Have they done it?

Superconductor breakthrough could represent ‘biggest physics discovery of a lifetime’ – but scientists urge caution.

Scientists have claimed to make a breakthrough that would be “one of the holy grails of modern physics” – but experts have urged caution about the results.

In recent days, many commentators have become excited by two papers that claim to document the production of a new superconductor that works at room temperature and ambient pressure. Scientists in Korea said they had synthesised a new material called LK-99 that would represent one of the biggest physics breakthroughs of recent decades.....

Only time will tell.

Cheers.

From The Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE: UFO-hunting Harvard scientists say debris from unidentified object that crashed into Pacific Ocean in 2014 appears 'artificial in origin' - and they could be remnants of an 'interstellar spacecraft'

Tiny metal fragments recovered from an interstellar object that crashed into the Pacific Ocean appear 'artificial in origin', scientists say.

A Harvard duo recovered 50 unusual iron spheres after tracking down the unidentified object, known as IM1, off the coast of Papua New Guinea last week as part of a $ 1.5 million underwater search mission.

New lab analysis of the metal spheres reveals they are 'anomalous' and stronger than any observed meteor produced by nature, according to Professor Avi Loeb, former chair of Harvard's astronomy department who led the research.

An analysis of traces of Uranium and Lead in Dr. Loeb's specimens reportedly now reveals isotopic ratios very unlike those found in our solar system. Isotopes of Uranium decay into Lead over very long time scales. This allows the two elements to form the basis of a dating system, similar to the more familiar Carbon 14 dating method, but over very much longer periods of time.

The derived age of the specimens appears to place them at the very beginning of our universe, over 13 billion years ago. It's very unlikely that this date is correct. Heavy elements like Uranium and Lead aren't expected to have existed that early in the history of our universe.

Perhaps the area of space where the material was formed was naturally lower in Uranium and/or higher in Lead than our solar system.

Have they done it?

Superconductor breakthrough could represent ‘biggest physics discovery of a lifetime’ – but scientists urge caution.

Scientists have claimed to make a breakthrough that would be “one of the holy grails of modern physics” – but experts have urged caution about the results.

In recent days, many commentators have become excited by two papers that claim to document the production of a new superconductor that works at room temperature and ambient pressure. Scientists in Korea said they had synthesised a new material called LK-99 that would represent one of the biggest physics breakthroughs of recent decades.....

Only time will tell.

Cheers.

The LK-99 superconductor breakthrough has reportedly been confirmed in preliminary tests by two other labs. Please find a link to a news report on this, below:
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/superconductor-breakthrough-replicated-twice

1 budding astronomer caught the prized shot while looking at the supermoon.

NASA Solves Mystery of the Fireball That Lit Up the West Virginia Sky.

...An enormous fireball exploded in the night sky above West Virginia on August 2, mystifying eyewitnesses.

The explosion, which briefly outshone the supermoon lighting up the sky, was filmed by Bill Stewart, an amateur astronomer in Ceredo who happened to be recording at the time...

Cheers.

It may not be all that it was made out to be.

Well, Seems Like LK-99 Isn’t a Room Temperature Superconductor After All.

.....Initial results from third-party labs in the following days were sort of a mixed bag, but evidence is now bending the narrative toward debunking LK-99’s claim as a room-temperature superconductor....

P.T. Barnum saying still rings true: "there's a sucker born every minute"

The race is on.

India's Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft closes in on Moon landing, as it races Russia to find water on lunar south pole.

Is the race over?

Russia's Luna-25 spacecraft suffers technical glitch in pre-landing maneuver.

Russia reported an “abnormal situation” Saturday on its moon-bound Luna-25 spacecraft, which launched earlier this month.

The country’s space agency, Roscosmos, said the spacecraft ran into unspecified trouble while trying to enter a pre-landing orbit, and that its specialists were analyzing the situation.

“During the operation, an abnormal situation occurred on board the automatic station, which did not allow the maneuver to be performed with the specified parameters,” Roscosmos said in a Telegram post.

Roscosmos did not specify whether the incident will prevent Luna-25 from making a landing......

Cheers.

This morning's news reported that communication with Luna 25 was lost, and that it presumably crashed onto the surface of the Moon. A committee has reportedly been formed to discover the reason for the failure of the mission. Please find a link below, to an article with further details:
https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/russias-moon-mission-falters-after-problem-entering-pre-landing-orbit-2023-08-20/

Observations of the mysterious Boyajian's Star, which varies so markedly in brightness, are being made today with the James Webb Space Telescope. Observations commenced at 13:00 hours GMT, and will run through 18:54. The investigator is Massimo Stiavelli of the Space Telescope Science Institute. The proposal is entitled: Understanding the origin of Boyajian's Star occultations. It will certainly be interesting to learn what is discovered today, about this star.

