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Message 2094249 - Posted: 16 Feb 2022, 13:41:23 UTC

1st image from NASA's new IXPE X-ray telescope looks like a ball of purple lightning.

The Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) probe launched Dec. 9, 2021, on a mission to observe objects like black holes and neutron stars in X-ray light, shedding much-anticipated light on the inner workings of the cosmos. The probe spent its first month in space checking out its various systems to get ready to capture its first images, and now the IXPE team has released its very first science image.

The image shows Cassiopeia A, the remnants of a star that exploded as a supernova in the 17th century. That explosion sent shock waves outwards, heating up surrounding gasses and accelerating cosmic ray particles (high-speed electrons and atomic nuclei) to create a cloud of assorted matter, according to a statement from NASA. This cloud, as you can see in the striking image from IXPE, glows brilliantly in X-ray light.

It goes without saying that the image is visually stunning.

"The IXPE image of Cassiopeia A is bellissima, and we look forward to analyzing the polarimetry data to learn even more about this supernova remnant," Paolo Soffitta, the Italian principal investigator for IXPE at the National Institute of Astrophysics (INAF) in Rome, said in the NASA statement. ("Bellissima" means beautiful in Italian.)

Now, while the image's most striking feature is its almost-neon magenta color, it doesn't actually look like that in visible light. But this color, which represents X-ray radiation, is a helpful guide for scientists. The more saturated the color, the more intense the X-ray light. Additionally, veins of what resembles blue lightning in the image represent high energy X-rays seen by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory.

While the two telescopes both observe X-rays, they have different kinds of detectors so, by working together, they can produce more complete and detailed data, according to the statement.
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Message 2094448 - Posted: 18 Feb 2022, 20:28:18 UTC

The Sun Has Erupted Non-Stop All Month, And There Are More Giant Flares Coming.

The past few weeks or so have been a very busy time for the Sun. Our star has undergone a series of giant eruptions that have sent plasma hurtling through space.

Perhaps the most dramatic was a powerful coronal mass ejection and solar flare that erupted from the far side of the Sun on February 15 just before midnight. Based on the size, it's possible that the eruption was in the most powerful category of which our Sun is capable: an X-class flare.

Because the flare and CME were directed away from Earth, we're unlikely to see any of the effects associated with a geomagnetic storm, which occurs when material from the eruption slams into Earth's atmosphere.

These include interruptions to communications, power grid fluctuations, and auroras. But the escalating activity suggests that we may anticipate such storms in the imminent future.

"This is only the second farside active region of this size since September 2017," astronomer Junwei Zhao of Stanford University's helioseismology group told SpaceWeather.

"If this region remains huge as it rotates to the Earth-facing side of the Sun, it could give us some exciting flares."

According to SpaceWeatherLive, which tracks solar activity, the Sun has erupted every day for the month of February, with some days featuring multiple flares. That includes three of the second-most powerful flare category, M-class flares: an M1.4 on February 12; an M1 on February 14; and an M1.3 on February 15. There were also five M-class flares in January.

The mild geomagnetic storm that knocked 40 newly launched Starlink satellites from low-Earth orbit followed an M-class flare that took place on January 29. Ejecta from a solar eruption usually take a few days to reach Earth, depending how fast the material is traveling. The remaining flares that have taken place in February have so far been in the milder C-class category....
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Message 2094734 - Posted: 22 Feb 2022, 6:54:37 UTC

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Message 2095209 - Posted: 1 Mar 2022, 18:24:55 UTC

I guess that we'll soon know who owns the rocket that is soon to hit the moon, but there is 1 positive to it (aside from the litter).

A rocket is going to crash into the Moon – the accidental experiment will shed light on the physics of impacts in space.

On March 4, 2022, a lonely, spent rocket booster will smack into the surface of the Moon at nearly 6,000 mph. Once the dust has settled, NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will move into position to get an up-close view of the smoldering crater and hopefully shed some light on the mysterious physics of planetary impacts.

