Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 139

NASA has confirmed an upcoming partial lunar eclipse that will take place on November 18 and 19.

According to a new report by Phys.org, NASA writes on its website that the Moon "will be so close to opposite the Sun on Nov 19 that it will pass through the southern part of the shadow of the Earth for a nearly total lunar eclipse." For those that don't know, a "total" lunar eclipse is different from a "partial" lunar eclipse. During a partial lunar eclipse, some of the Moon's surface is still visible, while in a total lunar eclipse, all of the Moon's visible surface moves into Earth's shadow.

NASA states that the eclipse will last for 3 hours, 28 minutes, and 23 seconds, which will be the longest partial eclipse in centuries. Additionally, NASA explains that about 97% of the Moon will be covered in Earth's shadow and that it will appear a reddish-brown color that will be visible throughout many parts of the world. EarthSky writes that people in North America, eastern Australia, New Zealand, and Japan will be able to enjoy the partial eclipse.

Sometimes the most unusual ideas are the ones that generate the most interesting answers, and a song that is poised to last two centuries maybe the idea that generates an incredibly interesting answer.

A group of NASA scientists is going to attempt to communicate with the cosmos through a spacecraft sent towards exoplanet Proxima B that is located 4.2 light-years away from Earth, and a group of select trees that will be equipped with sensors that can detect changes in their surroundings, which will then be converted into sound frequencies that will be relayed to the spacecraft. Julia Christensen, president of the Space Song Foundation, said, "As the light, water and temperature at the tree change, so does the tune, the volume, and the actual sound of the song."

Adding, "In the short term, we hear shifts in the song as day turns to night, as clouds pass over the tree, as seasons change, etc. But over the very long term - decades or centuries - we will hear major global shifts in climate and other changes on our planet." Proxima B is of special interest to researchers as it may have the contains to harbor life, as it is very Earth-like. Researchers intend on sending a future spacecraft towards Proxima B that will communicate the "sound" of our planet. However, with current technology, it would take a spacecraft 6,300 years to reach Proxima B.

Arianespace is set to launch its Vega rocket in Kourou at 6:27 a.m. local time (09:27 UTC) on November 16th, 2021. It will launch from the Ensemble de Lancement Vega (ELV) pad at the Guiana Space Center, the oldest of its launch pads.

Its mission is to launch three Capacite de Renseignement d'origine Electromagnetique Spatiale (CERES) satellites (which translates to "Intelligence Capacity of Space Electromagnetic Origin"). These satellites are operated by the French space agency Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (translating to the National Centre for Space Studies).

As the universe continues to expand, a new study has been published detailing a hypothesis called "cosmological coupling" that could explain the disparity between the expected size of black holes and what scientists have observed.

Black holes are estimated to have masses of ~40 times that of our sun, yet this is not what we see from observations using gravitational wave detections from the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and Virgo interferometer. The gravitational waves detected from black hole mergers have been used to estimate the sizes of many black holes as more than 50 solar masses, with some approaching 100 solar masses.

The hypothesis asserts that coinciding with the universe's expansion following the Big Bang, all objects within it grow in mass. While other scientists have modeled black hole mergers in static universes to simplify complicated equations, the authors of this study did so in an expanding universe. Simulating the activity of stars and their life cycles, culminating in the formation of black holes, predicted black holes within this universe that better resembled the findings of the current LIGO-Virgo data.

Scientists for decades have predicted lunar cold traps, but with the publishing of new research in the AGU journal Geophysical Research Letters, their presence on the moon has finally been confirmed.

These cold traps exist in permanently shadowed regions of the moon, such as some craters, where the temperature falls below 60 degrees Kelvin, approximately -352 degrees Fahrenheit. These areas have the potential for carbon dioxide to freeze and become trapped, though the presence of frozen carbon dioxide in these traps is not yet confirmed.

Researchers analyzed NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter data to identify and map these carbon dioxide cold traps. Aboard the spacecraft is the Diviner Lunar Radiometer Experiment (DLRE), which has collected temperature data from the moon over the ongoing 12-year mission of the spacecraft.

Tourists aboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon snapped some incredible images of Earth from space, and they have been uploaded in full resolution for your viewing pleasure.

