Space News

Re: Space News

Postby LordRaven » Sat May 04, 2019 6:41 pm

What Is the Biggest Thing in the Universe?

What is the biggest supercluster?
The biggest supercluster known in the universe is the Hercules-Corona Borealis Great Wall. It was first reported in 2013 and has been studied several times. It's so big that light takes about 10 billion years to move across the structure. For perspective, the universe is only 13.8 billion years old. :yikes:

https://www.space.com/33553-biggest-thing-universe.html
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Re: Space News

Postby LordRaven » Thu May 09, 2019 4:07 pm

Algae 'Bioreactor' on Space Station Could Make Oxygen, Food for Astronauts

Astronauts on the International Space Station will begin testing an innovative algae-powered bioreactor to assess its feasibility for future long-duration space missions.

The algae-powered bioreactor, called the Photobioreactor, represents a major step toward creating a closed-loop life-support system, which could one day sustain astronauts without cargo resupply missions from Earth. This will be particularly important for future long-duration missions to the moon or Mars, which require more supplies than a spacecraft can carry, according to a statement from the German Aerospace Center (DLR).

The Photobioreactor arrived at the space station Monday (May 6) on a SpaceX Dragon cargo ship. The experiment is designed to use algae to convert the carbon dioxide exhaled by astronauts on the space station into oxygen and edible biomass through photosynthesis.

https://www.space.com/space-station-alg ... tification

Clever buggers!!!
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Re: Space News

Postby LordRaven » Thu May 09, 2019 4:11 pm

Could There Be Life on Mars Today?
By Mike Wall 2 hours ago Search for Life

Mars is cold and dry, but it may not be dead.

The search for life on Mars shouldn't focus exclusively on the distant past, some researchers say.

Four billion years ago, the Martian surface was apparently quite habitable, featuring rivers, lakes and even a deep ocean. Indeed, some astrobiologists view ancient Mars as an even better cradle for life than Earth was, and they suspect that life on our planet may have come here long ago aboard Mars rocks blasted into space by a powerful impact.

Things changed when Mars lost its global magnetic field. Charged particles streaming from the sun were then free to strip away the once-thick Martian atmosphere, and strip it they did. This process had transformed Mars into the cold, dry world we know today by about 3.7 billion years ago, observations by NASA's MAVEN orbiter suggest. (Earth still has its global magnetic field, explaining how our planet remains so livable.)

Related: The Search for Life on Mars (a Photo Timeline)

But this turn of events doesn't necessarily mean that Mars is a dead planet today.

"If Mars had life 4 billion years ago, Mars still has life. Nothing has happened on Mars that would've wiped out life," said Michael Finney, co-founder of The Genome Partnership, a nonprofit organization that runs the Advances in Genome Biology and Technology conferences.

"So, if there were life on Mars, it may have moved around, it may have gone into hiding a bit, but it's probably still there," Finney said last month during a panel discussion at the Breakthrough Discuss conference at the University of California, Berkeley.

https://www.space.com/could-mars-suppor ... tification

Oh I do hope they find some microbial life on Mars, second genesis and all that, because that would prove beyond doubt that life could be abundant in the universe.
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Re: Space News

Postby LordRaven » Thu May 09, 2019 4:21 pm

Apollo 11 Moon Landing Site Seen in Unprecedented Detail

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera snapped its best look yet of the Apollo 11 landing site on the moon. The image, which was released on March 7, 2012, even shows the remnants of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin's historic first steps on the surface around the Lunar Module.(Image: © NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University)
The clearest view yet of the famous Apollo 11 landing site on the moon was captured by a NASA spacecraft in orbit around our planet's natural satellite.

The agency's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) zeroed in on Mare Tranquillitatis, or the Sea of Tranquility — the place where humans first touched down on the lunar surface on July 20, 1969. The new image from LRO captures amazing details of the historic site, even revealing the remnants of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin's first steps on the moon.

In the image, the astronauts' tracks are the dark regions around the Lunar Module that lead to and from various scientific experiments that were set up on the surface of the moon.

