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vox_mundi

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #200 on: November 05, 2019, 12:01:27 AM »
Look Far Enough and You'll See the Back of Your Head: The Universe Might Be a Giant Loop
https://www.livescience.com/amp/universe-may-be-curved.html

Everything we think we know about the shape of the universe could be wrong. Instead of being flat like a bedsheet, our universe may be curved, like a massive, inflated balloon, according to a new study.

If the universe is curved, according to the new paper, it curves gently. That slow bending isn't important for moving around our lives, or solar system, or even our galaxy. But travel beyond all of that, outside our galactic neighborhood, far into the deep blackness, and eventually — moving in a straight line — you'll loop around and end up right back where you started. Cosmologists call this idea the "closed universe."



That's the upshot of a new paper published today (Nov. 4) in the journal Nature Astronomy, which looks at data from the cosmic microwave background (CMB), the faint echo of the Big Bang.

... There's an anomaly in the CMB. The CMB is the oldest thing we see in the universe, made of ambient microwave light that suffuses all of space when you block out the stars and galaxies and other interference. It's one of the most important sources of data on the universe's history and behavior, because it's so old and so spread throughout space. And it turns out, according to the latest data, that there's significantly more "gravitational lensing" of the CMB than expected — meaning that gravity seems to be bending the microwaves of the CMB more than existing physics can explain.

To explain that extra lensing, the Planck Collaboration has just tacked on an extra variable, which the scientists are calling "A_lens," to the group's model of the universe's formation, "This is something that you put there by hand, trying to explain what you see. There's no connection with physics," Melchiorri said, meaning there's no A_lens parameter in Einstein's theory of relativity. "What we found is that you can explain A_lens with a positively curved universe, which is a much more physical interpretation that you can explain with general relativity."

Melchiorri pointed out that his team's interpretation isn't conclusive. According to the group's calculations, the Planck data point to a closed universe with a standard deviation of 3.5 sigma (a statistical measurement that means about 99.8% confidence that the result isn't due to random chance). That's well short of the 5 sigma standard physicists usually look for before calling an idea confirmed.

Eleonora Di Valentino, et.al. Planck evidence for a closed Universe and a possible crisis for cosmology, Nature Astronomy (2019)
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

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Tor Bejnar

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #201 on: November 05, 2019, 01:21:41 AM »
And I thought the universe was like a Möbius strip, well actually a kleinbottle.  Nevin's response to the question "Is the universe like a Möbius strip?" - (3rd response quoted)
Quote
Craig Nevin - Answered Jan 13, 2017

A Mobius strip has one edge. Does the universe have an edge? Probably not. Two Mobius strips of opposite chirality, however, can be combined into an edgeless surfce known as a kleinbottle. A kleinbottle has no inside nor outside. Therefore you can never be outside such an universe. Since the word universe means everything in space without edge, this makes logical sense. A model of the universe that imagines it as a sphere or torus or topological equivalent, raises the issue of there being a place outside of the universe, which quite frankly deflates the everday notion of the word “universe”. My answer is therefore definitely YES.
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vox_mundi

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #202 on: November 05, 2019, 02:56:46 AM »
I'm going with multidimensional brane cosmology ...



or multiverse ...



Of course, both of them are as easy to illustrate as a Klien bottle.

Maybe it's turtles all the way down.  ;)
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

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wili

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #203 on: November 05, 2019, 05:03:22 AM »
"Look Far Enough and You'll See the Back of Your Head"

This is not a new idea. I remember talking about it with my nerdy friends in HighSchool in the very early '70s (friends who went on to  become astrophysicists, mathematicians, and computer program designers, while I wallowed in the humanities :) ).
"A force de chercher de bonnes raisons, on en trouve; on les dit; et après on y tient, non pas tant parce qu'elles sont bonnes que pour ne pas se démentir." Choderlos de Laclos "You struggle to come up with some valid reasons, then cling to them, not because they're good, but just to not back down."

Tor Bejnar

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #204 on: November 05, 2019, 02:38:35 PM »
I remember a children's story about some siblings, one with eyesight so keen, their eyes could see things clearly a few times 'round the world.  Or something like that.
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wili

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #205 on: November 05, 2019, 03:01:54 PM »
Me too. I remember them being animals. The rabbit, as I recall, could also hear things from a very far distance. The moral of the story is now lost to me, though.
"A force de chercher de bonnes raisons, on en trouve; on les dit; et après on y tient, non pas tant parce qu'elles sont bonnes que pour ne pas se démentir." Choderlos de Laclos "You struggle to come up with some valid reasons, then cling to them, not because they're good, but just to not back down."

johnm33

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #206 on: November 05, 2019, 03:21:58 PM »
We're clearly inside a black hole watching the energetic em storm being brought to order by integration of all it's information and the shock into conciousness that the phase shift to singularity caused. Give it another week, in outside time, and it'll all start to make sense. Though from here we should be able to see the axis of rotation if not the backs of our heads.

Ranman99

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #207 on: November 06, 2019, 01:36:18 PM »
;-) It will happen but no sense is true sense ;-)
😎

vox_mundi

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #208 on: November 06, 2019, 06:25:28 PM »


A new mosaic of the southern sky produced from a year of observations by NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS)
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

vox_mundi

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #209 on: November 07, 2019, 04:13:40 PM »
Galactic Order Emerges from Chaos
https://phys.org/news/2019-11-galactic-fountains-carousels-emerging-chaos.html

Scientists from Germany and the United States have unveiled the results of a newly-completed, state of the art simulation of the evolution of galaxies. TNG50 is the most detailed large-scale cosmological simulation yet. It allows researchers to study in detail how galaxies form, and how they have evolved since shortly after the Big Bang. For the first time, it reveals that the geometry of the cosmic gas flows around galaxies determines galaxies' structures, and vice versa. The researchers publish their results in two papers in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

... In a simulated cube of space that is more than 230 million light-years across, TNG50 can discern physical phenomena that occur on scales one million times smaller, tracing the simultaneous evolution of thousands of galaxies over 13.8 billion years of cosmic history.



