Circa 2021
A new study says that we could terraform Mars by creating an artificial magnetic field around it to prevent harmful solar radiation.
Category: space – Page 496
Astronomers find surprisingly complex magnetic fields in a galaxy’s halo
Astronomers hope to explain how galaxies like this one can grow magnetic fields that stretch for thousands of light-years — and what affect they have on galactic evolution.
The finding came out of a project to study radio signals from spiral galaxies that are tilted so we see them edge-on from Earth’s point of view. For these galaxies, astronomers can more easily separate what’s happening outside of the galaxies’ disks, in the gas-filled “haloes” that surround them.
Using observations from a radio telescope in New Mexico called the Very Large Array, the astronomers measured properties of the radio emission coming from the halo of the galaxy NGC 4631. They’d known from past observations that there were large-scale magnetic fields that extended out of the disk into the halo of this galaxy.
But with the new data, they could see the directions these fields pointed across multiple dimensions. Their measurements revealed that the fields pointed alternately in and out of the galaxy’s disk along the flat view of the sky from Earth’s point of view. Another measurement showed that the fields also alternated in pointing toward and away from Earth along our line of sight to the galaxy.
Stunning JWST image turns dust in a distant galaxy into a purple swirl
An extraordinary image of the centre of the spiral galaxy NGC 628 taken by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has drawn comparisons to a Doctor Who vortex, but it could reveal important clues about how dust behaves in galaxies.
The image is a composite of three sets of data at different wavelengths taken by JWST’s mid-infrared instrument team. Gabriel Brammer at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, who isn’t affiliated with the team, downloaded the data and translated each of the infrared wavelengths to red, green and blue before combining them to produce one image.
NGC 628 has been imaged with visible light by other telescopes, including Hubble, and looks similar to our own Milky Way if viewed from above the galactic plane. But JWST’s ability to observe infrared light in high resolution reveals a hidden structure. “If our eyes could see in these mid-infrared wavelengths, the night sky would look a lot more like this picture, which I think would be spectacular, maybe a little terrifying,” says Brammer.
NASA’s $10 Billion Webb Space Telescope Has Been Permanently Damaged, Scientists Reveal
Scientists report that damage to the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) caused by a micrometeoroid impact in late May 2022 may be more severe than previously believed.
A group of scientists evaluated the performance of the space telescope throughout its commissioning phase in a new report released last week following Webb’s amazing first photographs.
China’s Tianwen-1 Mars probe just completed its number one goal
Tianwen-1 is a historic victory for both the CNSA and space exploration.
Upon successful orbital insertion and landing, Tianwen-1 became a historic victory for the CNSA and space exploration. Before Tianwen-1, the only two successful missions to send an orbiter and lander to Mars were NASA’s Viking 1 and 2 missions in 1975. Prior to that, the Soviet Union had attempted this feat with their Mars 2 and 3 missions in 1971 and Mars 6 in 1973.
Mars 2 was an outright failure, with the lander being destroyed and the orbiter sending back no data. On Mars 3, the orbiter obtained approximately eight months of data, and while the lander touched down safely, it only returned 20 seconds of data. On Mars 6, the orbiter produced data from an occultation experiment, but the lander failed on the descent.
COLMENA, a new concept on lunar exploration
Live now, on the Space Renaissance YouTube channel.
We are stepping at the gates of a new era in space exploration, one which will finally incorporate the inner solar system to society’s daily life and economics. The first step is the Moon, and the asteroids will probably follow. The surface of those bodies presents special challenges for human and technological activities as well as resource exploitation. These challenges, which include regolith, extreme thermal amplitude, high energy radiation and surface mineral mixing among others, open the door to new operational approaches. COLMENA is the pathfinder of one such avenue: using swarms of micro-rovers for scientific exploration, resource prospection or, eventually, mining The first COLMENA mission will deploy 5 microrovers (56 grams each) on the Moon surface by the end of this year, flying on board a private spacecraft. In the talk I will briefly explain the context, technical characteristics and objectives of the mission, as well as its future.
A short bio.
Dr. Gustavo MEDINA TANCO is Professor at the Institute of Nuclear Sciences of UNAM in Mexico, where he leads the group of ultra-high energy cosmic rays and is the Head of the Laboratory for Space Instrumentation, LINX, which he created in 2009. He has also created, and is responsible for, the National Laboratory for Space Access (LANAE) in state of Hidalgo, Mexico, which will start operation in 2022. He was for 10 years the science coordinator of the International JEM-EUSO Collaboration and member of its executive board and, as such he lead the Mexican participation in the development of several instruments under the coordination of CNES, NASA, ASI and ROSCOSMOS.
