Ganymede Was Struck by Giant Asteroid 4 Billion Years Ago, New Research Suggests

Jupiter’s moon Ganymede has an ancient impact structure called a furrow system. This system is the largest impact structure in the outer Solar System, and the impact should have significantly affected Ganymede’s early history.

Distribution of furrows and location of the center of the furrow system shown in the hemisphere that always faces away from Jupiter (top) and the cylindrical projection map of Ganymede (bottom). The gray regions represent geologically young terrain without furrows. Furrows (green lines) exist only on geologically old terrains (black regions).

Image credit: Naoyuki Hirata, doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-69914-2.

Ganymede is the largest satellite in the Solar System and has many unique features, including tectonic troughs known as furrows.

Furrows are the oldest surface features recognized on Ganymede because they are crosscut by any impact craters with diameters exceeding 10 km. They can provide a window into the early history of this moon.

{ https://www.sci.news/ }

03-09-2024 om 22:25 geschreven door peter  

©Sources: Graphic Created using Canva, Pixabay / geralt, NASA CC0 Images via Canva

Black Hole in a Planet's Orbit Could Indicate an Advanced Civilization
An English mathematical physicist and Nobel-prize winner named Roger Penrose hypothesized how energy could be extracted from a rotating black hole in 1971. He proposed constructing a harness around the black hole's accretion disk—where infalling matter reaches near-light speeds—which would trigger an enormous release of energy across multiple wavelengths.

Since then, several scientists have proposed that advanced civilizations might use this idea—dubbed the Penrose Process—to power their technology. This technological possibility suggests just one interesting technosignature that scientists looking for life beyond Earth could search for in outer space.

©Unsplash / Aman Pal

Following Hypotheses
Building upon this idea, scientist John M. Smart has proposed the Transcension Hypothesis. In this hypothesis, he suggested that advanced intelligence may migrate to regions surrounding black holes. There, they could take advantage of the energy available.

The latest idea based on the Penrose Process comes from Harvard Professor Avi Loeb. His paper where he poses his latest findings and ideas, "Illumination of a Planet by a Black Hole Moon as a Technological Signature," was recently published in the scientific journal Research Notes of the AAS.

©Wikimedia Commons / Cmichel67

Avi Loeb’s Paper
Professor Avi Loeb is an extremely accomplished scientist. He is the Frank B. Baird Jr. Professor of Science at Harvard University, the Director of the Director of the Institute for Theory and Computation at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center of Astrophysics (CfA), the founding Director of the Black Hole Initiative (BHI), and the head of the Galileo Project.

In his latest paper, he proposed that advanced civilizations could rely on a "Black Hole Moon" to provide their home planet with power indefinitely. He argues that the way a black hole would light up the planet it orbits could serve as a potential technosignature for future SETI surveys. (SETI stands for Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.)

©Stephen Hawking in the 1980s / Wikimedia Commons / NASA

Stephen Hawking’s Theory
In 1975, Stephen Hawking theorized that black holes emit photons, neutrinos, and some larger particles. These theoretical larger particles have been called "Hawking Radiation." Since then, proposals for harnessing black holes as an energy source typically fall into one of two categories.

Some scientists believe in the possibility of the Penrose Process, which involves capturing the energy from angular momentum of black hole accretion disks. Similarly, some believe that capturing the heat and energy generated by black hole hypervelocity jets would be possible, perhaps in the form of a Dyson Sphere. On the other hand, some believe that these black-hole-civilizations would have to feed matter into the black hole they rely on and harness the resulting Hawking Radiation in order to create power.

©Unsplash / NASA Hubble Space Telescope

An Orbiting Black Hole Engine
In his recent paper, Loeb proposed that an advanced alien civilization could rely on the latter process by engineering a black hole to orbit their home planet. This black hole would be relatively very small, weighing just one hundred thousand tons (10-11 g). (Yes, this sounds like a lot, but it is not in terms of black holes.)

However, without any sort of maintenance, this black hole would evaporate in just a year and a half through the emission of Hawking Radiation. Loeb explained that, luckily for any potential civilization, a black hole could be sustained by giving it small amounts of matter—about 4.85 lbs (2.2 kg) per second. In return, the black hole would offer a continuous supply of power.

©Unsplash / NASA Hubble Space Telescope

Powerful and Efficient
“This black hole system is the most efficient engine that I ever thought about,” Loeb explained. “The fuel is converted to energy with the perfect efficiency of 100%, because the mass falling into the black hole is ultimately coming out as Hawking Radiation. I have not seen this idea discussed before and had a ‘Eureka moment’ when I realized it a few weeks ago.”

According to Loeb, the amount of antimatter needed is currently beyond humanity’s capabilities—a civilization more advanced than our own would have to figure that out. However, Loeb's proposed 10-11 g black hole could continuously supply 40 quadrillion Watts of power, which is certainly enough to power a planet.

©Unsplash / NASA Hubble Space Telescope

Using Waste for Energy
"The global energy use is a few terra-Watts, ten thousand times less than the power supply of this black hole," Loeb explained. Another benefit is that a black hole can use any type of matter as fuel, including the waste generated by a civilization. In this way, a black hole engine could address an advanced civilization's waste disposal issues while simultaneously offering a limitless source of energy.

"The other advantage of this black hole engine is that it can use any form of matter as fuel,” Loeb said. “It could be trash. There is no better way to recycle trash than convert it into clean energy with 100% efficiency."

©Canva / Riddhima's Images

Possible for Advanced Civilizations
Humans produce roughly 1.92 billion metric tons of waste annually. This is having a severe impact on our planet Earth. However, this would be enough to feed a black hole of Loeb’s proposed size for more than 437 million years.

According to Loeb, a black hole engine that uses waste as its energy source would be much simpler than other proposed alien energy sources. Theoretically, it would be technology that a Type II civilization could engineer (for reference, Earth is only _almost_ a Type I civilization).

©Pixabay / GuillaumePreat

A Technosignature on Earth
“This is the big challenge,” Loeb said. “Any production line of a 10-11 g black hole requires compressing matter or radiation to a mass density that is 60 orders of magnitude above the density of solid iron. The density of atomic nuclei or neutron stars is only 15 orders of magnitude above solid density. This was possible to achieve in the cosmic radiation density less than a femtosecond after the Big Bang."

In another recently written paper by Loeb, he argued that, based on the theory of General Relativity, black holes could be made out of light. According to his theories, this proposed black hole engine would be detectable light-years away, which might be most interesting about his hypothesis. This would make black hole engines viable technosignatures that would indicate the existence of a far-away advanced civilization to scientists.

©Unsplash / NASA Hubble Space Telescope

Potential Extraterrestrial Power
As with many proposed technosignatures—such as science-fiction-like Dyson Spheres and other megastructures—the idea of a black hole engine remains speculative and theoretical. However, as Freeman Dyson noted, if something is within the realm of our imagination and the underlying physics are valid, a sufficiently advanced civilization might already be employing it.

Loeb speculated, “The black hole engine could be discovered as a rogue rocky planet that is illuminated by a gamma-ray moon with no stellar-mass companion. If we ever find evidence for such an engine, we would need to consider the possibility that the source was created or trapped as a primordial black hole by a highly advanced technological civilization. There is no better marker of technological innovation than creating a furnace out of spacetime curvature in the form of a mini black hole.” Loeb’s hypothesis is another interesting theory posed by scientists that could help to confirm life beyond our Earth.

{ https://www.msn.com/en-us/} 

02-09-2024 om 23:31 geschreven door peter  

Voyager 1 is back online! NASA's most distant spacecraft returns data from all 4 instruments

Even if Voyager 1 had gone dark for good, however, the mission would still have been a wild success. After it launched in 1977, its primary mission was to study Jupiter and Saturn — that was accomplished by 1980. (Its twin spacecraft, Voyager 2, went on to study Uranus and Neptune.) But Voyager 1 is on an unstoppable path. Continuing its journey away from Earth, the spacecraft entered interstellar space in 2012, returning crucial data about this mysterious realm.

Now that Voyager 1 is back online, the team will continue to "touch up" the spacecraft to get it back in top form, including resynchronizing its timekeeping software to execute commands at the right time, as well as performing maintenance on the digital tape recorder that measures plasma waves. And hopefully, Voyager 1 will have a long, happy life ahead.

