launch multiple payloads into different orbits.

“Ariane 6 marks a new era of autonomous, versatile European space travel,” said ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher, who announced the launch data at the Innovation and Leadership in Aerospace (ILA) Berlin Air Show on June 5, 2024. “This powerful rocket is the culmination of many years of dedication and ingenuity from thousands across Europe and, as it launches, it will re-establish Europe’s independent access to space. … I would like to thank the teams on the ground for their tireless hard work, teamwork and dedication in this last stretch of the inaugural launch campaign. Ariane 6 is Europe’s rocket for the needs of today, adaptable to our future ambitions.”

Ariane 6 has been in the works since the early 2010s to be a replacement the workhorse Ariane 5, which is no longer in production. Ariane 5’s first successful launch was in 1998, and since then has sent 109 spacecraft on their way, including the first ATV Jules Verne to the International Space Station and the James Webb Space Telescope to the second LaGrange point 1.5 million km (1 million miles) from Earth.

Ariane 6 is an expendable launch vehicle – not reusable like SpaceX’s rockets — that comes in two versions, with a modular design that can be customized: the rocket can use either two or four P120C strap-on boosters, depending on mission requirements. With the various designs, it can put a 4,500 kg payload into a geostationary transfer orbit or 10,300kg into low Earth orbit using the two boosters, and with four side boosters, it can launch 11,500 kg into a geostationary transfer orbit and 20,600kg into low Earth orbit. The re-ignitable upper stage allows for multiple satellites to launch on a single flight.

Ariane 6 was developed at a cost of just under 4 billion euros ($3.9 billion) and was originally planned for its first launch in July 2020. However, the project has been hampered by several delays, including work-related issues during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The rocket has undergone several tests in the past few years, and in November of 2023, a full fueled Ariane 6 was tested on the launchpad, firing its engines for several minutes, simulating a flight to space.

“The announcement of the scheduled date for Ariane 6’s first flight puts us on the home stretch of the launch campaign and we are fully engaged in completing the very last steps,” said Martin Sion, CEO of ArianeGroup, the prime contractor of the Arian 6. “This flight will mark the culmination of years of development and testing by the teams at ArianeGroup and its partners across Europe. It will pave the way for commercial operations and a significant ramp-up over the next two years. Ariane 6 is a powerful, versatile and scalable launcher that will ensure Europe’s autonomous access to space.”

At the Spaceport in French Guiana, various payloads have been integrated on Ariane 6’s payload carrier. One major milestone must be met before launch: a full wet dress rehearsal, which is having a fully fueled vehicle going through all the steps of a countdown, but not the actual ignition of the rocket engines. Once this activity has been completed, the Ariane 6 Task Force will provide an update, confirming the date for the inaugural flight.

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

06-06-2024 om 20:45 geschreven door peter  

The soft splashdown marked a new achievement for Starship. During the third flight test, which took place in March, only a few of Super Heavy’s engines were able to light up again for a crucial landing burn. As a result, the booster hit the water with an uncontrolled splat.

Eventually, SpaceX plans to have the Super Heavy booster fly itself back to its base after doing its job.

The upper stage reached orbital-scale altitudes in excess of 200 kilometers (125 miles), but completing a full orbit wasn’t part of today’s plan. Instead, SpaceX aimed to have Ship make its own soft splashdown in the Indian Ocean.

Streaming video, relayed via SpaceX’s Starlink satellite network, showed the rocket’s protective skin glowing with the heat of atmospheric re-entry. Burning debris broke off from one of Ship’s control fins, damaging the camera’s lens — but the fuzzy view nevertheless confirmed that the spacecraft successfully hit the mark. That represented another advance over the third test, when the Ship broke up during its descent to the ocean.

“Despite loss of many tiles and a damaged flap, Starship made it all the way to a soft landing in the ocean!” SpaceX founder Elon Musk exulted in a posting to his X social-media platform.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson added his congratulations on X, and noted that the successful test was a plus for the space agency’s Artemis moon program. “We are another step closer to returning humanity to the moon through Artemis — then looking onward to Mars,” he wrote.

A customized version of Ship is slated to serve as the lunar lander for Artemis 3, which would mark the first crewed mission to the moon’s surface since Apollo 17 in 1972. That mission is currently scheduled for 2026, but the timing depends in part on when the Starship system will be ready.

SpaceX’s uncrewed flight tests are following a step-by-step path to get Starship in shape for a wide variety of missions — including the deployment of hundreds of Starlink satellites, point-to-point travel between spaceports on Earth, and crewed odysseys to the moon, Mars and beyond.

Starship rockets aren’t carrying payloads for these early tests. “We said it before, we’re going to say it 9,000 times: The data is the payload,” SpaceX commentator Dan Huot said during today’s flight test.

But as the development program proceeds, the envelope for the flight tests will be widened to include multi-orbit operations, payload deployments and precision touchdowns on landing pads. Before today’s test, SpaceX and the Federal Aviation Administration worked out an arrangement that’s expected to streamline the regulatory process for future flights.

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

06-06-2024 om 20:36 geschreven door peter  

LIFTOFF! WATCH BOEING STARLINER’S HISTORIC LAUNCH THROUGH THESE 7 PHOTOS

An Atlas-class rocket hasn’t sent humans into space since the Mercury program’s final flight 61 years ago.

BY DORIS ELÍN URRUTIA

 

MIGUEL J. RODRIGUEZ CARRILLO/AFP/Getty Images

Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams flew at 17,500 miles per hour northbound along the U.S. East Coast, towards Ireland, and over the Mediterranean Sea before entering orbit around Earth.

If Starliner aces the checks, docking with the International Space Station, reentry and landing in this next week, it will become the second U.S. human-rated spacecraft capable of ferrying astronauts into orbit.

Watch Wednesday’s historic launch, in pictures.

NASA/GETTY IMAGES NEWS/GETTY IMAGES

NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams bid farewell to a crowd, which included their family and friends, by giving away flowers and tossing out mission patches. Astronaut Doug Wheelock (not pictured) was also in the crowd, taking video and photos for their families to remember the moment. Soon after, Wilmore and Williams boarded a van to reach the Boeing Starliner “Calypso” spacecraft for the Crew Flight Test launch.

NASA/JOEL KOWSKY

A view of the Starliner launch from another angle. Starliner launched on a flat trajectory up northward, wrapping around the Atlantic Ocean into Europe, to ensure astronaut safety

(NASA/JOEL KOWSKY)

About 45 seconds after launch, the spacecraft reached the speed of sound (Mach 1).

GREGG NEWTON/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
The next step is certification. Williams and Wilmore will conduct a series of manual tests, and evaluate the performance of Starliner all the way through landing in the U.S. southwest in about one week.

Once Starliner is certified, NASA will have dissimilar redundancy in space, two different options to launch and return astronauts to and from humanity’s farthest human outpost.

{ https://www.inverse.com/ }

06-06-2024 om 17:17 geschreven door peter  

The metal printer that is now on board the International Space Station employs stainless steel wire being fed onto the medium being printed upon. A high power laser which is a million times more powerful than a laser pointer then heats it up melting a small section. As the steel wire feeds into the melt pool it melts, adding to the metal, making it slightly raised. 

Unlike a 3D printer you may have (or I may be trying to justify) which you can control from your own computer, the printer on ISS is controlled entirely from the ground. The crew do have tasks however, they have to open a nitrogen and venting valve before the printing can start. I guess it’s almost the equivalent of putting the paper in your printer at home! 

The printer was developed by a team led by Airbus under the ESA Directorate of the Human and Robotic Exploration contract. It arrived on the ISS in January 2024 where the 180kg printer was installed in the ESA Columbus Module. 

