Space News

Dejan Corovic

As above, so bellow
Yeah, there is another good video about Milky Way, important for life in a galaxy.



It seems that all big galaxies, like ours, spend some tome as quasars. Like every few billion years a galaxy spontaneously turns into quasar. Many galaxies have those strange bulbs bellow and above the galactic disc. It is hypothesized that these bulbs were leftovers from creation of jets that come out from the central black holes. These bulbs were observed in other galaxies and in Milky Way. That means Milky Way was a quasar galaxy some time ago. When galaxy turns into quasar than there is so much radiation than no life can survive anywhere in the galactic disk. Essentially, whole galaxy gets purged. If I remember correctly, galaxy turns into quasar very quickly, in just few years??

This affects a theory that life is more frequent towards the outer 2/3 periphery of the Milky Way. Because, not that long ago, we were speculating that UFOs come from these outer 2/3 of the galactic disc because they would have more time to develop civilizations. If Milky Way was a quasar say 6 billion years ago, than outer 2/3 would be sterilized during the time galaxy spent in quasar mode and aliens wouldn't be on average 3.3 billion years ahead of us to develop superior technology.
 

Toroid

Founding Member

www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIX0W1rFXYI
Published on Nov 25, 2019
After observing a part of the sky near the Southern Constellation of Ara for about two months using MeerKAT, a radio telescope based in the Karoo desert in South Africa, our team of scientists noticed something strange. The radio emission of an object brightened by a factor of three over roughly three weeks.

Intrigued, we continued watching the object and followed this up with observations from other telescopes. We discovered that the unusual flare came from a binary star system – two stars orbiting each other – in our own galaxy. The finding, published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, has, however, turned out to be very difficult to explain.
 

Toroid

Founding Member
Christina Koch now holds the record for the longest time in space by a woman.
https://nypost.com/2020/01/28/this-...-koch-craved-after-record-11-months-in-orbit/
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — After nearly 11 months in orbit, the astronaut holding the record for the longest spaceflight by a woman can’t wait to dig into some salsa and chips, and swim and surf in the Gulf of Mexico.

NASA astronaut Christina Koch told The Associated Press on Tuesday — her 319th consecutive day in space — that taking part in the first all-female spacewalk was the highlight of her mission. She’s been living on the International Space Station since March and returns to Earth on Feb. 6, landing in Kazakhstan with two colleagues aboard a Russian capsule.

Koch said she and fellow astronaut Jessica Meir appreciated that the Oct. 18 spacewalk “could serve as an inspiration for future space explorers.”

“We both drew a lot of inspiration from seeing people that were reflections of ourselves as we were growing up and developing our dreams to become astronauts,” Koch told The Associated Press from the space station.

“So to recognize that maybe we could pay that forward and serve the same for those that are up and coming was just such a highlight.”

Koch’s astronaut class of 2013 was split equally between women and men, but NASA’s astronaut corps as a whole is male-dominated. Right now, four men and two women are living at the space station.
 

nivek

As Above So Below
Trump Signs Order Allowing the U.S. to Mine the Moon, Asteroids and Beyond

The original space race began at the end of World War II when German rocket scientists took their technology to the United States and the Soviet Union. It escalated into a Cold War weaponry competition between these former allies and culminated with what seemed to be a victory by the United States when American citizens were the first to walk on the Moon while Soviet Union struggled to fund their program as the state collapsed.

In what was seen at the time as a show of détente, the two countries began sharing parts of their space programs – a cooperation that continues to this day … well, to April 6, 2020. That’s the day President Trump signed an Executive Order on “Encouraging International Support for the Recovery and Use of Space Resources” allowing the United States to explore, mine and exploit the resources of the Moon, asteroids, other planets and other celestial bodies. Does this mean the race is back on … or is it the first shot of the first space war over territory and treasures?

“Attempts at expropriating outer space and aggressive plans to actually seize territories of other planets hardly set the countries to fruitful cooperation. There have already been examples in history when one country decided to start seizing territories in its interests – everyone remembers what came of it.”

That statement by Sergey Saveliev, Deputy General Director of Roscosmos State Corporation for International Cooperation, hardly sounds like a “You go, Mr. Trump.” He may be referring to this statement in the Executive Order:

“American industry and the industries of like-minded countries will benefit from the establishment of stable international practices by which private citizens, companies and the economy will benefit from expanding the economic sphere of human activity beyond the Earth.”

