IMPRESSIVE discovery on Pluto. How will it affect the planet's atmosphere?

After Pluto was no longer called planet, this was the highlight for scientific discoveries.

Discovering New Horizons probe conducted and other studies of Pluto changed the ideas we had about dwarf planet researchers.

Now a team of researchers has discovered something remarkable: Pluto emit X team used data from NASA's Chandra Observatory, which showed four times, from February 2014 to August 2015, that Pluto emits low-energy photons X-ray light

,, We first detected X-rays which are emitted by an object in the Kuiper Belt Pluto and I understand that interacts with the solar wind in an unexpected way, '' said Carey Lisse, leader of the team that conducted the study.

Impressive aspect is that photons of low energy could come from solar winds entering the planet's atmosphere pitice.Combination nitrogen, carbon and oxygen likely attract photons from the solar wind, creating beacons of radiation X.

X-ray detection and provides information about how Pluto works. If X-rays are created disintegrated in the atmosphere mean that Pluto's atmosphere burns slowly in space.

Other articles on the same theme:

• KEPLER SPOTS 100+ MORE EXOPLANETS, SOME POTENTIALLY HABITABLE WE'VE GOT EXOPLANETS ON EXOPLANETS

• Cloudy days on exoplanets may hide atmospheric water

• 4,000 confirmed exoplanets similar to Earth

• 10 fascinating planets outside the Solar System

Source: Futurism

Water existed on Mars billions of years before scientists about the phenomenon Consider Possible

The new evidence provided by NASA spacecraft, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) have revealed that the entire network of lakes and streams fed by melted snow on Mars existed much earlier than it imagined researchers.

Based on the new images taken on ancient region, north of Mars, researchers said there was a considerable amount of water ,, '' with about a billion years before the '' wet Age '' of the red planet to end. This indicates that the planet was suitable for microbial life for much longer than estimated by the researchers.

,, I discovered valleys carrying water to lake basins, '' said a team member, Sharon Wilson, of the Smithsonian Intitutului. ,, Some of the lakes filled pools indicates that there was a considerable amount of water in those times, '' she added.

Wilson and his team analyzed images recorded in the northern area of ​​Mars called Arabia Terra (an extremely eroded known as one of the oldest areas of the planet)

Researchers were able to identify signs of water evaporated long ago. ,, One of the lakes in the region can be compared with the amount as Lake Tahoe, '' Wilson said. The researcher explained that this lake was fed by a Martian valley south out of bed in the north and pouring a large pool called Heart Lake.

Heart Lake is part of the whole system of lakes and valleys that stretch 150 kilometers along the northern planet. The team estimated that the lake could support a quantity of 2,790 cubic kilometers of water. Based on information gathered from 22 craters in the area, the team concluded that these lakes there were two or three billion years. Meanwhile melted snow each season could supply all water areas.


Researchers said they found such formations in other parts of Mars, but the north and south of the equator humid regions were much more extensive.

Source: Science Alert

NASA announced the next mission to Mars

In March 2016, the launch of the probe from NASA, InSight has been postponed due to an error. The ship was to examine the interior of Mars.

But NASA said recently that mission launch will take place on May 5, 2018, will arrive on Mars after almost seven months, on November 26.

InSight is a stationary probe that will pierce the surface of Mars to five meters deep, to measure the temperature of the planet. Mission previously was postponed because of a breakage of the void that was discovered at one of the instruments probe called Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure, which was to detect signals of earthquakes on Mars, the impacts from meteorites and other phenomena, such as sandstorms and landslides.

Launch to Mars can only occur at certain times when the planets are aligned in a certain way for the probe to reach the destination quicker. NASA warned that delaying the mission could affect other missions. The initial budget for the mission was 675 million dollars, the delay will cost another 153 million dollars.

Source: IFL Science

An unusual signal was obtained by Russian astronomers. It may have extraterrestrial origins

Signal is not very different from that used for digital television.

Astronomers have detected a burst of energy last year appeared to his level HD 164 595, a star located at a distance of about 94 light-years from Earth towards the constellation Hercules. This phenomenon was observed by Russian radiotelescope Ratan-600 and immediately aroused the interest of researchers seeking to prove the existence of extraterrestrial life.

,, An international team of researchers announced detection of a strong signal came from the direction of HD164595. Nobody claimed it was caused by an extraterrestrial civilization, but the signal is so obvious that specialists operating Ratan-600 want the target to be monitored further, "says American author Paul Gilster his blog,, Centauri Dreams" .

The signal HD 164595 (Foto:sciencealert.com/C. Maccone et al./Centauri Dreams)

Seth Shostak, an astronomer at the SETI Institute (Search for extraterrestrial intelligence), says that his team has recently tried again to detect the signal issued on 15 May 2015, but found nothing. Both Shostak and Gilster obtained information about the new discovery of the Italian astronomer Claudio Maccone, who collaborated with Russian researchers when they used the telescope Ratan-600.