The next step for the printer is to print four shapes that have been chosen for full-scale 3D printing. They will then be returned to Earth for analysis and comparison against reference prints already created in normal gravity. The teams hope to explore how microgravity impacts 3D printing. Two of the 3D printed parts will go to the Materials and Electrical Components Lab at ESTEC in Netherlands. The other two will go to the European Astronaut Centre at the Technical University of Denmark.

Source : 

• First metal 3D printing on Space Station

{https://www.universetoday.com/ }

06-06-2024 om 01:53 geschreven door peter  

Afwijking

WASP-193b gaat voor nu de boeken in als de op één na minst compacte planeet die tot op heden is ontdekt; alleen de eerder gespotte – maar wel veel kleinere – Kepler-51d heeft een nog lagere dichtheid. “De extreem lage dichtheid (van WASP-193b, red.) is wat de planeet echt doet afwijken van de meer dan 5000 andere exoplaneten die tot op heden zijn ontdekt,” vertelt onderzoeker Khalid Barkaoui.

Barkaoui en collega’s vingen een eerste glimp op van WASP-193b dankzij de zogenoemde Wide Angle Search for Planets (kortweg WASP). Binnen dit onderzoeksproject wordt met behulp van een observatorium op het noordelijk halfrond en een observatorium op het zuidelijk halfrond de helderheid van duizenden sterren in de gaten gehouden. Daarbij werd ook gekeken naar WASP-193: de moederster van WASP-193b. En tussen 2006 en 2008 – maar ook tijdens aanvullende waarnemingen in 2011 en 2012 – zagen onderzoekers de helderheid van deze ster met regelmaat afnemen. Die afnames in helderheid bleken vervolgens te herleiden te zijn naar het bestaan van een planeet die rond WASP-193 cirkelde. Wanneer deze planeet – vanaf de aarde gezien – voor zijn moederster langs beweegt, houdt deze een deel van het licht van zijn moederster tegen, waardoor het lijkt of de helderheid van WASP-193 tijdelijk afneemt.

exoplanet, WASP-193B genoemd, is gevonden op een afstand van 1.232 lichtjaren.

Omlooptijd en omvang

Op basis van de metingen van WASP konden onderzoekers dus al concluderen dat WASP-193 een planeet bezat. Ook wezen de observaties uit dat deze ongeveer 6,25 dagen nodig had om een rondje om zijn moederster te voltooien. Daarnaast konden onderzoekers uit de hoeveelheid zonlicht die WASP-193b tegenhield op het moment dat deze voor zijn moederster langs bewoog ook afleiden hoe groot de planeet ongeveer was: ongeveer 1,5 keer groter dan Jupiter.

Massa

Opmerkelijk werd het echter pas toen de onderzoekers met behulp van andere observatoria ook de massa van de planeet poogden te achterhalen. Tot grote verrassing van de onderzoekers wezen deze aanvullende observaties namelijk uit dat WASP-193b een zeven keer kleinere massa heeft dan Jupiter. En daarmee heeft de planeet – die dus wel 1,5 keer groter is dan Jupiter – een zeer geringe dichtheid. Zo zou WASP-193b een dichtheid hebben van 0,059 gram per kubieke centimeter, zo is in het blad Nature Astronomy te lezen. Ter vergelijking: de dichtheid van Jupiter is 1,33 gram per kubieke centimeter en die van de aarde is maar liefst 5,51 gram per kubieke centimeter.

Artistieke weergave van de planeet WASP-193b in een baan om zijn ster WASP-193.

Krediet: MysteryPlanet.com.ar.

Suikerspin

“De planeet is zo licht dat het lastig is om een vast materiaal te bedenken (met een vergelijkbare dichtheid, red.),” merkt onderzoeker Julien de Wit op. Toch is het de onderzoekers gelukt; WASP-193b is qua dichtheid nog het beste te vergelijken met een suikerspin. Het bekende snoepgoed kent namelijk een dichtheid van ongeveer 0,05 gram per kubieke centimeter. “De reden dat (WASP-193b, red.) zo vergelijkbaar is met een suikerspin, is dat beiden in feite grotendeels uit lucht bestaan. De planeet is gewoon super fluffy.”

Waar een suikerspin vooral uit suiker bestaat, bestaat WASP-193b voornamelijk uit waterstof en helium, zo vermoeden de onderzoekers. Die gassen lijken een gigantisch omvangrijke atmosfeer te vormen die tienduizenden kilometers verder reikt dan de atmosfeer van Jupiter. Hoe de planeet zo is kunnen opzwellen, is onduidelijk. Wetenschappers hebben verschillende theorieën over hoe planeten ontstaan, maar geen enkele van die bestaande theorieën kunnen het bestaan van WASP-193b vooralsnog verklaren. “We kunnen niet verklaren hoe deze planeet ontstaan is,” bevestigt onderzoeker Francisco Pozuelos. “WASP-193b is een kosmisch mysterie,” voegt Barkaoui toe. De wetenschappers hopen dat toekomstige waarnemingen – met onder meer de James Webb Telescoop – kunnen helpen om dat mysterie op te lossen.

{ https://scientias.nl/ }

05-06-2024 om 21:28 geschreven door peter  

Around a star in our Milky Way galaxy, astronomers have discovered an extremely low-density planet that is as light as cotton candy. The new planet, named WASP-193b, appears to dwarf Jupiter in size, yet it is a fraction of its density.

CRE

The researchers behind the seemingly impossible find, which also includes experts from Belgium and Spain, say these types of “puffy Jupiters” have left astronomers baffled for over 15 years since they cannot explain how they formed using the best modern-day planet forecasting tools

“We don’t know where to put this planet in all the formation theories we have right now because it’s an outlier of all of them,” explained study co-lead author Francisco Pozuelos, a senior researcher at the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalucia, in Spain. “We cannot explain how this planet was formed based on classical evolution models.”

A NASA illustration of planet WASP-193b which is more than 1,200 light-years away.

(Supplied: NASA)

‘PUFFY JUPITER’ IS AS DENSE AS COTTON CANDY

According to a formal announcement of the discovery, WASP-193b was initially spotted between 2006 and 2008 and then again between 2011 and 2012. Those detections were made by the Wide Angle Search for Planets (WASP) project, which is a collaboration between international astronomers using a pair of robotic observatories in the southern and northern hemispheres.

Together, these robotic arrays of wide-angle cameras scour the stars, looking for the periodic ‘dips’ in light that sometimes indicate a planet is orbiting the star. In the case of WASP 193, a star located 1,232 light years from Earth, the southern WASP observatory spotted these types of dips during both recording sessions.

A detailed analysis of that data determined that a planet was likely crossing in front of its host star every 6.25 days. Further analysis of the amount of light blocked by the planet revealed that it was more or less similar in size to Jupiter. However, when astronomers tried to determine the planet’s mass by measuring how much it affected its host star’s orbit, known as the ‘radial velocity’ method, the numbers didn’t add up. In fact, their initial analysis found no shift in the star’s light spectrum at all, belying the planet’s massive size.

“Typically, big planets are pretty easy to detect because they are usually massive and lead to a big pull on their star,” said study co-author Julien de Wit, an assistant professor in MIT’s Department of Earth. “But what was tricky about this planet was, even though it’s big — huge — its mass and density are so low that it was actually very difficult to detect with just the radial velocity technique. It was an interesting twist.”

After reviewing the data and performing further analysis, the team determined that the planet was actually larger than Jupiter but had to be significantly less dense to exhibit so little gravitational pull on its host star.

