Space News

wwkirk

Divine

Don't make plans for Valentine's Day 2046! NASA warns asteroid the size of Leaning Tower of Pisa is on a collision course with Earth - and LA and NYC are possible impact zones

NASA warns city-destroying asteroid could smash into Earth on Valentine's Day 2046's Day 2046
An asteroid around the same size of the Leaning Tower of Pisa was discovered by NASA last month. The collision of the 165-foot 2023 DW with our planet would be comparable to the Tunguska 12-megaton event that slammed into Siberia 114 years ago, which was similar to a nuclear explosion. 2023 DW has a chance of impacting Earth on February 14, 2046 at 4:44pm ET. A map showing potential impact zones lists Los Angeles and Washington DC as possible sites, but NASA said it is too soon to confirm.

.
2046? I'd consider saying. "Après moi, le déluge", but I might still be kicking at that time.

[Just kidding.]
 

nivek

As Above So Below

Scientists zero in on mysterious signals from heart of Milky Way galaxy over dangers of aliens finding us before we find them

Scientists are zeroing in on the heart of the Milky Way galaxy to determine the origins of mysterious signals. Researchers suspect that the radio signals are not natural pulses from outer space, but could be signals from extraterrestrial life forms. Some experts warn that it is imperative that humans locate any alien civilization before they find us.

Scientists revealed this week that they are ramping up efforts to hunt for aliens in the core of the Milky Way galaxy. Scientists presented their blueprint for attempting to track down radio pulses emanating from the middle of the galaxy in a scientific paper published in The Astronomical Journal.

Steve Croft – the paper's co-author and an Adjunct Senior Astronomer at the SETI Institute – said in a statement, "The Breakthrough Listen Investigation for Periodic Spectral Signals (BLIPSS), led by Akshay Suresh, Cornell doctoral candidate in astronomy, is pioneering a search for periodic signals emanating from the core of our galaxy, the Milky Way. The research aims to detect repetitive patterns, a way to search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) within our cosmic neighborhood.

Croft proclaimed, "Breakthrough Listen captures huge volumes of data, and Akshay’s technique provides a new method to help us search that haystack for needles that could provide tantalizing evidence of advanced extraterrestrial life forms."

Scientists are targeting the heart of the Milky Way because it is believed to be the zone most likely able to sustain life. The area hosts a dense congregation of stars and possibly habitable exoplanets that could be safely located in a Goldilocks zone.

Live Science reported, "What's more, if intelligent aliens at the core of the Milky Way wanted to reach out to the rest of the galaxy, they could send signals sweeping across a wide array of planets, given their privileged position at the center of the galaxy. Using narrow bandwidths and repeated patterns would be a prime way for aliens to reveal themselves, as such a combination is extremely unlikely to occur naturally."

The SETI Institute explained, "The team began by testing their algorithm on known pulsars, successfully detecting the expected periodic emissions. Subsequently, they turned their attention to a dataset of scans of the Galactic Center captured by the Breakthrough Listen instrument on the Green Bank Telescope (GBT) in West Virginia. Unlike pulsars, which emit signals across a broad range of radio frequencies, BLIPSS narrowed its search to repeating signals within a narrower frequency range—covering less than a tenth of the width of an average FM radio station."

The SETI Institute said that decoding the repetitive patterns "could be the key to unlocking the mysteries of extraterrestrial intelligence in our galaxy."

"The signals searched in our work would belong to the category of deliberate 'we are here' type beacons from alien worlds," said Akshay Suresh, according to Reuters. "Aliens may possibly use such beacons for galaxy-wide communications, for which the core of the Milky Way is ideally placed. One may imagine aliens using such transmissions at the speed of light to communicate key events, such as preparations for interstellar migration before the explosive death of a massive star."

The project is part of a $100 million initiative to locate advanced extraterrestrial life.


(More on the link)

.
 

nivek

As Above So Below
On July 20th, something on the surface of Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks exploded, increasing its brightness 100-fold. Just in the last several days, this comet has gone from a star-like appearance to brightening by five magnitudes and now sporting a coma in the shape of two horns.

MORE

https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd42b6165-673a-4818-a61f-bb4e86523a7d_520x408.jpeg


.
 

pigfarmer

tall, thin, irritable
"anticipated but unpredictable flare-ups"

I guess they know this is a cranky one. How, I have no clue. Science and stuff. I have my own theory
1690457634834.png
 

nivek

As Above So Below

'Dark explorer' opens its eyes to the cosmos: Euclid space telescope beams back first incredible images of distant galaxies on mission to uncover universe's hidden secrets

'Dark explorer' opens its eyes to the cosmos: British-backed Euclid space telescope beams
The British-backed Euclid (inset) space telescope has beamed back its first incredible images of distant galaxies (left and right) on its mission to uncover the mysteries of the dark universe. The European space telescope, named after the ancient Greek mathematician Euclid, captured glittering galaxies and stars after making a million-mile journey from Earth. It was launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral in Florida on July 1 and has arrived at its destination - a vantage point known as the Second Lagrange Point - where the gravitational forces of Earth and the Sun are roughly equal, creating a stable location for the spacecraft.