LRO's camera snapped the picture as the probe flew only 15 miles (24 kilometers) above the moon's surface. The image, which was released on March 7, provides the best look yet at humanity's first venture to another world, NASA officials said in a statement.

One of the experiments that can also be made out in the image is the Passive Seismic Experiment Package, which provided the first lunar seismic measurements and continued to return data for three weeks after the Apollo 11 astronauts departed from the moon.

The discarded cover of the Laser Ranging RetroReflector is also highlighted in the image. This experiment allows precise measurements to be collected from the moon to this day, NASA officials said. [Photos: New Views of Apollo Moon Landing Sites]

The astronauts' tracks also lead toward Little West crater, which is located about 164 feet (50 meters) east of the Lunar Module. This was part of an unplanned excursion, when Armstrong bounced over to get a look inside the crater, near the end of the 2.5 hours that the duo spent on the surface of the moon.

https://www.space.com/14874-apollo-11-l ... photo.html

Why oh why have we not been back yet?
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Re: Space News

Postby LordRaven » Thu May 09, 2019 5:10 pm

Superfast Military Aircraft Hit Mach 20 Before Ocean Crash, DARPA Says :yikes:

A superfast unmanned military plane traveled at 20 times the speed of sound and managed to control itself for three minutes before crashing into the Pacific Ocean in a recent test, military officials said.

The prototype Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 (HTV-2), billed as the fastest aircraft ever built, splashed down in the Pacific earlier than planned on Aug. 11 shortly after launching from California's Vandenberg Air Force Base on its second-ever test flight.

The HTV-2 experienced some sort of anomaly, prompting the vehicle's autonomous flight safety system to guide it to a controlled splashdown, according to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which oversaw the flight. [Photos: DARPA Hypersonic Glider's Mach 20 Test]

Despite the problem, the aircraft reached speeds around Mach 20 (about 13,000 mph) and was able to control its flight for several minutes, officials said.

"HTV-2 demonstrated stable, aerodynamically controlled Mach 20 hypersonic flight for approximately three minutes," said DARPA director Regina Dugan in an Aug. 14 statement. "We do not yet know the cause of the anomaly for Flight 2."

An artist's illustration of DARPA's Hypersonic Test Vehicle-2 flying at speeds of Mach 20.(Image: © DARPA)
The HTV-2 is part of an advanced weapons program called Conventional Prompt Global Strike, which is working to develop systems to reach an enemy target anywhere in the world within one hour. It launches on a rocket, then comes streaking back to Earth at enormous speeds, at times heating up to temperatures of nearly 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit.

DARPA officials said last week that the Aug. 11 test flight collected more than nine minutes of data during the entire mission.

The first test flight of the HTV-2 took place in April 2010. That flight lasted about nine minutes, also ending when the aircraft detected an anomaly and crashed itself into the ocean.

https://www.space.com/12670-superfast-h ... -htv2.html
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Re: Space News

Postby LordRaven » Thu May 09, 2019 6:39 pm

Saturn Moon Rhea's Surprise: Oxygen-Rich Atmosphere

Saturn's second-largest moon Rhea has a wispy atmosphere with lots of oxygen and carbon dioxide, a new study has found.

NASA's Cassini spacecraft detected Rhea's atmosphere during a close flyby of the frozen moon in March. The discovery marks the first time an oxygen-rich atmosphere has been found on a Saturn satellite. [Photo of the Saturn moon Rhea.]

Oxygen atmospheres are known to exist on other natural satellites in our solar system. For example, Europa and Ganymede ? two frigid moons of Jupiter ? are also rich in oxygen.

But the discovery on Rhea suggests that many other large, ice-covered bodies throughout the solar system and beyond may harbor thin shells of oxygen-rich air ? and, perhaps, complex chemistry, researchers said.

https://www.space.com/9599-saturn-moon- ... phere.html

It might be a very thin atmosphere but this is encouraging news, with all the water ice abundance in the solar system it would seem there is a ready made supply of oxygen and rocket fuel should we ever develop the necessary technology to fly around the planets and their moons on manned missions.
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Re: Space News

Postby LordRaven » Mon May 13, 2019 4:26 pm

The Vastness of Interstellar Space...

