Lifeboat Foundation

This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Space.com’s Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

Supriya Chakrabarti, Professor of Physics, University of Massachusetts Lowell

Perhaps you remember the opening scene of “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” that took place on Privet Drive. A bearded man pulled a mysterious device, called a deluminator, from his dark robe and one by one the lights from the street lamps flew into it.

Astronauts may be far from home, but they still celebrate the holidays.

Residents of the International Space Station posted an incredible photo and video for the holidays, celebrating both Hanukkah and Christmas far above the world.

Astronaut Jessica Meir posted a stunning picture from the station’s cupola, the small, panoramic, ESA-built observatory module of the station. It allows for observation of activities like spacewalks and shuttle approaches, but also provides the perfect place to celebrate Hanukkah.

Navigating Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, is a challenge. Just getting close is hard enough — it’s hundreds of millions of miles away, after all. But let’s suppose either a robot or a human lands on the surface of the only other body in the Solar System known to have liquid on its surface. They’d need a map — and fortunately, NASA has one ready to go should the occasion ever arise.

In November 2019, scientists made the first ever map detailing the moon’s complicated — and terrifying — terrain. It reveals a moon filled with weird and wonderful geography, including dunes, liquid methane lakes, plains, labyrinthine canyons, and craters.

This is #10 on Inverse’s 20 wildest space discoveries of 2019.

It’s 2050, and you’ve just arrived on Mars. Your first meal awaits: a plate of spaghetti marinara made from fresh vine-ripened tomatoes. Tough to imagine, right?

The idea that astronauts might enjoy the fresh, cherry-red fruits has seemed borderline absurd. Tomato plants, with their sprawling vines and bulbous fruits, take up space—valuable space. And they’re extremely finicky.

But now, scientists have developed a way to genetically modify cherry tomatoes so they grow in tighter bunches and take up less space. This could be a game changer as the push to grow vertical, rooftop gardens increases and as humanity stretches out past low-Earth orbit toward the moon, and eventually, Mars.

Cracks are emerging in the outer space honor system.

We’re already starting to treat the cosmos the way we treat the Earth.

Here on Earth, you can see the aurora of the Northern Lights, when solar winds interact with the planet’s magnetosphere. It turns out that Mars has its own auroras too, called proton auroras, but they give off ultraviolet light which makes them invisible to the naked eye.

NASA’s MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN) spacecraft, however, currently in orbit around Mars, is able to detect these auroras using its Imaging UltraViolet Spectrograph (IUVS) instrument. Using data from this instrument, scientists have been investigating the relationship between the proton auroras and the fact that Mars lost its water over time. The Martian aurora is indirectly created by hydrogen in the atmosphere, which comes from water being lost into space.

The animation below shows how the proton aurora is formed. First, solar winds send protons toward Mars, where they interact with a cloud of hydrogen surrounding the planet. The protons take electrons from the hydrogen atoms to become neutrons. These neutral particles can then pass through a region of the planet’s magnetosphere called the bow shock. When the hydrogen atoms enter the atmosphere and collide with gas particles, they give off the ultraviolet light that we call an aurora.

The Universe is not what textbook physics tells us except that we perceive it in this way – our instruments and measurement devices are simply extensions of our senses, after all. Reality is not what it seems. Deep down it’s pure information – waves of potentiality – and consciousness creating it all. https://www.ecstadelic.net/top-stories/the-alpha-point-vs-th…sciousness #AlphaPoint vs. #OmegaPoint

“Each of us appears in the divine play in a dual role of creator and actor. A full and realistic enactment of our role in the cosmic drama requires the suspension of our true identity. We have to forget our authorship and follow the script.”

-Stanislav Grof

Continue reading “The Alpha Point vs. the Omega Point: Ours is one of the possible worlds simulated in absolute consciousness” »

Anxious Astronaut has suffered an anxiety attack in space. It could be debilitating, they’re not sure. And unlike, say, a broken arm, it is not immediately visible to Anxious’ co-workers. Anxious Astronaut is good at hiding their problem, which is how they got through the screening process on Earth. But Anxious Astronaut needs to be operating at peak functionality, which Anxious Astronaut knows, which is making them more stressed, and they haven’t even acknowledged to themselves that they’re undergoing a silent crisis. Stress is tough.

Anxious Astronaut does not want to give up their duties, so they’re not taking time to self-evaluate. And besides, any human diagnosis is millions of miles of way, considering Anxious Astronaut and their team are halfway to Mars. So how can Anxious Astronaut’s team figure out what’s wrong? A biosensor. A small, nearly invisible biosensor placed on Anxious Astronaut’s forehead has detected unusually high cortisol, which the body releases when stressed. The data is shared with the medical staff on the mission, and Anxious is able to have their workloads reduced until they’re feeling up to snuff.

Thanks to developments in biosensors that NASA and outside group NextFlex are working on today, Anxious or Unhealthy Astronaut might be able to figure out what’s ailing them at speeds unimaginable today.

Aviation buffs: See firsthand footage of an F-15 shooting down a Russian space satellite.

Stream Air Warriors: http://bitly.com/2Kokhxq