.
 

nivek

As Above So Below

Mysterious 'question mark' picked up by James Webb Space Telescope


Mysterious 'question mark' picked up by James Webb Space Telescope


The James Webb Space Telescope continues to unravel questions about our universe and beyond, but one of its latest discoveries is, quite literally, a question mark. Late last month, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) team at the European Space Agency (ESA) released an image offering a detailed look at two actively forming young stars. And while the deep-space picture is stunning, it’s a giant cosmic question mark that appears in the background that has everyone, ahem, asking questions.

The James Webb Space Telescope recently picked up a question mark-shaped phenomenon in deep space.


Is it aliens trying to tell us something? Is it the cosmos throwing questions back in our face? Is it The Riddler? What could possibly cause such a stylized piece of punctuation to appear on camera?

Well, according to the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, which is responsible for JWST’s operations, the most likely explanation is that the question mark is actually a remote galaxy or pair of galaxies getting tangled in each other’s gravitational pull.

“It is probably a distant galaxy, or potentially interacting galaxies (their interactions may have caused the distorted question mark-shape),” representatives of STScI told Space.com. “This may be the first time we’ve seen this particular object,” STScI added. “Additional follow-up would be required to figure out what it is with any certainty. Webb is showing us many new, distant galaxies — so there’s a lot of new science to be done!”

The astronomers point to the colour of the question mark as being one of the biggest clues — the red hue suggests that the object is quite distant and resembles other deep-space galaxies picked up in the last year by JWST’s cameras.


(More on the link)

.
 

pigfarmer

tall, thin, irritable
‘Anybody there?’ Astronomers waiting for a reply from Altair | The Asahi Shimbun: Breaking News, Japan News and Analysis


‘Anybody there?’ Astronomers waiting for a reply from Altair


By KAZUKI ENDO/ Staff Writer
August 20, 2023 at 15:53 JST

Photo/Illutration
Thirteen drawings beamed to Altair, 16.7 light years from Earth, in 1983 (Provided by Shinya Narusawa)

Photo/Illutration

NAGANO--Astronomers are anxiously awaiting first contact from intelligent life to a message beamed into the cosmos 40 years ago.
Their hope is that a reply from Altair 16.7 light years from Earth could conceivably arrive around now, given the relative proximity of the star system and the time that has elapsed.
Symbolically, the star gazers decided that Aug. 22, when the July 7 Tanabata star festival featuring celestial “lovers” Altair and Vega falls on the lunar calendar, was as good a time as any to be on standby for a message from “out there.”
A team led by Shinya Narusawa at the University of Hyogo will deploy an antenna 64 meters in diameter in Saku, Nagano Prefecture, in the hope of observing radio signals in response to the message sent in 1983.
The message, which was comprised of 13 drawings depicting the history of life on Earth, what humans look like and other information, was created by astronomers Masaki Morimoto and Hisashi Hirabayashi.
Radio signals representing those drawings were transmitted from the United States on Aug. 15, 1983, as part of a space-themed project commemorating the 15th anniversary of the weekly comic anthology Shonen Jump, according to Narusawa.
Morimoto, a Japanese pioneer in the field known as the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), worked at the Tokyo Astronomical Observatory of the University of Tokyo, now part of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan. He is now deceased. Hirabayashi is a professor emeritus at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.
Narusawa, 58, said intelligent life outside of Earth should exist somewhere in the universe.
“A large number of exoplanets have been detected since the 1990s,” said Narusawa, who is also a SETI researcher. “Altair may have a planet whose environment can sustain life.”
His team will train the antenna at JAXA’s Usuda Deep Space Center for one hour from 10 p.m. on Aug. 22.
In Tanabata, Japanese pray that a cowherd and a weaver, lovers separated in mythology by the Milky Way, can meet at least once a year, on July 7. The cowherd is represented by Altair in the constellation Aquila, while the weaver is identified with Vega in the constellation Lyra.
Tanabata falls Aug. 22 on the lunar calendar this year. In 1983, when the “hello, is anybody there?” message was beamed to the heavens, it fell on Aug. 15.
 

nivek

As Above So Below
Here's another write-up from Coast to Coast about this event...