The formation of a single massive galaxy through time, from early cosmic epochs until the present day, in the TNG50 cosmic simulation. The main panel shows the density of the cosmic gas (high in white, low in black). Insets show large-scale dark matter and then gas (lower left), and small-scale stellar and gaseous distributions (lower right). This TNG50 galaxy will be similar in mass and shape to Andromeda (M31) by the time the movie reaches the current epoch. Its progenitor experiences rapid star formation in a turbulent gas reservoir which settles into an ordered disc after a couple of billion years of cosmic evolution. A rather quiet late time assembly history without major mergers allows the galaxy to relax into an equilibrium balance of gas outflows from supernova explosions and gas accretion from its surroundings

Annalisa Pillepich et al. First results from the TNG50 simulation: the evolution of stellar and gaseous discs across cosmic time, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (2019)

Dylan Nelson et al. First results from the TNG50 simulation: galactic outflows driven by supernovae and black hole feedback, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (2019)
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

vox_mundi

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #210 on: November 08, 2019, 05:39:50 PM »
Researchers Investigate Interstellar Bodies Originating from Beyond Our Solar System
https://phys.org/news/2019-11-interstellar-bodies-solar.html



The Dynamics of Interstellar Asteroids and Comets within the Galaxy: an Assessment of Local Candidate Source Regions for 1I/`Oumuamua and 2I/Borisov

-------------------------------------

Hubble Captures a Dozen Sunburst Arc Doppelgangers
https://phys.org/news/2019-11-hubble-captures-dozen-sunburst-arc.html

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have observed a galaxy in the distant regions of the Universe which appears duplicated at least 12 times on the night sky. This unique sight, created by strong gravitational lensing, helps astronomers get a better understanding of the cosmic era known as the epoch of reionisation.

« Last Edit: November 08, 2019, 05:54:01 PM by vox_mundi »
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

vox_mundi

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #211 on: November 12, 2019, 09:57:32 PM »
With Mars Methane Mystery Unsolved, Curiosity Serves Scientists a New One: Oxygen
https://phys.org/news/2019-11-mars-methane-mystery-unsolved-curiosity.html



Over the course of three Mars years (or nearly six Earth years) an instrument in the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) portable chemistry lab inside the belly of NASA's Curiosity rover inhaled the air of Gale Crater and analyzed its composition. The results SAM spit out confirmed the makeup of the Martian atmosphere at the surface: 95% by volume of carbon dioxide (CO2), 2.6% molecular nitrogen (N2), 1.9% argon (Ar), 0.16% molecular oxygen (O2), and 0.06% carbon monoxide (CO). They also revealed how the molecules in the Martian air mix and circulate with the changes in air pressure throughout the year. These changes are caused when CO2 gas freezes over the poles in the winter, thereby lowering the air pressure across the planet following redistribution of air to maintain pressure equilibrium. When CO2 evaporates in the spring and summer and mixes across Mars, it raises the air pressure.

Within this environment, scientists found that nitrogen and argon follow a predictable seasonal pattern, waxing and waning in concentration in Gale Crater throughout the year relative to how much CO2 is in the air. They expected oxygen to do the same. But it didn't. Instead, the amount of the gas in the air rose throughout spring and summer by as much as 30%, and then dropped back to levels predicted by known chemistry in fall. This pattern repeated each spring, though the amount of oxygen added to the atmosphere varied, implying that something was producing it and then taking it away.

Quote
... "We're struggling to explain this," ... "The fact that the oxygen behavior isn't perfectly repeatable every season makes us think that it's not an issue that has to do with atmospheric dynamics. It has to be some chemical source and sink that we can't yet account for."

- Melissa Trainer - planetary scientist - NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

... They considered the possibility that CO2 or water (H2O) molecules could have released oxygen when they broke apart in the atmosphere, leading to the short-lived rise. But it would take five times more water above Mars to produce the extra oxygen, and CO2 breaks up too slowly to generate it over such a short time. What about the oxygen decrease? Could solar radiation have broken up oxygen molecules into two atoms that blew away into space? No, scientists concluded, since it would take at least 10 years for the oxygen to disappear through this process.

"We have not been able to come up with one process yet that produces the amount of oxygen we need, but we think it has to be something in the surface soil that changes seasonally because there aren't enough available oxygen atoms in the atmosphere to create the behavior we see," ... "We're beginning to see this tantalizing correlation between methane and oxygen for a good part of the Mars year," Atreya said. "I think there's something to it. I just don't have the answers yet. Nobody does."

“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

vox_mundi

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #212 on: November 13, 2019, 03:42:35 PM »
NASA's Mars 2020 Will Hunt for Microscopic Fossils
https://phys.org/news/2019-11-nasa-mars-microscopic-fossils.html



Scientists with NASA's Mars 2020 rover have discovered what may be one of the best places to look for signs of ancient life in Jezero Crater, where the rover will land on Feb. 18, 2021.

A paper published today in the journal Icarus identifies distinct deposits of minerals called carbonates along the inner rim of Jezero, the site of a lake more than 3.5 billion years ago. On Earth, carbonates help form structures that are hardy enough to survive in fossil form for billions of years, including seashells, coral and some stromatolites—rocks formed on this planet by ancient microbial life along ancient shorelines, where sunlight and water were plentiful.

