Saturn’s largest moon might be the only place beyond Earth where humans could live.
Let’s Colonize Titan
Posted in space
Category: space – Page 773
Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner crew capsule left the processing facility for the launch pad where it will begin its first journey to space.
When gigantic stars run out of fuel they collapse under their own gravity and, in a last hurrah, send out a blast of light and matter in the most violent known explosions in the universe.
Now astronomers have discovered that these cataclysmic events, known as gamma ray bursts, release roughly twice as much energy as previously thought.
The rethink comes after an international team registered a record-breaking observation of the highest-energy radiation ever measured from gamma ray bursts.
Data from ESA’s Cluster mission has provided a recording of the eerie “song” that Earth sings when it is hit by a solar storm.
The song comes from waves that are generated in the Earth’s magnetic field by the collision of the storm. The storm itself is the eruption of electrically charged particles from the sun’s atmosphere.
A team led by Lucile Turc, a former ESA research fellow who is now based at the University of Helsinki, Finland, made the discovery after analyzing data from the Cluster Science Archive. The archive provides access to all data obtained during Cluster’s ongoing mission over almost two decades.
For Manber the idea goes along with the intention of the Trump administration of commercializing operations in low-Earth orbit around 2025, thus helping the nation move ‘into the next chapter with commercial outposts.’
An international team of scientists has created the most detailed large-scale model of the universe to date, a simulation they call TNG50.
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/goddard/2019/sugars-in-meteorites
An international team has found sugars essential to life in meteorites. The new discovery adds to the growing list of biologically important compounds that have been found in meteorites, supporting the hypothesis that chemical reactions in asteroids—the parent bodies of many meteorites—can make some of life’s ingredients. If correct, meteorite bombardment on ancient Earth may have assisted the origin of life with a supply of life’s building blocks.
The team discovered ribose and other bio-essential sugars including arabinose and xylose in two different meteorites that are rich in carbon, NWA 801 (type CR2) and Murchison (type CM2). Ribose is a crucial component of RNA (ribonucleic acid). In much of modern life, RNA serves as a messenger molecule, copying genetic instructions from the DNA molecule (deoxyribonucleic acid) and delivering them to molecular factories within the cell called ribosomes that read the RNA to build specific proteins needed to carry out life processes.
New “space as a service” initiatives are evolving. As a result of WeWork pulling its IPO, I expect you will see renegotiated leases and direct competition across the globe, with a $3 billion fund to start. Real estate development is moving in two directions — technology and experience — but firms need to figure out what that means for them, and how to spend their money.
Delete Technology, Add Humans
Many smart city projects have not met their goals. IoT may make some efficiency gains, but it doesn’t automatically improve quality of life or reduce complexity. City planners and real estate developers need to take a longer view and understand that ROI is directly tied to the GDP of the area.
The idea that celestial objects exist within utterly immense cosmic structures is becoming inescapable.
Cheers! Alcoholic beverages in space
Posted in food, life extension, space
On November 2, 12 bottles of Bordeaux wine were launched to the International Space Station (ISS). These bottles are not intended for holiday celebrations by the crew, however (consumption of alcohol is officially prohibited in space.) Instead. the bottles are part of an experiment conducted by the University of Bordeaux’s Institute of Vine and Wine Science (ISVV) and a company called Space Cargo Unlimited to investigate if the aging process of wine is affected by microgravity conditions.
As novel as this experiment sounds, the Bordeaux team is not the first group to examine how alcoholic beverages age in space. That distinction is held by two whisky producers, one in Scotland, the other in Japan. In 2011, Scotch whisky producer Ardbeg partnered with Nanoracks to launch the first whisky aging experiment in orbit. When the samples were returned to Earth in 2014, a clear difference was readily apparent from the control samples that remained on Earth—and not for the better. According to an Ardbeg white paper, the aftertaste was “pungent, intense and long, with hints of wood, antiseptic lozenges and rubbery smoke.” However, Ardbeg was not certain if this was a result of the aging process or other extreme factors that the samples encountered.
In 2015, Japanese whisky producer Suntory also launched whisky samples to be aged on the ISS. One batch of these samples returned to Earth for analysis after a year in orbit, but another batch still remains on the station. Thus far, Suntory has not released any data from these experiments.