Nov 14, 2020
Europe moves ahead with Ariel exoplanet mission
Posted by Dan Kummer in category: space
The green light is given to the near-billion-euro space observatory that will study far-off worlds.
Archive for the ‘space’ category: Page 604
Nov 14, 2020
Examining Crew-1 launch weather criteria and abort modes
Posted by Genevieve Klien in category: space
With each new crew launch from the U.S. comes the inevitable questions: Why all the weather rules? What are the vehicle’s abort modes and how will it perform a launch abort and aim itself to a predetermined location in the Atlantic Ocean stretching from the Kennedy Space Center across to the western Irish coast?
The Crew-1 mission of SpaceX’s Dragon 2 capsule is contending with these questions, with its launch already delayed from Saturday because of weather. The mission is currently set to launch at 19:27 EST (00:27 UTC) on Sunday, 15 November (Monday, 16 November UTC) from LC-39A in Florida to bring Mike Hopkins, Victor Glover, Shannon Walker, and Soichi Noguchi to the International Space Station.
Why do NASA, the 45th Space Wing of the Space Force, their safety officers, and all launch providers make such a big deal about the weather? Who cares if it’s raining 18 km from the pad when the safety rules say rain cannot be closer than 18.5 km? Isn’t that close enough?
Nov 13, 2020
Astronomers Say “Megaripples” Are Moving Across the Surface of Mars
Posted by Raphael Ramos in category: space
It seems the weather on Mars is a bit more windy than expected.
Martian winds could be strong enough after all to move giant waves of sand on the Red Planet.
Nov 13, 2020
Space solar power station a step closer thanks to government project
Posted by Carse Peel in categories: government, solar power, space, sustainability
Solar power stations in space that beam ‘emission-free electricity’ down to Earth could soon be a reality thanks to a UK government funded project.
Above the Earth there are no clouds and no day or night that could obstruct the sun’s ray – making a space solar station a constant zero carbon power source.
Continue reading “Space solar power station a step closer thanks to government project” »
Nov 13, 2020
Xzavier Herbert, a bright star in space math
Posted by Genevieve Klien in categories: mathematics, quantum physics, space
Sophomore math major Xzavier Herbert was never much into science fiction or the space program, but his skills in pure mathematics seem to keep drawing him into NASA’s orbit.
With an interest in representation theory, Herbert spent the summer virtually at NASA, studying connections between classical information theory and quantum information theory, each of which corresponds to a different set of laws: classical physics and quantum mechanics.
“What I’m doing involves how representation theory allows us to draw a direct analog from classical information theory to quantum information theory,” Herbert says. “It turns out that there is a mathematical way of justifying how these are related.”
Nov 13, 2020
Giant Galaxy Cluster Acts as Cosmic Furnace
Posted by Genevieve Klien in categories: materials, space
HSC J023336-053022, a massive galaxy cluster located approximately 4 billion light-years away from Earth, is heating the material within it to hundreds of millions of degrees Celsius — over 25 times hotter than the core of the Sun.
Nov 13, 2020
Tripping Over the Mysteries of the Universe: Molecules, Particles and People
Posted by Ira S. Pastor in categories: chemistry, computing, education, mathematics, particle physics, space
Ira Pastor, ideaXme life sciences ambassador and CEO Bioquark interviews Dr. Michelle Francl the Frank B. Mallory Professor of Chemistry, at Bryn Mawr College, and an adjunct scholar of the Vatican Observatory.
Ira Pastor comments:
Continue reading “Tripping Over the Mysteries of the Universe: Molecules, Particles and People” »
Nov 13, 2020
NASA’s MAVEN Spacecraft Tracks Massive Water Loss From Ancient Mars
Posted by Bruce Dorminey in category: space
Mars’ dust storms have repeatedly triggered rapid water loss from its upper atmosphere over the eons, NASA’s MAVEN orbiter finds.
China Launches 6G Satellite and Nokia seals the deal with NASA for 4G moon network.
Nov 12, 2020
A cosmic amethyst in a dying star
Posted by Saúl Morales Rodriguéz in categories: energy, space
On Earth, amethysts can form when gas bubbles in lava cool under the right conditions. In space, a dying star with a mass similar to the Sun is capable of producing a structure on par with the appeal of these beautiful gems.
As stars like the Sun run through their fuel, they cast off their outer layers and the core of the star shrinks. Using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, astronomers have found a bubble of ultra-hot gas at the center of one of these expiring stars, a planetary nebula in our galaxy called IC 4593. At a distance of about 7,800 light years from Earth, IC 4593 is the most distant planetary nebula yet detected with Chandra.