... "The orbiter's Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars instrument, or CRISM, spotted carbonates here years ago, but we only recently noticed how concentrated they are right where a lakeshore would be," said the paper's lead author, Briony Horgan of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. "We're going to encounter carbonate deposits in many locations throughout the mission, but the bathtub ring will be one of the most exciting places to visit."

The possibility of stromatolite-like structures existing on Mars is why the concentration of carbonates tracing Jezero's shoreline like a bathtub ring makes the area a prime scientific hunting ground.


Color has been added to highlight minerals in this image of Jezero Crater on Mars, the landing site for NASA's Mars 2020 mission. The green color represents minerals called carbonates, which are especially good at preserving fossilized life on Earth.

Jezero's former lake shoreline isn't the only place scientists are excited to visit. A new study in Geophysical Research Letters points to a rich deposit of hydrated silica on the edge of the ancient river delta. Like carbonates, this mineral excels at preserving signs of ancient life. If this location proves to be the bottom layer of the delta, it will be an especially good place to look for buried microbial fossils.
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

Tor Bejnar

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #213 on: November 13, 2019, 03:43:19 PM »
Japan's Hayabusa-2 spacecraft has departed from a faraway asteroid and begun its yearlong journey back to Earth.
Quote
...
The Hayabusa-2 is expected to return to Earth in December 2020, dropping a capsule containing the rock samples in the South Australian desert.
...
While asteroids are some of the oldest objects in space, Ryugu belongs to a particularly primitive type of space rock, and may contain clues about the conditions and chemistry of the early days of the Solar System - some 4.5 billion years ago.
[1st link to BBC article; 2nd link to Wikipedia article]
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blumenkraft

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #214 on: November 13, 2019, 07:53:47 PM »
Amazing!

Sigmetnow

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #215 on: November 16, 2019, 03:10:41 PM »
Would be good to have the capability for multiple flexible intercept missions for events such as this....

Quote
Galactic Curiosity (@GalacCuriosity) 11/13/19, 9:44 PM
Near miss of earth and moon of asteroid apophis in 10 years
https://twitter.com/galaccuriosity/status/1194808274081796096
Image below. Gif at the link.
The blue dot is earth, the yellow dot is the moon.

Tip: read “Seven Eves.”  And/or the Twitter comments.
People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.

vox_mundi

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #216 on: November 16, 2019, 05:13:26 PM »
NASA Is Building a 3D Printer in Space!
https://www.engadget.com/2019/07/14/nasa-backs-3d-printed-spacecraft-part-demo/



NASA announced that it has awarded a $73.7 million contract to Made in Space, Inc to “demonstrate the ability of a small spacecraft, called Archinaut One, to manufacture and assemble spacecraft components in low-Earth orbit.”
  • ... Archinaut One is expected to launch on a Rocket Lab Electron rocket from New Zealand no earlier than 2022. Once it’s positioned in low-Earth orbit, the spacecraft will 3D-print two beams that extend 32 feet (10 meters) out from each side of the spacecraft. As manufacturing progresses, each beam will unfurl two solar arrays that generate as much as five times more power than traditional solar panels on spacecraft of similar size.”
NASA says benefits would include:
  • Enabling remote, in-space construction of communications antennae, large-scale space telescopes and other complex structures
  • Enabling small satellites to deploy large surface area power systems and reflectors that currently are reserved for larger satellites
  • Eliminating spacecraft volume limits imposed by rockets
  • Avoiding the inherent risk of spacewalks by performing some tasks currently completed by astronauts



« Last Edit: November 16, 2019, 06:12:36 PM by vox_mundi »
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vox_mundi

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #217 on: November 18, 2019, 06:17:28 PM »
Hibernating Astronauts Need Smaller Spacecraft
https://phys.org/news/2019-11-hibernating-astronauts-smaller-spacecraft.html

In movies from 2001: A Space Odyssey to Event Horizon, Alien to Passengers, fictional astronauts get put into "suspended animation" to cross the vastness of space. Now ESA has investigated how real life crew hibernation would impact space mission design.

Human hibernation has been the subject of initial research within the Discovery element of ESA's Basic Activities, then recommended as a key "enabling technology" for space by the Agency's Future Technology Advisory Panel, resulting in a dedicated "Topical Team" on hibernation.

Now the Agency's SciSpacE team has called in ESA's Concurrent Design Facility—a multimedia facility enabling expert teams to perform initial evaluations of proposed future missions—to assess the advantages of human hibernation for a trip to a neighboring planet, such as Mars.



... "We looked at how an astronaut team could be best put into hibernation, what to do in case of emergencies, how to handle human safety and even what impact hibernation would have on the psychology of the team. Finally we created an initial sketch of the habitat architecture and created a roadmap to achieve a validated approach to hibernate humans to Mars within 20 years."

The study found the spacecraft mass could be reduced by a third by removing the crew quarters with a similar reduction in consumables, equivalent to several tons of saved mass. Hibernation would take place in small individual pods that would double as cabins while the crew are awake.

The assumption was that a drug would be administered to induce "torpor"—the term for the hibernating state. Like hibernating animals, the astronauts would be expected to acquire extra body fat in advance of torpor. Their soft-shell pods would be darkened and their temperature greatly reduced to cool their occupants during their projected 180-day Earth-Mars cruise.

Quote
... With all the crew incapacitated for extended periods of time, the mission would have to be designed for largely autonomous operations, with optimum use of artificial intelligence and "fault detection, isolation and recovery" to maintain a minimum level of system performance until the crew could be revived.