...

Astronomers Listen for Alien Response to Message Sent Into Space 40 Years Ago

A team of astronomers in Japan are listening for a possible alien response to a message that was sent into space forty years ago. The intriguing attempt at interstellar communication reportedly began back in 1983 when astronomers Hisashi Hirabayashi and Masaki Morimoto relayed a series of radio signals to the star Altair, which is approximately 16.7 light years from Earth. The message, which was sent by a telescope at Stanford University, consisted of 13 drawings intended to convey human's presence on the planet as well as insights about our species and civilization. Picking up the mantle of his predecessors, astronomer Shinya Narusawa of the University of Hyogo has assembled a team which will attempt to detect a potential ET answer to the decades-old missive.

While receiving such a response would undoubtedly be a fantastic and Earth-shattering development, one would be wise to temper their expectations as the group will be using a telescope belonging to the Japanese space agency, known as JAXA, which they are only allowed to use for one hour on Tuesday night. Beyond that incredibly narrow window of opportunity, there is some question as to whether or not they may have already missed an answer from the aliens as the original message presumably reached Altair sometime around 1999 and, if the ETs responded immediately, their reply should have reached Earth approximately eight years ago.

Remarkably, it was only in 2008, three years after an alien response might have been received, that it was even discovered that Hirabayashi and Morimoto had transmitted a series of drawings back in 1983. Be that as it may, Narusawa expressed optimism that the 40-year-old message may have successfully reached a civilization that could hear it and that we might still be able to pick up their answer. "A large number of exoplanets have been detected since the 1990s," he observed, "Altair may have a planet whose environment can sustain life." Should that be the case, we can only hope that the aliens will not be offended that Earth has left them on unread for the last eight years.

.
 

pigfarmer

tall, thin, irritable
Lunar caves with 'sweater weather' could support life on the Moon

Caves found to have 'sweater weather' could be ideal home for future Moon settlers, study finds​

Shady areas within pits on the Moon’s surface always hover around a comfortable 17°C and could provide astronauts with a safe haven.

By Josephine Joly
Published on 04/08/2022 - 14:33•Updated 22:06

Shady areas within pits and caves on the Moon that always hover around a comfortable 17°C could soon allow future astronauts to live on the Moon.

Lunar pits and caves could provide future human explorers with a safe haven on the Moon thanks to their Earth-like temperatures, a group of scientists has found.
A team led by planetary scientists at UCLA has discovered shady areas within pits on the Moon’s surface that always hover around a comfortable 63 degrees Fahrenheit (17°C) – meaning future astronauts might have 99 problems but staying cool won’t be one.
These pit craters, and the caves to which they may potentially lead, would make safer, more thermally stable base camps for lunar exploration and long-term habitation than the rest of the Moon’s surface, which heats up to 260 degrees (126.6°C) during the day and drops to 280 degrees below zero at night (-173.3°C).


First discovered in 2009, about 16 of more than 200 lunar pits found are probably collapsed lava tubes, according to lead author study Tyler Horvath, a UCLA doctoral student in planetary science.
“We could be able to establish a long-term presence on the Moon sooner than may have otherwise been possible,” said Horvath, adding that two of the most prominent craters have visible overhangs that clearly lead to some sort of cave or void, and there is strong evidence that another’s overhang may also lead to a large cave.

Also found on Earth, lava tubes form when molten lava flows beneath a field of cooled lava or a crust forms over a river of lava, leaving a long, hollow tunnel.
When a lava tube collapses, it opens a pit that can lead into the rest of the cave-like tube.

Where it's almost always 'sweather weather'​

Using processed images from the Diviner Lunar Radiometer Experiment – a thermal camera on NASA’s robotic Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter – Horvath and his team were able to find that the temperature within the pits was almost always "sweater weather".
The research team focused on a roughly cylindrical 100-metre-deep depression about the length and width of a football field in an area of the moon known as the "Mare Tranquillitatis," and used computer modeling to analyse the thermal properties of the rock and lunar dust to measure the pit’s temperatures over a period of time.
They believe the shadowing overhang is responsible for the steady temperature, limiting how hot things get during the day and preventing heat from radiating away at night.
Meanwhile, the sunbaked part of the crater’s floor hits daytime temperatures close to 300 degrees (148.8°C), some 40 degrees hotter than the Moon’s surface.
"Because the Tranquillitatis pit is the closest to the lunar equator, the illuminated floor at noon is probably the hottest place on the entire Moon," said Horvath.
Copyright: NASA - GSFC - Arizona State University
Researchers found that shadowed areas of a lunar pit (pictured above) stay consistently cool during the day and night. It likely leads to a similarly temperate lava cave.Copyright: NASA - GSFC - Arizona State University

Back to the caves​

A day on the Moon lasts nearly 15 Earth days, during which the surface is constantly bombarded by sunlight and is frequently hot enough to boil water, the report reads, while unimaginably cold nights also last about 15 Earth days.
Building bases in the shadowed parts of these lunar craters could allow scientists to focus on other challenges, like growing food, gathering resources for experiments, expanding the base, and above all, providing oxygen for astronauts.
The caves would also offer some protection from cosmic rays, solar radiation, and micrometeorites.