“[WASP-193b] is so very light that it took four years to gather data and show that there is a mass signal, but it’s really, really tiny,” said lead study author and MIT postdoc Khalid Barkaoui.

The researchers say finding a solid material that has this type of limited density isn’t easy. In fact, in their published study, the authors say the best comparison they could make is that WASP-193b has the same density as cotton candy.

“The planet is so light that it’s difficult to think of an analogous, solid-state material,” Barkaoui says. “The reason why it’s close to cotton candy is because both are mostly made of light gases rather than solids. The planet is basically super fluffy.”

While clearly an outlier they cannot easily explain, the researchers say astronomers have seen similar readings in previous exoplanets. Still, those cases are still considered extreme outliers that don’t fit within planetary formation models.

“To find these giant objects with such a small density is really, really rare,” says lead study author and MIT postdoc Khalid Barkaoui. “There’s a class of planets called puffy Jupiters, and it’s been a mystery for 15 years now as to what they are. And this is an extreme case of that class.”

FOLLOW-UP OBSERVATIONS COULD UNRAVEL THE MYSTERY

In an effort to better understand the planet’s origin, the researchers say they are planning follow-up observations using a technique developed by de Wit. If successful, this process could reveal the planet’s temperature, composition, and even its pressure at various depths of what they suspect is a mostly hydrogen and helium atmosphere.

“Looking more closely at its atmosphere will allow us to obtain an evolutionary path of this planet,” Pozuelos said.

“The bigger a planet’s atmosphere, the more light can go through,” de Wit said in agreement. “So it’s clear that this planet is one of the best targets we have for studying atmospheric effects. It will be a Rosetta Stone to try and resolve the mystery of puffy Jupiters.”

• Christopher Plain is a Science Fiction and Fantasy novelist and Head Science Writer at The Debrief. Follow and connect with him on X, learn about his books at plainfiction.com, or email him directly at christopher@thedebrief.org.

{ https://thedebrief.org/category/space/ }

05-06-2024 om 21:02 geschreven door peter  

Steve, A Weird Ribbon of Light in the Northern Sky, Has A Twin

"Eh! Steve!"

BY KIONA SMITH

 

A Norwegian photographer, Gabriel Arne Hofstra, spotted the streamer of purple light in 2021 images from an all-sky digital camera at the Ramfjordmoen Research Station in Norway. ESA’s Swarm satellites, which study Earth’s magnetic field and how it interacts with the Sun’s electrically-charged solar wind, confirmed that Hofstra had found what the agency calls “something peculiar, something Steve-like.”

WHAT’S A STEVE?

When skygazers saw a ribbon of pale purple light in the night sky over Alberta, Canada in late 2016, they knew it wasn’t a normal part of the Northern Lights; auroras are normally green and sometimes red. Their ephemeral find was so baffling that it attracted the attention of researchers who study how Earth’s magnetic field interacts with the Sun’s electrically-charged solar wind. They gave the strange light a name fittingly shrouded in mystery and intrigue: Steve.

STEVE has since become an acronym for Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement. And a few months later, Steve turned out to be caused by a stream of extremely hot, electrically charged gas (or plasma) flowing swiftly across the upper reaches of Earth’s magnetic field.

A typical aurora happens when electrons collide with molecules in Earth’s upper atmosphere, releasing energy in the form of light. Those electrons usually arrive on the solar wind: streams of charged particles constantly blown outward by our Sun. They get caught in Earth’s magnetic field and ferried toward the poles, which is why you typically only see auroras at high latitudes.

Steve is a little different; it’s caused by a gas made of electrically charged atoms, not just tiny subatomic particles. Because of its different makeup, it gets caught on different magnetic field lines than the electrons that cause normal auroras. That’s why Steve shows up at lower latitudes. And unlike a normal aurora, which can last for several hours, Steve appears and disappears in a matter of movements.

The plasma that causes Steve gets very hot as it speeds along those magnetic field lines, causing a pale purple glow in the sky. Steve flows westward at dusk, and scientists monitoring Earth’s magnetic field quickly discovered another stream of plasma flowing eastward near dawn. But nobody had ever seen that second, eastbound plasma stream glowing the way Steve does — until recently.

Hofstra spotted the visible flow from Steve’s eastbound twin, and Swarm discovered that although the two auroral features are twins, they’re not identical twins: Steve usually appears a little south of the green Northern Lights, while Steve’s twin shows up closer to the North Pole. Both are long and thin: about 600 miles long and 15 miles wide, moving at more than 13,000 miles per hour.

Nobody has suggested a name for Steve’s twin – which is technically also a STEVE, but it’s so important for twins to have their own identities.

 { https://www.inverse.com/ }

05-06-2024 om 17:50 geschreven door peter  

Haperende ruimtetelescoop Hubble werkt weer na aanpassing

De oude ruimtetelescoop Hubble kan weer aan het werk. De metingen van het observatorium waren vorige maand stilgelegd door een storing aan een van de gyroscopen. Die moeten ervoor zorgen dat de Hubble goed van positie verandert om het heelal in beeld te kunnen brengen. De Amerikaanse ruimtevaartorganisatie NASA denkt een manier te hebben gevonden om daarmee om te gaan.

De Hubble heeft in totaal zes gyroscopen aan boord. Die wieltjes draaien 19.200 keer per minuut om hun as. In 2009 zijn ze voor het laatst vervangen, bij de laatste onderhoudsbeurt van de ruimtetelescoop. Sindsdien zijn drie gyroscopen al uitgevallen en in de afgelopen maanden kreeg een vierde problemen. Die bleven terugkeren.

NASA heeft nu besloten om nog maar één gyroscoop te gebruiken. De Hubble wordt daardoor minder flexibel, hij heeft meer tijd nodig om te draaien. Maar de vluchtleiding denkt dat het leven van de ruimtetelescoop zo verlengd kan worden en dat hij tot in het volgende decennium nog kan werken.

De Hubble, gelanceerd in april 1990, had een verwachte levensduur van vijftien jaar, maar inmiddels draait hij al zo'n 34 jaar in een baan rond de aarde, op een hoogte van ruim 500 kilometer. Hij onderzocht onder meer afgelegen sterrenstelsels, waardoor wetenschappers een beter beeld hebben gekregen van het ontstaan van het heelal. Ook maakte hij beroemde foto's van verre nevels.

Als NASA de ruimtetelescoop aan zijn lot overlaat, kan hij ergens in de komende tien jaar langzaam uit zijn baan om de aarde zakken en uiteindelijk verbranden in de dampkring.

Omdat het einde van de Hubble nadert, is eind 2021 zijn opvolger gelanceerd, de ruimtetelescoop James Webb.

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05-06-2024 om 17:37 geschreven door peter  

The team behind the tantalizing findings says that more follow-up analysis of the data is planned. However, their initial readings appear to be consistent with the presence of alien technology orbiting at least seven of these stars.

HOW TO SPOT ALIEN TECHNOLOGY LIKE A DYSON SPHERE

Since humanity’s most powerful telescopes cannot image objects orbiting distant stars directly, researchers Matías Suazo at Uppsala University in Sweden and Gaby Contardo at the International School for Advanced Studies in Italy knew they would have to analyze light spectrum data emitted by millions of stars across the galaxy to search for signs of alien technology. In the case of Dyson Spheres, the team would need to look for an ‘unnatural’ imbalance between the visible light and the infrared light emitted by a distant star.

That’s because, as proposed by Dyson, the more technologically advanced a species becomes, the more energy it needs. If they become advanced enough, a species could, in theory, surround an entire star with a “sphere” designed to capture all of its emitted energy. The Debrief previously covered the science fiction origins and viability of Dyson Spheres in 2021.