... and we all know how that worked out for the crew of the Prometheus ... Sleep tight

G. Petit et al. Hibernation and Torpor: Prospects for Human Spaceflight, Handbook of Life Support Systems for Spacecraft and Extraterrestrial Habitats (2018)

“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

Tor Bejnar

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #218 on: November 18, 2019, 07:49:40 PM »
Just 'do away' with the people, and send just AI-bots to Mars - thus room for more technology or redundancy.  There is not much that we can do wearing a space suit that a robot cannot do. (Or, in fact, without one.)

And if you want pictures of people on Mars, fake it; the naysayers will say it's fake anyway!   :o ::)


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philopek

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #219 on: November 18, 2019, 09:35:15 PM »
Hibernating Astronauts Need Smaller Spacecraft

They should know better:

Hybernation is only needed for very long interstellar flights and under such conditions shielding from radiation is one of the most important and most difficult tasks because mass/weight is needed to achieve it meaningfully/effectively and therefore, no matter what the disconnected task of hybernation asks for, smaller spacecraft can impossibly perform as far as protection from radiation is concerned.

In fact spacecraft for interstellar space travel at current tech standards have to be much larger and much heavier to shield the crew. Opinions differ but something around 2M of Rock or an equivlalent is needed and everyone can imagine the mass that means to accelerate as well as to decelerate, not even mentioning the ever larger amounts of fuel needed for every excess ton.

In case those guys try to be serious, they are a good example for what happens if we pick a problem and solve it without considering all other tasks/needs/problems that have to be
taken care of simultaneously.

Of course in case that we take another matierial than rock, the necessary volume would shrink not significantly so the mass/weight because all materierials that shield better than rock are heavier than rock.

My english skills do not allow to go much deeper into this, those who are more privy with the terms needed, like for example "specific weight" and more, can easily reproduce how heavy a shilding from i.e. lead would be, compared to rock/stone, not much difference in weight, only in volume.

Other solutions than "heavy matter" will consume huge amounts of energy, i.e. plasma or magnetic shielding, hence mass of matter will be taken by mass for fuel, no matter what kind and further going tech is not yet ready which is why i mentioned above "at current tech standards"

https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/284275main_Radiation_HS_Mod3.pdf

https://www.wired.com/2016/02/space-is-cold-vast-and-deadly-humans-will-explore-it-anyway/

http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2015/ph241/clark1/

« Last Edit: November 19, 2019, 06:25:21 PM by philopek »

gerontocrat

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #220 on: November 18, 2019, 10:10:13 PM »
With our current technology, I still reckon that for humankind - there is no Planet B
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vox_mundi

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #221 on: November 18, 2019, 11:14:50 PM »
Visit Mars; come back a drooling idiot...

A Mission to Mars Could Cause Serious Brain Damage
https://www.google.com/amp/s/spectrum.ieee.org/the-human-os/aerospace/space-flight/mission-to-mars-could-cause-serious-brain-damage.amp.html

Space is a dangerous place. A new report shows just how dangerous it could be to human brains. Radiation exposure from a Mars missions could cook brain cells, causing chronic dementia and memory loss, and leaving astronauts with debilitating anxiety levels, the study has found. This could throw off their thinking and judgment, impairing decision-making and multi-tasking.

The results, published in Scientific Reports, are based on experiments in rodents. Radiation oncologist Charles Limoli and his colleagues at the University of California Irvine bombarded mice and rats with low-doses of ionized oxygen or titanium. These charged particles have similar energies to those of cosmic rays that can pass right through the shielding on spacecraft. The dosage levels that the researchers used were similar to what astronauts would be exposed to during a three-year round-trip mission to Mars, Limoli says.

... Going to Mars is a whole different beast than a trip to the moon or the ISS. NASA has been researching the risks of long-haul missions to the red planet and beyond. Limoli’s US $9 million project to investigate how cosmic radiation affects astronauts’ cognition is part of NASA’s Human Research Program.

A six-week study done by the group last year showed similar results. The latest findings, 12 and 24 weeks of measurement, show the long-term nature of brain damage from space travel. “What’s most surprising is how persistent some of the changes to the structure of neurons are,” Limoli says. He adds that his group has unpublished data showing that these effects last for a year.

http://www.nature.com/articles/srep34774

----------------------------

NASA Hiring Engineers to Develop “Next Generation Humanoid Robot”
https://www.google.com/amp/s/spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/space-robots/nasa-hiring-engineers-to-develop-next-generation-humanoid-robot.amp.html

NASA Hep Wanted Ad:
Quote
... Work directly with NASA Johnson Space Center in designing the next generation of humanoid robot.

Join the Valkyrie humanoid robot team in NASA’s Robotic Systems Technology Branch.

Build on the success of the existing Valkyrie and Robonaut 2 humanoid robots and advance NASA’s ability to project a remote human presence and dexterous manipulation capability into challenging, dangerous, and distant environments both in space and here on earth.


Valkyrie humanoid robot on Mars


Valkyrie humanoid robot on board spacecraft
« Last Edit: November 18, 2019, 11:35:11 PM by vox_mundi »
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #222 on: November 19, 2019, 01:15:59 AM »
Quote
Hibernating Astronauts Need Smaller Spacecraft

Astronauts on the International Space Station exercise aggressively for two hours every day to prevent muscle, bone and circulatory wasting that occurs even with moderate daily activity during extended stays in weightlessness.  After a few months in space hibernation, I imagine astronauts would essentially be invalids.  They certainly wouldn’t be able to handle planetary gravity.
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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #223 on: November 19, 2019, 01:30:22 AM »
So drooling idiot - invalids, then.  :o. or ....

-------------------------------------


Artificial gravity
« Last Edit: November 19, 2019, 01:42:54 AM by vox_mundi »
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #224 on: November 19, 2019, 04:40:12 AM »
So drooling idiot - invalids, then.  :o. or ....

