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Archive for the ‘space’ category: Page 210

Jan 20, 2023

ESA’s Gaia finds exoplanet with nuclear fusion reaction at its core

Posted by in category: space

This “may be the first direct detection of a ‘Gaia exoplanet.’”

The European Space Agency’s (ESA’s) Gaia spacecraft helped capture an exoplanet, paving the way for follow-up observations that revealed the distant planet had a nuclear fusion reaction in its core.

“The discovery of HD 206,893 c is a really important moment for the study of exoplanets, as ours may be the first direct detection of a ‘Gaia exoplanet,’” Professor Sasha Hinkley at the University of Exeter in England explained in a press statement.

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Jan 20, 2023

Watch live: Astronauts conduct first ISS spacewalk of 2023

Posted by in categories: energy, space

Jan. 20 (UPI) — Two astronauts embarked on the first spacewalk of 2023 on Friday as they work toward upgrading the International Space Station’s power generation system.

NASA astronaut Nicole Mann teamed up with Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency for the morning spacewalk, expected to last about 6 1/2 hours. They will install a modification kit at the far end of the ISS, allowing for the future installation of the roll-out solar array.

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Jan 19, 2023

Massive Star Formation Displays Self-Control

Posted by in categories: energy, space

When it comes to star formation in interstellar clouds of gas and dust, there’s an ongoing tug-of-war between two cloud-shaping processes. Young, massive stars inject energy into their surroundings in a way that both disrupts star formation by shredding the surrounding medium and encourages it by collecting dense gas shells that are prone to gravitational collapse. Which of these feedback processes dominates has been unclear, but new observations by Lars Bonne of NASA’s Ames Research Center and his colleagues suggest that stellar feedback significantly suppresses star formation. These findings—presented earlier this month at the 241st Meeting of the American Astronomy Society in Seattle—provide a missing piece in understanding why proposed rapid star-formation rates have long misaligned with observations.

Recent observations suggest that the formation of high-mass stars—ones greater than 8 times the mass of the Sun—is associated with the gravitational collapse of the surrounding cloud of molecular gas. This collapse leads to a high concentration of material, which should induce further star formation. However, the expected high star-formation rates are not observed, with typically only a few percent of the molecular cloud’s mass becoming new stars. “If stellar feedback indeed disperses the collapsing molecular cloud on the same timescale that new stars form, it could prevent these proposed high star-formation rates,” Bonne says. But predicting the impact and role of stellar feedback on the surrounding molecular cloud remains extremely difficult.

Now with data from NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA, now retired) and the Chandra X-ray Observatory, Bonne and his colleagues have tracked the process in real time. The first observation target was a star-forming complex called RCW 36, which is several light-years across and is located 2,900 light-years away in a molecular cloud within the constellation Vela. Like other star-forming complexes, RCW 36 consists of a large region of ionized atomic hydrogen (HII, pronounced “H-two”). This region includes a cluster of young stars and two low-density cavities that extend outward in opposite directions. A ring of gas forms a waist between the two cavities, resulting in an hourglass-like shape.

Jan 19, 2023

Our Solar System may be surrounded by a halo of 10 million interstellar objects

Posted by in category: space

A recent model suggests that passing interstellar objects should get pulled into our Sun’s orbit fairly often.

Jan 19, 2023

A 10-terabyte image reveals over 3 billion uncharted Milky Way objects

Posted by in categories: computing, space

NOIRLab.

The image, taken by the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) on the NSF’s NOIRLab’s Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) in Chile, is viewable online. Anyone can zoom in on the ten terabytes of data made up of 21,400 individual exposures.

Jan 18, 2023

Scientists snap the most detailed image of the Moon ever taken from Earth

Posted by in category: space

A group of astronomers has snapped what is described as the most detailed image of the Moon ever snapped from the surface of Earth.

Jan 18, 2023

New Nuclear Rocket Design to Send Missions to Mars in Just 45 Days

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, military, nuclear energy, space

We live in an era of renewed space exploration, where multiple agencies are planning to send astronauts to the Moon in the coming years. This will be followed in the next decade with crewed missions to Mars by NASA and China, who may be joined by other nations before long. These and other missions that will take astronauts beyond Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and the Earth-Moon system require new technologies, ranging from life support and radiation shielding to power and propulsion. And when it comes to the latter, Nuclear Thermal and Nuclear Electric Propulsion (NTP/NEP) is a top contender!

NASA and the Soviet space program spent decades researching nuclear propulsion during the Space Race. A few years ago, NASA reignited its nuclear program for the purpose of developing bimodal nuclear propulsion – a two-part system consisting of an NTP and NEP element – that could enable transits to Mars in 100 days. As part of the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program for 2023, NASA selected a nuclear concept for Phase I development. This new class of bimodal nuclear propulsion system uses a “wave rotor topping cycle” and could reduce transit times to Mars to just 45 days.

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Jan 18, 2023

The JWST is already upending our understanding of the early universe

Posted by in category: space

The telescope has already found more early galaxies than expected.

Jan 18, 2023

Record-Breaking Signal From Distant Galaxy Is Furthest of Its Kind Ever Detected

Posted by in category: space

Hydrogen is a key building block of the cosmos. Whether stripped down to its charged core, or piled into a molecule, the nature of its presence can tell you a lot about the Universe’s features on the largest of scales.

For that reason astronomers are very interested in detecting signals from this element, wherever it can be found.

Now the light signature of uncharged, atomic hydrogen has been measured further from Earth than ever before, by some margin. The Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) in India has picked up a signal with a lookback time – the time between the light being emitted and being detected – of a huge 8.8 billion years.

Jan 18, 2023

Why Oumuamua May Have Been The First Sign of Intelligent Life with Dr. Avi Loeb

Posted by in category: space

In this interview with Avi Loeb, the Frank B. Baird, Jr., Professor of Science and astrophysicist at Harvard University, he explains why in his new book, Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth, he has put forth the theory that our first interstellar visitor to be spotted in our solar system, Oumuamua, might just be the first sign of intelligent life beyond earth.

Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth https://amzn.to/2LiIxoo affiliate link.

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