NASA's Voyager and Pioneer Probes Launched Decades Ago and Are Still Out There. Here's Where They'll End Up? ---A bloody good question...

These distant encounters might not generate excitement. But Bailer-Jones and Farnocchia predicted other future flybys in which the spacecraft will get remarkably close to stars outside our solar system. For example, Voyager 1 will get very close to the star TYC 3135-52-1, a star located about 46.9 light-years from our sun, in 302,700 years. The craft will pass within 0.30 pc, just under a light-year — so close that the spacecraft might penetrate the star's Oort cloud, which is a shell of cosmic objects that surround a star past its planets, if it has one, Bailer-Jones told Space.com in an email.

Additionally, the researchers found that Voyager 1 will swing close, within 0.39 pc (1.27 light-years), of Gaia DR2 2091429484365218432, a star that lies a whopping 159.5 pc (520.22 light-years) from the sun. To give you an idea of how close the approach is, we are 1.29 pc (4.24 light-years) away from Proxima Centauri. They predicted that the craft will pass close to this faraway star in 3.4 million years.

Bailer-Jones told Space.com that this research was inspired by the team's previous work to trace the possible origins and future destinations of the mysterious interstellar object dubbed 'Oumuamua.

"It was mostly a bit of fun," Bailer-Jones told Space.com. "But it also reminds us how long it takes to get to nearby stars at the kind of speeds these spacecraft have achieved (around 15 km/s relative to the sun).

"It also highlights that the closest encounters, because they can be tens or hundreds of thousands of years in the future, can be with stars which are not among the nearest stars to the sun right now," Bailer-Jones continued. "Also, if we want to explore the nearest stars within a human lifetime, we need to accelerate our spacecraft to much higher velocities."

https://www.space.com/nasa-voyagers-pio ... tification
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Re: Space News

Postby LordRaven » Fri May 17, 2019 2:26 pm

This is interesting. It seems that there is evidence of dark matter perhaps punching a hole through a part of our galaxy.

With dark matter yet to be proven as actually existing, it being theoretical along with dark energy to explain the disparity between visible matter and the lack of mass that we should be able to see to account for what the universe should have, this is an interesting find

https://www.space.com/dark-impactor-cou ... tification
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Re: Space News

Postby LordRaven » Fri May 17, 2019 9:11 pm

At fucking last, some serious proof that we are going back to the moon. I am thinking the Chinese announcing their intent to put a permanent base on the south pole of the moon is making people sit up and take notice.
I just wish all countries would pool resources and send all their best people into an international effort, but this should now kickstart the process, and withRussia India Japan and the European etc (inc Israeli space agency) natural competition will speed up the process in the meantime.

NASA Awards $45.5 Million for Private Moon Lander Work on Project Artemis

https://www.space.com/nasa-private-moon ... tification
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Re: Space News

Postby LordRaven » Mon May 20, 2019 12:27 pm

This thing will be far more powerful than the Hubble Space Telescope--good video too.

Next-Gen Megascope for Astronomy Taking Shape on Chilean Mountaintop
By Mike Wall 2 hours ago Science & Astronomy

The Giant Magellan Telescope should be observing the heavens by 2026.
An arid mountaintop in the Chilean Andes is being transformed into a next-generation astronomy hub.

Hard-rock excavation at the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) site — a patch of rocky desert 8,200 feet (2,500 meters) above sea level, about a 2-hour drive from the coastal town of La Sirena — wrapped up in March. And the project team recently selected a contractor to build the mount, a steel structure that will house the huge telescope's mirrors and scientific instruments.

"This is the core of the observatory," said Robert Shelton, president of the Giant Magellan Telescope Organization Corp.
Mount construction "is the single largest procurement we will be involved with — anywhere from $120 million to $140 million," Shelton told Space.com.

Total costs for the project are expected to exceed $1 billion, he added.