-------------------------------------
...
Artificial gravity

Better.  But even at 1G on earth, after being bed-ridden and comatose for months, I wouldn’t expect anyone to be able to jump up and handle an emergency on short notice....  Significant assistance and recuperation time would be required. 
Would probably need everyone to have a trial run of hibernation before leaving for space, to check their body’s reaction to it....
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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #225 on: November 19, 2019, 08:21:10 AM »
With our current technology, I still reckon that for humankind - there is no Planet B
Raman !
It's not clear to me that manned interplanetary travel will ever take place. We've little time for the extravagant displays of technological showboating that drove the "Race to the Moon". A feat that hasn't been repeated since the Soviet's completed Egypt's Aswan Dam, gasoline cost $0.40/gal. and NPR began broadcasting.

Nixon was President, the Pentagon Papers were leaked eroding support for the Vietnam War, China was admitted to the UN and a new Dodge Charger cost $3,579.00. 1971 was an eventful year in Space, the Soviets and the US orbited Mars and the Soviets managed a short lived soft landing. The US completed their final manned moon mission, and the Soviets manned the world's 1st space station (and suffered their last space deaths).

AI and robotics have improved immeasurably since 1971. If we need to explore, or extract minerals, or do damn near anything else on another planet we can do it without the need for humans. Even an irradiated earth is vastly more hospitable to human life than any other planet.

Planet B simply isn't an option - at any time.
Terry

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #226 on: November 19, 2019, 03:30:10 PM »
Totally agree, Terry!
Arctic ice is healthy for children and other living things because "we cannot negotiate with the melting point of ice"

Sigmetnow

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #227 on: November 19, 2019, 04:34:06 PM »
Quote
AI and robotics have improved immeasurably since 1971. If we need to explore, or extract minerals, or do damn near anything else on another planet we can do it without the need for humans.

Humans don’t need to climb mountains, either.  But some do it anyway.  We don’t need to write more books, or compose more songs, or create more art.  Luckily, some artists and adventurers need new challenges, and they make life here on earth a bit more worthwhile.  Unless you believe we are living in a simulation, the human need to reach farther than they can currently grasp is an ingrained (and healthy) part of the species.

https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,2582.msg237422.html#msg237422
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philopek

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #228 on: November 19, 2019, 06:32:28 PM »
With our current technology, I still reckon that for humankind - there is no Planet B
Raman !
It's not clear to me that manned interplanetary travel will ever take place.

This all depends what is meant with "ever"

While i think i get your meaning and ever is meant to say "any time soon" and i agree, ever is only right if mankind does not survive the next billion years.

I'm not trying to have an opinion, that would be somehow futile, whether mankind will be still around in 1 billion years, but IF "we" are still around we shall HAVE to go, before the great heat up and ultimate digestion of planet earth by the red giant the sun will become.

I'm not saying the number o 1B is a straight valid number, just an approximate time in time when we shall seriously have to do some building, developing and testing to be capable once we have to space travel to survive.

https://phys.org/news/2015-02-sun-wont-die-billion-years.html

https://www.universetoday.com/12648/will-earth-survive-when-the-sun-becomes-a-red-giant/

https://phys.org/news/2016-05-earth-survive-sun-red-giant.html

Sigmetnow

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #229 on: November 21, 2019, 03:27:34 AM »
The video is fun, and detailed; the article covers its main points....

How NASA will bake in space for the first time and why that’s a BIG deal!
Quote
On November 2nd, 2019, Northrop Grumman performed a spaceflight first, and launched an oven aboard their Cygnus Cargo Ship on a resupply mission to the International Space Station for NASA. The spacecraft contained just over 3,700 kg of scientific experiments, vehicle hardware, and crew supplies, along with a variety of other important space stuff.

But included on this flight was a space first. An oven. And not just any oven, but a custom zero g oven developed by Nanoracks, a leading provider of commercial access to space, that will be used to bake the first food in space – the DoubleTree chocolate chip cookie.

So today, I thought we should do a history of space food, figure out why we haven’t ever baked anything in space before, and learn from the experts on how DoubleTree by Hilton, the sponsor of this article, will actually bake their cookies on the International Space Station. ...
https://everydayastronaut.com/cookies-in-space/

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TerryM

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #230 on: November 21, 2019, 04:36:37 AM »
philopek
I don't believe we've a lot of time left before were faced with a horrific catastrophe. I don't think it kills everyone, but I do believe it's the end of the of the civilization cycle that we're in. By the time hominids again reach a stage where space travel is possible they won't be Homo Sapiens any longer. Evolution leaps about after a "Great Die Off", and I think we're just about due for one.


Whatever succeeds us will have a much harder time making 'progress' than our ancestors had, simply because we've picked all of the low hanging fruit. It took us ~ 10k yrs. to get from the end of the old stone age (paleolithic), to where we are in an "information" age, but we did it with abundant coal, copper, and oil that was pooling on the surface, ready for use to seal early sailboats - before we discovered how valuable it could become as liquid fuel. The beasties that we father may even be brighter than ourselves, but they'll have none of our advantages and it will take them much longer (if ever) to reach our stage of development.


I think they'll reach a paleolithic level with no particular problems. (We did leave plenty of knappable rocks). :) But the neolithic will be more difficult with the lack of diverse species, the poisoning of large swaths of land, and much of the oceans still (hopefully) recovering. The copper age, bronze age and iron ages are steps that they'll need to circumvent, and it's difficult to imagine an industrial age without coal, copper or iron.


If they do follow our lead and look quizzically towards space, it will take many eons to get there, many more that it took our species, and we probably wouldn't recognize them as our descendants. We certainly wouldn't view them as being human.