Maccone Published results were analyzed by specialists. They argue that, in the event that they will prove to be true, would indicate the presence of signals from a star similar to the sun because it has a smaller table with only 1% to it, is younger by 100 million years, it has a similar temperature and, moreover, has a similar chemical composition.

During the research, astronomers have discovered a planet similar to Neptune orbiting the star HD 164595. that she was named ,, HD 164 595 ", and experts say it is possible that other cosmic objects of this kind exist in the area, but not have been detected until now.


Russian Astronomers are particularly fascinated by showing how the signal emitted by the star. He has a wavelength of about 2.7 centimeters and a frequency of 11 GHz, which means it is a very high frequency signal not very different from that used for digital television. Shostak argues that if it was real, the signal must have been extremely powerful to be detected on Earth.

The radio telescope Ratan-600 (Photo: sciencealert.com/александр с кавказа / Wikimedia)

Researcher at the SETI Institute clearly exclude the possibility that the signal had extraterrestrial origin. Specialist argues, first, that their astronomers had more than one year up to give early information about the signal they detected. Secondly, Ratan-600 radio telescope works with an error that does not allow him to ascertain with certainty whether the signal comes from a star system similar to that in the center of which is HD 164595. Moreover, the signal is so vast that is extremely difficult to verify.


SETI specialists will try again to find the new signals from HD 164 595, but expects first Maccone and Russian astronomers to publish their findings formally. Until then, the only hypothesis that American astronomers take still considering is the fact that the signals were emitted lens gravitational what would have been formed when the star HD 164 595 concentrated around its material universe.

Other articles on the same theme:

• KEPLER SPOTS 100+ MORE EXOPLANETS, SOME POTENTIALLY HABITABLE WE'VE GOT EXOPLANETS ON EXOPLANETS

• Cloudy days on exoplanets may hide atmospheric water

• 4,000 confirmed exoplanets similar to Earth

• 10 fascinating planets outside the Solar System

Source: sciencealert.com 

Overview 1 first 360 degrees live stream from space

SpaceVR, a new startup, has signed a deal for the world's first satellite equipped with a camera capable of shooting video at 360 degrees to reach space.

The vehicle, called Overview 1 will be placed aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket next summer, says Go4It.

The ship will carry the satellite into the International Space Station, where it will be placed later on a low Earth orbit by NanoRacks LLC, the company that operates commercially module aboard the station.

Content to be recorded by the camera on Overview 1 can be seen through a VR headset.

SpaceVR wants to do, ultimately, a permanent live broadcast from space via satellite.

Customers will have to pay subscription to access the stream.






Story Source:

The above post is reprinted from materials provided by go4it . Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

KIC 8462852 Alien structure in our galaxy?

One of the most unusual stars in our galaxy, KIC 8462852, is astronomical attention in recent months.

The star is 1,480 light years away from our planet. This sparked the interest of researchers in October when they were discovered unusual fluctuations of light.

In the new study has found that light intensity has decreased dramatically in recent days. Astronomers Montet Ben and Joshua Simon from the Carnegie Institution have discovered the star's light intensity measured by Kepler during the fourth mission. In the early years, the light intensity was decreased by 0.34% each year. Then intensity dropped dramatically, by 2.5% in 200 days, before returning to its intensity bland.

Tabby's Star - Wikipedia

Astronomers have investigated another 500 stars in its neighborhood, but found none like this. ,, The part that surprised us was how quickly and how that change nonlinear. We spent a long time convincing us that it is not real, '' said Montet.

'' These results show a new part of the puzzle impressive ment, '' said the r \ ndul they Tabetha Boyajian. In some theories, it was suggested that decreasing light intensity is caused by a mega alien. The project started on May 18 by the researcher at Yale University, Tabetha Boyajian, accumulated investment amount of $ 100,000 This project aims to investigate the mysterious stars in the galaxy.

Kepler probe monitored the star for four years, assisting in two dramatic incidents in 2011 and 2013, when starlight fell dramatically. When a planet orbits a star, its brightness decreases by one percent. But KIC 8462852, nicknamed Tabby's star, suffered a 22% reduction, which means that a huge object moves around them.

The most remarkable aspect of these fluctuations is made up of hundreds of light gaps that occur over a period of 100 days, indicating that an impressive number of irregular objects passed before the star and blocked temporarily light.

Researchers monitored the star to see what objects produce these forms ..

One of their theories relate to or more satellites or solar panels which surround a star formation known as a Dyson swarm. In a study in which they use information collected by NASA's Spitzer Telescope it was suggested that changing light intensity can be affected by a swarm of comets. In a study published last month it has been stated that the signals are caused by Halley's comet breaking 30 who blocked the starlight.

Observations researchers will continue, but so far no evidence has been found to decrease the brightness deliberately.