As a planetary scientist who studies the Moon, I view this unplanned impact as an exciting opportunity. The moon has been a steadfast witness to solar system history, its heavily cratered surface recording innumerable collisions over the last 4 billion years. However, scientists rarely get a glimpse of the projectiles – usually asteroids or comets – that form these craters. Without knowing the specifics of what created a crater, there is only so much scientists can learn by studying one.

The upcoming rocket impact will provide a fortuitous experiment that could reveal a lot about how natural collisions pummel and scour planetary surfaces. A deeper understanding of impact physics will go a long way in helping researchers interpret the barren landscape of the moon and also the effects impacts have on Earth and other planets.

There has been some debate over the exact identity of the tumbling object currently on a collision course with the Moon. Astronomers know that the object is an upper stage booster discarded from a high-altitude satellite launch. It is roughly 40 feet (12 meters) long and weighs nearly 10,000 pounds (4,500 kilograms). Evidence suggests that it is likely either a SpaceX rocket launched in 2015 or a Chinese rocket launched in 2014, but both parties have denied ownership....
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Message 2095491 - Posted: 7 Mar 2022, 20:47:39 UTC

Has your compass bearings been out of late? This is why.

The Magnetic North Pole Is Rapidly Moving Because of Some Blobs.

..Ever since the British polar explorer James Clark Ross first identified it on the Boothia Peninsula in Canada’s Nunavut territory in 1831, scientists have been carefully measuring its location. But in recent years, our north pole has been inching closer and closer to Siberia at a surprisingly rapid pace.

In 2020, researchers from the United Kingdom and Denmark uncovered the reason for this mysterious movement: two writhing lobes of magnetic force, duking it out near Earth’s core.

“The wandering of Earth’s north magnetic pole, the location where the magnetic field points vertically downwards, has long been a topic of scientific fascination,” the researchers write in their paper, which appears in the journal Nature Geoscience.

Earth’s magnetic field is generated by molten iron in its outer core. The flow of this liquid iron can influence the location of the planet’s magnetic poles. While poles have drifted and even swapped places numerous times over the course of Earth’s long history, what’s different about this recent shift is how quickly it’s happening. From 1999 to 2005, Earth’s magnetic north pole went from shifting nine miles at most each year to as much as 37 miles in a year.....
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Message 2096584 - Posted: 27 Mar 2022, 0:52:09 UTC

XKCD comic
Astronomy Fact: There Are Too Many Galaxies
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Message 2096588 - Posted: 27 Mar 2022, 3:09:31 UTC

The Speed of Sound on Mars Is Kinda Funky,
New Evidence Suggests
Sound travels slower on Mars compared to Earth—but it gets even slower at low frequencies.

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Message 2096741 - Posted: 29 Mar 2022, 22:48:33 UTC

Astronomers Are Stumped by New High-Frequency Wave on the Surface of the Sun.

Astronomers have discovered a bizarre, new high-frequency wave on the surface of the sun.

These acoustic waves, which astronomers spotted within a dataset spanning 25 years of observations by both space and ground-based observatories, travel three times faster than predicted by current theory. On top of that, the waves also form vortices that swirl in the opposite direction of the sun’s rotation.

A team of researchers from New York University, New York University Abu Dhabi’s Center for Space Science, and the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Mumbai, India, described the high-frequency retrograde (HFR) waves in a paper published March 24 to the journal Nature Astronomy.

Other types of waves are driven, in part, by magnetism, gravity, or convection, but that doesn’t seem to be the case with these newly discovered acoustic waves. Something else is powering them. (Curiously, similar high frequency waves have been observed in the ocean, the researchers explain, and atmospheric scientists have not yet uncovered their origins either.)...
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Message 2097283 - Posted: 6 Apr 2022, 22:10:47 UTC

This must off been a thrill seeking Kiwi's idea. :-O

Rocket Lab to catch an Electron rocket with a giant helicopter.

Space launch provider Rocket Lab plans to catch an Electron rocket using a giant helicopter, as the launch vehicle returns to Earth from space.