This morning's news reported that communication with Luna 25 was lost, and that it presumably crashed onto the surface of the Moon. A committee has reportedly been formed to discover the reason for the failure of the mission. Please find a link below, to an article with further details:
https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/russias-moon-mission-falters-after-problem-entering-pre-landing-orbit-2023-08-20/

Did anyone expect a different outcome in a state riddled with corruption, lies and violence? From a space agency that was most recently led by the loyal Putin intimate and "ethno-nationalist" Dmitry Rogozin, who ruined the Russian space industry? The last we heard from him was that he was injured in an artillery attack while working as a military adviser in occupied eastern Ukraine. The current boss, Borissov, is also a military man and politician. He knows a lot about the armaments industry and little about space exploration. This is Putin's space program.

[EDIT:] To put it bluntly: Wherever today's Russia steps, it leaves rubble, shards and destruction. Why should it be any different on the moon?

There is also this addendum:


Luna-25 crash: Russian scientist who worked on Putin’s failed moon mission rushed to hospital
wrote:

‘This was perhaps the last hope for me to see a revival of our lunar programme’

A leading physicist and astronomer who served as a key consultant in Vladimir Putin’s moon mission was hospitalised in Moscow after Russia’s first lunar expedition in 47 years failed.

Mikhail Marov, 90, was rushed to hospital following a “sharp deterioration” in his health after Luna-25 spacecraft spun out of control and crashed into the moon...

... Heartbreak?

... Exhaustion?

... Poison??...

Keep searchin'!
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Where did they go?

Scientists were stunned to find out Neptune’s cloud cover had nearly vanished – and immediately set out to solve the mystery.

When scientists found out that Neptune’s shimmering clouds had almost completely vanished they were perplexed.

The gas giant orbits at an average distance of 4.4 billion kilometres from the Sun – what could be the culprit?

Scientists have long been interested in the “active and chaotic” atmosphere of the gas giant but very little is known about the planet. It has only been visited by one spacecraft – Voyager 2 in August 1989.

Neptune’s clouds regularly ebb and flow but a photo from 2019 showed they had mostly vanished, apart from a small portion near the south pole.

“It was the first time anybody had ever seen this,” Dutch astronomer Dr Imke de Pater, who works at the University of California, Berkeley, told the New York Times.

“There’s just nothing there. What’s going on?”.....

Cheers.

Stanford engineers invent a solar panel that generates electricity at night
Radiative cooling might reduce the need for costly batteries in some applications

... That flow of energy enables the device Assaworrarit and his colleagues created — an ordinary solar panel outfitted with a thermoelectric generator — to generate a small amount of electricity from the slight difference in temperature between the ambient air and the surface of a solar panel pointed deep into space.

Assuming all goes well, India's Chandrayaan 3 Moon mission will land in less than 9 hours, at 12:34 UT. Besides the lander, the mission is equipped with a small rover, with a predicted range of ~ 500 meters from the landing site.

The mission will investigate conditions in the South polar region of the Moon, with the discovery of water, or ice in Lunar soil a high priority. If water exists in substantial quantities below the surface, it could be very useful to a permanent Moon colony. Besides water for human consumption, it could provide oxygen for breathing and hydrogen for rocket fuel. Both could be obtainable by simple electrolytic reduction.

Water is likeliest to be found in the polar regions of the Moon, because the Sun has lower angle of incidence there, weakening its ability to heat the soil and cause water to evaporate away. Then, too, some places near the poles never see sunlight, like the shaded bottoms of craters.

Watched live, online coverage of the critical final stage of the descent of Chandrayaan 3 onto the surface of the Moon. Everything appears to have gone well, with the probe hovering briefly, before landing at nominal velocity. This marks the first successful mission the polar region of the Moon. It will be very interesting to learn how Chandrayaan 3 fares from here, forward, and what it may discover.

The mission will last two weeks until its solar panels can give electricity. The Russian Lander 25 had nuclear powered electricity sources. All praise to the Indian scientists and engineers, who built the launcher.
Tullio

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Really good news that Chandrayaan 3 has landed safely and can start to find out what the Moon's south pole is really made of (though, I doubt that it is Wensleydale Cheese, which will be a great disappointment to Wallace & Grommet fans)

---

Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

It drove straight in.

Russia's crashed Luna-25 spacecraft left a crater on the Moon, NASA images show.


Cheers.

Well that was a quickie.

India puts Pragyan moon rover from Chandrayaan-3 to 'sleep' as it aims to study the sun.

India has switched off its moon rover, the first craft to reach the lunar south pole, after it completed its two-week assignment conducting experiments.

The Pragyan rover from the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft was "set into sleep mode" but with batteries charged and receiver on, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, late on Saturday.

"Hoping for a successful awakening for another set of assignments!" ISRO said.

"Else, it will forever stay there as India's lunar ambassador."

By landing on the moon, India joined the United States, China and the former Soviet Union. It went beyond them in reaching the rugged south pole, shortly after Russia's Luna-25 crashed on a similar attempt.

Chandrayaan-3's soft, textbook touchdown after a failed attempt in 2019 sparked widespread jubilation in the world's most populous country.

The media hailed the landing as India's greatest scientific feat.

Pragyan travelled over 100 metres, confirming the presence of sulphur, iron, oxygen and other elements on the moon, ISRO said......

Cheers.