A fully completed Dyson Sphere would be almost impossible to detect from such a long way away since all of its visible light would be captured by the sphere. However, either an incomplete sphere or a swarm of satellites known as a partial Dyson Sphere or a Dyson Swarm would still allow some of the visible light through for Earth’s telescopes to capture. At the same time, the sphere would radiate an excess of heat energy in the infrared spectrum as it captures the star’s radiated energy and then releases it into space.

Suazo and Contrado proposed that if the ratio between visible light and infrared light coming off of any particular star is just right, it would represent compelling evidence for the presence of a Dyson Sphere.

An artist's rendition of what a Dyson sphere might look like.

(Image credit: dottedhippo/iStock/Getty Images Plus)

ANALYSIS OF EXISTING DATA FINDS SEVEN TANTALIZING CANDIDATES

In their published study, which appears in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, the researchers note that previous efforts dating back to the 1980s and as recently as 2021 have looked for this same type of light signatures coming from distant stars. However, they note that “none of these searches have revealed any strong candidates for Dysonian technology.”

Fortunately, the team says that advancements in modern space and ground telescopes may produce positive results; in fact, they believed that the data they were looking for may have already been collected by modern observatories and were just sitting there waiting for someone to go through it.

Specifically, the team hoped to find telltale signs of alien technology hiding in data captured by the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Gaia satellite, the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) space telescope, and the ground-based infrared telescope survey MASS2.

“Dyson spheres, megastructures that could be constructed by advanced civilizations to harness the radiation energy of their host stars, represent a potential technosignature that, in principle, may be hiding in public data already collected as part of large astronomical surveys,” they explain.

Dubbed Project Hephaistos (named for the armorer of the Greek Gods), the effort would examine data from over one hundred million stars. Since that is too much data for humans to analyze, the team employed what they described as ‘neural network’ algorithms designed to measure and compare the visible light and infrared signatures emitted by the target stars. Notably, the team stayed away from what are termed “younger stars” since they may still have too much material in their orbits that could artificially skew the readings.

As hoped, the effort was a success. The customized algorithms not only found 60 stars that had the right light ratios, but seven of these were particularly tantalizing, with IR heat signatures that lacked any other good explanation. In fact, the signals were so strong that the team feared they might be young stars with large amounts of debris in their orbits.

To rule this out, the team searched for nearby X-ray sources. X-rays are “a powerful tool for tracing star-forming regions in the sky,” they explain, so if they found sources like this near any of the seven alien technology candidates, they could rule them out.

Luckily, the team says that the analysis came up empty. “After searching the XMM–Newton science archive, we found no evidence of X-ray sources in the neighborhood of our candidates that could be attributed to star formation.”

Tabby’s Star in infrared (left) and ultraviolet (right).

Image Credit: Infrared: IPAC/NASA / Ultraviolet: STScI /NASA via Wikimedia Commons

FOLLOW-UP OBSERVATIONS COULD CONFIRM DYSON SPHERES

In the study’s conclusion, the researchers indicate they have already performed a visual check of their seven Dyson Sphere candidate stars. Those tests seem to support their initial conclusions, with the researchers writing that “our visual inspection indicates that these sources are actual sources of infrared radiation that are not subject to any obvious contamination.”

Of course, Suazo and Contrado concede that much more analysis and follow-up observations are necessary to state with any measure of certainty that they have indeed spotted irrefutable signs of alien technology. They also note that although they tried to eliminate any other explanations, the sheer distance between Earth and the observed stellar candidates combined with our still-limited knowledge of the cosmos may mean there is a simple, natural explanation for the unusual light signatures they have found.

“We would like to stress that although our candidates display properties consistent with partial DSs, it is definitely premature to presume that the MIR presented in these sources originated from them,” the researchers write. “The MIR data quality for these objects is typically quite low, and additional data are required to determine their nature.”

They also concede that there are “several natural explanations for the infrared excess in literature,” However, they note, “none of them clearly explains such a phenomenon in the candidates, especially given that all are M dwarfs.”

Although the team is open to other explanations for their findings, Souza admits that “the most fascinating explanation could be actual Dyson spheres.”

By surrounding their star with swarms of energy-collecting satellites, advanced civilizations could create Dyson spheres.

[Read the Full Dyson Sphere Infographic Here.] 

(Image credit: by Karl Tate, Infographics Artist)

• Christopher Plain is a Science Fiction and Fantasy novelist and Head Science Writer at The Debrief. Follow and connect with him on X, learn about his books at plainfiction.com, or email him directly at christopher@thedebrief.org.

{ https://thedebrief.org/category/space/ }

04-06-2024 om 23:57 geschreven door peter  

Significantly, the new findings also challenge past assumptions about these formation processes, a trend that has continued since Webb first began operating.

Using the telescope’s NIRSpec instrument during observations of three candidate galaxies at redshifts greater than 14, the research team involved with the study was able to perform deep measurements of the spectra generated from interactions between matter and radiation in these ancient star systems.

Selected from observations in a region of the Fornax constellation identified within the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey (GOODS) south field, this grouping of galaxies was initially identified by the Hubble Space Telescope and Cycle 1 JWST/NIRCam data, which at the time pointed to a less than 1% chance that they were low-redshift “interlopers.”

Of the two galaxies, JADES-GS-z14-0 is the brightest and was found near a foreground galaxy, which introduced some initial complications in the team’s assessments. With time, Webb’s NIRCam observations of the region helped to dismiss the possibility of this premise, thanks to “additional deep medium-band NIRCam observations that substantially strengthened the case for the source being at high redshift,” the authors write in a new paper detailing their findings.

Detailed spectroscopy helped the team affirm the presence of a spectral line of hydrogen known as the Lyman-α break, placing the galaxies at redshifts of approximately 14.

After Webb’s NIRSpec camera also revealed that the faintest of the candidate galaxies had not been significantly detected, the team shifted their attention to JADES-GS-z14-0 and JADES-GS-z14-1, galaxies whose spectra showed a clear flux density break. This information also helped the team to confirm the high redshift of these galaxies.

Ultimately, redshifts of 14.32 for JADES-GS-z14-0 and 13.90 for JADES-GS-z14-1 were determined, revealing spectrographic signatures suggestive of very young stars and relatively low dust in these galaxies, which astronomers recognize as being traits associated with the early universe.

Additionally, JADES-GS-z14-0 appears to display a pronounced distribution of ultraviolet (UV) light when compared with other very bright galaxies, likely due to its size. The team says this points to a spatially extended stellar population, as opposed to a dominant active galactic nucleus (AGN), denoting the small region near the heart of many galaxies which is brighter than astronomers would expect to result from the luminosity of stars alone.

In some cases, the high luminosity of this central region can overpower the rest of the light generated by such galaxies. However, in the case of JADES-GS-z14-1’s UV emissions, the team involved with the new study says they appear to point to stellar rather than AGN dominance.

Another significant finding is that the masses of these galaxies appear to have grown rapidly from redshift 20 to 14, which is also suggestive of early star formation activity. This, along with the relatively low dust present in these galaxies, is believed to originate from a few possible factors that may include galactic outflows.

Ultimately, the discovery of these very early galaxies is providing compelling new data that points to the much earlier existence of these massive galaxies than many astronomers previously thought, although that isn’t to say that no one had expected such discoveries.

Still, such ongoing discoveries, made in large part with the help of the JWST, fundamentally support the reality that our existing notions about galaxy formation require a bit more work. With ongoing observations of the most distant and early regions of our universe, astronomers hope to deepen our understanding of the ‘Cosmic Dawn,’ where the first galaxies were born, in the years ahead.