{ https://www.space.com/ }

02-09-2024 om 01:05 geschreven door peter  

The Standard Model describes how the Universe has evolved at large scale. There are six numbers that define the model and a team of researchers have used them to build simulations of the Universe. The results of these simulations were then fed to a machine learning algorithm to train it before it was set the task of estimating five of the cosmological constants, a task which it completed with incredible precision. 

The Standard Model incorporates a number of elements; the Big Bang, dark energy, cold dark matter, ordinary matter and the cosmic background radiation. It works well to describe the large scale structure of the Universe but there are gaps in our understanding. Quantum physics can describe the small scale of the Universe but struggles with gravity and there are questions around dark matter and dark energy too. Understanding these can help in our understanding of the evolution and structure of the Universe. 

A team of researchers from the Flatiron Institute have managed to extract some hidden information in the distribution of galaxies to estimate the values of five of the parameters. The accuracy was a great improvement on values that were attained during previous attempts. Using AI technology the team’s results had less than half the uncertainty for the element that describes the clumpiness of the Universe than in the previous attempt. Their results also revealed estimates of other parameters that closely resembled observation. The paper was published in Nature Astronomy on 21 August. 

The team generated 2,000 simulated universes after carefully specifying their cosmological parameters. These included expansion rate, the distribution and clumpiness of ordinary matter, dark matter and dark energy and using these the team ran the simulations. The output was then compressed into manageable data sets and this was used to compare against over one hundred thousand real galaxies data. From this, it was possible for the researchers to estimate the parameters for the real Universe. 

The parameters the team managed to fine tune are those that describe how the Universe operates at the largest scale. These are essentially, the settings for the Universe and include the amount of ordinary matter, dark matter, dark energy, the conditions following the Big Bang and just how clumpy the matter is. Previously these settings were calculated using observations from the structure of galaxy clusters. To arrive at a more accurate group of settings observations needed to go down to smaller scale but this has not been possible. 

Instead of using observations, the team used their AI approach to extract the small scale information that was hidden in the existing observational data. At the heart of the approach was the AI system that learned how to correlate the parameters with the observed structure of the Universe – but at small scale. 

In the future the team hope to be able to use their new approach to solve other problems. The uncertainty about the Hubble Constant is an example where the team hope AI can help to fine tune its value. Over the next few years though, and as observational data becomes more detailed both Hubble’s Constant and the Settings of the Universe will become far better understood along with our understanding of the Universe. 

Source : 

• Astrophysicists Use AI to Precisely Calculate Universe’s ‘Settings’

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

01-09-2024 om 22:28 geschreven door peter  

The solar chromosphere is the second layer of the Sun’s atmosphere residing above the Sun’s surface, known as the photosphere (4,130 to 6,330 °C), and below the corona (just under 1,000,000 °C). The chromosphere is known for its red color that is observed hydrogen-alpha electromagnetic emissions and extends between 3,000 to 5,000 kilometers (1,900 to 3,100 miles) in height, which is approximately one percent of the Sun’s radius, while exhibiting temperatures ranging between 3,500 to 35,000 °C. It is the solar chromosphere that is responsible for producing coronal loops, which are arch-like structures produced by the Sun’s magnetic field activity, typically occurring from sunspots. In addition to the incredible image, McCarthy also posted an equally incredible 14-second video of these incredible features in action.

McCarthy tells Universe Today, “These are an example of the magnetic loops captured authentically by isolating the plasma caught in them. This produces coronal rain, plasma raining back onto the photosphere.”

Our Sun is essentially a giant ball of plasma that is undergoing constant change, both within its interior and on its surface, including radio waves, solar wind, and magnetic field. Studying the magnetic field teaches scientists about 22-year cycles where the poles of the magnetic field flip and then return to their initial position, resulting in increased solar activity occurring over 11-year cycles during each transition. This increased magnetic field activity results in increased solar wind emanating from the Sun, leading to solar storms that can strike Earth, causing auroras near our planet’s poles while also harming satellites in orbit and electronic ground stations. One of the most revered incidents of solar storms on Earth was the Carrington Event, which occurred between September 1-2, 1859, resulting in worldwide auroras and telegraph station fires across the globe, as well.

Scientists who study the Sun and its various features are known as solar physicists who use a combination of ground- and space-based telescopes to obtain data regarding the Sun’s activity on a 24/7 basis. Arguably one of the most successful missions to study the Sun is NASA’s Parker Solar Probe, which was launched on August 12, 2018, and has traveled closer to the Sun than any human-made spacecraft in history, coming within 7.26 million kilometers (4.51 million miles) from the Sun’s surface in September 2023 and again in March 2024. During its mission, the Parker Solar Probe encountered magnetic field switchbacks, which is when the magnetic field reverses its direction, resulting in heating the solar corona.

Examples of ground-based telescopes that study the Sun include the Mauna Loa Solar Observatory, which like McCarthy, uses specialized equipment to safely study the Sun and its various features, providing data and images that can be used for research and public outreach. Therefore, how can McCarthy’s work be used for scientific research, and has his past work been used for scientific research purposes?

“This image is in no way intended for scientific research, but rather a product of scientific research,” McCarthy tells Universe Today. “That said, hydrogen alpha images of the sun offer real insight into the behavior of the sun’s magnetic field and are used by scientists worldwide. Amateurs capturing the sun in detail can complement the data produced by professional observatories on earth and in space and play a role in public outreach that can sometimes be lacking by professional institutions.”

McCarthy has become well-known for capturing incredible images of the Sun and sharing them with the public, including breathtaking images and videos of tornado-like prominences emanating from the solar chromosphere in March 2023, which also captured images of the solar corona. Along with these images, McCarthy provides detailed descriptions of the events occurring in his work with the goal of exciting the public about the Sun and its many incredible features.

“The Sun is unique in that every time I photograph it, it looks completely different,” McCarthy tells Universe Today. “The features are always changing. For that reason, it’s a target I will keep coming back to. While intended purely as a piece of digital art, my goal with this piece was to inspire people to ponder our fragile existence kept in balance by our host star. Hopefully it inspires more people to study it, as it gives us a better understanding of this universe we live in!”

What new discoveries will we make about our Sun in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!

• As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!

Links:

• Andrew McCarthy: X (Twitter) & Website

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

01-09-2024 om 22:17 geschreven door peter  

Fly Over The 'Grand Canyon' Of Mars In High-Resolution Orbiter Imagery

{ https://www.space.com/ }

01-09-2024 om 20:30 geschreven door peter  

About 66 million years ago, a cataclysmic event marked the end of the dinosaur era. This episode is linked to the impact of a giant asteroid in the Chicxulub region of Mexico. Until now, the exact nature and origin of this celestial body remained subject to debate.

A new study published in Science sheds light on these mysteries by revealing that this asteroid originated from the outer Solar System, beyond Jupiter, and not from a comet as some had supposed.

Illustration image Pixabay

Researchers employed an innovative method to analyze samples of ancient sediments. These contain ruthenium, a chemical element absent from terrestrial rocks. By comparing the isotopes of ruthenium in the samples with those from different classes of meteorites, they determined that the asteroid that struck Earth was a carbonaceous type (type C). This indicates it formed beyond Jupiter's orbit, in a region where asteroids contain more carbon and volatile elements.

This discovery challenges the hypothesis put forward in 2021 by two Harvard researchers, who proposed that the Chicxulub impactor was a long-period comet. According to their theory, the comet was fragmented by the Sun's gravitational influence before a fragment collided with Earth. However, the new data confirm that the celestial object was indeed a carbonaceous asteroid, thus refuting the comet idea.

Ruthenium played a key role in this identification. In fact, the isotopes of this element allow for distinguishing type C asteroids, formed in the outer Solar System, from type S asteroids, which are more common and originate from the inner Solar System. The fact that the Chicxulub asteroid is type C is particularly significant, as most meteorites found on Earth are type S, formed in regions closer to the Sun.

The implications of this discovery extend beyond dinosaur history. According to Mario Fischer-Gödde, a geochemist at the University of Cologne and lead author of the study, better understanding the nature of asteroids that have impacted Earth over time could provide clues about the origin of water on our planet. He also suggests that if other mass extinctions were caused by type C asteroids, it would be essential to closely monitor this type of celestial object in the future, as they could pose a significant threat to life on Earth.