Source: dailymail

Unusual phenomenon on the surface of one of Jupiter's moons. It's happening every 42 hours

Io, the third largest satellite of Jupiter (Photo: sen.com/NASA/JPL/University of Arizona)

The process was known by researchers, but could be noticed only recently.

Atmosphere Io, one of the largest moons's Jupiter, freezes and thaws every time the subject comes from cosmic giant planet. The phenomenon of extreme cooling takes about 2 hours, out of the 42 that Io makes a complete orbit around Jupiter. It is the first time scientists were able to observe this process.

Io's atmosphere is composed mostly of sulfur dioxide formed during volcanic eruptions on Jupiter. Until now it was assumed that Io's atmosphere turns into ice during the 2 hours that satellite is in the shadow of the planet, but no one has managed to prove this.

Recently, a team of astronomers led by Constantine C.C. Tsang used ground-based telescopes to observe the natural satellite of Jupter. With this device could emit infrared specialists, which once reached Io's atmosphere, they were absorbed by sulfur dioxide. In this way, the researchers were able to measure the surface temperature of cosmic object.

It has been found that, when Io is behind Jupiter, the surface temperature of the satellite decreases from -146 degrees to -168, making the atmosphere of Io to freeze the extent of about 80%. After two hours the object is in this state, the sulfur dioxide contained in atmosefera evaporated and converted back into gas.


            Jupiter Moon Io

Scientists say that recent results will help us to better understand the system in which the center is Jupiter. In this regard, experts have already estimated that over half of sulfur dioxide from volcanoes on Io propelled arrive, finally, to circulate around the gas giant.


Story Source:


The above post is reprinted from materials provided by sciencemag.org . Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

A special cosmic phenomenon will happen in August.The Event Will Be seen from anywhere in the world, with the naked eye.

In case you missed alignment of the planets Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn earlier this year, you'll have the opportunity to be witnessing a similar event to be held in August. The same five planets will be visible after sunset and before sunrise is not, as has been the case with previous phenomenon.

According to researcher Dr. Alan Duffy (Swinburne University in Melbourne, Australia), planetary alignment can be best seen in August 21.

The astronomical phenomenon can be observed most clearly after sunset, at which Mercury and Venus will be at the smallest distance from the solar orb. For example, Venus will be positioned at a time, at an angle of only 10 degrees from the sun.

Venus and Jupiter will be most easily seen with the naked eye, since they are some of the largest cosmic objects in the Solar System. Mercury, Mars and Saturn will be also sighted in the sky, but they will be less visible.

The alignment of Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Mars and Saturn can be seen from any place on Earth, and if you miss and this event will have the opportunity to witness one similar to what will occur in October 2018





Source: iflscience.com

Researchers have unraveled another mystery of the planet Ceres

Researchers in the United States have been causing disappearance of craters on Ceres, a dwarf planet in the asteroid belt in our solar system.

The new findings suggest that the disappearance of craters could be produced over a hundred million years due to the frozen surface of the planet and geothermal activity. ,, We concluded that a significant number of craters on Ceres was obliterated beyond the recognized geological measurements over time, due to which the resulting film composition and evolution in the earth, '' said Simone Marchi, from Southwasr Research Institute of Colorado.

Before you find out possible reasons for the huge craters missing from Ceres, the team used a computer simulation to see how many formations should be.

They concluded that the planet formation should be at least 10-15 big craters with a diameter of at least 400 km. Thanks to NASA mission, researchers have found that there are only 16 craters on Ceres, but none has a diameter greater than 100 km.

The only similar formations are planitiae ,, '' (extended depressions) which were probably created following severe impacts with other objects. The team tried to discover how he managed to ,, violate Ceres' computer simulated data. They have developed several theories, though none is yet concrete.

One hypothesis is that Ceres formed long before the solar system to arise during the impacts with other objects were more rare. Over time, the dwarf planet's orbit placed it in the asteroid belt.

Another theory is reflected by geothermal activity, complemented by the frosted surface of the planet.

Lack is not the only huge craters geological mystery that researchers have recently solved

Earlier this month, researchers at NASA have discovered evidence suggesting that small bright spots discovered in the crater of Ceres come from an impact which scraped some of the planet's surface and left behind traces of sodium carbonate.



Source: sciencealert

The Milky Way's Halo Spins With The Galaxy

Astronomers from the University of Michigan have, for the first time, measured the speed at which the Milky Way halo is rotating, a discovery that could provide new clues on how galaxies form and evolve.

Our galaxy is surrounded by a gaseous halo that extends for many hundreds of thousands of light-years from the center. It has a mass comparable to the Milky Way itself and it was believed to be still, compared to our quickly rotating galaxy.

"This flies in the face of expectations," lead author Edmund Hodges-Kluck said in a statement. "People just assumed that the disk of the Milky Way spins while this enormous reservoir of hot gas is stationary – but that is wrong. This hot gas reservoir is rotating as well, just not quite as fast as the disk."