The Inspiration4 crew consisted of four civilians spending three days aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft back in September 2021. While the crew was floating around the planet for three days, they snapped some fantastic images of what Earth looked like for them, showcasing incredible unique perspectives of our planet as well as the Sun.

The team was able to snap the images through the spacecraft's cupola, which is essentially a massive glass dome located on the nose-end of the spacecraft. Originally, the nose-end of the spacecraft had a docking module attached, but since the Inspiration4 mission didn't involve any docking, it was replaced with the large viewing window. If you are interested in viewing the images in full resolution, you can check out the selection here.

Astronomers and normal people alike have been wondering for quite some time if there really is a Planet Nine that has such a wide orbit that it takes 20,000 years to complete.

However, there is minimal evidence to suggest such a planet exists. But, one study from 2016 resurfaced the idea that Planet Nine may be real as researchers found that some celestial body was interacting with small objects outside of the Kuiper Belt, causing the orbits of these objects to be strange. These objects acted as if a large undiscovered object was influencing them through its gravity. However, the source of these anomalies has yet to be found.

Now, astronomer Michael Rowan-Robinson of Imperial College London in the UK has analyzed data obtained by the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) in 1983. In Rowan-Robinson's pre-print paper, the astronomer says that he found a trio of point sources that may have been Planet Nine and suggests that this decade also information is retested with today's instruments. Additionally, Rowan-Robinson acknowledges that the probability of the candidate being real is quite low, but it's worthwhile to check.

Russia recently conducted an anti-satellite weapon test on one of its own satellites, which caused more than 1,000 pieces new pieces of space debris.

The debris that were a result of Russia's anti-satellite missile test and amounted to more than 1,500 new pieces that may remain in orbit for potentially decades. Not only will these debris stay in orbit for an extended period of time, but they also pose a risk to other satellites if they collide with them. Ned Price, the State Department spokesman, told reporters on Monday, "Earlier today the Russian Federation recklessly conducted a destructive test of a direct--ascent anti satellite missile against one of its own satellites."

Adding, "This test has so far generated over fifteen hundred pieces of trackable orbital debris and hundreds of thousands of pieces of smaller orbital debris that now threatens the interests of all nations." Price even went on to say that Russia's "dangerous and irresponsible behavior jeopardizes the long term sustainability of our space and clearly demonstrates that Russia's claims of opposing the weapons and weaponization of space are disingenuous and hypocritical."

NASA has published a new image that's a part of Nebula November, and this time around, the agency has detailed a dark nebula dubbed LDN 1165.

LDN 1165 is located in the constellation Cepheus and is a member of the agency's catalog of Dark Nebulae, which are also called absorption nebulae. NASA explains in a new blog post that absorption nebula don't reflect or emit light like other nebula but instead block out any light that is coming from behind them. The agency continues to explain that these dark nebulae contain high amounts of dust, which is what prevents any light from protruding throughout the other side of the nebula.

Additionally, these dark nebulae are sometimes called "holes in the sky", purely because of the complete lack of light. However, this name may not be entirely accurate as NASA writes that while dark nebulae look like nothing at all, there could be plenty of star-forming activity occurring inside of the dense clouds. As for LDN 1165, Hubble peered closely at the dark nebula, and according to NASA, the bright region "is likely a star-forming region that may hold one or more young protostars." See the image below.

A team of astronomers has located a new exoplanet that is showing promising signs of harboring one of life's most vital ingredients - water.

In a new paper published on the arXiv pre-print server details the discovery of an exoplanet titled TOI-2257b. Astronomers used NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), which is designed to detect dips in light that planets cause when they pass in front of the star that they are orbiting. This method of discovering new exoplanets is called the transit method, and has proven to be a reliable way of observing new celestial objects.

The newly found exoplanet is believed to be twice the size of Earth, and has more than five times Earth's mass. Researchers also believe that it orbits at just 135 million miles away from its M-dwarf star TOI-2257, meaning it completes one full orbit of the star in just 35 Earth-days. The reason researchers believe TOI-2257b may harbor water is that the dwarf star it orbits is much cooler and smaller than our Sun, with an average surface temperature of around 5,792 Fahrenheit, compared to the Sun, which has a surface temperature of 9,932 Fahrenheit.