Ismar de Souza Carvalho / Southern Methodist UniversityL.(L)

A footprint left by a Theropod dinosaur discovered in the Borborema region in northeastern Brazil in South America. (R) Theropod tracks located in the Cameroon's Koum Basin from when South America and Africa were connected under the super continent of Gondwana. Brazil's and Cameroon's Koum Basin 

{ https://www.techno-science.net/en/ }

01-09-2024 om 17:16 geschreven door peter  

Being Stranded In Space Could Upend Starliner Astronauts’ Perception of Time

Waiting slows our perception of time.

by Ruth Ogden, Daniel Eduardo Vigo and The Conversation

 

NASA

They arrived in the Boeing Starliner spacecraft — the first test of the spaceship with astronauts. Wilmore and Williams were supposed to stay on the ISS for around eight days and return on the same spacecraft. But there is now debate about the safety of Starliner after it experienced helium leaks and thruster problems on its way to the ISS.

In the coming days, NASA and Boeing may decide to clear Starliner to carry the astronauts back to Earth. This means their stay might not last too much longer. But if officials decide against Starliner, the astronauts face waiting an additional six months in orbit before returning. So how do astronauts cope with a potential six-month wait for a lift home?

Waiting for things is difficult at the best of times. Under normal circumstances, it is frustrating, stressful and anxiety-provoking. But in extreme situations, with high stakes, waiting can be purgatory.

Part of the reason that waiting is difficult is that it distorts our sense of time. Think of the last time you were waiting for a delayed train, test results or a text from a potential new partner. Did it fly by or drag? For most people, time spent waiting crawls at a glacial pace. As a result, delays and periods of anticipation often feel much longer than they actually are.

Waiting slows our perception of time because it changes the amount of time that we spend thinking about time. During normal daily life, we often ignore time, and our brains have a limited capacity. If time isn’t important, we simply don’t think about it, and this helps it to pass quickly.

When we are waiting, our desire to know when the wait is over increases how much we think about time. This “clock watching” can make the minutes and hours feel like they are passing at a snail’s pace. Stress, discomfort and pain exacerbate this effect, meaning that waiting in difficult situations can seem even longer.

Waiting also slows our perception of time because it is what we do and how we feel. Normal life is busy and full of ever-changing activities and interactions. The sudden need to wait halts the flow of life, often leaving us with nothing else to do, thus increasing levels of boredom and frustration.

In general, time filled with activity passes more quickly. We all got a taste of this during COVID lockdowns. When we were stuck inside, unable to see friends and engage in normal daily activities, the loss of routine and distractions caused time to drag for many.

For the astronauts stuck on the ISS, anxiety about when they will return, limited opportunities for activities and fewer opportunities to contact friends and families combine to make their wait to return home feel significantly longer than six months — if it should come to that.

However, as academics who research the effects of time on human psychology and biology, our ongoing work with crew members at research stations in Antarctica aims to shed light on whether waiting in extreme environments is different to waiting during normal daily life.

A year in Antarctica

While being stuck for six months on the ISS may sound like many people’s worst nightmare, it is not uncommon for scientists to spend long periods isolated and confined in extreme environments. Every year, organizations such as the Instituto Antártico Argentino (which uses the Belgrano II Antarctic station), the French Polar Institute and the Italian Antarctic Programme, in cooperation with the European Space Agency (which all use Antarctica’s Concordia station), send crews of people for up to 16 months to conduct research on the frozen continent.

During the March to October polar winter, teams spend six months in near darkness – and from May to August, in complete darkness – facing outside temperatures of up to -60C, wind speeds of 160 km/h (100 mph) and storms which prevent almost all outdoor activity. Limited internet coverage can also prevent constant communication with the outside world.

For the last year, we have researched how life in Antarctica influences people’s experience of time. Each month, we asked crew members how time felt like it was passing in comparison to before their mission. Trapped on base, with limited contact with the outside world, you might expect time to drag. However, our results suggest the opposite may be true.

Analysis of crew members’ experiences indicated that being constantly busy with complex tasks such as scientific research helped the time to pass swiftly, according to 80% of crew responses. Only 3% of responses indicated that time actually dragged, and these reports occurred when nights were long, and there was little to do.

These experiences may provide hope for those stuck on the ISS. Like life in an Antarctic station, these NASA astronauts have busy and mentally demanding lives. These factors may help time to pass quickly.

However, a key factor of their wait may be their ability to tolerate the uncertainty of when they will return. Wilmore and Williams will spend their time in a space equivalent to the inside of a Boeing 747 plane. However, better information about “when” things will happen and “why” delays are being incurred can help people tolerate waiting and reduce its impact on their wellbeing.

• This article was originally published on The Conversation by Ruth Ogden at the Liverpool John Moores University and Daniel Eduardo Vigo at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Argentina. Read the original article here.

{ https://www.inverse.com/ }

01-09-2024 om 01:00 geschreven door peter  

The Webb Telescope Just Identified 6 Giant Gaseous Planets That Are More Massive Than Jupiter

And these strange worlds may be a lot more common than we thought.

by Kiona Smith

 

STSCI

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) peered into a nearby star cluster and found a handful of rogue gas giants — including one with its own disk of dust swirling around it. The results suggests that rogue planets may not only be worlds that got kicked out of their star systems, but worlds that coalesce out of clouds of interstellar gas in the same way stars do — just smaller.

Johns Hopkins University astrophysicist Adam Langeveld and his colleagues published their work in The Astronomical Journal.

Lonely Planets Club

Langeveld and his colleagues surveyed a cluster of stars called NGC 1333, which exists 1,000 light years away in the constellation Perseus, with JWST’s Near Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS) instrument. They found six gas giants — each between five and 10 times more massive than Jupiter — drifting through space on their own, not orbiting a star. One of these lonely worlds even had a disk of dust orbiting it, as if in the process of forming its own little family of planets (or moons). And based on their observations, Langeveld and his colleagues say rogue planets, once thought to be rare flukes of nature, might make up about 10 percent of the objects in the cluster.

We know that stars form when dense clumps of gas and dust in clouds called nebulae collapse under their own gravity, creating enough heat and pressure at their centers to kickstart nuclear fusion. And we know that sometimes, a clump of material can form an object that’s just on the threshold of being able to start burning as a star, but doesn’t have quite enough mass to get there: a brown dwarf. But astronomers weren’t sure whether even smaller objects, like giant gas planets, could form the same way.

The team of astrophysicists used JWST “to search for the faintest members of a young star cluster, seeking to address a fundamental question in astronomy: how light an object can form like a star?” says Johns Hopkins University astrophysicist Ray Jayawardhana, the senior author of the recent paper, in a recent statement. “It turns out the smallest free-floating objects that form like stars overlap in mass with giant exoplanets circling nearby stars.”

The smallest rogue planet Langeveld and his colleagues spotted, a gas giant about 5 times the mass of Jupiter (or 1,600 times the mass of Earth, if you prefer), is an important clue. It sits at the heart of a swirling disk of gas and dust, which looks exactly like the disks that form around newborn stars, where material eventually coalesces into planets. That suggests that the planet probably formed like a star, just from a smaller cloud of gas and dust. And it may be forming its own miniature system, like Jupiter or Saturn with their swarms of moons.

In other words, rogue planets may not always be planets that formed in orbit around a star like our Sun, only to get kicked out of the star system by a close encounter with a sibling planet or a passing star (which may have happened at least once in our own Solar System’s history). Instead, they can apparently spawn all alone, from much smaller clouds of gas than the ones that form stars.

“This is important context for understanding both star and planet formation,” says Langeveld in a recent statement.

What’s Next?

Langeveld and his colleagues hope to learn more about these lonely planets’ atmospheres in their next round of observations with JWST. Once they have that information, they’ll compare the rogue gas giants’ atmospheres to brown dwarfs and to “normal” gas giants that orbit stars. That could offer clues about whether gas giants that coalesce alone in the middle of space contain a different mix of elements than those that form in the disks around newborn stars.

The astronomers also hope to find more objects like the small rogue planet with its own little protoplanetary disk. That could shed light on whether, or how, rogue planets might form their own systems of planets (or moons). Picture all the diverse worlds that orbit the gas giants in our Solar System — Jupiter’s icy moon Europa and volcanic hellworld Io, or Saturn’s Titan with its methane seas — orbiting a version of Jupiter all alone in deep space, unlit by any star, heated only by the tidal pull of their planet.

