Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 434

Fans of astronomy should prepare for November 14th when they'll have the opportunity to enjoy a rare Supermoon.

The full Moon of November 14th is not only the closest full Moon of 2016 but also the closest full Moon to date in the 21st century. The full Moon won't come this close to Earth again until November 25, 2034. The last time the full Moon was this close to Earth was in 1948.

Since the moon's orbit is elliptical, one side (perigee) is about 30,000 miles closer to Earth than the other (apogee). The word syzygy, in addition to being useful in word games, is the scientific name for when the Earth, Sun, and Moon line up as the Moon orbits Earth. When perigee-syzygy of the Earth-moon-sun system occurs and the Moon is on the opposite side of the Earth from the Sun, we get a perigee Moon or more commonly, a Supermoon!

The International Space Station has been continuously inhabited for 5,844 days since Expedition 1's crew of three arrived there on this day in 2000.

Expedition 1 consisted of an astronaut Bill Shepherd and two cosmonauts Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei K. Krikalev. They arrived at the Space Station on November 2nd, 2000, 16 years ago. It was the beginning of an uninterrupted human presence on the Station which continues to this day. The trio spent 136 days aboard the Station.

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Leonardo DiCaprio's National Geographic documentary Before The Flood premiered two days ago and in case you missed it, you can watch it for free on YouTube.

The entire documentary talks about the fossil fuel industry and the effect it has on our planet, explains the devastating consequences, and tries to find a solution for inevitable climate change, who's effects we are already witnessing.

Elon Musk appears in the documentary (he also appeared in Racing Extinction, which you should watch if you haven't already) and leads DiCaprio trough Tesla's Gigafactory in Nevada.

NASA has published amazing images of Expedition 49 crew members landing in Kazahstan on Sunday. NASA astronaut and Expedition 49 crew member Kate Rubins, Anatoly Ivanishin of the Russian space agency Roscosmos and Takuya Onishi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency returned to Earth after a successful mission aboard the International Space Station.

Russian Search and Rescue teams fly to Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan to prepare for the Soyuz MS-01 landing with Expedition 49 crew members.

The city of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan is seen from a Russian Search and Rescue helicopter.

After 115 days in space, they are back! NASA astronaut and Expedition 49 crew member Kate Rubins, Anatoly Ivanishin of the Russian space agency Roscosmos and Takuya Onishi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency returned to Earth after a successful mission aboard the International Space Station.

The Expedition 49 crewmates touched down in their Soyuz MS-01 at 11:58 PM EDT (9:58 AM October 30, Kazakhstan time) southeast of the remote town of Dzhezkazgan in Kazakhstan.

Expedition 49 Commander Anatoly Ivanishin of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, and Flight Engineers Kate Rubins of NASA and Takuya Onishi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency are scheduled to depart the International Space Station today, October 29th.

Their Soyuz spacecraft will undock from the Space Station at 8:37 PM EDT and land in Kazakhstan at 11:59 PM (9:59 AM October 30th, Kazakhstan time).

Their return will wrap up 115 days in space for the crew since their launch in July.

NASA's Kepler has made yet another astonishing discovery, just in time for Halloween - pumpkin stars.

Astronomers using observations from NASA's Kepler and Swift missions have discovered a batch of rapidly spinning stars that produce X-rays at more than a hundred times the peak levels ever seen from the Sun. The stars spin so fast they've been squashed into pumpkin-like shapes. Scientists believe they are the result of close binary systems where two Sun-like stars merge.

Steve Howell, a senior research scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, and leader of the team explained the discovery.

NASA has provided new details of the scene near the Martian equator where Europe's Schiaparelli test lander hit the surface last week.

The new images show three impact locations within about 1.5 kilometers (0.9 miles) from each other.

A dark, roughly circular feature is interpreted as where the lander itself struck. A pattern of rays extending from the circle suggests that a shallow crater was excavated by the impact, as expected given the premature engine shutdown. About 1.4 kilometers (0.8 miles) eastward, an object with several bright spots surrounded by darkened ground is likely the heat shield. About 0.9 kilometers (0.6 miles) south of the lander impact site, two features side-by-side are interpreted as the spacecraft's parachute and the back shell to which the parachute was attached. Additional images to be taken from different angles are planned and will aid interpretation of these early results.

You better get into all of your games and save them, do your back ups and run into your doomsday bunker - because scientists writing in the Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific have found unusual signals coming from a group of stars that are "signals probably from extraterrestrial intelligence".

The scientists said that these signals "have exactly the shape of a signal predicted in the previous publication and are therefore in agreement with this [extraterrestrial intelligence] hypothesis". Their paper is called "Discovery of peculiar periodic spectral modulations in a small fraction of solar type stars," which talks about their hypothesis that these signals are from some form of ETI, or alien intelligence.

E.F. Borra and E. Trottier, the paper's authors, write: "The fact that they are only found in a very small fraction of stars within a narrow spectral range centered near the spectral type of the sun is also in agreement with the ETI hypothesis". They added: "At this stage, this hypothesis needs to be confirmed with further work. Although unlikely, there is also a possibility that the signals are due to highly peculiar chemical compositions in a small fraction of galactic halo stars".

The ESA lost contact with its Schiaparelli lander shortly before it was supposed to land on Mars on October 19th, and now the mystery of what happened to it has been resolved. Like we previously noted, there was a chance that the lander ditched its parachute too early and crashed onto the surface of Red Planet.

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has identified new markings on the surface of the Red Planet that are believed to be related to Europe's Schiaparelli test lander. The new image shows a bright spot that may be Schiaparelli's parachute, and a larger dark spot interpreted as resulting from the impact of the lander itself following a much longer free fall than planned after thrusters switched off prematurely.

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