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Category: space – Page 445

The ESA aims to make 24/7 space-based solar energy harvesting a reality

The Solaris program will study space-based solar power amid rising energy concerns.

The European Space Agency (ESA) is set to approve a three-year study to determine whether sending huge solar farms into space could effectively meet the world’s energy demands, a report from the BBC reveals.

So, if all goes to plan, the technology could one day harvest massive amounts of energy from space — enough to power millions of homes.

ESA / A. Treuer.

A space-based solar power plant would be launched into a geostationary orbit, meaning it would orbit in a fixed location over the Earth that would be hit by the Sun 24/7.

Orion moonship operating in near-flawless fashion, mission managers say

NASA’s unpiloted Orion moonship, sailing smoothly toward a remote lunar orbit after a spectacular low-altitude flyby Monday, is operating in near-flawless fashion, mission managers reported Monday, out-performing expectations on a flight to pave the way toward the first piloted mission in 2024.

An analysis of the huge Space Launch System rocket that boosted the Orion capsule on its way early Wednesday showed it performed almost exactly as expected, taking off atop 8.8 million pounds of thrust and producing a ground-shaking shock wave that literally blew the doors off launch pad elevators.

The core stage’s four upgraded space shuttle main engines and twin solid-fuel boosters propelled the 322-foot-tall rocket out of the atmosphere and into space almost exactly as planned. At main engine cutoff, the SLS was within 3 miles of its target altitude and within 5 mph of the predicted velocity.

This is what the Earth looks like rotating from the Moon… This is how

It will be the sight of astronauts on the moon, their gaze drawn to the strange movements of planet Earth and its sun, something that is sure to be an amusing sight for future NASA astronauts at the moon’s south pole.

This visualization shows the unusual movements of the Earth and the Sun as seen from the South Pole of the Moon. The animation compresses three months (a little over three lunar days) into two minutes. The virtual camera is on the rim of the Shackleton crater, partially visible in the lower right, and is pointed at Earth. The mountain on the horizon, some 85 miles away, is unofficially known as Mons Malapert.

Here, the Sun glides across the horizon, never more than 1.5 degrees above or below it, while the Earth bobs up and down, never straying from 0° longitude. The Earth appears to be upside down and spinning backward. The Sun’s perpetually low angle casts extremely long swirling shadows over the rugged lunar terrain.

In the second month of the visualization, the Earth passes in front of the Sun, creating an eclipse. For observers on Earth, this is a lunar eclipse, in which the Moon passes through the shadow cast by the Earth. However, seen from the Moon, it is an eclipse of the Sun.

Video Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Visualizations by: Ernie Wright (USRA) Narrated by: Ernie Wright (USRA) Produced and Edited by: David Ladd (AIMM) Principal Scientist: Noah Petro (NASA/GSFC) Technical Support: Laurence Schuler (ADNET), net. /Jones (ADNET)

Music provided by Universal Production Music: “Enwhileing Faith” — Frederik Wiedmann.
https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4944. https://nasa.gov/multimedia/guidelines.
Godard of NASA.

JWST sees a stunning hourglass of light around a still-forming star

About 450 light years away, a star is being born. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has taken an image of a protostar – an object that is massive enough to become a star but hasn’t yet begun the process of nuclear fusion – revealing details that have never been seen before.

This protostar is in an area called the Taurus star-forming region, embedded within a dark cloud of dust and gas called L1527. It is only about 100,000 years old, putting it in the first stage of star formation, in which it is still slightly fluffy and lopsided. Over the next few million years, it will continue to compress under its own gravitational pull and then begin to fuse hydrogen into helium and become a fully fledged star.

Microbes may have survived for millions of years beneath the Martian surface

Ancient bacteria might be sleeping beneath the surface of Mars, where it has been shielded from the harsh radiation of space for millions of years, according to new research.

While no evidence of life has been found on the red planet, researchers simulated conditions on Mars in a lab to see how bacteria and fungi could survive. The scientists were surprised to discover that bacteria could likely survive for 280 million years if it was buried and protected from the ionizing radiation and solar particles that bombard the Martian surface.

The findings suggested that if life ever existed on Mars, the dormant evidence of it might still be located in the planet’s subsurface — a place that future missions could explore as they drill into Martian soil.

ESA SOLARIS: Wireless Power Beamed Down From Space

Solar power could be gathered far away in space and transmitted wirelessly down to Earth to wherever it is needed. The European Space Agency (ESA) plans to investigate key technologies needed to make Space-Based Solar Power a working reality through its SOLARIS initiative. Recently in Germany, one of these technologies, wireless power transmission, was demonstrated to an audience of decision-makers from business and government.

The demonstration took place at Airbus’ X-Works Innovation Factory in Munich. Microwave beaming was used to transmit green energy between two points representing ‘Space’ and ‘Earth’ over a distance of 36 meters.

The received power was used to light up a model city and produce green hydrogen by splitting water. It even served to produce the world’s first wirelessly cooled 0% alcohol beer in a fridge before being served to the watching audience.

Sun is Older Than The Earth But The Water You Drink is Older Than The Sun

Remember that some of the molecules in your “fresh” sip of water are actually billions of years old—far older than the solar system itself.

It looks doubtful that water existed on Earth before the solar system in which it is located. However, a recent peer-reviewed study published in the journal Science supports this.

Astronomers arrived at this conclusion by demonstrating that water in our solar system had to have been produced inside the huge cloud of gas and dust that preceded and was required for the creation of the star known as the Sun. This implies that water existed before the Sun exploded into a star, water that eventually made its way to Earth via “wet rocks” such as asteroids or comets.

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