Back on November 8, a photographer snapped an image of a "doughnut UFO" hovering overhead, sparking an explanation for what the object could be if it even was an object.

The photographer, which goes by the Twitter handle of @Eavix1Eavix, snapped the image in Zurich, Switzerland, and described the object as a "doughnut UFO". The photographer was aware that on the same night, the SpaceX Endeavour capsule was scheduled to re-enter Earth's atmosphere from the International Space Station, which led to the belief that what was being seen in the night sky over Switzerland was the Endeavor capsule.

However, there is a problem with this theory. The SpaceX capsule touched back down on Earth in the Gulf of Mexico, more than 5,000 miles away on the other side of the planet. Marco Langbroek, an amateur satellite tracker and academic researcher at Leiden University in the Netherlands spoke to LiveScience and said, "Any passes [of Endeavour] over Switzerland prior to landing that night would have been completely in Earth's shadow, i.e. it would not be illuminated by the sun and hence not visible."

Astronomers have found the very first black hole outside of our Milky Way galaxy by observing a star in the region with a strange motion.

The researchers used the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope located in Chile to peer into the star cluster NGC 1850 within the Large Magellanic Cloud. The astronomers were observing stars in the region and noticed that a star was being influenced by an unknown gravitational force, marking the first time a black hole had been discovered using this method.

The black hole is located approximately 160,000 light-years from Earth and is estimated to have eleven times the mass of our Sun, or 11 solar masses. The study was published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, and according to Stefan Dreizler, a contributing member on the paper, "The vast majority can only be unveiled dynamically. When they form a system with a star, they will affect its motion in a subtle but detectable way, so we can find them with sophisticated instruments."

Getting humans off Earth is incredibly expensive, and to back that statement up, a new report from the NASA Office of Inspector General (OIG) has revealed how much the Artemis program will cost by 2025.

The new report from the NASA Office of Inspector General has revealed that the Artemis program is expected to cost NASA $93 billion by the year 2025. According to the report, the agency has several initiatives underway that will reduce the total cost of the program by 2025. However, the report also reads that looking ahead at spending without taking into account any of these cost-saving initiatives, NASA "will face significant challenges to sustaining its Artemis program in its current configuration."

According to the nonprofit Planetary Society, the Apollo moon program between 1960 and 1973 cost $28 billion, which would be about $280 billion today. The OIG report also states, "Moreover, while NASA has several initiatives underway aimed at increasing affordability, we project the current production cost of a single SLS/Orion system to be $4.1 billion per launch." If you are interested in reading more about this story or would like a more in-depth breakdown of the costs, check out this link here.

Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute's (MBARI) Benthic Rover II has been trawling the ocean floor for seven years, collecting data on the carbon cycle of the deep sea and how it is impacted by climate change.

Less is known about the deep sea than other planets in our solar system. Delving many miles below the ocean surface is a challenge, owing to extreme pressures and seawater's corrosive nature. It is impressive not only to reach deep down but to continue operating there for more than half a decade.

One hundred forty miles (225 kilometers) off the coast of central California and 13,100 feet (4,000 meters) below the surface lies Station M, MBARI's research site where the Benthic Rover II operates. This depth is equivalent to the ocean's average depth and allows for an adept model for studying deep-ocean ecosystems.

Tesla has begun to add Starlink functionality to some Supercharger stations across America, with multiple people online spotting satellite dishes appearing in Lake City, Florida, and Lisbon, Connecticut.

Tesla already supports free in-car cellular connectivity for limited features such as email or simple navigation and offers a Premium Connectivity subscription for a $10 monthly fee which supports more data-intensive features. However, when connected to a Wi-Fi network, all Internet features are free to use.

Elon Musk recently replied to other users on Twitter that expressed a desire to see Wi-Fi built into all Supercharger stations, stating that they all eventually would. Now it seems the rollout has begun, potentially enabling a plethora of features. Enabling full Wi-Fi functionality between the car and the Starlink network would allow users full Internet access in the downtime spent charging at stations on a long road trip, without subscribing to the Premium Connectivity plan.