The gas in the halo is incredibly hot, millions of degrees, but very spread out so it's difficult to estimate how quickly it's moving. The researchers had to carefully detect movement as the gas moved in front of very bright extragalactic sources, like active supermassive black holes and quasars.

In a paper published in the Astrophysical Journal, they reported that the gas is moving at about 180 kilometers per second (400,000 mph), which is only slightly slower than the rotational velocity at the rim of the Milky Way (240 km/s, 540,000 mph).

"The rotation of the hot halo is an incredible clue to how the Milky Way formed," continued Hodges-Kluck. "It tells us that this hot atmosphere is the original source of a lot of the matter in the disk."

Galaxies are believed to have formed when intergalactic materials began to fall into the large gravitational wells formed by dark matter. The rotation of the halo tells us how quickly the material must fall towards the center, and also how quickly the Milky Way came together.

"Now that we know about the rotation, theorists will begin to use this to learn how our Milky Way galaxy formed – and its eventual destiny," added Professor Joel Bregman, co-author of the study.

Source: iflscience

JUPITER'S GREAT RED SPOT IS MYSTERIOUSLY HOT AND MAY BE GENERATING HEAT IN THE PLANET'S ATMOSPHERE

Heating System Researchers believe that the energy from the Great Red Spot may be contributing to heating the atmosphere. Karen Teramura, UH IfA, James O’Donoghue

Jupiter's most distinctive feature is so hot right now.

In a paper published in Nature today, researchers have found that the spot is hot -- hot enough that it might explain the mysteriously high temperatures of Jupiter's atmosphere.

The researchers write that during observations of Jupiter made at the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility in Hawaii they discovered that "the upper atmosphere above Jupiter’s Great Red Spot—the largest storm in the Solar System—is hundreds of degrees hotter than anywhere else on the planet."

Hot Spot

An artist's illustration of Jupiter

The placement of the hot spot at the very visible Great Red Spot led the researchers to conclude that the heat source was coming from lower levels in the atmosphere and traveling upwards.

The observations have the potential to answer a question that has long puzzled scientists, and has been labeled the "giant-planet energy crisis". Jupiter's atmosphere is just too hot -- hotter than can be explained by heat from the sun alone. So where is that extra heat coming from?


With these new observations, researchers think that they might have an answer. The Great Red spot is a giant storm, where parts of the atmosphere are roiling as the storm makes its way across the planet. The frenetic energy in the storm generates waves that travel through the atmosphere.





Both acoustic and mechanical waves can transfer energy to higher altitudes in the atmosphere, heating up those outer layers. The same kind of phenomenon has been observed in thunderstorms over the Andes, albeit on a much smaller scale.

We're likely to learn even more about Jupiter and its atmosphere in the coming months, now that NASA's Juno spacecraft has arrived at the panet, and will start sending back more data and pictures soon.



Other articles on the same theme:

• SEE JUPITER’S AURORAS LIKE NEVER BEFORE

• NASA's Juno spacecraft is almost at Jupiter Prepare for awesome pictures!

• Chances are very high that Europa , Jupiter's moon host alien life. NASA announcement

• Unusual phenomenon on the surface of one of Jupiter's moons. It's happening every 42 hours

Source: popsci

Three major events were recently observed on the Sun's surface. What might happen to the Earth during the fol, VIDEO

Updated 02/05/2020


See the most detailed picture of the Sun's surface ever taken.The new Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope will let us study the Sun in unprecedented detail.

astronomy.com

Beginning on Friday, the sun produced the largest flares since April
The strongest of the three, M7.6, peaked at 1:16 am on July 23
Two flares orginated from the AR2565-AR2567 sunspot complex
Although the sun is in a period of low activity, it isn’t staying completely quiet.
Over the weekend, the 4.5 billion year old ball of gas produced three mid-strength solar flares that have been deemed the most powerful to occur in 2016.

Captured by Nasa’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, these flares were classified as M-level flares -- the category just below the most intense X-class flares.

TRIPLE WHAMMY FLARES 

Nasa’s Solar Dynamics Observatory saw the sun produce three mid-strength solar flares that have been deemed the most powerful for 2016 over the weekend.
These flares were classified as M-level flares -- the category just below the most intense X-class flares.

Beginning on Friday June 22,  the sun produced the largest explosions since April – which was kicked-off by an M5 at 10:11pm EST.

Following behind was the strongest of the three, M7.6, which peaked at 1:16am on July 23 and the grand finale was an M5.5 – it reached its height just 15 minutes after the second flare.
These two orientated from the AR2565-AR2567 sunspot complex, which is a region of the sun known for its powerful magnetic fields. 

Two years ago, scientists warned that the sun’s activity was the lowest it has been in 100 years.
Researcher believe the solar lull could cause major changes, and say there is a 20% chance it could lead to 'major changes' in temperatures. ‘M-class’ flares are deemed ‘medium’ flares that just fall short of the most intense category, ‘X-class’.