This will be the first time the firm has attempted a mid-air helicopter capture, and if successful will be the first reusable orbital small launch vehicle.

The test will happen no sooner than April 19, on a ride share launch of the Electron rocket, from Pad A at Launch Complex 1 on New Zealand's M?hia Peninsula.

It is a flight known as the 'There and Back Again' mission, Rocket Lab's 26th Electron launch, sending 34 payloads from a range of commercial operators.

After the rocket has deployed the satellites, it will return to Earth, and instead of splashing down in the ocean, never to be used again, Rocket Lab will attempt to catch it before it reaches the water - and prepare it for a second flight in future....
Those flying fan thingies havn't been the most reliable things at staying up in the sky of late let alone trying to catch something that's already falling down.

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Message 2097296 - Posted: 7 Apr 2022, 3:09:44 UTC

Great to see that a valuable place of Space Science & Astronomy will once again be open to visitors and scientists!
Urban spelunking: Yerkes Observatory, which will soon reopen to the public
Every now and again I'm faced with a subject so rich in facts and history and details that I can't imagine I'll ever get it all into the story. Meet the Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay, on Geneva Lake, Wisconsin

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Message 2097299 - Posted: 7 Apr 2022, 3:18:53 UTC - in response to Message 2097283.  


Rocket Lab to catch an Electron rocket with a giant helicopter.

Space launch provider Rocket Lab plans to catch an Electron rocket using a giant helicopter, as the launch vehicle returns to Earth from space.


After the rocket has deployed the satellites, it will return to Earth, and instead of splashing down in the ocean, never to be used again, Rocket Lab will attempt to catch it before it reaches the water - and prepare it for a second flight in future....
Those flying fan thingies havn't been the most reliable things at staying up in the sky of late let alone trying to catch something that's already falling down.

Cheers.

Hmm... now what are the odds that something could possibly go wrong?
Anyone willing to calculate those odds?
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Message 2097314 - Posted: 7 Apr 2022, 11:54:03 UTC

The world's biggest catapult will be tested this year.

SpinLaunch's rocket-flinging launch system will loft NASA payload on test flight this year.

NASA will soon take a unique launch system out for a spin.

The agency has signed on to send a payload up using a suborbital, kinetic-energy based system developed by California-based company SpinLaunch. The test flight, which is expected later this year, will "provide valuable information to NASA for potential future commercial launch opportunities," SpinLaunch representatives said in an emailed statement.

The newly revealed Space Act Agreement is part of NASA's Flight Opportunities Program, which helps demonstrate technologies that could aid the agency's science and exploration portfolios down the road and spur the growth of the private spaceflight industry.

SpinLaunch aims to help power that growth with its novel launch strategy. That strategy involves accelerating rockets to tremendous speeds here on terra firma using a rotating arm and then flinging them skyward. The launch vehicles will light up their engines when they're already high in the sky, greatly reducing the amount of fuel and hardware — and, by extension, money — needed to reach orbit.

SpinLaunch has already conducted a series of test flights from New Mexico's Spaceport America using its suborbital accelerator. The company aims to launch its first orbital test flights in 2025....
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Message 2097621 - Posted: 12 Apr 2022, 17:01:34 UTC

UFOs left 'radiation burns' and 'unaccounted for pregnancies,' new Pentagon report claims
1,500 pages of UFO related research were just declassified as part of a FOIA request.

The report concludes that there is sufficient evidence "to support a hypothesis that some advanced systems are already deployed, and opaque to full US understandings."

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Message 2097651 - Posted: 12 Apr 2022, 23:30:51 UTC

The language in the conclusion to that report is intriguing. 'Advanced systems already deployed'. Somebody, then, had to devise those 'advanced systems', and then deploy them. 'Opaque to full US. understanding.' Hmmm... Such advanced systems, it seems, that we are unable to even comprehend how they work!

Resorting to the explanation that these systems had their origin in some foreign (Earthly) nation strikes me as unsatisfying and really unconvincing. It supposes that some nation on our planet managed to leap technologically ahead of the rest of the world, and keep it a tight secret. Hard enough to believe. Further-- If some nation had such an extraordinary advantage over the rest, why has it not pressed that advantage, and made itself master of the world?

