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  • JWST is Powerful Enough to See a Variety of Biosignatures in Exoplanets
  • Research helps pave way for first manned mission to Mars
  • Nuclear fusion will not be regulated the same way as nuclear fission
  • “Building Blocks of Life” Discovered in Meteorite That Crash Landed in England
  • Astronomers discover metal-rich galaxy in early universe
  • Unexpected New Ring System Discovered in Our Own Solar System
  • Astronomers discover eight new super-hot stars
  • More funding for OzGrav
  • Cosmological enigma of Milky Way’s satellite galaxies solved
  • After Artemis 1, it will take NASA 2 years to send astronauts to the moon. Why so long?
  • Asymmetry Detected in the Distribution of Galaxies
  • Researchers suggest that wormholes may look almost identical to black holes
  • ‘Planet killer’ asteroid found hiding in sun’s glare
  • Astrophysicists make observations consistent with the predictions of an alternative theory of gravity
  • NASA scientists say images from the Webb telescope nearly brought them to tears
  • Liquid mirror telescope opens in India
  • Launch of NASA’s Psyche asteroid mission delayed to late September
  • In a pair of merging supermassive black holes, a new method for measuring the void
  • Diagnosing Neptune’s Chilly Summer
  • Subatomic particle seen changing to antiparticle and back for the first time

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Recent Posts

  • JWST is Powerful Enough to See a Variety of Biosignatures in Exoplanets
  • Research helps pave way for first manned mission to Mars
  • Nuclear fusion will not be regulated the same way as nuclear fission
  • “Building Blocks of Life” Discovered in Meteorite That Crash Landed in England
  • Astronomers discover metal-rich galaxy in early universe
  • Unexpected New Ring System Discovered in Our Own Solar System
  • Astronomers discover eight new super-hot stars
  • More funding for OzGrav
  • Cosmological enigma of Milky Way’s satellite galaxies solved
  • After Artemis 1, it will take NASA 2 years to send astronauts to the moon. Why so long?

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  • arXiv.org/astro-ph
  • NASA/ADS
  • The Mars Society (AUS)

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Latest from Hubble

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NASA scientists say images from the Webb telescope nearly brought them to tears

By Earl on 30 Jun 2022 on No Comments

Six months have passed since a European rocket lofted the James Webb Space Telescope into orbit. Since that time, the ultra-complex telescope has successfully unfolded its expansive sunshield, commissioned its science instruments, and reached an observation point more than 1 million km from Earth.

This white-knuckle period in space followed nearly two decades of effort to design, build, and test the telescope on Earth prior to its launch on Christmas Day, 2021. But now, all of that effort is in the rearview mirror, and Webb’s massive 6.5-meter diameter mirror is gazing outward and collecting scientific data and images. It is the largest and most powerful telescope that humans have ever put into space, and it’s already revealing new insights about our cosmos.

Should be amazing! More details here

Astronomy

Liquid mirror telescope opens in India

By Earl on 18 Jun 2022 on No Comments

A unique telescope that focuses light with a slowly spinning bowl of liquid mercury instead of a solid mirror has opened its eye to the skies above India. Such telescopes have been built before, but the 4-meter-wide International Liquid Mirror Telescope (ILMT) is the first large one to be purpose-built for astronomy, at the kind of high-altitude site observers prize—the 2450-meter Devasthal Observatory in the Himalayas. More here

Astronomy

Launch of NASA’s Psyche asteroid mission delayed to late September

By Earl on 25 May 2022 on No Comments

The launch of NASA’s Psyche asteroid mission, which was set for Aug. 1 on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, has been delayed to no earlier than Sept. 20 after ground teams discovered an issue during software testing on the spacecraft, officials said Monday.

The robotic asteroid explorer arrived at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California on April 29 aboard a U.S. military cargo plane. Then ground teams moved the spacecraft, packed inside a climate-controlled shipping container, to a clean room at the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility.

More here

Space

In a pair of merging supermassive black holes, a new method for measuring the void

By Earl on 10 May 2022 on No Comments

Three years ago, the first ever image of a black hole stunned the world. A black pit of nothingness enclosed by a fiery ring of light. That iconic image of the black hole at the center of galaxy Messier 87 came into focus thanks to the Event Horizon Telescope, a global network of synchronized radio dishes acting as one giant telescope.

Now, a pair of Columbia researchers have devised a potentially easier way of gazing into the abyss.

Read the full article here.

Astronomy

Diagnosing Neptune’s Chilly Summer

By Earl on 07 May 2022 on No Comments

Read more here

Neptune

Solar System

Subatomic particle seen changing to antiparticle and back for the first time

By Earl on 06 May 2022 on No Comments

Physicists have proved that a subatomic particle can switch into its antiparticle alter-ego and back again, in a new discovery revealed today. The extraordinarily precise measurement was made by UK researchers using the Large Hadron Collider beauty (LHCb) experiment at CERN. It has provided the first evidence that charm mesons can change into their antiparticle and back again.