But this weekend provided the Solar Dynamics Observatory team with quite a show.
Beginning on Friday, the sun produced the largest explosions since April – which was kicked-off by an M5 at 10:11 pm EST in the Active Region 12567

Following behind was the strongest of the three, M7.6, which peaked at 1:16 am on July 23 and the grand finale was an M5.5 – it reached its height just 15 minutes after the second flare.
These two originated from the AR2565-AR2567 sunspot complex, which is a region of the sun known for its powerful magnetic fields. Solar flares are brief, powerful eruptions of radiation that occur on the surface of the sun.Although harmful, the radiation from a flare is not capable of passing through Earth’s atmosphere.However, they are strong enough to disrupt the atmosphere in the layer where our GPS and communication signals travel.



Source: Dailymail

The newfound alien world named HD 131399Ab

The newfound alien world, named HD 131399Ab, resides in the HD 131399 system, about 320 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Centaurus.

Its orbit around HD 131399A, the brightest of the three stars, is by far the widest known within a multi-star system. Such orbits are often unstable, because of the complex and changing gravitational attraction from the other two stars in the system, and planets in stable orbits were thought to be very unlikely.

“For about half of the planet’s orbit, which lasts 550 Earth-years, three stars are visible in the sky,” said team member Kevin Wagner, from the University of Arizona.

“The fainter two stars are always much closer together, and change in apparent separation from the brightest star throughout the year.”

The astronomers estimate that HD 131399Ab is at least four times as massive as Jupiter and has a surface temperature of around 1,076 degrees Fahrenheit (580 degrees Celsius).

The planet is approximately 16 million years old, making it also one of the youngest exoplanets discovered to date, and one of very few directly imaged planets.

“HD 131399Ab is one of the few exoplanets that have been directly imaged, and it’s the first one in such an interesting dynamical configuration,” said team member Dr. Daniel Apai, also from the University of Arizona.

“The fainter two stars are always much closer together, and change in apparent separation from the brightest star throughout the year.”

The astronomers estimate that HD 131399Ab is at least four times as massive as Jupiter and has a surface temperature of around 1,076 degrees Fahrenheit (580 degrees Celsius).

The planet is approximately 16 million years old, making it also one of the youngest exoplanets discovered to date, and one of very few directly imaged planets.

“HD 131399Ab is one of the few exoplanets that have been directly imaged, and it’s the first one in such an interesting dynamical configuration,” said team member Dr. Daniel Apai, also from the University of Arizona.

Although repeated observations will be needed to precisely determine the trajectory of HD 131399Ab, VLT observations and simulations seem to suggest the following scenario:

(i) HD 131399A is orbited by the less massive stars, HD 131399B and HD 131399C, at about 300 astronomical units (AU);

(ii) HD 131399B and HD 131399C twirl around each other like a spinning dumbbell, separated by a distance roughly equal to that between the Sun and Saturn (10 AU);

(iii) the planet HD 131399Ab travels around the host star HD 131399A in an orbit with a radius of about 80 AU, about twice as large as Pluto’s in the Solar System, and brings the planet to about one third of the separation between star HD 131399A and the HD 131399B/C star pair.

Sourrce; sci-news

Rocket Lab plans Electron test launches this year

The successful qualification of the second stage of Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket keeps the small launch vehicle on track to carry out a series of test flights later this year, the company announced April 13.

Rocket Lab said it had completed qualification testing of the second stage, powered by the company’s Rutherford engine, clearing it for flight. The company will soon begin qualification tests of the vehicle’s first stage, which uses nine Rutherford engines.

In an interview during the 32nd Space Symposium here April 13, Rocket Lab Chief Executive Peter Beck said the company remains on schedule to begin test flights of Electron from the company’s launch site on New Zealand’s North Island starting around the middle of this year.

“We have a minimum campaign of three test flights,” he said. “We’ll do the test flights and, if we have some anomalies, we’ll keep rolling them out.” Those test flights will carry instrumentation but no satellite payloads, he said.

The company is completing construction of its launch site, which Beck said should be ready by the end of May. Rocket Lab had announced last year it planned to develop a launch site on New Zealand’s South Island, near the city of Christchurch. However, Beck said difficulty in getting environmental approvals led them to shift their plans to the new location.

The new site, located on the remote Mahia Peninsula, does allow Rocket Lab to launch to a wider range of orbits than it could from its original site. “We get from sun-synchronous orbit to 38 degrees inclination out of that site,” he said. That is important, he said, since the company is hearing from potential customers who want to go to a variety of orbits.

“Traditionally the smallsat guys would want to go to sun-synchronous because there’s a lot of rides there if you’re ridesharing,” he said. “But when you given them the opportunity to choose their orbital plane, they want to go to all sorts of planes, which is very interesting.”