When you realize that other nations, like China and Russia, were and are seeing the same sorts of 'advanced systems' and reacting with as much puzzlement as the United States does, one's incredulity about terrestrially produced Unidentified Aerial Phenomena rises, even higher.

Then, too, these UAPs have been flying rings around our world's aircraft for at least the last 80 years, and yet, and yet-- the secret has never leaked out or been spied out?! That scenario strikes me as considerably less likely than the proposition that we could have extraterrestrial visitors.
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Message 2097848 - Posted: 15 Apr 2022, 23:15:16 UTC

Well the Rocket Lab helicopter catch is on for this coming week, but will it work?

‘No Easy Feat:’ Daring Helicopter Rocket-Catch Attempt Set for Next Week.

...The mission is scheduled to take off within a two-week window starting April 22...

...“Trying to catch a rocket as it falls back to Earth is no easy feat, we’re absolutely threading the needle here,” Peter Beck, Rocket Lab founder and CEO, said in a statement. “But pushing the limits with such complex operations is in our DNA.”...
Well we'll soon find out I guess.

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Message 2097911 - Posted: 16 Apr 2022, 21:31:40 UTC

Auctioneer puts Space Shuttle CPUs under the hammer
IBM kit made 20 journeys into space, now selling for surprisingly down-to-Earth prices
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Message 2098124 - Posted: 20 Apr 2022, 20:16:22 UTC

Surprised astronomers find new type of star explosion - a micronova.

Astronomers have detected a previously unknown type of stellar explosion called a micronova involving thermonuclear blasts at the polar regions of a type of burned-out star called a white dwarf after it has siphoned material from a companion star.

The researchers said on Wednesday a micronova is by far the least powerful type of star explosions now known - less energetic than a blast called a nova in which a white dwarf's entire surface blows up and tiny compared to a supernova that occurs during the death throes of some giant stars.

Micronovae are observed from Earth as bursts of light lasting about 10 hours. They were documented on three white dwarfs - one 1,680 light years away from Earth, one 3,720 light years away and one 4,900 light years away. A light year is the distance light travels in a year, 5.9 trillion miles (9.5 trillion km).

"The discovery was an unexpected surprise. It goes to show just how dynamic the universe is. These events are fast and sporadic. Finding them requires looking at the right place at the right time," said astronomer Simone Scaringi of Durham University in England, lead author of the study published in the journal Nature....
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Message 2098133 - Posted: 20 Apr 2022, 22:09:26 UTC

Time Might Not Exist, According to Physicists
Does time exist? The answer to this question may seem obvious: of course it does! Just look at a calendar or a clock.

But developments in physics suggest the non-existence of time is an open possibility, and one that we should take seriously.

How can that be, and what would it mean? It’ll take a little while to explain, but don’t worry: even if time doesn’t exist, our lives will go on as usual.

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Message 2098135 - Posted: 20 Apr 2022, 22:26:50 UTC - in response to Message 2098133.  
Last modified: 20 Apr 2022, 22:27:22 UTC

Thanks for that conundrum...

After all... Time is merely an illusion (regardless of the time-warp effects of lunchtimes).

And so far, our only way for noticing the assumed passage of time is to note that some movement/motion (change of state) has happened.


All just happenstance?...

Einstein made progress in our understanding of our universe by relaxing, what were considered to be at that time, a number of 'absolutes'. That gave rise to relativity and deforming space as we know it.

I dread to think what we get if go all multidimensional quantum!


Keep searchin',
Martin
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Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)
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Message 2098194 - Posted: 21 Apr 2022, 15:25:46 UTC

It amazes me how these brainiacs can get millions for research into subjects like the existence of time and space. But I guess if they can satisfy themselves that time doesn't exist then they don't have to worry about the really important things.
Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.
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Message boards : Science (non-SETI) : Don't know where it should go? Stick it here.


 
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