Russia has hardly been seen as a “like-minded country” by this administration. However, the mining of moon and asteroid resources has been addressed by others before it. In 2015, Congress passed a law specifically allowing American companies and citizens to use moon and asteroid resources. In 1979, the US refused to sign the United Nations’ Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies. Then again, neither did the European Space Agency, Russia, China and Japan. Surprisingly, none of those countries or programs has come up with an official intent to exploit either, leaving a void that this Executive Order jumps into spacesuit-covered feet first.

“The Executive Order also affirms Congress’ intent that Americans should have the right to engage in commercial exploration, recovery, and use of resources in outer space, consistent with applicable law. Outer space is a legally and physically unique domain of human activity, and the United States does not view space as a global commons.”

While the U.S. is still the only country to put humans on the Moon, the list of countries sending satellites, probes, rovers and the like continues to grow. Does having the first footprints give the U.S. “first come, first served” rights? How does this apply to asteroids, where the chance of human visitation is highly unlikely for many years, if ever? Japan, for one, has undertaken a mission to bring samples of an asteroid back to Earth. Does ‘first’ mean ownership? How about biggest? Where is the “encouraging international support” part?

Then there’s the issue of the Space Force. It’s part of the military, not the private sector. Is it possible for countries and businesses to work together with the threat of military intervention pointed at a vital body part?

Like it or not, Russia’s launch and return vehicles are still necessary to the manned portion of the U.S. space program for the foreseeable future. Is it too much to ask to build on that cooperative effort instead of exploiting first and apologizing later?

Would it help if the president spent a few hours watching some old Star Trek episodes?


.
 

nivek

As Above So Below
Hubble observes aftermath of massive collision

What astronomers thought was a planet beyond our solar system, has now seemingly vanished from sight. Astronomers now suggest that a full-grown planet never existed in the first place. The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope had instead observed an expanding cloud of very fine dust particles caused by a titanic collision between two icy asteroid-sized bodies orbiting the bright star Fomalhaut, about 25 light-years from Earth.

"The Fomalhaut system is the ultimate test lab for all of our ideas about how exoplanets and star systems evolve," said George Rieke of the University of Arizona's Steward Observatory. "We do have evidence of such collisions in other systems, but none of this magnitude has ever been observed. This is a blueprint for how planets destroy each other."

The object was previously believed to be a planet, called Fomalhaut b, and was first announced in 2008 based on data taken in 2004 and 2006. It was clearly visible in several years of Hubble observations that revealed it as a moving dot. Unlike other directly imaged exoplanets, nagging puzzles with Fomalhaut b arose early on. The object was unusually bright in visible light, but did not have any detectable infrared heat signature. Astronomers proposed that the added brightness came from a huge shell or ring of dust encircling the object that may have been collision-related. Also, early Hubble observations suggested the object might not be following an elliptical orbit, as planets usually do.

"These collisions are exceedingly rare and so this is a big deal that we actually get to see one," said András Gáspár of the University of Arizona. "We believe that we were at the right place at the right time to have witnessed such an unlikely event with the Hubble Space Telescope."

"Our study, which analysed all available archival Hubble data on Fomalhaut b, including the most recent images taken by Hubble, revealed several characteristics that together paint a picture that the planet-sized object may never have existed in the first place," [1] said Gáspár.

Hubble images from 2014 showed the object had vanished, to the disbelief of the astronomers. Adding to the mystery, earlier images showed the object to continuously fade over time. "Clearly, Fomalhaut b was doing things a bona fide planet should not be doing," said Gáspár.

The resulting interpretation is that Fomalhaut b is not a planet, but a slowly expanding cloud blasted into space as a result of a collision between two large bodies. Researchers believe the collision occurred not too long prior to the first observations taken in 2004. By now the debris cloud, consisting of dust particles around 1 micron (1/50th the diameter of a human hair), is below Hubble's detection limit. The dust cloud is estimated to have expanded by now to a size larger than the orbit of Earth around our Sun.

Equally confounding is that the object is not on an elliptical orbit, as expected for planets, but on an escape trajectory, or hyperbolic path. "A recently created massive dust cloud, experiencing considerable radiative forces from the central star Fomalhaut, would be placed on such a trajectory" Gáspár said, "Our model is naturally able to explain all independant observable paramters of the system: its expansion rate, its fading and its trajectory."