“The diversity of systems that nature has produced is remarkable and pushes us to refine our models of star and planet formation,” says Jayawardhana.

{https://www.inverse.com/ }

01-09-2024 om 00:42 geschreven door peter  

The Event Horizon Telescope Just Made A Major Breakthrough — Black Holes Can Now Be Seen in ‘Color Vision’

The team that delivered the first-ever image of a black hole is getting more ambitious.

by Doris Elín Urrutia

 

EHT, D. Pesce, A. Chael

“This new ‘color vision’ allows us to tease apart the effects of Einstein’s gravity from the hot gas and magnetic fields that feed the black holes and launch powerful jets that stream over galactic distances,” Sheperd “Shep” Doeleman, astrophysicist and Founding Director of the EHT, said in an announcement published Tuesday.

Two is better than one

Doeleman tells Inverse that supermassive black holes are busy places. Seeing two frequencies would reveal more of its organized chaos. The team has published simulation images to depict how the new frequency changes the view.

“When you have two separate frequencies, you’re able to tease apart different effects around the black hole,” Doeleman says.

Albert Einstein predicted that gravity bends all light, across all wavelengths, in the same way. Right around the black hole’s shadow, where gravity is so strong that not even light can reflect back out, data across both frequencies may look the same.

But farther away from the event horizon, other phenomena like the black hole’s jets of superheated plasma will look differently from one frequency to the next.

Seeing in color

Having two sets of information allows for color. The data from the telescopes is radio, a wavelength of light invisible to human eyes. The single color of existing EHT images are packed with information at 230 GHz. But now that EHT can take observations at 345 GHz, imagery specialists can add a new color to the golden ring. This will be exciting to view not only as a still image, but eventually, as a motion picture.

This composite simulated image from the Event Horizon Telescope shows how the supermassive black hole M87* might look at different radio frequencies of 86 GHz (red), 230 GHz (green), and 345 GHz (blue).

EHT, D. Pesce, A. Chael

Doeleman and other researchers hope the telescopes in the EHT network will be able to take not just two radio wavelengths at the same time, but eventually three.

“The EHT's successful observation at 345 GHz is a major scientific milestone,” Lisa Kewley, Director of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, said in the announcement. “By pushing the limits of resolution, we’re achieving the unprecedented clarity in the imaging of black holes we promised early on, and setting new and higher standards for the capability of ground-based astrophysical research.”

{ https://www.inverse.com/ }

01-09-2024 om 00:22 geschreven door peter  

The discovery is in a new article in Nature titled “Earth’s ambipolar electrostatic field and its role in ion escape to space.” The lead author is Glyn Collinson from the Heliophysics Science Division at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.

The Space Age gained momentum back in the 1960s as the USA and USSR launched more and more satellites. When spacecraft passed over the Earth’s poles, they detected an outflow of particles from Earth’s atmosphere into space. Scientists named this the polar wind, but for decades, it was mysterious.

Scientists expect some particles from Earth to “leak” into space. Sunlight can cause this. But if that’s the case, the particles should be heated. The wind is mysterious because many particles in it are cold despite moving at supersonic speeds.

“Something had to be drawing these particles out of the atmosphere,” said lead author Collinson.

Collinson is also the Principal Investigator for NASA’s “Endurance” Sounding Rocket Mission. “The purpose of the Endurance mission was to make the first measurement of the magnitude and structure of the electric field generated by Earth’s ionosphere,” NASA writes in their mission description. Endurance launched on May 22nd, 2022, from Norway’s Svalbard Archipelago.

“Svalbard is the only rocket range in the world where you can fly through the polar wind and make the measurements we needed,” said Suzie Imber, a space physicist at the University of Leicester, UK, and co-author of the paper.

Svalbard is key because there are open magnetic field lines above Earth’s polar caps. These field lines provide a pathway for ions to outflow to the magnetosphere.

After it was launched, Collinson said, “We got fabulous data all through the flight, though it will be a while before we can really dig into it to see if we achieved our science objective or not.”

Now, the data is in, and the results show that Earth has a global electric field.

Prior to its discovery, scientists hypothesized that the field was weak and that its effects could only be felt over hundreds of kilometres. Even though it was first proposed 60 years ago, scientists had to wait for technology to advance before they could measure it. In 2016, Collinson and his colleagues began inventing a new instrument that could measure the elusive field.

At about 250 km (150 mi) above the Earth’s surface, atoms break apart into negatively charged electrons and positively charged ions. Electrons are far lighter than ions, and the tiniest energetic jolt can send them into space. Ions are more than 1800 times heavier, and gravity draws them back to the surface.

If gravity were the only force at work, the two populations would separate over time and simply drift apart. But that’s not what happens.

Electrons and ions have opposite electrical charges. They’re attracted to one another and an electric field forms that keeps them together. This counteracts some of gravity’s power.

The field is called ambipolar because it’s bidirectional. That means it works in both directions. As ions sink down due to gravity, the electrical charges mean that the ions drag some of the electrons down with them. However, at the same time, electrons lift ions high into the atmosphere with them as they attempt to leave the atmosphere and escape into space.

via GIPHY

The result of all this is that the ambipolar field extends the atmosphere’s height, meaning some of the ions escape with the polar wind.

After decades of hypothesizing and theorizing, the Endurance rocket measured a change in electric potential of only 0.55 volts. That’s extremely weak but enough to be measurable.

“A half a volt is almost nothing — it’s only about as strong as a watch battery,” Collinson said. “But that’s just the right amount to explain the polar wind.”

Hydrogen ions are the most plentiful particles in the polar wind. Endurance’s results show that these ions experience an outward force from the magnetic field that’s 10.6 times more powerful than gravity. “That’s more than enough to counter gravity — in fact, it’s enough to launch them upwards into space at supersonic speeds,” said Alex Glocer, Endurance project scientist at NASA Goddard and co-author of the paper.

Hydrogen ions are light, but even the heavier particles in the polar wind are lifted. Oxygen ions in the weak electrical field effectively weigh half as much, yet they’re boosted to greater heights, too. Overall, the ambipolar field makes the ionosphere denser at higher altitudes than it would be without the field’s lofting effect. “It’s like this conveyor belt, lifting the atmosphere up into space,” Collinson added.

“The measurements support the hypothesis that the ambipolar electric field is the primary driver of ionospheric H+ outflow and of the supersonic polar wind of light ions escaping from the polar caps,” the authors explain in their paper.

“We infer that this increases the supply of cold O+ ions to the magnetosphere by more than 3,800%,” the authors write. At that point, other mechanisms come into play. Wave-particle interactions can heat the ions, accelerating them to escape velocity.

These results raise other questions. How does this field affect Earth? Has the field affected the planet’s habitability? Do other planets have these fields?

Back in 2016, the European Space Agency’s Venus Express mission detected a 10-volt electric potential surrounding the planet. This means that positively charged particles would be pulled away from the planet’s surface. This could draw away oxygen.

Scientists think that Venus may have once had plentiful water. However, since sunlight splits water into hydrogen and oxygen, the electric field could’ve siphoned the oxygen away, eliminating the planet’s water. This is theoretical, but it begs the question of why the same thing hasn’t happened on Earth.

The ambipolar field is fundamental to Earth. Its role in the evolution of the planet’s atmosphere and biosphere is yet to be understood, but it must play a role.

“Any planet with an atmosphere should have an ambipolar field,” Collinson said. “Now that we’ve finally measured it, we can begin learning how it’s shaped our planet as well as others over time.”

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

31-08-2024 om 23:23 geschreven door peter  

Nu is het mogelijk om wetenschappers te helpen zwarte gaten te vinden: je hebt alleen een telefoon-app nodig

door Janine

University of Warwick/Mark Garlick/Wikimedia Commons - CC BY 4.0

Zwarte gaten vormen een van de meest fascinerende en complexe mysteries van het heelal. We weten dat ze bestaan, maar we kunnen ze niet zien, behalve door de invloed die ze uitoefenen op de omringende ruimte, wat hun zoektocht complexer maakt. Daarom heeft het nieuwe project Black Hole Finder besloten om alle liefhebbers van de astronomie te betrekken bij de ontdekking van nieuwe zwarte gaten in het heelal. Hoe? Door middel van een smartphone-app: laten we eens kijken hoe het werkt!