Sorry about the rambling, but I craved a distraction from Spacex. ::)
Terry


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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #231 on: November 21, 2019, 07:51:21 AM »
Thanks for that Terry. That view for the most part is my view as well. Great that you can think like that :).
A good prepper has to learn paleolithic skills. Not just the technology but also all knowledge of living nature.

I think this whole space travel dream is just that. High tech dreams (nightmares) everywhere ;). After collapse, humans or another lifeform will never again venture into space in my view. It has been a short, interesting and insanely destructive period.

Is civilisation able to return to the age of reason and enlightenment? It is moving away from that at interstellar speed. It has seen the ultimate cliff up ahead and chose to shut it's eyes and it's ears to dream of space travel and robot servants.
"It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly" - Bertrand Russell
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philopek

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #232 on: November 21, 2019, 06:54:56 PM »
philopek
I don't believe we've a lot of time left before were faced with a horrific catastrophe. I don't think it kills everyone, but I do believe it's the end of the of the civilization cycle that we're in. By the time hominids again reach a stage where space travel is possible they won't be Homo Sapiens any longer. Evolution leaps about after a "Great Die Off", and I think we're just about due for one.


Whatever succeeds us will have a much harder time making 'progress' than our ancestors had, simply because we've picked all of the low hanging fruit. It took us ~ 10k yrs. to get from the end of the old stone age (paleolithic), to where we are in an "information" age, but we did it with abundant coal, copper, and oil that was pooling on the surface, ready for use to seal early sailboats - before we discovered how valuable it could become as liquid fuel. The beasties that we father may even be brighter than ourselves, but they'll have none of our advantages and it will take them much longer (if ever) to reach our stage of development.


I think they'll reach a paleolithic level with no particular problems. (We did leave plenty of knappable rocks). But the neolithic will be more difficult with the lack of diverse species, the poisoning of large swaths of land, and much of the oceans still (hopefully) recovering. The copper age, bronze age and iron ages are steps that they'll need to circumvent, and it's difficult to imagine an industrial age without coal, copper or iron.


If they do follow our lead and look quizzically towards space, it will take many eons to get there, many more that it took our species, and we probably wouldn't recognize them as our descendants. We certainly wouldn't view them as being human.


Sorry about the rambling, but I craved a distraction from Spacex.
Terry

Agree 99% except that i'm an hopeless optimist ;)

hence I rarely lose hope entirely and certainly don't tend to give up on worthy goals.

Now the question remains, is our survival a worthy goal? I've got my doubts about that too unfortunately and this is not due to our environmental sins alone, but due to the reasons behind
our attitudes and doings.

Somehow we are the only animal that is smart enough to circumvent to many consequences for too long so that we not only are capable to extinct ourselves but the rest with us.

Hope dies last as most of times ;)

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #233 on: November 21, 2019, 09:00:53 PM »
Thanks for that philopek :). I'm thinking along the same lines.
"It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly" - Bertrand Russell
"It is preoccupation with what other people from your groups think of you, that prevents you from living freely and nobly" - Nanning
Why do you keep accumulating stuff?

TerryM

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #234 on: November 22, 2019, 04:57:50 AM »
Nothing the matter with hope.


Though we probably don't want any strong emotion clouding our intellect.
That's something that might prove helpful to pass on to the coming generations. They're liable to need to make a lot of clearly thought out decisions.


Terry

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #235 on: November 22, 2019, 09:16:42 PM »
Ufology: From Fringe Field To Serious Science
https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/research/a29875104/ufo-research-evolution/

For decades, academic researchers have dismissed the study of UFOs as pseudoscience. But as the evidence becomes harder and harder to ignore, some organizations are finally taking steps to make the field legitimate.

... Take Richard Hoffman, a 25-year information technology expert on contract with the U.S. Army’s Material Command at the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama. As a Senior Lead Architect, he keeps the Army’s digital infrastructure running and safe from attack.

He’s also a UFO researcher.

“Many scientists do have interests in the phenomena, but are most often discouraged by others to embrace it so they hide it.”

Hoffman is one of three board members who run a nonprofit scientific organization known as the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies (SCU). Unknown or unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) is the current rebranding of unidentified flying objects (UFO), a term that many believe to carry too much cultural baggage.

The SCU played a significant role in studying the Nimitz UFO Encounter, when it released a nearly 300-page report on the incident

https://www.explorescu.org/papers/categories/scu-science-papers

https://www.explorescu.org/post/nimitz_strike_group_2004

PDF: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WgURI1Fzrkij3utVvcPISGTyEUNX4Z0J/view

The SCU paper examined the available public data and testimony available regarding the case and concluded that the “results suggest that given the available information, the AAV’s capabilities are beyond any known technology.”

To be clear, the SCU hasn’t concluded that some non-human intelligence is responsible. Fully aware of the significant gaps in data, the organization has suggested that “the public release of all Navy records associated with this incident to enable a full, scientific and open investigation is strongly recommended.”

So who makes up the 69 active members of the SCU, exactly? Mostly scientists, former military officers, and former law enforcement personnel with technical experience and investigative backgrounds, Powell says. And the credentials are impressive: Try “two current and one former NASA PhDs, and members with backgrounds that include Lockheed, NORAD, and the U.S. Space Command,” he says.

“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

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Tom_Mazanec

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #236 on: November 22, 2019, 09:49:56 PM »
Quote
Hoffman is one of three board members who run a nonprofit scientific organization known as the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies (SCU). Unknown or unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) is the current rebranding of unidentified flying objects (UFO), a term that many believe to carry too much cultural baggage.
Just as UFO replaced "flying saucer" or "flying disk" back in the day.

philopek

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #237 on: November 23, 2019, 01:36:15 AM »
this would be a long one to be precise, hence i try to make it short.