The GMT will integrate seven primary mirrors to form a light-collecting surface 80 feet (24.5 m) wide, giving the scope a resolving power 10 times greater than that of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. (The scope will also employ seven smaller secondary mirrors, which will bounce light from the primaries down to a camera system.)
The GMT will therefore be able to make groundbreaking observations in a number of fields, project team members have said. For example, the megascope will scan the atmospheres of nearby alien planets for possible signs of life, help astronomers understand how the first galaxies formed, and gather data that could shed light on mysterious dark matter and dark energy.

Five of the primary mirrors have already been cast, at the University of Arizona's Richard F. Caris Mirror Laboratory. One of those five is completely done, and the other four are in various stages of processing. (It takes a long time and a lot of exacting work to turn a raw cast mirror into a precisely polished finished product.)

Each primary mirror, by the way, is about 27 feet (8.4 m) wide — so big that these key pieces will have to travel to Chile by boat.
https://www.space.com/giant-magellan-te ... tification
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Re: Space News

Postby LordRaven » Sat Jul 06, 2019 11:05 am

Wahay! We are on our way back to the moon!

Orion "On Track" to Support 2024 Human Lunar Landing after Abort Test

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. — With a successful test of the spacecraft's abort system now complete, the manager of NASA's Orion program is optimistic the spacecraft will be ready to send humans to the moon in 2024 even as development schedules continue to slip.

The Ascent Abort-2 test, carried out July 2 from Launch Complex 46 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, demonstrated that Orion's launch abort system could safely pull the spacecraft away from a malfunctioning rocket in flight.

The test was one of the last major milestones for the spacecraft prior to the first Space Launch System mission, Artemis-1, carrying an uncrewed Orion on a test flight in cislunar space. "The next big checkmark is the moon. It's our Artemis-1 mission," said Mark Kirasich, NASA Orion program manager, at a post-test briefing here. He said that mission will take place "a little over a year from now," although there is skepticism in the space community that the mission can launch before the end of 2020

http://space.com/nasa-orion-2024-moon-l ... track.html
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Re: Space News

Postby LordRaven » Sat Jul 06, 2019 11:26 am

Mysterious X-37B Military Space Plane Caught on Camera (Photo)
By Leonard David 17 hours ago Spaceflight

We still don't know what the X-37B is doing up there, however.

https://www.space.com/x-37b-space-plane ... photo.html

One wonders what this little bird is doing up there.
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Re: Space News

Postby LordRaven » Sat Jul 06, 2019 11:38 am

It really is about time man goes back to the moon.

Footage from the Apollo 11 moonwalk that was partially restored in 2009.
Credits:
July 1969. It's a little over eight years since the flights of Gagarin and Shepard, followed quickly by President Kennedy's challenge to put a man on the moon before the decade is out.

62297main_neil_on_moon_full.jpg
Apollo 11 Commander Neil Armstrong working at an equipment storage area on the lunar module. This is one of the few photos that show Armstrong during the moonwalk. Click image to enlarge.
Credits: NASA
62295main_liftoff_full.jpg
Smoke and flames signal the opening of a historic journey as the Saturn V clears the launch pad. Click image to enlarge.
Credits: NASA
62288main_aldrin_ladder_full.jpg
Buzz Aldrin climbs down the Eagle's ladder to the surface. Click image to enlarge.
Credits: NASA
62291main_crater_orbit_full.jpg
Crater 308 stands out in sharp relief in this photo from lunar orbit. Click image to enlarge.
Credits: NASA
It is only seven months since NASA's made a bold decision to send Apollo 8 all the way to the moon on the first manned flight of the massive Saturn V rocket.

Now, on the morning of July 16, Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins sit atop another Saturn V at Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center. The three-stage 363-foot rocket will use its 7.5 million pounds of thrust to propel them into space and into history.