Op zoek naar zwarte gaten

Met de Black Hole Finder, ontwikkeld door het Dutch Black Hole Consortium, kunnen liefhebbers een app gebruiken om astronomen te helpen zwarte gaten in het heelal te vinden. Het doel is in werkelijkheid veel complexer, namelijk het identificeren van kilonova’s, krachtige stellaire explosies van elektromagnetische straling die ontstaan wanneer twee ongelooflijk dichte objecten met elkaar in botsing komen. We hebben het dan over botsingen tussen twee neutronensterren of bijvoorbeeld tussen een neutronenster en een zwart gat. Maar waarom zouden we kilonova’s bestuderen?

Onderzoekers gebruiken het BlackGEM-netwerk van telescopen om de nachtelijke hemel af te speuren naar deze enorme explosies. Naast het identificeren van het moment van botsing tussen een neutronenster en een zwart gat, kunnen kilonova’s leiden tot de vorming van een nieuw zwart gat met stellaire massa. Het idee is simpel: door kilonova's te detecteren, kunnen nieuwe zwarte gaten worden geïdentificeerd. Mits je onderscheid kunt maken tussen echte en fake beelden, natuurlijk.

Waar of niet waar

ESA/Hubble - CC BY 4.0

Enthousiastelingen die de Black Hole Finder-app gebruiken, kunnen helpen kilonova’s en dus potentiële nieuwe zwarte gaten te lokaliseren. De bijdrage van gebruikers is van fundamenteel belang, omdat sommige door telescopen gemaakte beelden echte explosies laten zien, terwijl andere vervormd kunnen zijn als gevolg van licht dat wordt gereflecteerd door satellieten en andere interferentie. Hoe onderscheid je echte beelden van fake? Op dit moment kunnen algoritmen voor kunstmatige intelligentie niet concurreren met menselijk ingrijpen, dus wordt het noodzakelijk om liefhebbers van de astronomie om hulp te vragen. Steven Bloemen, projectmanager bij BlackGEM, bevestigt:

Mensen zijn nog steeds veel beter in het identificeren van patronen dan onze algoritmes. Met behulp van de app kunnen burgers over de hele wereld helpen onze AI-algoritmes te trainen om onderscheid te maken tussen echte en fake bronnen  en sneller de meest interessante kandidaat-fondsen te identificeren.

Het gebruik van de applicatie is zeer intuïtief: de gebruiker bekijkt drie afbeeldingen van hetzelfde deel van de hemel en moet vaststellen of dit een echte bron is of niet. Een spel van waar of niet waar, zo je wilt. Uiteraard biedt de app alle informatie om kilonova’s te herkennen, die meestal verschijnen als ronde en witte vormen, met een diameter van ongeveer 5-10 pixels.

Waar dient de Black Hole Finder voor

Zoals we in de inleiding al zeiden, is het niet eenvoudig om zwarte gaten te detecteren. Ten eerste zijn ze niet allemaal zoals Sagittarius A*, het superzware zwarte gat in het centrum van de Melkweg. Er zijn ook enkele middelzware zwarte gaten bekend, maar de meeste zwarte gaten hebben een stellaire massa en zijn dus vrij klein. Toch weten we dat ze kunnen ontstaan als gevolg van kilonova’s, explosies die veel helderder zijn dan klassieke nova’s maar veel minder helder dan supernova’s. Hoe kunnen we ze detecteren?

Er komen liefhebbers van de astronomie aan te pas, die experts kunnen helpen bij het analyseren van het hemelgewelf op zoek naar nieuwe zwarte gaten. Elke goed geïdentificeerde kilonova stelt astronomen in staat om hun onderzoek te beperken tot veel kleinere delen van de ruimte. En we weten: het vinden van een zwart gat is niet eenvoudig, maar met de hulp van iedereen is het vandaag de dag iets gemakkelijker.

Source:

• https://www.dbhc.nl/
• https://app.blackholefinder.org/tutorial
• https://play.google.com/store/apps/details

{ https://www.curioctopus.nl/ }

31-08-2024 om 22:39 geschreven door peter  

The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) has fascinated us for decades. Now a team of researchers have used the Murchison Widefield Array in Australia to scan great swathes of sky for alien signals. Unusually for a SETI project, this one focussed attention on 2,800 galaxies instead of stars within our own. They have been on the lookout for advanced civilisations that are broadcasting their existence using the power of an entire star. Alas they weren’t successful but its an exciting new way to search for alien intelligence. 

Our first attempts to search for alien intelligence began back in 1960 with Project Ozma. It was led by astronomer Frank Drake and used the 85 foot radio telescope at Green Bank in West Virginia. The aim was to try and detect alien radio signals from Epsilon Eridani and Tau Ceti, should they have existed. Alas they found nothing but it marked the first step in a scientific approach to search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Typically SETI tends to focus on electromagnetic signals such as radio waves an in particular unusual patterns that could suggest intentional communication. 

This recent attempt to try out a new approach was led by Dr Chenoa Tremblay of the SETI Institute and Prof. Steven Tingay from the Curtin University. The approach was to utilise the magnificent field of view of the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) which allows one observation to cover 2,800 galaxies. Among them, there are 1,300 galaxies that we know the distance too. The MWA in Western Australia utilises low frequencies (100MHz) to probe the distant galaxies. 

By searching these galaxies for signs of alien signals we are actually looking for advanced civilisations. It’s one thing to be able to send radio signals across interstellar space, indeed we have been doing that for decades since the advent of radio communication. As radio signals propagate across space, they weaken and certainly could not traverse the immense distances between the galaxies. It’s just possible that advanced civilisations might have the technology to harness the power of their Sun and perhaps other stars in their galaxy to send signals powerful enough to travel the millions of light years between galaxies. 

I quite love the idea of advanced civilisations that may have developed the technology to transmit ‘technosignatures’ or signs of alien technology across the Universe but alas the study did not find any. Queue sad emoji 🙁  It did however provide valuable insight into just how we may be able to widen our search for alien intelligence beyond the Milky Way. 

The MWA uses thousands of dipole antennae that are spread across several kilometres giving it a wide 30 degree field of view. It has been designed to operate between 70 and 300 MHz allowing it to participate in studies of the early universe, mapping the cosmos, and detecting solar activity. It helped advance radio and interferometry technology facilitating the development of the Square Kilometre Array. 

Using MWA and other radio installations to study the properties of stars and galaxies also allows for the search for technosignatures. It’s a new approach and it highlights the importance of continuing the development of new technology to open up new ways to search for ET.

Source : 

• First low frequency search for alien technology in distant galaxies

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

31-08-2024 om 21:04 geschreven door peter  

“By studying how Salsa burns up, which parts might survive, for how long and in what state, we will learn much about how to build ‘zero debris’ satellites,” says Tim Flohrer, (ESA-Space Debri Office) in a recent press release.

A Pioneering Mission

ESA designed the Cluster mission to explore space weather interactions with the Earth’s magnetic environment as the four spacecraft fly in a tetrahedral configuration through the planet’s magnetosphere. The four spacecraft fly out to a distant apogee of about 117,000 kilometers (over three times farther out versus geosynchronous orbit), and orbit the Earth once every 54 hours.

Launched in the summer of 2000, the Cluster satellites had a 5-year nominal mission, which lasted well over two decades. The missions have since proven to be pioneers in space weather research. The mission also escaped glitches and software failures over the years, including a bug requiring a “dirty hack” in 2010. Cluster II was also a replacement for the original set of Cluster satellites, which were lost on the inaugural launch of the Ariane-5 rocket on June 4^th, 1996 from the Kourou Space Center. The mission ended in an explosion 37 seconds after liftoff.

Controlling Reentries

This sort of ‘targeted reentry’ for a long duration mission is one of the first of its kind for ESA. The zero-debris conclusion to the mission exceeds international standards. Furthermore, it also addresses issues surrounding the mitigation of debris in low Earth orbit. On Earth, ESA’s worldwide Estrack network will follow Salsa during its final orbits, and an airborne campaign is underway to spot the final reentry. ESA made a similar effort to image the Aeolus satellite in 2023, shortly before reentry.

Engineers will apply a similar technique to the SMILE (Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer) and Proba-3 missions. These are also set to enter a similar far-ranging orbit around the Earth. SMILE is the follow-on mission to Cluster, and is launching in late 2025. ESA will launch the Proba-3 solar observatory next month. The mission will feature a free-flying, solar eclipsing disk.