The team’s new paper, “A shining cosmic dawn: spectroscopic confirmation of two luminous galaxies at z ∼14,” was uploaded to the preprint arXive.org server and can be read online.

• Micah Hanks is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of The Debrief. He can be reached by email at micah@thedebrief.org. Follow his work at micahhanks.com and on X: @MicahHanks.

{ https://thedebrief.org/category/space/ }

04-06-2024 om 23:08 geschreven door peter  

For instance, last year’s workshop (AM IX) addressed the pressing question of whether NASA would be able to mount a crewed mission to Mars by 2033. This has been a key aspect of NASA’s Moon-to-Mars (M2M) mission architecture, detailed in the agency’s annual Architecture Concept Reviews (ACRs). It is also in keeping with Explore Mars’ goal of advancing the “human exploration of Mars and beyond no later than the 2030s.” Alas, in recent years, there has been growing skepticism that several key technologies will be ready to meet this deadline.

As Universe Today reported at the time, these doubts were raised at AM IX, and there was no consensus regarding potential solutions. This included the possibility of a flyby mission by 2033 and whether or not a nuclear-thermal propulsion (NTP) system, which can potentially reduce transit times to Mars (45 to 100 days), would be ready in time. In addition, there were the comments of Deputy Administrator Jim Reuters, who acknowledged that sending astronauts to Mars by 2040 was “an audacious goal for us to meet… It may sound like a lot, but it is [a] very short time to develop technologies we need to develop.”

As with previous AM workshops, cooperation and effective communication were emphasized. This includes coordinating robotic and human spaceflight missions and broader cooperation between space agencies, government, and industry. A key concern that was identified was the process through which NASA’s mission architecture evolves. While participants agreed that the M2M ADD “provides a strong starting point for an iterative architecture process,” they also concluded that the development process was insufficient. As stated in the AM X Report:

“Participants observed that despite recent progress, existing channels were insufficient to adequately integrate human capabilities and limitations as well as science objectives into the architecture development process. Similarly, sustainable human exploration of the Moon and Mars will not occur unless science and human exploration objectives are infused early and continuously into the systems engineering processes.”

To address these concerns, the workshop participants came up with four recommendations for improving existing channels and the architecture development process. They include:

Public Outreach & Involvement

First, the AM X Workshop Report recommended that public interactive forums be more frequent to develop inputs to NASA’s Architecture Definition Documents. The communities emphasized for engagement include operations, human research, science, international organizations, and others “that empower cross-disciplinary teaming, welcome broad participation from external experts, and provide a pathway to incorporate community recommendations and findings into Mars mission planning.”

The need to coordinate with diverse science communities to prioritize and narrow science objectives was also noted, as was the possible need for certification paths for external groups “to provide input in
smaller settings and more frequently than once a year at the ACR.”

The Report also emphasizes the need for initiatives and workshops that focus on the development and integration of “intelligent systems” and “data analytics” that will be critical for missions operating farther from Earth for extended periods. According to NASA’s mission architecture, this applies to Phase III of the Moon to Mars plan (aka. “Earth Independent”), where operations will shift from cislunar to deep space. This will include transits to and from Mars using the Deep Space Transport (DST) and science operations on the Martian surface.

Risk Mitigation

Second, the Report acknowledges the historical trend where certain priorities (like discovery science, technology, and infrastructure development) are often sacrificed for short-term needs. To this end, it is recommended that NASA acknowledge and address tensions between scientific investment for “risk mitigation purposes and investment for discovery science in planning for M2M missions.” While there is no reference to the sacrifices made to realize the Artemis Program and a return to the Moon by 2024, there are some hints that this could be the case.

The shifting priorities brought about by the expedited timetable have led to the deprioritizing of mission elements crucial to reaching Mars by the 2030s – like the Lunar Gateway. As acting Deputy Administrator Doug Loverro explained in March of 2020 during a NASA Advisory Council science committee, the Gateway was deprioritized to “de-risk” Artemis so NASA could focus on meeting the mandatory goals of Artemis and its 2024 deadline. Meanwhile, no design or feasibility studies have been performed for the DST or a Mars orbital habitat (a la the Mars Base Camp) since 2018/19, coinciding with the Artemis “shake-up.”

Regardless, the Report cites the need for increased funding to ensure “technology maturation, demonstration, and infusion to incorporate capabilities.” This is understandable, given that budget concerns have been an issue since NASA began planning missions to the Moon and Mars. In addition to speeding the development of technology, an increase in funding is also desirable to incorporate rapidly advancing technologies such as “artificial intelligence, data management, in-space manufacturing,” and others that are still relatively early in the development process.

Another important factor emphasized here is Health and Human Performance (HPP), which clearly refers to strategies for mitigating the health risks associated with deep space transits. These include extended periods spent in microgravity and long-term exposure to elevated levels of solar and cosmic radiation. To date, NASA has explored multiple possibilities for addressing these concerns, but no concrete plans have emerged just yet.

Evolving Architectures

Further to Recommendation I, the Report states that NASA and commercial companies invested in Mars exploration should continue designing “evolvable mission and campaign architectures.” The purpose of this is to allow for new technologies to be incorporated along the way and prevent the current state of technology from limiting plans. As per the Report, this will help ensure that “we do not design architecture and hardware applicable only for the first mission without allowing both to evolve for subsequent missions.” To this end, NASA and commercial industries are encouraged to:

• Develop common standards, requirements, and interfaces to allow the incorporation of multiple technologies, capabilities, and/or solutions as technology progresses over the next two decades.
• Create and implement a Human and System Readiness Level verification process to assess if the human, hardware, software, and planning systems are sufficiently mature as an integrated system.
• Ensure that the architecture is sufficiently flexible that it can address a wide range of missions beyond the first one.

Commercial Partnerships

Finally, the Report encourages NASA to continue investing and cooperating with commercial partners to realize lunar capabilities and technologies that will help them reach Mars. This goes to the heart of the M2M mission architecture, which prioritized a return to the Moon during the 2020s to develop the necessary technologies, systems, and expertise to create a pathway to Mars by the 2030s. “The Moon is how we learn to get to Mars,” it reads, “and we want companies thinking not just about getting to the Moon but, at the same time, how getting there prepares us for the more challenging missions to Mars.”

****

As usual, the prospect of sending crewed missions to Mars raised many concerns at this year’s workshop. This should come as no surprise, as the goal itself is incredibly ambitious and presents many major challenges. If there is a takeaway from this year’s workshop, it is that there is plenty of work to be done before a mission can be realized. This work must take place at the architectural level, emphasizing wider public engagement, advancing technologies, and a commitment to long-term goals.

Further Reading: 

• Explore Mars

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

04-06-2024 om 20:41 geschreven door peter  

In 2022, MSL Curiosity took an inventory of organic carbon in sediments at Gale Crater. Organic carbon is usually described as carbon atoms bonded covalently to hydrogen atoms and is the basis for organic molecules. The carbon in organic carbon can be either carbon-12 or carbon-13, and the amounts are important. At Gale Crater, Curiosity found about 200 to 273 parts per million of organic carbon. “This is comparable to or even more than the amount found in rocks in very low-life places on Earth, such as parts of the Atacama Desert in South America, and more than has been detected in Mars meteorites,” said Jennifer Stern, a Space Scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center when the results came in.

This carbon is important evidence in understanding Mars’ history. It can tell scientists about the planet’s atmospheric processes and environmental conditions and even shed light on potential life. In fact, understanding Martian carbon can aid our understanding of habitability and prebiotic chemistry on distant exoplanets. The isotope ratio in this carbon is different than on Earth. It has a lower amount of carbon-13 relative to carbon-12 compared to Earth. Why the discrepancy?