The new launch site has received its local environmental approvals, Beck said. Rocket Lab, with its headquarters in the United States but with most of its staff in New Zealand, is working with the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration for a spaceport license for the site, as well as a commercial launch license for Electron. Both U.S. and New Zealand authorities are working together on issues like clearing airspace for launches, he added.

If the Electron test program is successful, Rocket Lab plans to start commercial launches in early 2017. Beck said the company is planning one launch a month through 2018, with most of those launches already sold. That includes a launch NASA awarded to Rocket Lab in October 2015 under its Venture Class Launch Services program, which Beck said is currently scheduled for July 2017.

“We really have to make that schedule, because we have a lot of customers now that we need to fly,” he said. “So we can’t have that test program roll out too long.”

Beck also hinted that Rocket Lab has plans to expand in the U.S. The company currently has more than 100 employees, primarily in New Zealand, and is hiring about two people a week, but is running into growth issues. “There are challenges with not being able to scale fast enough in New Zealand,” he said. “We need to be able to scale much faster“

Source; spacenews

Private Moon Landing Set for 2021-2022

Updated 02/05/2020

NASA wants private moon landers from 3 companies. Here's how they'll work. SpaceX, Dynetics and a Blue Origin-led team have different ideas for the moon.

The moon landers that three commercial teams are developing to ferry astronauts to and from the lunar surface for NASA are a diverse bunch.

NASA has selected a Blue Origin-led team, Dynetics and SpaceX's Starship to develop new moon landers for astronauts for the agency's Artemis lunar program. (Image: © NASA)

On Thursday (April 30), NASA announced that it had awarded contracts to three commercial teams, each of which will develop a human landing system for use by the space agency's Artemis program. Artemis aims to put two astronauts down near the moon's south pole in 2024 and establish a sustainable presence on and around Earth's natural satellite by the late 2020s.

SpaceX, Dynetics and a team led by Blue Origin will split a total pot of $967 million, which will fund 10 months of development work. NASA will then tab one or more of these teams to mature their systems. In the end, the space agency will procure crewed lunar transportation services from the options that are left on the table. source space

NASA is Aboard First Private Moon Landing Attempt – NASA Solar

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The first private moon landing could be just two years away. 

California-based company Moon Express, which aims to fly commercial missions to the moon and help unlock its resources, has signed a five-launch deal with Rocket Lab, with the first two robotic liftoffs scheduled to take place in 2019.

These uncrewed launches — three of which are firmly on the books, with the other two optional at the moment — will blast Moon Express' MX-1 lander into space aboard Rocket Lab's 52.5-foot-tall (16 meters) Electron rocket. The goal is to test out the MX-1 and its systems, making sure the spacecraft can land softly on the moon, move about the lunar surface, grab samples and return them to Earth.

"The holy grail of our company is to provide, to prove, a full-services capability — not just landing, but coming back from the moon," said Moon Express co-founder and CEO Bob Richards, who announced the new launch deal today  at the Space Technology & Investment Summit in San Francisco.  

If the MX-1 nails its landing on the first mission, "we're going to be inspired to try a sample-return," Richards told Space.com. "I don't know if we'll do that on the second mission, but I sure hope we're trying it by the third mission, if all is going that well."

The two optional launches provide some insurance for Moon Express in case the first three flights don't go entirely according to plan, Richards said.

The contract puts Moon Express in position to possibly win the Google Lunar X Prize, a $30 million competition to land a privately funded robotic spacecraft on the moon by the end of 2019. The first team to do this — and have the craft move 1,640 feet (500 m) and beam high-definition video and images back to Earth as well — will win the $20 million grand prize. (The second team to accomplish these goals gets $5 million; another $5 million is available for meeting certain other milestones.)

Sixteen teams remain in the running for the Google Lunar X Prize, so the outcome remains very much up in the air. For example, one team, Astrobotic, signed a contract in 2011 to launch its lunar lander aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Astrobotic representatives have said they plan to launch in 2016.

The 3.9-foot-wide (1.2 m) Electron rocket is designed to deliver a 330-lb. (150 kilograms) payload to a sun-synchronous orbit 310 miles (500 kilometers) above Earth, according to Rocket Lab's website. The two-stage rocket is not operational yet; commercial launches are scheduled to begin in 2016, say representatives of the company, which is headquartered in California but has a New Zealand subsidiary. (Moon Express will have the option of launching from Rocket Lab's range in New Zealand or from a site in the United States.)


"Rocket Lab is pleased to begin working with Moon Express to launch its spacecraft and to provide support to such an ambitious mission," Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck said in a statement. "Moon Express has used advanced orbital mechanics to enable this mission from low-Earth orbit."

Electron is quite an affordable option as far as orbital launches are concerned, with each liftoff costing just $4.9 million. Falcon 9 launches, for example, cost about $60 million each.

"We think the collapse of the price to get to the moon is going to enable a whole new market — kind of like the 4-minute-mile of space," Richards said.

