Archive for the ‘space’ category: Page 443
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With Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment, also known as MOXIE, the high-tech instrument converts carbon dioxide in the Mars atmosphere and convert it into oxygen.
May 21, 2021
Samples of an Asteroid are Headed Back to Earth on This Week @NASA – May 14, 2021
Posted by Alberto Lao in category: space
It’s been a busy week!
🚀 Samples of a 4.5-billion-year asteroid head to Earth on our #OSIRISRex mission.
🔭 NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope checks off a key prelaunch milestone.
⛈️ Scientists develop a way to view satellite data in 3D to gain a better understanding of severe weather.
Watch This Week at NASA for details on these stories and more: youtu.be/mplLzUMYKuM
China’s Mars rover Zhu Rong successfully landed on the red planet after “nine minutes of terror”.
Read the full report: https://sc.mp/504e
May 21, 2021
Proxima Centauri b: Artificial Illumination as a Technosignature
Posted by Lawrence Klaes in categories: innovation, space
Our recent look at the possibility of technosignatures at Alpha Centauri is now supplemented with a new study on the detectability of artificial lights on Proxima Centauri b. The planet is in the habitable zone, roughly similar in mass to the Earth, and of course, it orbits the nearest star, making it a world we can hope to learn a great deal more about as new instruments come online. The James Webb Space Telescope is certainly one of these, but the new work also points to LUVOIR (Large UV/Optical/IR Surveyor), a multi-wavelength space-based observatory with possible launch in 2035.
Authors Elisa Tabor (Stanford University) and Avi Loeb (Harvard) point out that a (presumably) tidally locked planet with a permanent nightside would need artificial lighting to support a technological culture. As we saw in Brian Lacki’s presentation at Breakthrough Discuss (see Alpha Centauri and the Search for Technosignatures), coincident epochs for civilizations developing around neighboring stars are highly unlikely, making this the longest of longshots. On the other hand, a civilization arising elsewhere could be detectable through its artifacts on worlds it has chosen to study.
We learn by asking questions and looking at data. In this case, asking how we would detect artificial light on Proxima b involves factoring in the planet’s radius, which is on the order of 1.3 Earth radii (1.3 R⊕) as well as that of Proxima Centauri itself, which is 0.14 that of the Sun (0.14 R⊙). We also know the planet is in an 11 day orbit at 0.05 AU. Other factors influencing its lightcurve would be its albedo and orbital inclination. Tabor and Loeb use recent work on Proxima Centauri c’s inclination (citation below) to ballpark an orbital inclination for the inner world.
May 21, 2021
Why studying Uranus and Neptune could help us find habitable planets in other solar systems
Posted by Lawrence Klaes in categories: chemistry, space
Astronomers have long predicted that deep beneath Neptune’s thick blue clouds lies a super-hot body of water that, despite its high temperature, never boils because of its incredibly high-pressure atmosphere. Uranus, another planet in the outer solar system of similar size and composition, is also believed to have a similar water-rich interior. Unfortunately, due to their distances from Earth, it is hard to directly probe these two planets to test our assumption. But scientists have found novel ways of testing their theories about these ice giants from Earth.
As described in a newly-published study from Nature Astronomy, scientists recreated the pressure and temperature of the interiors of Neptune and Uranus in a lab. The aim of the experiments was to test hypotheses about the chemistry of the deep water within these planets. But the study could have additional implications for what we know about potentially habitable planets in other solar systems.
“We were seeking to extend our knowledge of the deep interior of ice giants and determine what water-rock interactions at extreme conditions might exist,” said lead author Taehyun Kim, of Yonsei University in South Korea. “Ice giants and some exoplanets have very deep water layers, unlike terrestrial planets. We proposed the possibility of an atomic-scale mixing of two of the planet-building materials (water and rock) in the interiors of ice giants.”
May 21, 2021
3D Printed Engine: Bringing 3D Printing Inside The World’s Largest Jet Engine
Posted by Quinn Sena in categories: 3D printing, education, engineering, space
Circa 2020
Learn how a young team of additive manufacturing engineers helped bring 3D printed parts to the design of the GE9X, the world’s largest jet engine.
Stefka Petkova enjoys building things. It’s a passion she’s had since she was a small child when her dad, an electrician who liked to work on cars, kept the door to his workshop open. “I was exposed to that as a very young child and just got a lot of encouragement,” says Petkova, who she spent many afternoons watching him weld and wire automobiles.
Continue reading “3D Printed Engine: Bringing 3D Printing Inside The World’s Largest Jet Engine” »
May 20, 2021
Space junk map tracks 200 ‘ticking time bombs’
Posted by Muhammad Furqan in categories: space, sustainability
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This interactive map tracks all the known space junk orbiting Earth. (via BBC World Service.
More on sustainability in space 🚀 https://bbc.in/3n9VQ95
May 19, 2021
Silicon chips combine light and ultrasound for better signal processing
Posted by Saúl Morales Rodriguéz in categories: computing, internet, space
The continued growth of wireless and cellular data traffic relies heavily on light waves. Microwave photonics is the field of technology that is dedicated to the distribution and processing of electrical information signals using optical means. Compared with traditional solutions based on electronics alone, microwave photonic systems can handle massive amounts of data. Therefore, microwave photonics has become increasingly important as part of 5G cellular networks and beyond. A primary task of microwave photonics is the realization of narrowband filters: The selection of specific data, at specific frequencies, out of immense volumes that are carried over light.
Many microwave photonic systems are built of discrete, separate components and long optical fiber paths. However, the cost, size, power consumption and production volume requirements of advanced networks call for a new generation of microwave photonic systems that are realized on a chip. Integrated microwave photonic filters, particularly in silicon, are highly sought after. There is, however, a fundamental challenge: Narrowband filters require that signals are delayed for comparatively long durations as part of their processing.
“Since the speed of light is so fast,” says Prof. Avi Zadok from Bar-Ilan University, Israel, “we run out of chip space before the necessary delays are accommodated. The required delays may reach over 100 nanoseconds. Such delays may appear to be short considering daily experience; however, the optical paths that support them are over ten meters long. We cannot possibly fit such long paths as part of a silicon chip. Even if we could somehow fold over that many meters in a certain layout, the extent of optical power losses to go along with it would be prohibitive.”