In recent research in Nature Geoscience, a team of researchers tried to understand the difference between Earth’s and Mars’s carbon isotope ratios. The work is titled “Synthesis of ¹³C-depleted organic matter from CO in a reducing early Martian atmosphere.” The lead author is Yuichiro Ueno, a biogeochemist in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the Tokyo Institute of Technology.

“Strong ¹³C depletion in sedimentary organic matter at Gale crater was recently detected by the Curiosity rover,” the authors write. “Although this enigmatic depletion remains debated, if correct, a mechanism to cause such strong ¹³C depletion is required.” 

The amount of carbon-13 in the Martian sediments is far lower than in Earth’s sediments.

“On measuring the stable isotope ratio between 13C and 12C, the Martian organic matter has a 13C abundance of 0.92% to 0.99% of the carbon that makes it up,” lead author Ueno explained in a press release. “This is extremely low compared to Earth’s sedimentary organic matter, which is about 1.04%, and atmospheric CO2, around 1.07%, both of which are biological remnants and are not similar to the organic matter in meteorites, which is about 1.05%.”

The meteorite data is important because a four billion-year-old Martian meteorite named ALH 84001 is enriched in carbon-13, adding to the enigma of Mars’ carbon. Somehow, carbon-13 became depleted in the intervening billions of years. Solar escape is one possible reason for the carbon-13 depletion, but the authors discount that. There likely wasn’t enough time for enough carbon-13 to escape. “Furthermore, based on geomagnetic observations, early Mars probably had a geomagnetic field before 4?Ga,” the authors write. That field would’ve prevented solar escape.

To determine what’s behind this discrepancy, Ueno and his co-researchers simulated different Martian atmospheric conditions to see what would happen.

Their results show that isotope fractionation by solar UV light is responsible for Mars’ 13C depletion.

Carbon-12 and carbon-13 respond differently to UV light. Carbon-12 preferentially absorbs UV, which dissociates it into carbon monoxide that’s depleted in carbon-12. What’s left behind is CO2 enriched with carbon-13.

Scientists have observed this process in the upper atmospheres of Earth and Mars. In Mars’ reducing atmosphere, where oxygen was depleted, the CO2 enriched with carbon-13 would’ve transformed into formaldehyde and possibly methanol. But those compounds didn’t remain stable. In Mars’ early days, the surface temperature was close to the freezing point of water, and it never exceeded about 27 Celsius (80 F.) In that temperature range, the formaldehyde and other compounds could’ve dissolved in water. From there, they gathered in sediments.

But that’s not the end of Mars’ carbon isotope story.

The researchers used models to show that in a Mars atmosphere with a CO2 to CO ratio of 90:10, 20% of the CO2 would have converted to CO, leading to the sedimentary carbon isotope ratio we see today. The remaining atmospheric CO2 would be higher in C-13, and both values are in line with what Curiosity found, and with the ancient Martian meteorite ALH 84001.

This is a plausible scenario that can explain Curiosity’s curious carbon findings.

The team’s study also includes some other important details. For instance, atmospheric CO may not have come solely from photolysis by UV light. Some could have come from volcanic eruptions. And atmospheric CO may not have been the sole source of organics that found their way into the sediments. But either way, the results tell scientists something about Mars’ carbon cycle.

It also tells us to expect to find more organics in Martian sediments in the future.

“If the estimation in this research is correct, there may be an unexpected amount of organic material present in Martian sediments. This suggests that future explorations of Mars might uncover large quantities of organic matter,” said Ueno.

While the research shows us that life needn’t be present to produce these organics, it can’t rule life out. Nobody can, at least not yet.

The research also shows how complex atmospheric chemistry can be and how difficult it can be to draw conclusions from atmospheric studies of exoplanets. The JWST has examined several exoplanet atmospheres and found some interesting results. But there’s so much we don’t know. This research is a reminder that any conclusions are likely premature.

 { https://www.universetoday.com/ }

04-06-2024 om 20:22 geschreven door peter  

Astronomers Stumbled Upon A Rare Chance To Capture Just How Fast A Supermassive Black Hole Spins

One unlucky star brought fortune to these astronomers.

BY DORIS ELÍN URRUTIA

 

Back in 2020, astronomers noticed some strange activity. Using the Zwicky Transient Facility in California, they detected telltale signs that a star was going through what scientists call a tidal disruption event, in which an intense field of gravity rips a star apart. Tidal disruption events really only come from one thing: monster black holes. They realized what they were witnessing was a big black hole feasting on a star.

Astronomers observed the black hole in detail using the International Space Station’s NICER telescope, which is short for Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer. They found a few interesting details. Every 15 days, the supermassive black hole experienced a shift in X-ray intensity, and this pattern remained steady for the entirety of the four months they studied it.

From this, they were able to estimate the spin speed of the black hole. Finding such a specific detail about an object lurking roughly a billion light-years away is impressive. But the researchers say this new technique might be able to help solve some riddles about how the universe came to be. Specifically, how the hearts of galaxies evolved from Cosmic Dawn to today.

The supermassive black hole of the new study behaves somewhat like a kid swaying their hips to move a hula hoop. From the motion of the toy — in this case, the ring of shredded gas from the victim star — helped astronomers observe how the object’s intense gravity warps space-time to affect the disk. Black holes are so dense that not even light can escape them. But accretion disks around the black holes do emit light. They trace the path of this space-time warp. The black hole creates a drag called Lense-Thirring precession, and from this, astronomers deduced the spin speed.

This isn’t the first time that astronomers have derived the spin measurements of supermassive black holes and smaller black holes. But according to the lead author of the new study, MIT research scientist Dheeraj Pasham, this was the first time that the black hole’s warp of the space-time, paired with the luminosity of the accretion disk of an otherwise invisible object, led to finding the black hole’s spin speed.

The team owe much of their accomplishment to this black hole being a great candidate for study. It helped that the black hole was tilted towards Earth, letting astronomers investigate the X-rays clearly. NICER also has an easier job if it’s targeting objects in the direction of Earth’s poles, where the Sun can’t obstruct. The black hole is in the polar part of our sky, fortunately.

The spin speed of the black hole is a fingerprint. An abundance of slow-spinning black holes would mean frequent chaotic mergers between black holes — and the galaxies they reside in. “You’re dumping angular momentum in random orientations, and essentially spinning down the remnants,” Pasham tells Inverse.

“The other scenario is, let’s say you find most of the black holes are fast-spinning as close to the speed of light, that means they grew by accretion. Like a spinning top,” Pasham added. Over time, the balls of gas pulled in towards the black hole sped it up a little more.

This new research, along with discoveries emerging from a myriad of new telescopes taking flight soon, the universe’s history may not stay so hidden for long.

• https://youtu.be/yXIRhYBRtRE

• https://youtu.be/O0xHA0unJaw

{ https://www.inverse.com/ }

04-06-2024 om 17:04 geschreven door peter  

This Dwarf Planet Is Basically A Sweet Red Snow Cone

Please do not lick the science.

BY KIONA SMITH

NASA

A recent study found that Arrokoth, a weirdly-shaped dwarf planet in the Kuiper Belt, gets its distinctive reddish coloration from complex hydrocarbon molecules, which form when cosmic rays and solar wind bombard the tiny world’s frozen methanol surface. The same chemical reactions that spawn those hydrocarbons also produce sugars like glucose and glycerol, which means that if you licked Arrokoth, it would probably taste sweet, but also a little like soap. (Please don’t try this, because methanol is poison, and also you shouldn’t open your spacesuit helmet in a vacuum. Safety first!)