"Humans evolved living in caves, and to caves we might return when we live on the Moon," said study co-author David Paige, who leads the Diviner Lunar Radiometer Experiment.
However, inventing heating and cooling equipment that can operate under these conditions and producing enough energy to power it non-stop could prove an insurmountable barrier to lunar habitation. Solar power – NASA’s most common form of power generation – doesn’t work at night.
NASA said it currently has no plans to establish an exploration base camp on the Moon.
 

pigfarmer

tall, thin, irritable
A bit dated and i don't think India's space program gets much attention - I didn't know they were doing this. Nicely done!


Of course, I have to say it - that rover's other job is to set up an automated convenient mart so the next manned mission will be able to buy coffee and lotto tickets.

Then we have the Russians. I know they're excellent engineers It's childish to make comments, which is why I will: Can you say
'beep...beep...beeep...SPLAT! '

Russian Spacecraft Crash Ends Country’s “Last Hope” to Revive Its Lunar Program, Raises New Questions - The Debrief
 

nivek

As Above So Below

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEoDdzCJFGM

Stunning Images from Chandrayaan-3 Moon Mission

Newly released footage shows India's Chandrayaan-3 rover rolling out of its parent craft to begin exploration of the lunar surface. The Chandrayaan-3 mission touched down on Wednesday, August 23, 2023, and closer to the moon's south pole than any previous moon missions. The landing zone is believed to be situated between the Manzinus C and Simpelius N craters in the southern region. The mission has already transmitted several stunning images, including a series taken from above during its descent. The Indian Space Re

.
 

wwkirk

Divine
I'm hesitant to post this, because only a few outlets are carrying it, but anyway...

Top Russian rocket scientist who had previously assisted foreign colleagues at NASA dies from poisoning after two-week fight for life

The recent poisoning comes days after the mysterious death of a top military general, once close to Putin, who was keeper of the secrets about the construction of the Russian leader's Black Sea Palace.
Top Russian space scientist dies after being ‘poisoned by mushrooms’
Professor Vitaly Melnikov was head of the department of rocket and space systems at RSC Energia, Moscow’s leading spacecraft manufacturer.
The 77-year-old was battling illness caused by the ‘severe poisoning’ for more than two weeks, but doctors were unable to save him.
Inedible mushrooms have been cited as the source of his poisoning, according to a ‘preliminary version’, as reported by the Moskovskij Komsomolets news outlet based in the Russian capital. However, the circumstances surrounding how he came to be allegedly poisoned have not been revealed.
 

nivek

As Above So Below
I could see the comet well early this morning, bright green about 30 degrees towards the east...Beautiful!...

...

Ghostly green comet is now visible to the naked eye

In the vast expanse of our universe, objects come and go, but Comet Nishimura is not just an ordinary space rock. It’s a ghostly green comet with mysterious origins that is currently visible to the naked eye.

The comet won’t make another appearance until the year 2317, which means the opportunity to see Nishimura is truly a “once in a lifetime” experience.

Only a month ago, the astronomical community was taken by surprise when Comet Nishimura was discovered. The comet isn’t just dawdling through space – it’s racing at a speed of 240,000 miles per hour as it catapults around the Sun.

The comet is expected to make its closest approach to our planet on the morning of September 12 at a distance of 78 million miles. The ideal times to catch a glimpse will be the hour after sunset or the hour before dawn, looking in the direction of east-north-east.

According to NASA SpaceNews, Nishimura is currently between the constellations of Cancer and Leo. Around 4 am, the comet is visible slightly higher and to the left of the “morning star.

To the naked eye, Comet Nishimura – also known as Comet C/2023 P1 – appears as a star-like blob with a thin green tail.


(More on the link)

.
 

nivek

As Above So Below
At least two CMEs have hit Comet Nishimura (C/2023 P1) in the past few days. The solar storms are having a destructive effect on the comet's tail.

Eliot Herman photographed the damage from Tucson, Arizona via SpaceWeatherGallery




.
 
Top