More info here

Quantum

Astronomers capture surprising changes in Neptune’s temperatures

By Earl on 12 Apr 2022 on No Comments

An international team of astronomers have used ground-based telescopes, including the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT), to track Neptune’s atmospheric temperatures over a 17-year period. They found a surprising drop in Neptune’s global temperatures followed by a dramatic warming at its south pole. – More here –

Solar System

Sunspots are increasing at an unexpected rate

By Earl on 12 Apr 2022 on No Comments

Weather on the Sun is always tricky to predict accurately, however it’s looking like the upcoming Solar Maximum could be worth keeping an eye on!

In fact, sunspot counts have been consistently higher than predicted levels since September 2020. This could mean that, in contrast to predictions, the Sun is in the swing of an unusually strong activity cycle.

Read more here –

Astronomy, Solar, Telescope Projects

World’s Most Powerful Solar Telescope Reaches Historic Milestone as First Science Observations Commence

By Earl on 25 Feb 2022 on No Comments

On Wednesday, February 23, 2022, the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Inouye Solar Telescope commenced its first science observations, signaling the start of its year-long operations commissioning phase and a new era of solar science. The world’s largest solar telescope is now the cornerstone of a mission to advance our knowledge of the Sun and poised to revolutionize our understanding of the Sun and its impacts on Earth

Read more here

Solar

The universe is in much sharper focus with new algorithms and supercomputers

By Earl on 01 Feb 2022 on No Comments

With new algorithms and supercomputers, an incredibly detailed radio map of the universe has been created. Now astronomers can look at radio data of galaxies with much more precision. This research was published in Nature Astronomy by Leiden University Ph.D. student Frits Sweijen and colleagues.

“This single map has almost as many pixels as previous maps of the entire sky had,” says Frits Sweijen. The researchers solved the blurring effect of UV radiation in our atmosphere: With special software they managed to correct for this interference. Supercomputers in Leiden and Amsterdam used their enormous computing power to ensure that this also went fairly quickly.

More here –

Cosmology

New MeerKAT radio image reveals complex heart of the Milky Way

By Earl on 27 Jan 2022 on No Comments

The South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO) has released today a new MeerKAT telescope image of the centre of our Galaxy, showing radio emission from the region with unprecedented clarity and depth. The international team behind the work is publishing the initial science highlights from this image in The Astrophysical Journal. The article is accompanied by a public release of the data to the worldwide astronomical community for their further scientific exploration.

More here –

Cosmology

NASA’s Curiosity Rover Measures Intriguing Carbon Signature on Mars

By Earl on 23 Jan 2022 on No Comments

The type of carbon is associated with biological processes on Earth. Curiosity scientists offer several explanations for the unusual carbon signals.

After analyzing powdered rock samples collected from the surface of Mars by NASA’s Curiosity rover, scientists have announced that several of the samples are rich in a type of carbon that on Earth is associated with biological processes.

While the finding is intriguing, it doesn’t necessarily point to ancient life on Mars, as scientists have not yet found conclusive supporting evidence of ancient or current biology there, such as sedimentary rock formations produced by ancient bacteria, or a diversity of complex organic molecules formed by life.

“We’re finding things on Mars that are tantalizingly interesting, but we would really need more evidence to say we’ve identified life,” said Paul Mahaffy, who served as the principal investigator of the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) chemistry lab aboard Curiosity until retiring from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, in December 2021. “So we’re looking at what else could have caused the carbon signature we’re seeing, if not life.”

More her https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-curiosity-rover-measures-intriguing-carbon-signature-on-mars

Mars

How the Tonga eruption is helping space scientists understand Mars

By Earl on 21 Jan 2022 on No Comments

NASA scientists say that the eruption of a submarine volcano in Tonga is helping them to understand how features formed on the surfaces of Mars and Venus.

The unusual explosion — which has been calculated at more than 500 times the force of the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945 — is offering researchers a rare chance to study how water and lava interact.

Studying the Hunga Tonga–Hunga Haʻapai volcano and its evolution in recent weeks is “important for planetary science”, says Petr Brož, a planetary volcanologist at the Institute of Geophysics of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague.

The knowledge “might help us to reveal results of water–lava interactions on the red planet and elsewhere across the Solar System”, he says.

The volcanic island, which began to form from ash and lava expelled from an undersea volcano in early 2015, piqued the interest of researchers including James Garvin, chief scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, because of its similarity to structures on Mars and possibly also Venus.

More here –

Mars

Proof of concept verifies physics that could enable quantum batteries

By Earl on 18 Jan 2022 on No Comments

Quantum batteries could one day revolutionize energy storage through what seems like a paradox – the bigger the battery, the faster it charges. For the first time, a team of scientists has now demonstrated the quantum mechanical principle of superabsorption that underpins quantum batteries in a proof-of-concept device.

The quirky world of quantum physics is full of phenomena that seem impossible to us. Molecules, for instance, can be become so entwined that they begin acting collectively, and this can lead to a range of quantum effects. That includes superabsorption, which boosts a molecule’s ability to absorb light.

More here – https://newatlas.com/energy/quantum-battery-proof-concept-fast-charging/

Quantum
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