The MX-1 landers that blast off atop an Electron will be relatively small, constrained by the rocket's size.. But the MX-1 is scalable, Richards said, and can be modified as needed to help the company achieve its ambitious goal of opening up the moon and its resources to commercial use.

"As the market responds, we will be able to provide the platforms to support the market," Richards said. "We're starting small; we're starting with the baby steps."

Other articles on the same theme:

• Elon Musk plans to help US hospitals during the Coronavirus Pandemic

• NASA announced the next mission to Mars

• Elon Musk announced great mission on Mars. When it launches and what purpose

• Mars could support extraterrestrial life. A new image published by the European Space Agency shows the place that would have hosted life

• Back to Europa! ALIEN OCEAN NEXT NASA'S MISSION TO EUROPA

Source: space.com

LARGEST MAP EVER MADE WILL UNLOCK THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE 1.2 MILLION GALAXIES

Updated 02/05/2020

"This is one slice through the map of the large-scale structure of the Universe from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and its Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey. Each dot in this picture indicates the position of a galaxy 6 billion years into the past. The image covers about 1/20th of the sky, a slice of the Universe 6 billion light-years wide, 4.5 billion light-years high, and 500 million light-years thick. Color indicates distance from Earth, ranging from yellow on the near side of the slice to purple on the far side.

Map of the observable universe. (Pablo Carlos Budassi/Wikimedia/CC BY 4.0)

Galaxies are highly clustered, revealing superclusters and voids whose presence is seeded in the first fraction of a second after the Big Bang. This image contains 48,741 galaxies, about 3% of the full survey dataset. Grey patches are small regions without survey data."

What you're looking at is a slice of the entire universe, a web of galaxies billions of light years away. You're also looking into the past, since the further into the distance you look, the longer it took that light to reach your eyes. It all seems a lot smaller until you realize that each of those dots is hundreds of thousands of light years across.

A collaboration of hundreds of scientists released the "largest-ever, three-dimensional map of distant galaxies" with over 1.2 million spots as a part of the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) program using a telescope in New Mexico, according to a press release from Brookhaven National Lab. The map isn't for wanderers; scientists are trying to understand some of the universe's unexplained properties, like what dark matter and dark energy are. Understanding those things requires a three-dimensional map bigger and looking further out than any map scientists have made prior.

"The problem was, if you take data on the brightest galaxies in the sky, they happen to be nearby galaxies," BOSS' principal investigator David Schlegel from Lawrence Berkeley National Lab told Popular Science.

"For a cosmologist, that’s just a map of the backyard. I don’t want a map of the backyard. I want a map of the universe."

Up until fifty or so years ago, scientists more or less understood the universe, said Schlegel. But the discovery of dark matter and dark energy showed we don't really understand most of it, since they make up around 95 percent of the stuff in the universe. Yeah, we don't understand 95 percent of the stuff in the universe.

That's not to say we can't measure or detect dark matter and dark energy, though. If you look at the map, you'll see a web of galaxies and places where dots clump. Dark matter still feels gravity's pull, so galaxies align themselves along the webs and clumps of dark matter. We can detect dark energy too. When we look into space, really distant things we'd expect to look white actually look red; they've been redshifted. That's because their light rays have stretched out, because the space itself the light travels through expands, like a stretched-out tattoo on someone who's gaining a lot of weight.

By measuring really far away things, we found out that the universe wasn't just expanding, but the rate it expanded was actually speeding up. That discovery won a team of scientists the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics.

"I don’t want a map of the backyard. I want a map of the universe."

Map of large universe (Hélène Courtois, Daniel Pomarède, R. Brent Tully, Yehuda Hoffman, and Denis Courtois) smithsonianmag

In one theory of the universe, there's a single number called the "cosmological constant" that says dark energy is a uniform thing permeating the universe and making it expand. Some physicists were hoping that a larger map would show the cosmological constant's value changing in different places, rather than just being a single number everywhere, but the single number stuck throughout the swath of the universe covered by BOSS' results. Schlegel thought theoretical physicists might be a little pigeonholed by the results, since they can do more with varying numbers than a single constant.

Mark Wise, theoretical physicist at California Institute of Technology, hadn't reviewed the BOSS results yet but agreed with Schlegel. "It would be more exciting if it was something else," he told Popular Science.

Map of Universe

The BOSS experiment is about more than just dark energy, though, pointed out Anže Slosar, Brookhaven National Lab and BOSS cosmologist who leads his "futile existence as a scientist and a bureaucrat" (much as a cosmologist would), according to his website. The experiment will also help pinpoint the mass of the neutrino particle. Soon, other experiments like the larger Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) on a telescope at Kitt Peak in Arizona will pick up where the BOSS experiment leaves off. But Slosar was most excited about how intertwined our physical experiences on Earth are with the rest of the universe.