University of Hawai’i at Manoa chemist Chaojiang Zhang and colleagues published their work in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

LAB-GROWN DWARF PLANETS

Zhang and colleagues froze a slab of methanol and carbon monoxide to around -390° Fahrenheit, or about 40 Kelvin, in their lab, then blasted it with high-energy electrons to simulate a couple billion years of cosmic rays.

The simulated cosmic rays triggered a series of chemical reactions in the ice, which produced complicated molecules called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons — the chemicals that stain Arrokoth’s surface a distinctive reddish color. Those same chemical reactions also produced sugars like glucose (the stuff that sweetens honey, berries, nuts, grains, and even potatoes), glycerol (the backbone of fatty acids called lipids, which make up part of our cell membranes, among other things), and ribose (and important part of DNA and RNA).

And the hydrocarbon molecules that give Arrokoth its color are built benzene, a chemical that is a ring of six carbon atoms with six hydrogen atoms on the outside. That ring structure is the basis for most organic chemistry, including some of the most important molecules for life: the “nucleobases” that make up the genetic code, as well as the amino acids that combine to form proteins.

In other words, the surface of Arrokoth is probably laden is with the chemical building blocks for life — and that’s pretty sweet, too.

“SUGAR WORLDS” MEET WITH EARTH

Some of the ribose in your DNA right this moment may once have been locked in frozen ice on the surface of a world like Arrokoth.

“Sugar worlds” like Arrokoth may have played a role in giving Earth its starter kit of life-building molecules, like sugars and benzene-based hydrocarbon rings. Some of the comets that bombarded early Earth around 4 billion years ago may have come from tiny Kuiper Belt worlds like Arrokoth. And Zhang and colleagues’ experiment suggests those comets may have carried more than just water ice to our young planet.

Different Kuiper Belt worlds may have supplied different organic chemicals to early Earth, according to Zhang and colleagues. Pluto’s dancing partner, Charon, and another dwarf planet called Orcus, have water and ammonia frozen on their surfaces; others have carbon dioxide. Zhang and colleagues want to do more experiments in their lab to simulate how cosmic rays change the chemistry on each of those worlds to learn what’s out there — and how it got here

{ https://www.inverse.com/ }

04-06-2024 om 16:48 geschreven door peter  

Look! NASA’s Lucy Mission Stumbled Upon An Asteroid With Planet-Like Features

Dinkinesh is a tough half-mile-wide rock.

BY DORIS ELÍN URRUTIA

NASA/GSFC/SwRI/Johns Hopkins APL/NOIRLab/Brian May/Claudia Manzoni

The Lucy mission, named after the famous 3 million year old hominid fossil, is slated to visit the Trojans, a swarm of asteroids stuck in Jupiter’s orbit that may be relics of the Solar System’s formation. But the spacecraft made a pitstop at asteroid Dinkinesh on November 1, 2023 for what was meant to be a simple test subject for the spacecraft's navigational systems.

The asteroid, however, turned out to have plenty of science to offer, including new information about how planets form, according to a new study published Wednesday in the journal Nature. Dinkinesh, and its surprise mini-moon Selam, might also contain clues about how the planets formed billions of years ago, the study reveals.

HELLO DINKINESH

Dinkinesh is a rough half-mile-wide rock.

Lucy’s images show that Dinkinesh, located in the inner edge of the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, has a trough and a ridge, and is shaped like a spinning top.

Researchers think the ridge formed when a large chunk of rock dislodged from Dinkinesh. When the rock got knocked out, it broke into tiny pieces. These bits then settled to form the ridge. Some rock pieces might also have been lofted into space and then rained back down to add to the ridge.

“Basically, the planets formed when zillions of smaller objects orbiting the Sun, like asteroids, ran into each other. How objects behave when they hit each other, whether they break apart or stick together, has a lot to do with their strength and internal structure,” Lucy mission principal investigator Hal Levison said in the announcement.

Dinkinesh's terrain suggests it has a sturdy interior. This would have been an essential trait during the formation of the planets billions of years ago. The researchers think that the rock dislodged when an earthquake-like event occurred. During these types of events, there's a gradual buildup of stress that culminates as a swift release. If a celestial body experiences this type of event, that suggests it has a compact composition. If Dinkinesh's rocks were more loosely gathered together, the stress may not have built up, but instead, created gradual changes to the terrain, similar to the way a sand dune shape shifts.

The dislodged rock event could also explain how Dinkinesh’s tiny moon, Selam, formed. Over millions of years, the Sun’s thermal radiation caused Dinkinesh’s spin to accelerate. This created a centrifugal force. As material pooled near the center, or flew off into nearby space, Selam gained its raw ingredients.

In keeping with the moniker theme of the Lucy mission, Selam is a greeting meaning “peace” in the Amharic language. It’s spoken in Ethiopia, where the Lucy fossil was discovered. Dinkinesh is another Amharic word, meaning “marvelous.”

{ https://www.inverse.com/ }

04-06-2024 om 16:42 geschreven door peter  

Een oude Maya-techniek zou de groei van planten op Mars kunnen bevorderen, zo beweert een onderzoek

Door Janine

Vroeg of laat zullen mensen naar Mars gaan. Misschien zal de missie niet in de nabije toekomst plaatsvinden, maar het staat vast dat het koloniseren van de rode planeet een van de doelstellingen van ruimtevaartorganisaties is. De vraag is: wat zullen toekomstige kolonisten eten? Leveringen vanaf de aarde zijn allesbehalve duurzaam, en dus blijft er maar één optie over: voedsel direct op Mars verbouwen, met enige hulp van oude Maya-praktijken.

De Maya's en de landbouw op Mars

PLOS ONE/Gonçalves et al./2024

De voedselvoorziening en de landbouw op Mars zijn verre van een ondergeschikt probleem, maar uiterst belangrijke kwesties. Met name een onderzoek van Wageningen University & Research in Nederland heeft mogelijk de eerste stappen gezet om het probleem op te lossen. De onderzoekers hebben in feite een moderne versie van een oude Maya-techniek overgenomen, genaamd intercropping of tussenteelt, en zijn begonnen met het telen van tomaten, erwten en wortels in dezelfde potten.

De resultaten, gepubliceerd in PLOS ONE, waren verrassend. Tomaten geteeld door middel van tussenteelt verdubbelden hun productie vergeleken met individueel geteelde tomaten, met grotere vruchten en in minder tijd. Hetzelfde gebeurde niet met erwten, die een onveranderde opbrengst behielden, en wortelen, die daarentegen een lagere opbrengst vertoonden. Terwijl aan de ene kant intercropping veelbelovende resultaten oplevert, is het aan de andere kant essentieel om zorgvuldig gewassen, grond en additieven te kiezen.

Verbouwen op Marsgrond: is dat mogelijk?

PLOS ONE/Gonçalves et al./2024

Bij het experiment van de onderzoekers van de Nederlandse universiteit waren in deze eerste fase drie soorten gewassen betrokken. Zoals we al zeiden, zijn de grondsoort en eventuele toevoegingen even belangrijk. Om de bodem van Mars te simuleren, ontwikkelden wetenschappers een bodem die bestaat uit regoliet, zonder organisch materiaal, waaraan ze vervolgens bacteriën en voedingsstoffen toevoegden. Een proces dat sterk lijkt op het proces dat toekomstige kolonisten zouden kunnen gebruiken om gewassen op Mars te verbouwen.

Als aanvoer vanaf de aarde moet worden uitgesloten vanwege de kosten en tijd die daarvoor nodig is, lijkt teelt op de rode planeet de enige optie. En intercropping, oftewel het gebruik van planten met complementaire eigenschappen, zou echt een levensvatbare toekomst kunnen vertegenwoordigen. Evenals een manier om het gebruik van water en voedingsstoffen te optimaliseren.