At 9:32 a.m. EDT, the engines fire and Apollo 11 clears the tower. About 12 minutes later, the crew is in Earth orbit. (› Play Audio)

After one and a half orbits, Apollo 11 gets a "go" for what mission controllers call "Translunar Injection" - in other words, it's time to head for the moon. Three days later the crew is in lunar orbit. A day after that, Armstrong and Aldrin climb into the lunar module Eagle and begin the descent, while Collins orbits in the command module Columbia. (› View Flash Feature)

Collins later writes that Eagle is "the weirdest looking contraption I have ever seen in the sky," but it will prove its worth.

When it comes time to set Eagle down in the Sea of Tranquility, Armstrong improvises, manually piloting the ship past an area littered with boulders. During the final seconds of descent, Eagle's computer is sounding alarms.

It turns out to be a simple case of the computer trying to do too many things at once, but as Aldrin will later point out, "unfortunately it came up when we did not want to be trying to solve these particular problems."

When the lunar module lands at 4:18 p.m EDT, only 30 seconds of fuel remain. Armstrong radios "Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed." Mission control erupts in celebration as the tension breaks, and a controller tells the crew "You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue, we're breathing again." (› Play Audio)

Armstrong will later confirm that landing was his biggest concern, saying "the unknowns were rampant," and "there were just a thousand things to worry about."

At 10:56 p.m. EDT Armstrong is ready to plant the first human foot on another world. With more than half a billion people watching on television, he climbs down the ladder and proclaims: "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." (› Play Audio)

Aldrin joins him shortly, and offers a simple but powerful description of the lunar surface: "magnificent desolation." They explore the surface for two and a half hours, collecting samples and taking photographs.

They leave behind an American flag, a patch honoring the fallen Apollo 1 crew, and a plaque on one of Eagle's legs. It reads, "Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the moon. July 1969 A.D. We came in peace for all mankind."

Armstrong and Aldrin blast off and dock with Collins in Columbia. Collins later says that "for the first time," he "really felt that we were going to carry this thing off."

The crew splashes down off Hawaii on July 24. Kennedy's challenge has been met. Men from Earth have walked on the moon and returned safely home.

In an interview years later, Armstrong praises the "hundreds of thousands" of people behind the project. "Every guy that's setting up the tests, cranking the torque wrench, and so on, is saying, man or woman, 'If anything goes wrong here, it's not going to be my fault.'" (› Read 2001 Interview, 172 Kb PDF)

In a post-flight press conference, Armstrong calls the flight "a beginning of a new age," while Collins talks about future journeys to Mars.

Over the next three and a half years, 10 astronauts will follow in their footsteps. Gene Cernan, commander of the last Apollo mission leaves the lunar surface with these words: "We leave as we came and, God willing, as we shall return, with peace, and hope for all mankind."

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/apollo11.html
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Re: Space News

Postby LordRaven » Sat Jul 06, 2019 5:17 pm

2 times the speed of sound! :yikes:

US Military Video Shows Hypersonic Aircraft Test Flight

The HTV-2 is part of an advanced weapons program called Conventional Prompt Global Strike, which is working to develop systems to reach an enemy target anywhere in the world within one hour.

https://www.space.com/12739-video-hyper ... -htv2.html
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Re: Space News

Postby LordRaven » Sun Jul 14, 2019 5:02 pm

India Shoots for the Moon with Ambitious Lunar Launch Today! Watch It Live

India is about to launch its most ambitious mission to the moon yet — one that will send an orbiter, lander and rover to the lunar south pole — and you can watch it live today (July 14).

The Indian Space Research Organisation will launch Chandrayaan-2 mission from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota at 5:21 p.m. EDT (2151 GMT). The local time at liftoff will be 2:51 a.m. July 15. ISRO will webcast the launch live at 5 p.m. EDT (2100 GMT/2:30 a.m. IST) and you'll be able to watch it live on Space.com or directly from the Indian space agency's website.

"ISRO is now embarking on one of the most complex missions since its inception - that of launching Chandrayaan-2," said K. Kasturirangan, former chairman of the ISRO, in a video statement. "I'm sure the country is going to be really proud of what ISRO is doing today."

https://www.space.com/india-chandrayaan ... tification

US, Russia, China, India etc all going for the moon, great because we could soon be back there.
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