"The fact that it’s the same fundamental laws that guide GPS satellites all the way down to one second after the big bang is pretty mindblowing," he said.

Other articles on the same theme:

• What form does the atomic nucleus? New discovery may explain the mysteries of the Universe.

• A new theory on the Creation of the Universe, disprove the Big Bang

• The First Stars in the Universe could provide clues about Dark Matter

• NOBEL PHYSICS 2016. Nobel Prize winners are David DJ. Thouless, F. M. Duncan Haldane and J. Michael Kosterlitz

The above post is provided by POPULAR SCIENCE.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

KEPLER SPOTS 100+ MORE EXOPLANETS, SOME POTENTIALLY HABITABLE WE'VE GOT EXOPLANETS ON EXOPLANETS

NASA announced today that its Kepler spacecraft has discovered a "crop of more than 100 planets" orbiting the M dwarf star K2-72, 181 light years away from Earth.

Of the 104 planets found outside of our solar system, four seem Earth-sized and rocky, and two of those are within the "habitable zone," with the potential for liquid water on their surfaces. They orbit their star closer than Mercury orbits ours, but because K2-72 is cooler and less than half the size of our sun, it keeps them in the sweet spot for temperature. One is 10 percent warmer than Earth, while the other is 6 percent cooler. All of the planets discovered are 20-50 percent larger than Earth in diameter.

These discoveries come after thousands of exoplanets landed in Kepler's sights, including three dozen planets or planet candidates in the habitable zone. The odds keep getting better for life outside of our own solar system.



The above post is reprinted from materials provided by  POPSCI. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length

A new theory on the Creation of the Universe, effects of quantum mechanics disprove the Big Bang

An international team of researchers has backed up the growing hypothesis that the Big Bang was actually a 'Big Bounce', meaning that the Universe didn’t pop into existence. Instead, it simply started expanding again after contracting fully.

If correct, the team’s findings might explain how the Universe transitioned from contraction to expansion, a debate that has been raging over the Big Bounce hypothesis since it was first introduced nearly 100 years ago.

Before we get into the new findings, let's take a quick overview of what the Big Bounce is. Put simply, it’s a hypothesis that was created to explain how the Universe formed.

Unlike the Big Bang model, though, which states that our Universe was born out of nothing but a gigantic explosion from an infinitely dense point, the Big Bounce proposes that the Universe is constantly expanding and contracting.

This means that the Universe operates sort of like a balloon, where it expands from a single point, grows and grows until it reaches some maximum distance, and then contracts back to the original point, starting the whole process over again.

Until now, one of the biggest road blocks to this hypothetical model was how the Universe would transition from contraction to expansion when it is fully ‘deflated’. The new study hopes to solve that using the properties of quantum mechanics.

According to the team – consisting of physicists from the UK and Canada – when the Universe is at its smallest point, it is ruled by quantum mechanics instead of the normal physics of the everyday world around us.

At this extremely small scale, the Universe would be saved from destruction because the effects of quantum mechanics would, in essence, keep everything together

"Quantum mechanics saves us when things break down," explains team member Steffen Gielen, from Imperial College London.

"It saves electrons from falling in and destroying atoms, so maybe it could also save the early Universe from such violent beginnings and endings as the Big Bang and Big Crunch." (Spoiler: The Big Curnch is how scientists predict our Universe might end, and it ain't pretty.

Quantum Mechanics: Concepts and Applications, 2nd Edition

To come to that conclusion, the team built a computer model that simulates how the Universe might have evolved over time.

When all was said and done, they found that using quantum mechanics, the Universe could have expanded from a single point even with the minimal amount of ingredients – radiation and a little matter – that were present at the time.

"The big surprise in our work is that we could describe the earliest moments of the hot Big Bang quantum mechanically, under very reasonable and minimal assumptions about the matter present in the Universe," said team member Neil Turk, from the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Canada. "Under these assumptions, the Big Bang was a 'bounce', in which contraction reversed to expansion."

While the current model explains how the Universe might have transitioned between expansion and contraction, the team is now looking to see if it can eventually produce the objects inside the Universe, such as galaxies and other celestial structures.

This isn’t the first time a team of scientists have claimed that the Big Bang as we know it might have never happened.

Back in February, a team of researchers from Egypt created a model that stated that the Universe has no beginning or end. Instead, using quantum mechanics and Einstein's theory of general relativity, they suggested that the Universe has simply been going forever.

Hopefully, as computer models continue to get more powerful with each passing day, we will eventually have a better, more complete understanding of how our Universe formed - and one day might all disappear.


Other articles on the same theme:

• What form does the atomic nucleus? New discovery may explain the mysteries of the Universe.

• The First Stars in the Universe could provide clues about Dark Matter

• Astronomers issued a shocking theory about the universe: 'The Universe is Flat!'

• It was created the most complex map of the Milky Way . It shows that our galaxy is much more extensive than previously thought

The new study was published in the journal Physical Review Letters.