Stephen Colbert and Khalid will be on the livestream.
Wondering how to watch Virgin Galactic launch Richard Branson and a crew of three employees to space? The company’s livestream will begin at 9AM ET on July 11th and be hosted by Stephen Colbert, followed by a live performance from Khalid.
When Oumuamua, the first interstellar object ever observed passing through the Solar System, was discovered in 2017, it exhibited some unexpected properties that left astronomers scratching their heads. Its elongated shape, lack of a coma, and the fact that it changed its trajectory were all surprising, leading to several competing theories about its origin: was it a hydrogen iceberg exhibiting outgassing, or maybe an extraterrestrial solar sail (sorry folks, not likely) on a deep-space journey? We may never know the answer, because Oumuamua was moving too fast, and was observed too late, to get a good look.
It may be too late for Oumuamua, but we could be ready for the next strange interstellar visitor if we wanted to. A spacecraft could be designed and built to catch such an object at a moment’s notice. The idea of an interstellar interceptor like this has been floated by various experts, and funding to study such a concept has even been granted through NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program. But how exactly would such an interceptor work?
A new paper released on ArXiv on June 27th explores one possible mission design. Derived from the NIAC study, the proposal suggests combining solar sail technology with the ability to miniaturize space probes to small, lightweight sizes.
The 2021 Space Renaissance Congress Acta is now online, and the voting session for the new President and Board of Directors is now open.
Dear SRI friends and supporters.
Two key milestones of our 3rd World Congress are now accomplished.
**1) The complete acta of the presented papers and speeches** is now online, for all of us to be viewed and reviewed. https://2021.spacerenaissance.space/index.php/2021-space-renaissance-congress-acta/
On this page you can find: * The presented papers, for download * The pointer to each live presentation, in the recorded videos on YouTube (hyperlink-pointer to the hour: minutes: seconds)
When watching to any video on the YouTube Space Renaissance channel, don’t forget to subscribe to the channel! (the channel is relatively recent, and increasing the number of subscribers is key to our web reputation).
Soon we will also begin the work to assemble the Acta Book, to be published on Amazon, let’s say, within September 2021.
**2) The new President and Board of Directors** are now waiting the completion of the voting process, to begin their work for the next 5 years, towards the SRI 4th World Congress.
As you likely know, Prof. Bernard Foing — for 30 years ESA officer and tireless space activist — is the candidate President of Space Renaissance International.
A large endorsement by our members and supporters is key, for the new leadership, to know they will be supported during the next 5 years.
Leading an organization mainly working on the web is not simple, it is a hard task, and the leaders never know whether they are “speaking in the desert” or the community is alive, reactive and proactive…
Now it’s up to all of us to assure that Bernard and the new Board get a warm and broad consensus, to support them in their task for the next 5 years!
Btw, as you can see in the list of Directors, i am not escaping! (😁), I am one of the vice presidents, and will take care of the Academy, and other key programmes.
The votes by non SRI members, though non binding for the election, are very important since they testify the consensus to our leadership.
Please vote for the President and the new Board of Directors:
**3) Taking the maximum cultural profit from our Congress**. What is the main outcome of our Congress? It is constituted by the concepts that emerged during the presentations and discussions. The things we understood or better clarified thanks to the great collective work we made, since October 2020 to July 2021, through the webinar series and the five days of the Congress. During the next weeks and months we will produce several newsletters and articles, “mining” the conceptual contents. A few non exhaustive examples: * the social inclusivity, as a 4th parameter to assess the level of a civilization (with reference to the Kardashev-Zubrin-Sagan scale) * the solution of the energy issue, by moving the industries outside the planet, in the cislunar space * the key and indispensable role of the new space industry to save and lead the global economy growth, overcoming the multiple crisis * a gas strategy to kick-off the civilian space development before 2030.
Just to name 4 of the many key concepts we discussed in this congress.
Keep on following and supporting the Space Renaissance!
Also consider joining the SRI Crew…
https://spacerenaissance.space/membership/international-membership-registration/
Ad Astra!
Adriano V. Autino — former SRI President.
…
Web Space Renaissance
“Jupiter does this really weird thing where it pulses with a regular beat like clockwork.”
Using data from the Juno spacecraft, scientists traced the chain of events that lead to Jupiter’s mysterious auroras.
A research team has solved a decades-old mystery as to how Jupiter produces a spectacular burst of X-rays every few minutes.
A research team co-led by UCL (University College London) has solved a decades-old mystery as to how Jupiter produces a spectacular burst of X-rays every few minutes.
The X-rays are part of Jupiter’s aurora — bursts of visible and invisible light that occur when charged particles interact with the planet’s atmosphere. A similar phenomenon occurs on Earth, creating the northern lights, but Jupiter’s is much more powerful, releasing hundreds of gigawatts of energy, enough to briefly power all of human civilization.*.
Two things capture your attention in this spectacular Picture of the Week, which was taken using Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3): the two enormous galaxies that flank the left and right sides of the image. The galaxy on the left is a lenticular galaxy, which rejoices in the name of 2MASX J03193743+4137580. The side-on spiral galaxy on the right is more simply named UGC 2665. Both galaxies lie approximately 350 million light-years from Earth, and they both form part of the enormous Perseus galaxy cluster.
Perseus is an important figure in Greek mythology, renowned for slaying Medusa the Gorgon — who is herself famous for the unhappy reason that she was cursed to have living snakes for hair. Given Perseus’s impressive credentials, it seems appropriate that the eponymous galaxy cluster is one of the biggest objects in the known Universe, consisting of thousands of galaxies, only a few of which are visible in this image.
The wonderful detail in the image is thanks to the WFC3’s powerful resolution and high sensitivity. The WFC3 is sensitive to both visible and infrared light, so those are the wavelengths that are captured in this image. The Perseus supercluster looks very different at other wavelengths. Whilst in this image the spaces between the galaxies appear dark and peaceful, when the X-ray emission is observed the Perseus cluster appears to be burning with bright intense light.
From above, the Antarctic Ice Sheet might look like a calm, perpetual ice blanket that has covered Antarctica for millions of years. But the ice sheet can be thousands of meters deep at its thickest, and it hides hundreds of meltwater lakes where its base meets the continent’s bedrock. Deep below the surface, some of these lakes fill and drain continuously through a system of waterways that eventually drain into the ocean.
Now, with the most advanced Earth-observing laser instrument NASA has ever flown in space, scientists have improved their maps of these hidden lake systems under the West Antarctic ice sheet—and discovered two more of these active subglacial lakes.
The new study provides critical insight for spotting new subglacial lakes from space, as well as for assessing how this hidden plumbing system influences the speed at which ice slips into the Southern Ocean, adding freshwater that may alter its circulation and ecosystems.
Astra plans to get to Earth orbit for the first time this summer — and to return many times in the ensuing weeks and months.
The first 1000 people to use this link will get a 1 month free trial of Skillshare:
https://skl.sh/kurzgesagtinanutshell08211
Sources & further reading:
https://sites.google.com/view/sources-terraform-venus/
Leaving earth to find new homes in space is an old dream of humanity and will sooner or later be necessary for our survival. The planet that gets the most attention is Mars, a small, toxic and energy poor planet that just about seems good enough for a colony of depressed humans huddled in underground cities.
But what if we think bigger? What if we take Venus, one of the most hostile and deadly places in the solar system and turn it into a colony? Not by building lofty cloud cities, but by creating a proper second earth? It might be easier than you think.
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