You can spot the cluster satellites including Salsa on their final days. Salsa is COSPAR ID 2000-041A/26411in the NORAD satellite catalog, and listed in Heavens-Above. The satellites reach naked eye visibility on a good perigee pass.

After the demise of Salsa, Rumba will also reenter in November of next year, followed by Tango and Samba in August 2026.

While this is the ‘Last Dance’ for Salsa, the efforts to study space weather and come to terms with space debris continue.

• Follow @ESAOperations and @ESA_Cluster on Twitter for the latest updates on Salsa leading up to reentry.

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

31-08-2024 om 18:25 geschreven door peter  

China transformeerde maangrond in water: de eerste stap naar echte kolonisatie?

door Janine

Dat China plannen heeft om de maan en haar grondstoffen te gebruiken is zeker geen mysterie. Tegelijkertijd heeft het Aziatische land de afgelopen jaren verschillende sondes naar onze satelliet gestuurd, waaronder naar de verborgen kant. Meer recent is echter het nieuws dat een team van Chinese wetenschappers enkele monsters die door de Chang'e 5-missie naar de aarde zijn teruggebracht, heeft gebruikt om water te produceren. Zou dit de eerste stap kunnen zijn naar een toekomstige menselijke aanwezigheid op de maan? Laten we het samen uitzoeken!

Chang'e 5 en de maanmonsters teruggebracht naar de aarde

Zoals de naam al doet vermoeden, is de Chang'e 5-missie zeker niet de eerste die op de maan is gearriveerd. Het bijzondere aan deze missie is dat er voor het eerst in 44 jaar monsters van de maanbodem naar de aarde zijn teruggebracht. Ondanks de daaropvolgende Chang'e 6-missie, waarbij in plaats daarvan de verborgen kant van onze satelliet werd betrokken, zijn de resultaten van Chang'e 5 simpelweg buitengewoon. Zoals te lezen is in een recente studie gepubliceerd in het tijdschrift The Innovation, hebben Chinese wetenschappers ontdekt dat de mineralen waaruit de bodem van de maan bestaat rijk zijn aan waterstof en kunnen worden gebruikt om ter plekke water te produceren. Maar hoe?

De methode waarmee je water uit eenvoudige grond kunt halen, vereist het verwarmen van de mineralen waaruit het bestaat tot extreem hoge temperaturen, om een ​​chemische reactie van de elementen met waterstof te veroorzaken en daardoor tot de vorming van waterdamp te leiden.

Hoe je water van de Maan krijgt

Chen et al./The Innovation - 2024

Dankzij de innovatieve methode van Chinese wetenschappers kan uit elke ton maangrond ongeveer 50 liter water worden gewonnen. Het lijkt misschien niet veel, en het is ongetwijfeld een proces dat om verschillende redenen op aarde geen zin zou hebben. Op de maan verandert dit echter: 50 liter water kan voorzien in de dagelijkse behoeften van de leden van een hypothetische menselijke missie op een hypothetische maanbasis. De maanbasis vormt een concreet doel van de Chinese ruimteverkenning: het ter plekke kunnen produceren van water zou een enorm voordeel betekenen.

In feite wil China vòòr 2035 een permanent onderzoeksstation op de maan bouwen, terwijl China vòòr 2045 een ruimtestation in een baan rond de satelliet wil bouwen. Als Chang'e 5 na 44 jaar de eerste missie was die maanmonsters terugbracht, is de Chang'e 6-missie de eerste die monsters van de andere kant van de maan terugbracht. Kortom: China lijkt het serieus te nemen.

Naar een toekomstige maanbasis... en verder

Dat het mogelijk is om water rechtstreeks uit de maanbodem te halen is buitengewoon nieuws dat echter ook een aantal overwegingen met zich meebrengt. Allereerst moeten we begrijpen hoeveel energie er nodig is om de bodem te verwarmen en welke andere elementen betrokken zijn bij het proces van waterdampvorming. Ten tweede mogen we de geopolitieke implicaties niet vergeten van de belangstelling die China toont voor onze satelliet: de concurrentie om maanbronnen zal in de toekomst steeds levendiger worden. En mogelijk ook heviger.

Kortom, de resultaten van de Chinese Academie van Wetenschappen laten zien hoe het mogelijk is om steeds dichter bij het idee van een permanente aanwezigheid van de mens op de maan te komen. Aan de andere kant zijn er tientallen jaren verstreken sinds de laatste keer dat een astronaut een wandeling maakte op onze satelliet. De volgende zou wel eens een ruimtestation op de maan kunnen bewonen, op haar grond kunnen lopen... en haar water kunnen drinken.

{ https://www.curioctopus.nl/ }

30-08-2024 om 22:29 geschreven door peter  

• READ MORE: I lived like an astronaut stuck on the ISS for a day  

By Ellyn Lapointe For Dailymail.Com

A fiery explosion of a Space X rocket this week could spell even more misery for the two NASA astronauts stranded in space.

The unmanned Falcon 9 rocket failed to land successfully after launching satellites into space, bursting into flames before toppling over on its side. 

This is bad news for the two astronauts that Boeing's faulty Starliner left stranded aboard the International Space Station (ISS) for almost three months.

Their only hope is to return to Earth on SpaceX's Dragon capsule, which will take off using the Falcon 9 rocket, and is supposed to get them home by February 2025.

But the latest setback threatens to push that date back even further.

A full timeline of Boeing's Starliner program, from the singing of their massive contact to the incident that left two astronauts stranded aboard the ISS. 

The FAA now has to launch an investigation into what went wrong with Falcon 9, which could interfere with SpaceX's rescue mission schedule, and ultimately delay Crew Dragon's launch date significantly.

'Depending on circumstances, some mishap investigations might conclude in a matter of weeks. Other more complex investigations might take several months,' the agency's website states. 

Read More

• SpaceX's historic private spacewalk is DELAYED at the eleventh hour: Daring Polaris Dawn mission is pushed back to Wednesday after a leak is discovered - as Elon Musk claims 'we are triple-checking everything' 

What's more, SpaceX plans to use Falcon 9 to launch the Crew Dragon spacecraft, which means the Starliner crew's return to Earth is incumbent upon the booster actually working. 

But the booster's recent technical issues suggest that a successful launch in September isn't exactly guaranteed. 

The worst case scenario - a lengthy FAA investigation followed by more issues with Falcon 9 - could delay Crew Dragon's launch even further. 

NASA will want to be certain the rocket is flawless before allowing it to carry a manned crew, which could mean several more tests between now and that rescue mission.

SpaceX did not immediately respond to DailyMail.com's request for comment about a time frame.

NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore launched toward the ISS aboard Boeing's Starliner on June 5.

The scandal-laden Starliner - which was built and developed using over $4 billion of taxpayer money - had been plagued by helium leaks and thruster issues in the weeks leading up to launch, and even on the day of. 

The spacecraft safely delivered Williams and Wilmore to the ISS, but by the time it got there, it had sprung more helium leaks and five of its 28 thrusters had failed.

Boeing's Starliner spacecraft was plagued by technical issues even before in launched on June 5. NASA ultimately deemed it unsafe to return its crew to Earth. 

Williams and Wilmore were originally supposed to spend only eight days on the ISS, but the technical issues with their spacecraft have left them stuck up there for nearly three months now. 

In a press conference on August 24, NASA officials announced that it would be too risky to bring the astronauts home on faulty Starliner. 

Instead, they will return home on SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft, which is scheduled to launch NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov toward the ISS on September 24, according to a NASA statement released today. 

The means that Williams and Wilmore will remain on the ISS until February 2025 at the earliest. 

The decision was humiliating for Boeing, which has struggled for years to get their Starliner program off the ground only to be bailed out at the eleventh hour by their biggest competitor. 

'We have had so many embarrassments lately, we're under a microscope. This just made it, like, 100 times worse,' one employee anonymously told the New York Post. 

'We hate SpaceX,' he added. 'We talk s*** about them all the time, and now they're bailing us out.'

At this point, it's unclear whether Starliner will ever be able to complete a crewed mission to the ISS.  

NASA is planning to decommission the ISS by 2030, giving Boeing just five years to fix Starliner's technical issues and successfully send and return astronauts to space.

To put that in perspective, it's already been five years since Starliner's first failed uncrewed test flight. 

