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The "Science and Space" Thread #2

382K views 6K replies 43 participants last post by  ekim68 
#1 ·
Big Bang Conditions Created in Lab.

By smashing gold particles together at super-fast speeds, physicists have basically melted protons, creating a kind of "quark soup" of matter that is about 250,000 times hotter than the center of the sun and similar to conditions just after the birth of the universe.

-- Tom
 
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#3,689 ·

[URL='https://gizmodo.com/scientists-remember-the-mars-rover-opportunity-as-hope-1832243390']Scientists Remember the Mars Rover Opportunity as Hope Fades for Its Resurrection
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A brutal dust storm engulfed Mars last summer. The planet-wide tempest spared the nuclear-powered Curiosity rover, but the older, solar-powered Opportunity rover shut down as the thick dust blocked light from the Sun. Opportunity has remained silent since June 10, 2018, despite NASA's hundreds of attempts to contact it. When a windy season on Mars began in November, scientists hoped that gusts might clear debris from its solar panels, but that hope appears to have been in vain. NASA continues to send recovery commands, but sadly, it seems the Opportunity mission has finally come to an end.
 
#3,692 ·

ISS - extremely good lunar transit


Lunar transit is something I've been craving for a long time now. I had some experience in this from the past, but it never turned out to be as good as I expected. But let's be honest, it is not an easy task. Not only commitment required, but also circumstances must be perfect - Moon high in the sky, appropriate ISS pass, good light conditions, good weather conditions, etc.
:cool:
 
#3,694 ·

Liquid lake on Mars might be evidence the Red Planet is still volcanically active


Last year we got some big news from the Red Planet - a huge lake of liquid water was apparently found beneath the ice at the Martian south pole. Building on that, a new study has now examined how it might have gotten there, and concluded that there has to be an underground heat source for water to pool there. For that to happen, Mars must have had volcanic activity much more recently than is normally believed, and may even still be active today.
 
#3,696 ·

Moon Rush: NASA Wants Commercial Lunar Delivery Services to Start This Year


NASA is eager to get back to the surface of the moon.

In November, the agency tagged nine American companies as eligible to bid on delivering robotic NASA payloads to the moon, via Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) contracts. Thursday (Feb. 14), NASA officials announced that the first "task order" for such a delivery will likely come out in a month or so - and that flight is expected to follow in relatively short order.
 
#3,697 ·

[URL='https://gizmodo.com/neutron-star-collisions-could-reveal-mysterious-quark-m-1832634202']Neutron Star Collisions Could Reveal Mysterious Quark Matter
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Scientists are dreaming up ways to probe the nature of the Universe's smallest bits-quarks-by observing ultra-dense neutron stars slamming into each other.

Particle colliders in Switzerland and on Long Island, New York, have each seen evidence of a whole new form of matter in which quarks, rather than atoms, are the basic unit. But scientists think that neutron star collisions should also produce this kind of matter, and think that they might be able to spot it using gravitational wave detectors.
 
#3,698 ·

Jokers please: first human Mars mission may need onboard comedians


Wanted: smart, fit and unflappable applicants for humanity's first mission to Mars. Must have: crazy wig, oversized boots and a big red nose.

It is enough to make Neil Armstrong spin in his grave, but researchers have found that the success of a future mission to the red planet may depend on the ship having a class clown.

Rather than the cool personality that underpinned the Right Stuff in the Apollo era, future astronauts may need to prove they have something very different: the Silly Stuff. An onboard comedian is a proven way to unite teams in stressful situations, research shows.
 
#3,699 ·

Gravitational wave detectors upgraded to hunt for 'extreme cosmic events'


Our ability to detect gravitational waves is about to level up.
"I'm extremely excited about the future prospects that the Advanced LIGO Plus upgrade affords gravitational-wave astrophysics," said David Reitze, executive director of LIGO.

LIGO's twin facilities both contain two 4-kilometre long arms that use lasers to detect minute disturbances caused by extremely energetic cosmic events -- like black holes merging. The incredibly high-powered events are responsible for gravitational waves, rippling out through spacetime the same way water does when you drop a rock in a pond. By the time they reach Earth, the ripples are so small that only incredibly tiny disturbances in LIGO's lasers can detect them.
 
#3,700 ·

InSight begins posting daily weather reports from Mars


If you've ever wondered what the weather is on Mars, wonder no more. Today, NASA published an online tool that will allow the public to get daily Martian weather reports based on data gathered by the space agency's unmanned InSight lander and includes a 24-hr breakdown of the Red Planet's temperature, wind, and air pressure.
 