Because Fomalhaut b is presently inside a vast ring of icy debris encircling the star, the colliding bodies were likely a mixture of ice and dust, like the cometary bodies that exist in the Kuiper belt on the outer fringe of our solar system. Gáspár and Rieke estimate that each of these comet-like bodies measured about 200 kilometers across. The also suggest that the Fomalhaut system may experience one of these collision events only every 200 000 years.

Gáspár, Rieke, and other astronomers will also be observing the Fomalhaut system with the upcoming NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, which is scheduled to launch in 2021.

.
 

nivek

As Above So Below
Scientists discover distant 'mirror image' of the Earth and the sun

Scientists have discovered a potentially habitable exoplanet and its star that are a “mirror image” of the Earth and the sun.

Experts from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Göttingen, Germany, led an international team of astronomers in the discovery of the exoplanet-star-pair.

Exoplanet KOI-456.04 is less than twice the size of Earth, but orbits a sun-like star, explains the Max Planck Institute, in a statement. The star is just over 3,000 light-years from the solar system.

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

The research is published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

Scientists used a new search algorithm to discover planet candidate KOI-456.04, which has a 1.9 Earth radii and an orbital period of 378 days. “The surface conditions on KOI-456.04 could be similar to those known on Earth, provided its atmosphere is not too massive and non-Earth-like,” explains the Max Planck Institute, in the statement. “The amount of light received from its host star is about 93 percent of the sunlight received on Earth.”

(more on the link)

.
 

Toroid

Founding Member
China will begin constructing its space station in 2021 - Universe Today
The Chinese space agency is building a brand new space station, and they’re going about it in a suitably impressive way: an ambitious schedule of 11 planned launches crammed into only two years. When it’s done, the 66-ton space station will host crews of three astronauts for up to six months at a time, lasting for a planned 10 years before de-orbiting.

The new station, slated to open for spacey business in 2023, will feature three modules: a main living space and two modules designed to host experiments from collaborators around the world investigating everything from space technologies to zero-gee biology.

The first module should go up – if everything goes as planned – in the first quarter of 2022 onboard the heavy-lift Long March 5B rocket, which made a controversial debut recently when its main stage rocket fell back in pieces scattered across the eastern Atlantic (and bits of Africa) in a haphazard way shortly after launch. The remaining launches will place the experimental modules, as well as supplies and some folks to run the place.
 

nivek

As Above So Below
Four mystery objects spotted far out in space

Astronomers have discovered a number of peculiar ring-shaped 'islands' unlike anything ever seen before.Known as odd radio circles (or ORCs) due to their puzzling shape, these unique anomalous objects appear circular and brighter at the edges at radio wavelengths. Solving the mystery of what these objects are has proven particularly challenging, with astronomers struggling to even determine their distance.

In a new paper, scientists have been able to rule out several possibilities such as star-forming galaxies, supernovae and planetary nebulae (among other things), however a definitive answer to the mystery still remains elusive.

One possibility is that the objects could be the shockwaves from some sort of extragalactic event. "[The objects] may well point to a new phenomenon that we haven't really probed yet," said Kristine Spekkens from the Royal Military College of Canada and Queen's University. "It may also be that these are an extension of a previously known class of objects that we haven't been able to explore."

It is hoped that a new project known as the Evolutionary Map of the Universe (EMU) - which is set to search for new objects across the cosmos - will help to solve the mystery as well as identify as many as 70 million additional radio objects that have yet to be catalogued.

Three of the ORCs were actually found during a pilot survey for the project. "This is a really nice indication of the shape of things to come in radio astronomy in the next couple of years," Spekkens told Live Science.


.
 

pigfarmer

tall, thin, irritable
APOD: 2020 July 10 - Comet NEOWISE from the ISS

Astronomy Picture of the Day July 10 2010

Rounding the Sun on July 3rd and currently headed for the outer Solar System, Comet NEOWISE (C/2020 F3) has been growing brighter in the predawn skies of planet Earth. From low Earth orbit it also rises before the Sun, captured above the approaching glow along the eastern horizon in this snapshot from the International Space Station on July 5. Venus, now Earth's morning star is the brilliant celestial beacon on the right in the field of view. Above Venus you can spot the sister stars of the more compact Pleiades cluster. Earthbound skygazers can spot this comet with the unaided eye, but should look for awesome views with binoculars.

upload_2020-7-14_12-44-42.png
 
Top