But it's possible that Boeing could retire Starliner before they even hit that deadline, as the company has already sunk $1.6 billion into the spacecraft's development.

SpaceX's Falcon 9 burst into flames in a landing mishap that occurred after a launch that delivered 21 Starlink Satellites to low-Earth orbit. The FAA plans to investigate the incident

The Falcon 9 booster failed after a successful launch from Cape Canaveral Florida early Wednesday morning as part of a mission to deliver 21 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit. This was the rocket's 23rd launch. 

The launch went smoothly, and the booster was able to separate from the upper stage before beginning its return to Earth. But it was all downhill from there. 

The first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket failed to properly land on its intended target: an uncrewed drone ship named 'A Shortfall of Gravitas.' 

Instead, the booster exploded into flames and then tumbled onto its side. 

Although the overall mission was a success, the Federal Aviation Administration has halted any more Falcon 9 launches until it determines the cause of the mishap.

'A return to flight of the Falcon 9 booster rocket is based on the FAA determining that any system, process or procedure related to the anomaly does not affect public safety,' FAA officials said in written statement. 

The launch of the SpaceX Polaris Dawn mission (pictured) has been delayed indefinitely pending an FAA investigation into a Falcon 9 landing mishap

The crew for the Polaris Dawn mission are (from left to right) billionaire Jared Isaacman, SpaceX engineers Anna Menon, and Sarah Gillis, and Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Scott Poteet

This is the second time the FAA has grounded Falcon 9 in the last two months. 

The agency halted Falcon 9 launches for two weeks in July after one of the rocket's  upper-stage liquid oxygen tanks leaked, preventing a batch of satellites from deploying properly and causing them to burn up in Earth's atmosphere.

It's unclear how long this new investigation will take. In the meantime, a crew of four SpaceX astronauts awaits the launch of the Polaris Dawn mission, in which Falcon 9 will carry them to orbit for five days. 

The mission, funded and crewed by entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, is expected to make history by reaching higher altitudes than humans have traveled since NASA's Apollo program in the 1970s, and performing the first commercial spacewalk. 

Life on board the ISS is very cramped, and astronauts Barry Wilmore (left) and Sunita Williams (right) will endure another six months on board

But Polaris Dawn has already been delayed several times due to unfavorable weather conditions and technical issues. It was originally scheduled to launch on Tuesday.

Friday would have been the earliest date that Polaris Dawn could launch, but the FAA's investigation has now put the mission in limbo. 

As for the stranded Starliner crew, they'll just have to hope that the FAA investigation drag on, and that Falcon 9 successfully launches the Crew Dragon mission in September. 

Meanwhile, Boeings Starliner is set to return to Earth uncrewed on September 6, according to NASA. 

NASA officials have reported that the astronauts are 'doing fine' and keeping busy with day-to-day tasks and science experiments. 

But it's only plausible that they're feeling some frustration after a mission that was supposed to last about a week transformed into an eight-month-long nightmare.

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

30-08-2024 om 21:14 geschreven door peter  

NASA’s Endurance Mission Measures Earth’s Ambipolar Electric Field for First Time

First hypothesized more than 60 years ago, the ambipolar electric field is a key driver of the polar wind, a steady outflow of charged particles into space that occurs above Earth’s poles. This electric field lifts charged particles in our upper atmosphere to greater heights than they would otherwise reach and may have shaped our planet’s evolution in ways yet to be explored.

Collinson et al. report the existence of a +0.55 ± 0.09 V electric potential drop between 250 km and 768 km from a planetary electrostatic field generated exclusively by the outward pressure of ionospheric electrons; they experimentally demonstrate that the ambipolar field of Earth controls the structure of the polar ionosphere, boosting the scale height by 271%.

Image credit: NASA.

Since the 1960s, spacecraft flying over Earth’s poles have detected a stream of particles flowing from our atmosphere into space.

Theorists predicted this outflow, which they dubbed the polar wind, spurring research to understand its causes.

Some amount of outflow from our atmosphere was expected. Intense, unfiltered sunlight should cause some particles from our air to escape into space, like steam evaporating from a pot of water. But the observed polar wind was more mysterious.

Many particles within it were cold, with no signs they had been heated — yet they were traveling at supersonic speeds.

“Something had to be drawing these particles out of the atmosphere,” said Endurance principal investigator Dr. Glyn Collinson, a researcher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

The hypothesized electric field, generated at the subatomic scale, was expected to be incredibly weak, with its effects felt only over hundreds of miles.

For decades, detecting it was beyond the limits of existing technology.

In 2016, Dr. Collinson and colleagues got to work inventing a new instrument they thought was up to the task of measuring Earth’s ambipolar field.

The team’s instruments and ideas were best suited for a suborbital rocket flight launched from the Arctic.

In a nod to the ship that carried Ernest Shackleton on his famous 1914 voyage to Antarctica, the researchers named their mission Endurance.

They set a course for Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago just a few hundred miles from the north pole and home to the northernmost rocket range in the world.

“Svalbard is the only rocket range in the world where you can fly through the polar wind and make the measurements we needed,” said Dr. Suzie Imber, a space physicist at the University of Leicester.

On May 11, 2022, Endurance launched and reached an altitude of 768.03 km (477.23 miles), splashing down 19 minutes later in the Greenland Sea.

Across the 518.2-km (322-mile) altitude range where it collected data, Endurance measured a change in electric potential of only 0.55 volts (V).

“A half a volt is almost nothing — it’s only about as strong as a watch battery. But that’s just the right amount to explain the polar wind,” Dr. Collinson said.

Hydrogen ions, the most abundant type of particle in the polar wind, experience an outward force from this field 10.6 times stronger than gravity.

“That’s more than enough to counter gravity – in fact, it’s enough to launch them upwards into space at supersonic speeds,” said Endurance project scientist Dr. Alex Glocer, a researcher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

Heavier particles also get a boost. Oxygen ions at that same altitude, immersed in this half-a-volt field, weigh half as much.

In general, the scientists found that the ambipolar field increases what’s known as the scale height of the ionosphere by 271%, meaning the ionosphere remains denser to greater heights than it would be without it.

“It’s like this conveyor belt, lifting the atmosphere up into space,” Dr. Collinson said.

Endurance’s discovery has opened many new paths for exploration.

The ambipolar field, as a fundamental energy field of our planet alongside gravity and magnetism, may have continuously shaped the evolution of our atmosphere in ways we can now begin to explore.

Because it’s created by the internal dynamics of an atmosphere, similar electric fields are expected to exist on other planets, including Venus and Mars.

“Any planet with an atmosphere should have an ambipolar field. Now that we’ve finally measured it, we can begin learning how it’s shaped our planet as well as others over time,” Dr. Collinson said.

• The team’s results appear in the journal Nature.
• G.A. Collinson et al. 2024. Earth’s ambipolar electrostatic field and its role in ion escape to space. Nature 632, 1021-1025; doi: 10.1038/s41586-024-07480-3
• This article is a version of a press-release from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

{ https://www.sci.news/ }

29-08-2024 om 22:56 geschreven door peter  

Was the moon a blisteringly hot world? Our lunar neighbour was once covered with an ocean of molten rock, data from India's Chandrayaan-3 rover suggests

• India's Chandrayaan-3 moon mission has revealed the moon's mineral makeup
• This supports the theory that the moon was once covered in an ocean of magma 

By Wiliam Hunter

While the moon might now seem like a cold, dusty, desert, new evidence from India's Chandrayaan-3 mission has revealed this was not always the case.

Analysis of the lunar surface shows that the moon's south pole was once completely covered by an ocean of molten magma. 

When Chandrayaan-3 landed near the moon's south pole in August last year, India's space agency gathered 23 measurements of a never-before-studied region.

Their measurements discovered a uniform layer of ferroan anorthosite, a white rock believed to have floated to the surface of the molten rock during the moon's formation. 

This supports the 'Lunar Magma Ocean' (LMO) theory which claims the whole of the moon's surface was formed from a cooling layer of magma that formed 4.5 billion years ago.

New analysis of data from Indian's Chandrayaan-3 mission has revealed the moon was once covered in an ocean of molten lava

(pictured: artist's impression) 

Read More

• Has the mystery of how the moon formed finally been solved? Scientists find new evidence our lunar satellite was created during a giant impact between Earth and a Mars-sized planet 4.5 billion years ago 

The LMO theory is not new – it dates back to the 1970s – but the new findings now bolster the theory with evidence of molten rock at another region of the moon (its south pole).  

