With NASA’s powerful new 322-foot-tall moon rocket fully stacked at Kennedy Space Center, managers said Friday that Feb. 12 is the soonest the unpiloted Artemis 1 mission could blast off toward lunar orbit, a date that hinges on the outcome of a critical fueling test on the launch pad in January.
A University of Toronto astronomer’s research suggests the solar system is surrounded by a magnetic tunnel that can be seen in radio waves.
Jennifer West, a research associate at the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics, is making a scientific case that two bright structures seen on opposite sides of the sky – previously considered to be separate – are actually connected and are made of rope-like filaments. The connection forms what looks like a tunnel around our solar system.
The data results of West’s research have been published in the Astrophysical Journal.
Researchers working with the 500-Meter FAST telescope in China reported 1,652 fast radio bursts in 47 days coming from a single source.
The energetic phenomena known as Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) are one of the greatest cosmic mysteries today. These mysterious flashes of light are visible in the radio wave part of the spectrum and usually last only a few milliseconds before fading away forever. Since the first FRB was observed in 2,007 astronomers have looked forward to the day when instruments of sufficient sensitivity would be able to detect them regularly.
That day has arrived with the completion of the 500-Meter FAST Radio Telescope (aka. Tianyan, “Eye of Heaven”). Since it commenced operations, this observatory has vastly expanded the number of detected FRBs. In fact, according to research led by the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAO/CAS), the observatory detected a total of 1,652 independent bursts from a single source in 47 days.
The research, which recently appeared in the journal Science, was conducted by researchers from the Commensal Radio Astronomy FAST Survey (CRAFTS) project. CRAFTS includes researchers from the Cornell Center for Astrophysics and Planetary Science, the Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), and multiple universities in China, Australia, and the U.S.
Scientists at the University of Chicago say that they’ve successfully created a “strange” new state of matter in the laboratory called “superionic ice” — and that the stuff might already exist inside planets in our solar system.
“It was a surprise — everyone thought this phase wouldn’t appear until you are at much higher pressures than where we first find it,” co-author and University of Chicago researcher Vitali Prakapenka said in a press blurb. “But we were able to very accurately map the properties of this new ice, which constitutes a new phase of matter, thanks to several powerful tools.”
Prakapenka’s team used a particle acclerator to fire electons between two pieces of diamond, creating unfathomable pressures of 20 gigapascals in a sample of water and causing it to form an entirely new structure that reverted when they relieved the pressure.
Posted in biological, chemistry, economics, food, government, habitats, space | Leave a Comment on First Seal of Historic SAM Analog at Biosphere 2 — Kai Staats — 2021 Mars Society Virtual Convention
Title: A data analysis of the first hermetic seal of SAM–a hi-fidelity, hybrid physicochemical and bioregenerative human habitat analog at the Biosphere 2
Track Code: AM-8
Abstract:
SAM is a Space Analog for the Moon and Mars. This hi-fidelity, hermetically sealed habitat analog and research center is composed of a living quarters for four crew, workshop, dual airlocks, and greenhouse with temperature, humidity, and carbon dioxide level controls. SAM incorporates a half acre indoor/outdoor Mars yard with scaled crater, synthetic lava tube, and gravity offset rig for use in sealed pressure suits. SAM leverages the world class expertise and facilities at the University of Arizona’s Biosphere 2 and the Controlled Environment Agriculture Center (CEAC). As with other analogs, SAM welcomes research teams from around the world in an effort to inform near-future, long-duration human habitation of the Moon and Mars. With the close of June 2,021 a six months refurbishing of the 1987 prototype for the Biosphere 2 Test Module was completed. A crew of five were sealed inside for four hours. This was the first hermetic seal of this iconic vessel in three decades. The paper summarizes the data and findings pertaining to this closure, with review of the internal atmospheric pressure, CO2, O2, humidity and temperature data, including the effect of activation of a CO2 scrubber built by Paragon SDC for NASA.
From the 24th Annual International Mars Society Convention, held as a Virtual Convention worldwide on the Internet from October 14–17, 2021. The four-day International Mars Society Convention, held every year since 1,998 brings together leading scientists, engineers, aerospace industry representatives, government policymakers and journalists to talk about the latest scientific discoveries, technological advances and political-economic developments that could help pave the way for a human mission to the planet Mars.
Conference Papers and some presentations will be available on www.MarsPapers.org.
For more information on the Mars Society, visit our website at www.MarsSociety.org.
NASA has released a new video that imagines future human explorers and space tourists.
Robotic missions have toured much of our Solar System – but so far, the only place beyond Earth where humans have stood is the Moon. That may change in the coming decades, with space agencies vying to achieve the historic milestone of putting the first astronaut on Mars. Towards the end of this century, as the cost of launching into space is reduced to a few cents per kilogram, space tourism may become as cheap as a transatlantic flight today. New forms of space propulsion in the 22nd century and beyond may open up the stars to human settlement.
In this short film, NASA has visualised some of the distant places that lie waiting to be explored. We get a glimpse of people on the Red Planet, standing in a cloud city on Venus, drifting towards the water plumes of Enceladus, and even kayaking on Titan. We are then provided with scientifically accurate depictions of exoplanets that humans may visit in the more distant future.
Jetson One is an electrical VTOL flying vehicle you can actually buy—well, pre-order—that shows not only that it can be done but that it can be done with style and flair. The catch is battery life—about 20m flight time per charge for a 187lb rider.
A complete vehicle is 92 000 USD and is delivered to you as a partially (50%) assembled kit for home completion. It contains everything you need, from the aluminium space frame to motor controllers, propellers and motors. You will also receive detailed build instructions.
If you want to have your own Jetson ONE, please contact us for purchase. 22 000 USD deposit to reserve a build slot. We plan to have twelve build slots for autumn 2,022 with production starting during the summer of 2022.
Built for critical research, continuous LEO presence, and space tourism.
Nanoracks, Voyager Space, and Lockheed Martin just announced that they aim to launch the first-ever free-flying commercial space station into low Earth orbit (LEO) by 2027 as part of a collaboration with NASA, a press statement reveals.
The space station, called Starlab, will be used for conducting critical research, ensuring continuous U.S. presence in low Earth orbit, and also for “tourism and other commercial and business activities,” Lockheed Martin explains. The fact that the space station is free-flying means that it will not be locked into one orbital position.
Astronomers found reservoirs of organic molecules around young stars, suggesting the ingredients for life are more widespread in the universe.