De nieuwe landbouw op Mars en de kunst van het kiezen van de juiste planten

PLOSE ONE/Gonçalves et al./2024 / 中国新闻网/Wikimedia Commons - CC BY 3.0 DEED

Uit de resultaten van hun experiment ontdekten de onderzoekers dat de tomatenplanten een concreet voordeel haalden uit de nabijheid van erwten. Deze laatste kunnen namelijk zeer efficiënt stikstof uit de lucht opnemen en omzetten in voedingsstoffen. Tegelijkertijd profiteerden de wortels niet alleen niet van de nabijheid van de erwten, maar werden ze er ook door geschaad, waarschijnlijk als gevolg van de concurrentie om licht. En we weten dat zonlicht op Mars niet in grote hoeveelheden beschikbaar is: ook in dit geval zal het nodig zijn om na te denken over duurzame alternatieven voor een menselijke kolonie.

Het succes van toekomstige missies naar de rode planeet hangt inderdaad ook af van het vermogen van de kolonisten om zelfvoorzienend te zijn. En deze capaciteit hangt op zijn beurt af van duurzame landbouw op Marsgrond, dat wil zeggen van de tussenteelt van de oude Maya’s. Naast het kiezen van de juiste gewassen om het project te starten, rest er vandaag nog maar één twijfel: niemand heeft de tomaten, erwten en wortelen geproefd. Wie weet hoe ze zullen smaken.

{ https://www.curioctopus.nl/ }

03-06-2024 om 22:37 geschreven door peter  

Venus had oorspronkelijk hetzelfde water als de aarde: eindelijk is ontdekt waarom het zo droog werd

Door Janine

Venus, onze dorre buur, was ooit rijk aan water. Maar waar is al het water gebleven? Een nieuwe studie heeft het antwoord gevonden.

Waarom is Venus een warme, droge planeet als er water is?

Waarom Venus van een planeet met water, zo warm en droog is geworden, is voor wetenschappers een mysterie. De oeroude aanwezigheid van water zou de planeet heet en vochtig moeten maken, maar toch is er geen spoor van waterdamp te vinden. Dit werd ontdekt door planeetwetenschappers van de University of Colorado Boulder en werpt een licht op waarom deze hete en onbewoonbare planeet is geworden wat hij nu is.

Men denkt dat Venus oorspronkelijk een vergelijkbare hoeveelheid water had als de aarde. Er is echter nog maar een honderdduizendste van over, volledig ingesloten in de atmosfeer, in plaats van verspreid in de oceanen, zeeën, ijs en lucht zoals op onze planeet. Dus waar is al het water gebleven? Een echt mysterie dat eindelijk ontrafeld lijkt te zijn.

De verantwoordelijke voor de dorre toestand van Venus

NASA/JPL/Wikimedia commons - Public domain

Eryn Cangi, co-hoofdauteur van het onderzoek en onderzoeker aan het Space and Atmospheric Physics Laboratory, legt uit: "Water is echt belangrijk voor leven. We moeten de omstandigheden begrijpen die vloeibaar water in het heelal ondersteunen en die mogelijk de huidige droge staat van Venus hebben veroorzaakt." Als we al het water op aarde op het oppervlak van onze planeet zouden gieten, zouden we een vloeibare laag hebben van ongeveer 3 kilometer. Als we hetzelfde zouden doen op Venus, zou de diepte slechts 3 centimeter zijn. Dat komt omdat de droge planeet 100.000 keer minder water heeft dan de aarde, ook al is hij even groot.

In wezen heeft het turbulente broeikaseffect van Venus het water letterlijk gekookt, waardoor stoom ontsnapte. Door middel van computersimulaties ontdekten de onderzoekers dat de waterstofatomen in de atmosfeer van Venus de ruimte in vliegen door “associatieve recombinatie”, een proces dat ervoor zorgt dat de planeet twee keer zoveel water verliest als eerder werd voorspeld. Met behulp van computermodellen stelden wetenschappers zich Venus voor als een enorm scheikundelaboratorium, waar ze reacties in de atmosfeer observeerden. Een molecuul genaamd HCO+, een ion dat bestaat uit een waterstof-, koolstof- en zuurstofatoom en dat wordt aangetroffen in de bovenste atmosfeer van de planeet, zou verantwoordelijk kunnen zijn voor het ontsnappen van water van Venus.

Dit is hoe Venus zo anders werd dan de aarde

NASA

Daarom kan deze ontdekking volgens Cangi onthullen waarom Venus zo anders werd dan de aarde, ook al waren de twee planeten oorspronkelijk bijna identiek: "We proberen te begrijpen welke kleine veranderingen zich op elke planeet voordeden om ze in deze zeer verschillende toestand te brengen." Volgens de wetenschappers veroorzaakten de machtige wolken koolstofdioxide in de atmosfeer een ongekend broeikaseffect in het hele zonnestelsel, waardoor de temperatuur steeg tot ongeveer 480°. Water werd stoom en het meeste daarvan kwam in de ruimte terecht. De rest verdween door HCO+, gevormd door de interactie tussen water en koolstofdioxide in de bovenste atmosferen van de planeet.

Dezelfde molecule kan ook een belangrijke rol hebben gespeeld bij het verdwijnen van water van Mars. Op Venus wordt de molecule continu geproduceerd, maar de ionen leven niet lang: de elektronen splitsen ze in twee delen, waarvan er één door de ruimte raast. Waarschijnlijk is de hoeveelheid van de molecule nooit gedetecteerd bij gebrek aan geschikte apparatuur.

{ https://www.curioctopus.nl/ }

03-06-2024 om 22:28 geschreven door peter  

The China National Space Administration said the lander used its onboard camera during its powered descent to detect obstacles autonomously and select a safe landing site. Chang’e-6 captured video imagery during the final phase of the lander’s descent and transmitted the views back to Earth. One video frame shows the shadow of the lander itself moments before touchdown.

Chang’e-6 is built to collect samples using a drill and a robotic arm. It’s also expected to gather scientific data about its surroundings using a radon detector, a negative-ion detector and a mini-rover. During surface operations, data and telemetry are being relayed between Chang’e-6 and Earth via China’s Queqiao-2 satellite.

Up to 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds) of lunar samples will be stowed inside the lander’s “ascender” stage. The rocket-powered ascender will then lift off from the surface and transfer the samples to the Chang’e-6 orbiter, which is currently in lunar orbit. Following the model set by Chang’e-5, the orbiter will head back toward Earth and release the sample capsule for atmospheric re-entry and touchdown in Inner Mongolia.

The moon’s south polar region is of particular interest because it’s thought to harbor reserves of water ice that could support lunar settlement. Studying fresh samples from the South Pole-Aitken Basin could help scientists and mission planners learn more about the region’s resources.

Chang’e-6 is the latest spacecraft in an international armada of moon landers — including Russia’s Luna 25, iSpace’s Hakuto-R and Astrobotic’s Peregrine, which were unsuccessful, plus more fruitful missions such as India’s Chandrayaan-3, Japan’s SLIM and Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus.

Coming attractions include NASA’s VIPER rover, which is currently due to be delivered to the moon late this year; and China’s Chang’e-7 mission, which features a hopping probe and is set for launch in 2026. Looking further ahead, China aims to send astronauts to the lunar surface by 2030 — not long after NASA’s Artemis 3 crewed lunar landing, currently scheduled for 2026.

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

03-06-2024 om 20:47 geschreven door peter