#3,701 ·

Touchdown: Japan's Hayabusa 2 probe snatches dust from asteroid Ryugu


Mission scientists at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) are celebrating today after data from the Hayabusa 2 probe confirmed a successful touchdown on its target, a kilometer-wide near-Earth asteroid called Ryugu. This in itself is a triumph for the team, but the indications are that the spacecraft's effort to snaffle dust from the surface were also successful, meaning an invaluable sample holding potential secrets of the early solar system will soon be making its way back to Earth.
 
#3,703 ·

NASA picks 12 lunar experiments that could fly this year


NASA has selected a dozen science experiments and technology demonstrators that could land on the Moon as early as the end of 2019. Slated to fly on commercial lunar missions, the instruments and new technologies were solicited by the space agency's Science Mission Directorate and are intended to support later missions, including the return of US astronauts to the Moon and the first manned mars missions.
 
#3,704 ·
Geez, when I was young we were taught that Jupiter had 12 moons and now it's up to 79... :eek:


Help Name Five Newly Discovered Moons of Jupiter!


In July 2018, Carnegie's Scott Sheppard announced the discovery of 12 new moons orbiting Jupiter-11 "normal" outer moons, and one that he called an "oddball." This brought Jupiter's total number of known moons to a whopping 79-the most of any planet in our Solar System.

Now you can help Sheppard and his co-discoverers select the names for five of these newly announced moons!
:cool:

 
#3,705 ·

Virgin Galactic conducts highest, fastest test flight yet


New York (CNN)If you're willing to spend $250,000 for a quick trip to space, that option is getting closer to reality.

VSS Unity, Virgin Galactic's rocket-powered plane, climbed to a record altitude of nearly 56 miles during a test flight on Friday, marking the second time Richard Branson's startup has reached space. Two pilots, and for the first time, an additional crew member, were on board.
Beth Moses, Galactic's chief astronaut trainer and an aerospace engineer, rode along with the pilots. The trip allowed her to run safety checks and get a first look at what Galactic's customers could one day experience.
 
#3,707 ·

SpaceX successfully sends Israel's historic moon mission on its way


On Thursday evening, just after 5:45 p.m. PT, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket successfully launched a small spacecraft on its way to the moon from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. And if the little lander, known as Beresheet, makes it all the way to the lunar surface, it'll mark several milestones that've been years in the making.

SpaceIL, the Israel-based nonprofit that's been working on the lander for eight years, is one of the original Google Lunar XPrize teams. Though the competition ended last year without a winner, SpaceIL is now poised to be the first among nearly 30 teams to make it to the moon on its own anyway.
 
#3,708 ·

No, 'Oumuamua is not an alien spaceship. It might be even weirder.


Not to put too fine a point on it, but what the frak is 'Oumuamua?

Oh, you remember 'Oumuamua. It caused quite a stir last year; first seen in late 2017 by the Pan-STARRS survey telescope in Hawaii, it was quickly found to have a very unusual orbit. Instead of the usual ellipse or circle around the Sun like normal solar system objects, it was found to have a hyperbolic orbit. That means it was moving too quickly to be bound to the Sun, and that, in turn, means it came from Out There. Like really out there: interstellar space, the void between the stars.

Subsequent observations confirmed it: 'Oumuamua was just passing through the solar system, with so much extra velocity (about 25 km/sec) that it was moving faster than the Sun's escape velocity. This was a one-time visitor, screaming through the solar system and heading back out into The Black once again.
 
#3,710 ·

NASA, SpaceX Launch First Flight Test of Space System Designed for Crew


Known as Demo-1, SpaceX's inaugural flight with NASA's Commercial Crew Program is an important uncrewed mission designed to test the end-to-end capabilities of the new system. It brings the nation one-step closer to the return of human launches to the space station from the United States for the first time since 2011 - the last space shuttle mission. Teams still have work to do after this flight to prepare the spacecraft to fly astronauts. The best way to advance the system design was to fly this spacecraft and uncover any other areas or integrated flight changes that might be required.
 
#3,712 ·

Doomed, rare black hole spotted near the center of the galaxy


Black holes tend to fall into two categories: fairly small or supermassive. It's long been believed that there should be another class of the objects that fall between those two extremes, and in recent years astronomers have found evidence of these "intermediate mass" black holes (IMBHs). Now a Japanese team has located one near the center of the Milky Way.
 
#3,713 ·

Deflecting an asteroid will be harder than scientists thought


March 4 (UPI) -- According to new asteroid collision models designed by scientists at Johns Hopkins University, deflecting a large rock headed for Earth will be harder than previously thought.

Using the most up-to-date findings on rock fracturing, researchers developed computer models to more accurately simulate asteroid collisions.

"Our question was, how much energy does it take to actually destroy an asteroid and break it into pieces?" Charles El Mir, a mechanical engineer at Johns Hopkins, said in a news release.

The results, detailed this week in the journal Icarus, suggest the task is quite difficult.
 
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