On August 23, 2023, the Vikram lander successfully touched down on a region of the moon's south pole as part of the Chandrayaan-3 mission.

Vikram's landing site, at about 70 degrees south, was the furthest south any landing craft had ever been.

Over 10 days, Vikram's smaller Pragyaan rover travelled over the lunar landscape, constantly recording and transmitting data back to Earth.

That data included 23 measurements from a device called the alpha particle X-ray spectrometer.

This lightweight instrument used a radioactive source to bombard the lunar surface with radiation, exciting the atoms in the ground, and measuring the energy they release.

By recording that emitted energy, researchers have been able to calculate the mineral composition of the lunar soil.

After landing in August last year at a site near the Moon's south pole (illustrated in yellow) the Vikram lander deployed a rover which collected data about the moon's mineral composition 

That analysis revealed that the area around the Chandrayaan-3 landing site was relatively uniform and composed largely of ferroan anorthosite.

The researchers also found that the mineral composition at the Chandrayaan-3 site was similar to that found by NASA's Apollo 16 and the Soviet Luna-20 mission.

What is unusual about that finding is that those two landing sites are both in the moon's equatorial region, a long way away from where Chandrayaan-3 touched down.

The fact that these three distant sites all have roughly the same material composition suggests that they might have all come from the same lunar magma ocean.

The moon is believed to have been formed 4.5 billion years ago when a Mars-sized planet collided with Earth and knocked a chunk of material out into space.

As that material coalesced, the intense energies involved melted the rocks into a vast ocean of magma which covered the entire moon.

As the surface cooled over tens to hundreds of millions of years, the cooler ferroan anorthosite rose to the surface while heavier minerals like olivine and pyroxene sank deep below to form the moon's mantle.

The current lunar highlands are believed to be what remains of this ancient crust after billions of years.

The Pragyaan (pictured) found that the area around the landing site was uniform and made of ferroan anorthosite, a white rock believed to have formed the ancient moon's crust 

Experts believe the moon was formed when a Mars-sized planet called Theia collided with the Earth and knocked material out into space 

The data collected by Chandrayaan-3 (pictured) suggests that the moon was once covered by an ocean of lava. As it cooled the lighter ferroan anorthosite rose to the surface and formed the ancient crust 

The Moon theories 

Co-author of the paper Dr Santosh Vadawale from the Physical Research Laboratory, told the BBC: 'The theory of early evolution of the moon becomes much more robust in the light of our observation.'

Alpha particle x-ray data also provides evidence for an enormous meteor strike near the lunar south pole.

The data gathered by the rover showed that the area around the landing site was much higher in magnesium than would have been expected for pure ferroan anorthosite.

In their paper, published in Nature, the researchers argue that this material could have been blasted out of the ground by a huge impact which excavated the magnesium-rich materials deep in the mantle.

The researchers believe that magnesium in the soil was deposited by the same impact which formed the South Pole-Aitken basin over 217 miles (350 km) away. This magnesium was then further mixed into the area by impacts like the Schomberger crater (impact illustrated) 

Read More

• First EVER elements are discovered on the Moon's South Pole: India's Chandrayaan-3 rover confirms the presence of sulphur in the lunar surface 

This impact could have been the same meteor strike which formed the 1,600-mile (2,500km) wide South Pole-Aitken basin over 217 miles (350 km) away from the Chandrayaan-3 landing site.

The mineral findings are consistent with the idea that magnesium-rich rocks were scattered over the site before being mixed by further meteor impacts.

These findings are also important to the future of India's space research because they provide a basis for future observations.

Previously, the Indian space agency had made observations of the lunar surface from orbit on Chandryaan-1 and 2.

However, without measurements from the ground, interpreting those observations required some scientific guess work.

Beautiful: Image provided by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) taken by the Pragyan rover shows the Vikram lander. Photo released on August 30, 2023

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

27-08-2024 om 23:14 geschreven door peter  

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

27-08-2024 om 01:06 geschreven door peter  

Posted by Nancy Atkinson

NASA Decides to Play it Safe. Wilmore and Williams are Coming Home on a Crew Dragon in February

Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will remain on board the International Space Station until February, returning to Earth on a SpaceX Crew Dragon. NASA announced its decision over the weekend, citing concerns about the safety of the Boeing Starliner capsule due to helium leaks and thruster issues. The troublesome Starliner is slated to undock from the ISS without a crew in early September and attempt to return on autopilot, landing in the New Mexico desert.

NASA said this allows them and Boeing to continue gathering test data on Starliner during its uncrewed flight home, while also not accepting more risk than necessary for the crew.

“Decisions like this are never easy, but I want to commend our NASA and Boeing teams for their thorough analysis, transparent discussions, and focus on safety during the Crew Flight Test,” Ken Bowersox, associate administrator for NASA’s Space Operations Mission Directorate said in a NASA press release. “We’ve learned a lot about the spacecraft during its journey to the station and its docked operations. We also will continue to gather more data about Starliner during the uncrewed return and improve the system for future flights to the space station.”

Wilmore, 61, and Williams, 58, flew to the ISS in June on Starliner for the long-awaited Boeing Crew Flight Test. The two astronauts are not strangers to long-duration missions, as they have both served on ISS expeditions and they will now officially join the Expedition 71/72 crew on board the space station. Their ride home is scheduled to launch in late September with two astronauts instead of the usual four to make room for Wilmore and Williams to return home with the two Crew-9 members in February 2025.

“This has not been an easy decision, but it is absolutely the right one,” Jim Free, NASA’s associate administrator said at the briefing on Saturday.

The decision is especially disappointing for Boeing, as the company has been plagued with problems with its airplanes and was counting on Starliner’s first crewed trip to revive the troubled spacecraft program, which has suffered years of delays due to issues with Starliner. The company had asserted Starliner was safe based on all the recent thruster tests both in space and on the ground.

While Boeing did not participate in Saturday’s news conference, they released a statement saying, “Boeing continues to focus, first and foremost, on the safety of the crew and spacecraft.” The company said it is preparing the spacecraft for a safe and successful return.

NASA and Boeing identified the helium leaks during the flight to the ISS, and the thruster issues after the spacecraft experienced issues with its reaction control thrusters as Starliner approached the space station on June 6.

“Since then, engineering teams have completed a significant amount of work, including reviewing a collection of data, conducting flight and ground testing, hosting independent reviews with agency propulsion experts, and developing various return contingency plans,” NASA said in their press release. “The uncertainty and lack of expert concurrence does not meet the agency’s safety and performance requirements for human spaceflight, thus prompting NASA leadership to move the astronauts to the Crew-9 mission.”

The fact that Starliner will return home without a crew is not an issue, as is designed to operate autonomously and previously completed two uncrewed flights. This mission is the second time the Starliner has flown to the ISS and the third flight test overall. During the first uncrewed test flight (OFT-1), which took place back in December 2019, the Starliner launched successfully but failed to make it to the ISS because of software issues. After making 61 corrective actions recommended by NASA, another attempt was made (OFT-2) on May 22nd, 2022. That flight successfully docked to the ISS, staying there for four days before undocking and landing in the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.

This first crewed flight of Starliner was supposed to validate the spacecraft as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program (CCP), with the hope of it working alongside SpaceX’s Crew Dragon to make regular deliveries of cargo and crew to the ISS. The launched was delayed when parachute and other issues cropped up, including a helium leak in the capsule’s propellant system that scrubbed a launch attempt in May. The leak eventually was deemed to be isolated and small enough to pose no concern. But more leaks occurred following liftoff, and five thrusters also failed.

NASA and Boeing will work together to adjust end-of-mission planning and Starliner’s systems to set up for the uncrewed return in the coming weeks. Starliner must return to Earth before the Crew-9 mission launches to ensure a docking port is available on station.

“Starliner is a very capable spacecraft and, ultimately, this comes down to needing a higher level of certainty to perform a crewed return,” said Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. “The NASA and Boeing teams have completed a tremendous amount of testing and analysis, and this flight test is providing critical information on Starliner’s performance in space. Our efforts will help prepare for the uncrewed return and will greatly benefit future corrective actions for the spacecraft.”

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

27-08-2024 om 00:57 geschreven door peter