- take the age of the univers

- discount the time needed for metals to be generated and spread throughout the univers
In astronomy, metallicity is used to describe the abundance of elements present in an object that are heavier than hydrogen or helium. ... These became commonly known as Population I (metal-rich) and Population II (metal-poor) stars

- discount the best-case number of years necessary to develop intelligent life

- discount the best-case number of years necessary for intelligent life-forms to develop the technology needed for space travel

- discount the best case number of years to for intelligent life-forms to develop the technology for interstellar space travel.

- discount the minimum years necessary to reach a significant number of potential earth like planets at close to light speed and calculate the time needed at realistic velocities how they are possible today or are at least a possible future technology and be aware that the fast the journey will be in your assumption the more time you will have to calculate for the time needed to develop the underlaying technology.

If you make above calculation only half very seriously, you will reach a result that tells us that there cannot be any UFOs visiting us, showing themselves on one hand but avoiding contact on the other hand.

All this can be considered proven to be not possible on the given time scale and that said, we can sit down and search for realistic explanations for all the unexplained stuff the makes some of us think that extraterrestrial life forms in space ships (aliens) are and have been visiting us for and since centuries.

I repeat, calculate minimum time needed and put the result into relation with the development of the universe, how many solar life cycles are necessary to provide the necessary elements, create rocky planets, create life on those and develop that life to a level that can achieve all that's needed to travel that long and that far and even then they can't be here at realistically achievable speeds.

Also you have to put into account that the faster a spaceship travels the heavier it becomes and then the thing has to be decelerated in time, over thousands of years to reach a manageable speed close to the target and then the target has to be KNOWN on launch.

As sure as I am that there are probably many many other life forms populating the universe, as sure am I, (and of course others who prefer maths and physics over wishful thinking), that even though aliens (life forms) most probably exist, they can't be here yet, even in case they would be on their way for a few hundred thousand years by now ;) ;)

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #238 on: November 24, 2019, 12:48:16 PM »
Earth could have been tagged as a planet with life billions of years ago by aliens with pretty good satellites.

There is enough wiggle room in points 3 to 5 not to rule that out.

But what then? Do you send a ´space cruiser´ with some ´scout saucers´with pilots to look at it detail?
Probably not because space travel takes a lot of time even if you are really quick.

So you can send probes. A solar sail and a tiny high tech computer with a quantum entangled transmitter and some scanning tech beyond our wildest dreams.

The travel time point is interesting. We would be more interesting as a research target if we move nearer to their planet over time.

So i don´t think we can rule out aliens but there is no reason why they would fly around in the atmosphere or visit in person so these UFOs are something else.
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Tom_Mazanec

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #239 on: November 24, 2019, 03:33:07 PM »
The Fermi Paradox, as it is now usually considered, is why have we not been contacted by a probe which is both a Bracewell Probe and a Von Neumann Probe. Everything we have sent beyond the orbit of Saturn was a crude Bracewell Probe (the Pioneer plaque, the Voyager record, the New Horizons Message) and a Von Neumann Probe would just need an AI with the IQ of a bacterium and could reach every star in the Milky Way in an astronomical moment.

Sigmetnow

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #240 on: November 25, 2019, 04:57:01 PM »
NASA Rockets Study Why Tech Goes Haywire Near Poles
Quote
“Most of Earth is shielded from the solar wind,” said Mark Conde, space physicist as the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. “But right near the poles, in the midday sector, our magnetic field becomes a funnel where the solar wind can get all the way down to the atmosphere.”

These funnels, known as the polar cusps, can cause some trouble. The influx of solar wind disturbs the atmosphere, disrupting satellites and radio and GPS signals. Beginning Nov. 25, 2019, three new NASA-supported missions will launch into the northern polar cusp, aiming to improve the technology affected by it.

The three missions are all part of the Grand Challenge Initiative – Cusp, a series of nine sounding rocket missions exploring the polar cusp. Sounding rockets are a type of space vehicle that makes 15-minute flights into space before falling back to Earth. Standing up to 65 feet tall and flying anywhere from 20 to 800 miles high, sounding rockets can be aimed and fired at moving targets with only a few minutes notice. This flexibility and precision make them ideal for capturing the strange phenomena inside the cusp.

Two of the three upcoming missions will study the same anomaly: a patch of atmosphere inside the cusp notably denser than its surroundings. It was discovered in 2004, when scientists noticed that part of the atmosphere inside the cusp was about 1.5 times heavier than expected.

“A little extra mass 200 miles up might seem like no big deal,” said Conde, the principal investigator for the Cusp Region Experiment-2, or CREX-2, mission. "But the pressure change associated with this increased mass density, if it occurred at ground level, would cause a continuous hurricane stronger than anything seen in meteorological records.”

This additional mass creates problems for spacecraft flying through it, like the many satellites that follow a polar orbit. Passing through the dense patch can shake up their trajectories, making close encounters with other spacecraft or orbital debris riskier than they would otherwise be.


“A small change of a few hundred meters can make the difference between having to do an evasive maneuver, or not,” Conde said. ...
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2019/nasa-rockets-study-why-tech-goes-haywire-near-poles
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kassy

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #241 on: November 25, 2019, 05:31:06 PM »
Cool - there is so much we do not know.  :)

PS: Tom Von Neumann Probes are primitive swarmers and as thus frowned upon by all civilized species. Another general rule of etiquette is to not contact civilizations which have not figured it out yet which is why no one calls us. Now please look at the flashing pencil. 8)
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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #242 on: December 03, 2019, 04:55:57 PM »
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #243 on: December 04, 2019, 11:06:16 PM »
The Russian State has embarked on a genocide of Ukrainians that is supported by the owner of this forum

kassy

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #244 on: December 06, 2019, 03:02:39 PM »
Eruptions on Asteroid Bennu Hint at Causes of Space Rock Explosions

...