The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and the Virgo interferometer, designed to detect cosmic gravitational waves, have recently observed 35 new waves produced from black holes merging and black holes and neutron stars colliding.

Ninety total gravitational waves have been detected from three observing runs between 2015 and 2020. The latest collection of observations came from observing runs conducted using both observatories between November 2019 and March 2020.

Almost all of these detections come from events occurring billions of years ago and billions of light-years away from our solar system. 32 of the 35 events involve mergers between black holes, with the remaining three likely attributed to collisions between neutron stars and black holes.

NASA has confirmed three solar flares erupting on the surface of the Sun and an impact resulting in auroras being seen in the sky across select locations.

NASA writes in a new blog post that the solar flares came from two active regions on the Sun; AR 12891 and AR 12887. On November 1, a C1.3-class flare was detected erupting from AR12887, which was followed by a C4-class flare two hours later. The flare intensity is measured on a scale; A, B, C, M, and X-classes. Each class is ten times stronger than the last, with X being the strongest and A being the weakest.

Two hours after the last flare, another was detected out to AR 12891. This one was an M1.6-class flare. NASA writes that solar flares are often associated with coronal mass ejections (CME), large swaths of plasma ejected into space from the Sun's corona. CME's can sometimes hit Earth and, depending on the intensity of the impact, can cause geomagnetic storms in Earth's upper atmosphere. The impact of the charged particles on Earth's magnetic field can cause issues for satellites, radio communication, electricity grids, and more.

It isn't a car or a plane that holds the record for the fastest human-made object. It's a NASA probe that is about to make its closest approach to the Sun yet.

NASA's Parker Solar Probe recently took a swing around Venus, gaining some speed through sling-shotting itself through its gravitational pull, and is now on its way to the Sun, where it will come within about 5.3 million miles to its while traveling up to speeds of 101 miles per second, or 364,621 miles per hour.

The goal of the fly-by is to capture data on the solar wind that is close to the Sun's surface and hopefully provide valuable data to researchers that will unlock a deeper understanding of our Sun and thus other stars. There is a large dust cloud circling the Sun, and engineers have constructed the Parker probe to be able to survive what it will encounter. However, this region of space is still yet to be discovered, so it certainly presents challenges for researchers and engineers, which NASA acknowledges.

Elon Musk's SpaceX has dropped a wallpaper-worthy image of its Starship SN20 vehicle performing a "static fire" test.

The Starship vehicle will be what SpaceX offers as a solution of transporting humans to the Moon, Mars, and eventually more distant locations within our solar system. The company is currently in testing mode as Starship gears up for its first orbital test flight. Starship is comprised of two main parts, its 260-foot booster named Super Heavy, and the 165-foot tall spacecraft named Starship. SpaceX's flagship vehicle has performed some flights tests in the past where it reached altitudes of about 6 miles.

However, the orbital flight test is going to be its biggest challenge yet, which SpaceX plans on conducting within the coming weeks or months. A solid time and date hasn't been set by SpaceX as it's waiting for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to complete an environmental assessment of the Starbase orbital launch site, which will arrive in the form of a report that's yet to be released. Starship completed a static fire test that included all six raptor engines - it's Super Heavy in all its glory.

Researchers have located a temporary second "moon" floating around Earth in a strange fashion, according to a new study published in Nature Magazine.

The new study details an object that is circling Earth in a corkscrew-like trajectory, and this object is dubbed Kamo'oalewa, which in Hawaiian means "moving celestial object". Kamo'oalewa was first discovered back in 2016 and became the smallest stable quasi-satellite of Earth, measuring in at just 164 feet in diameter. The space rock was believed to be a small asteroid, but according to results from the newly published study, it appears that Kamo'oalewa is a fragment of our Moon.

The researchers compared lunar sample data retrieved from the Apollo 14 mission (1971) to Kamo'oalewa data and found that the results match. The team of researchers proposed that the moon-fragment likely came from a meteor collision that occurred on the surface of resulting in this piece of "lunar material" being broken off towards Earth. Ben Sharkey of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona, and the lead author on the study, said that Kamo'oalewa won't be around forever as estimations indicate that after 300 years, it will break its orbit and journey out into space.