The three largest eruptions happened in the late afternoon on Bennu, in places where the sun was about to set. This finding suggests that heating may play a role in these outbursts, as surface temperatures on Bennu can vary by 180 degrees Fahrenheit (100 degrees Celsius) every 4.3 hours, the scientists said. Although the researchers have not seen ice on Bennu, they have detected rich amounts of water-bearing minerals on its surface, and heat from the sun might lead to releases of gas. Another possibility is that such extreme temperature variations may lead boulders to crack and catastrophically burst. Finally, the researchers suggested that meteorite impacts might also cause these explosions.

These findings suggest that all carbonaceous asteroids may be active. "We didn't see this when [the Japanese space agency's spacecraft] Hayabusa2 arrived at the asteroid Ryugu, but maybe we didn't look close enough," Connolly said. "This may be a new way for meteorites to get to Earth."

The main purpose of OSIRIS-REx is to collect a sample from the surface of Bennu in 2020 and return it to Earth for analysis in 2023

https://www.space.com/asteroid-bennu-eruptions-cause.html

3 more years before we get the sample. Space stuff is slow.  :)
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blumenkraft

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #245 on: December 08, 2019, 08:46:38 PM »
New Research Explains Black Holes, Time Travel and White Holes


kassy

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #246 on: December 14, 2019, 12:02:52 PM »
Astronomers have discovered 19 more galaxies missing their dark matter. Instead of dark matter, these strange galaxies are mainly filled with regular matter, like the protons, neutrons, and electrons that make up everything we're familiar with.

The new find, published November 26 in Nature Astronomy, bolsters the controversial recent discovery of two other galaxies without dark matter. The mysterious substance accounts for most matter in the universe, and it's thought to be the primary component of all galaxies — as well as the main driver of galaxy formation in the first place. So, finding so many galaxies without the exotic matter suggests astronomers are missing something major about how galaxies form and evolve.

https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/scientists-find-even-more-galaxies-in-the-universe-without-any-dark-matter

The new ones are dwarf galaxies. See posts 72 and 81 before.
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johnm33

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #247 on: December 14, 2019, 05:56:19 PM »
I can't help but think that had they only known about the heliospheric current sheet when founding the model for galaxies they may have elected for a more electrifying  design. That would be something like, oppositely charged plasma is ejected, in two streams, directly away from a rapidly spinning 'plasmoid' and continues on it's path contained by its self generated charge field, only slowing into apparent orbit once it coalesces and achieves a certain level of negative charge relative to it's containment 'arm'. Of course this would mean the search for dark matter has been and will remain a waste of resources.

vox_mundi

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Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #248 on: December 16, 2019, 04:57:36 PM »
2017 Meteor was a 'Grazing Fireball'
https://phys.org/news/2019-12-meteor-grazing-fireball.html

Back in 2017, a meteor tore through the atmosphere over Australia. It was notable for its duration—it lasted for approximately a minute and a half. In this new effort, the researchers have found that the object was a meteor for just a short period of time—it never struck the Earth. Instead, the object headed back out into space. Such meteors are known as grazing fireballs because they only graze the Earth's atmosphere rather than plunge through it. This is possible due to the angle at which it approaches. Like a rock that skips off the surface of a lake rather than plunging in, a meteoroid can skip off the atmosphere if its angle is very small.


Long exposure images of event DN170707_01. The event lasted over 90 seconds and spanned four 30 second exposures (A, B, C, D). The fireball was first observed at 85 km altitude, reached as low as 58 km, and then was visible until 86 km before escaping the Earth’s atmosphere. The initial velocity was 16.1 km s−1 , and the exit velocity after passing through the atmosphere was about 14.6 km s−1 . The images are all oriented so that the fireball travels from left to right (west to east).

The researchers report that the 2017 grazing fireball traveled across the sky at approximately 35,000 miles per hour and lit up the sky for approximately 808 miles—and slowed by approximately 0.9 miles per hour during its time in our atmosphere. It also reached a minimum height of just 58.5 kilometers. They also estimated that the space rock had a diameter of approximately 12 inches and weighed approximately 60 kilograms. They noted that the scorching endured by the rock was enough to force some pieces of it to break off during its fiery trip. The researchers say that the space rock will likely remain in its orbit around the sun for approximately 200,000 years before being ejected from the solar system.

https://arxiv.org/abs/1912.01895

-----------------------------------------

Physicist Proposes a New Approach in Modeling the Evolution of the Universe
https://phys.org/news/2019-12-physicist-approach-evolution-universe.html

A physicist from RUDN University has proposed a new theoretical model for the interaction of spinor and gravitational fields. He considered the evolution of the universe within one of the variants of the widespread Bianchi cosmological model. In this case, a change in the calculated field parameters led to changes in the evolution of the universe under consideration.

... "While a non-minimally coupled linear spinor field or a minimally coupled nonlinear spinor field in some cases give rise to an open universe, a non-minimally coupled nonlinear spinor field with the same parameters creates a model that is closed, that is, after reaching a certain maximum value, it begins to decrease, and finally, it shrinks down to the Big Crunch"

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1140%2Fepjp%2Fi2019-12859-7

“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

Pmt111500

  • Guest
Re: Astronomical news
« Reply #249 on: December 24, 2019, 10:41:31 AM »
Hello, flare-stars. Or something else, cometary backlight, transneptunians, other? 100 unexplained disappearances of somethings among star catalogs made in various years.

Merry Christmas, happy new year, and let the rains down in Australia.

The 2016-7 study making rounds again in the net

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/0004-6256/152/3/76
« Last Edit: December 24, 2019, 10:56:01 AM by Pmt111500 »