Space News and Discussions

[weatheriscool]

China and Russia team up to establish joint moon base --- Planned Sino-Russian joint moon base aims to overtake the US in reaping lunar strategic benefits
asiatimes.com ^ | January 3, 2022 | Gabriel Honrada
https://asiatimes.com/2022/01/china-and ... moon-base/

China and Russia plan to set up a joint moon base by 2027, eight years earlier than originally planned. The joint moon base, called the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS), will be a complex of experimental research facilities designed for multiple scientific activities, such as moon exploration, moon-based observation, research experiments and technology verification.

China is planning to launch the Chang’e 8 lunar exploration mission as the first step in establishing the ILRS. The mission is expected to test technology for using local resources and manufacturing with 3D printing.

Presently, China’s lunar presence includes the Chang’e 4 lander and the Yutu 2 rover, whose arrival in 2019 marked humanity’s first landings on the dark side of the moon. Both lunar craft are performing scientific experiments, with Chang’e 4 conducting a lunar biosphere experiment to see how silkworms, potatoes and Arabidopsis (a small flowering plant) seeds grow in lunar gravity, while the Yutu 2 rover is exploring the Von Kármán crater.

China and Russia’s joint moon base plans can be seen as a response to their exclusion from the US Artemis Accords, which aims to establish principles, guidelines and best practices for space exploration for the US and its partners. Its goal is to advance the Artemis Program, the name for US efforts to place itself as the first nation to establish a long-term lunar presence.

China is barred from participating in joint projects with the US in space by the Wolf Amendment, a 2011 measure prohibiting NASA from cooperating with China without special approval from Congress.

[caltrek]

Astronomers Have Detected a Mysterious, Dusty Object Erratically Dimming Its Star
by Fiona MacDonald
January 4, 2021

https://www.sciencealert.com/astronomer ... g-its-star

Introduction:

(Science Alert) There are a lot of unexplained objects out there in the Universe, and astronomers have just found another one – a strange, dusty object that may be causing its host star to dim by up to 75 percent.

Often, when we see something block out the light of its star it's an exoplanet or asteroid. But in this case, the way the object is blocking the light from its star can't be explained by either option: It's both more erratic and more persistent.

Right now, what astronomers can say for sure about the object, known as TIC 400799224, is that it appears to be letting out a whole lot of dust.

TIC 400799224 is orbiting a star system around 2,300 light-years (725 parsecs) away and was first detected by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), which is out hunting for small planets around our neighboring stars.

Using AI to sift through the data collected by TESS, astronomers accidentally stumbled across TIC 400799224 because its dust cloud caused its star to have a rapid drop in brightness of nearly 25 percent over a period of hours, followed by several variations in brightness that could be interpreted as an eclipse.

[Yuli Ban]

What do the space monkeys of this forum think?

[weatheriscool]

Astronomers witness a dying star reach its explosive end
https://phys.org/news/2022-01-astronome ... osive.html
by W. M. Keck Observatory

For the very first time, astronomers have imaged in real time the dramatic end to a red supergiant's life, watching the massive star's rapid self-destruction and final death throes before it collapsed into a Type II supernova.

Using two Hawaiʻi telescopes—the University of Hawaiʻi Institute for Astronomy Pan-STARRS on Haleakalā, Maui and W. M. Keck Observatory on Maunakea, Hawaiʻi Island—a team of researchers conducting the Young Supernova Experiment (YSE) transient survey observed the red supergiant during its last 130 days leading up to its deadly detonation.

"This is a breakthrough in our understanding of what massive stars do moments before they die," says Wynn Jacobson-Galán, an NSF Graduate Research Fellow at UC Berkeley and lead author of the study. "Direct detection of pre-supernova activity in a red supergiant star has never been observed before in an ordinary Type II supernova. For the first time, we watched a red supergiant star explode!"

The discovery is published in today's issue of The Astrophysical Journal.

Pan-STARRS first detected the doomed massive star in Summer of 2020 via the huge amount of light radiating from the red supergiant. A few months later, in Fall of 2020, a supernova lit the sky.

[caltrek]

The Heart of a Famous Constellation is on Fire
by Passant Rabbie
January 5, 2022

https://www.inverse.com/science/orion-flame-nebula

Introduction:

(Inverse) A FIRE IS BURNING at the heart of one of the most beloved constellations.

Well, maybe not a real fire. But a recent image of the Orion Constellation captures one of its most glorious nebulae, the Flame Nebula. The nebula appears to be ignited in raging flames burning at the very fabric of the cosmos as it shines bright amid the closest molecular cloud to the Sun.

The European Southern Observatory (ESO) released the image Tuesday, offering a unique glimpse at this busy constellation. (See article linked above quote box to see picture and further discussion describing what is seen in the picture).

[raklian]

Damn (referring to the second tweet below). Kepler was wearing his futurist hat when he wrote that piece.

[weatheriscool]

Chang'E-5 lander makes first onsite detection of water on moon
https://phys.org/news/2022-01-change-la ... -moon.html
by Chinese Academy of Sciences

A joint research team led by Profs. Lin Yangting and Lin Honglei from the Institute of Geology and Geophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (IGGCAS) observed water signals in reflectance spectral data from the lunar surface acquired by the Chang'E-5 lander, providing the first evidence of in-situ detection of water on the Moon.

The study was published in Science Advances on Jan. 7.

Researchers from the National Space Science Center of CAS, the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, the Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics of CAS and Nanjing University were also involved in the study.

Many orbital observations and sample measurements completed over the past decade have presented evidence for the presence of water (as hydroxyl and/or H2O) on the moon. However, no in-situ measurements have ever been conducted on the lunar surface.

The Chang'E-5 spacecraft landed on one of the youngest mare basalts, located at a mid-high latitude on the Moon, and returned 1,731 g of samples. Before sampling and returning the lunar soil to Earth, however, the lunar mineralogical spectrometer (LMS) onboard the lander performed spectral reflectance measurements of the regolith and of a rock, thereby providing the unprecedented opportunity to detect lunar surface water.

[caltrek]

Orbit Fab's On-orbit Shuttle Will Top Up Astroscale's Servicing Satellites
by Darrell Etherington
January 11, 2022

https://techcrunch.com/2022/01/11/orbit ... atellites/

Introduction:

(TechCrunch) In a new partnership that should break new ground for sustainable orbital operations, ‘gas stations in space’ startup Orbit Fab has teamed with Astroscale to provide on-orbit refueling services to the latter company’s LEXI (life extension in-orbit) geostationary servicing spacecraft.

Both Astroscale and Orbit Fab’s core offerings are designed to provided ways for satellites to extend their useful life. Orbit Fab has designed technology that aims to make it easy for satellites to get fueled up while in space, with a custom interface that makes it possible for other spacecraft to latch on and transfer fuel easily while on orbit. Astroscale is using its LEXI satellite to provide to existing spacecraft located in geostationary orbit (GEO), by attaching to them and and correct their course, or relocating them to a new target inclination.

Astroscale is touting LEXI as “the first satellite designed to be refueled,” which makes it a perfect target customer for Orbit Fab’s refueling interface (the ‘Rapidly Attachable Fluid Transfer Interface or RAFTI for short) and roving orbital tanker. If all goes to plan, the first Astroscale LEXI will be active in space by 2026, and Orbit Fab is contracted to provide the LEXI fleet with up to 1,000 kg of Xenon propellant for top ups.

Orbit Fab says it plans to have “dozens” of fuel tankers and shuttles in space over the next five to ten years, with spacecraft placed strategically in low Earth orbit (LEO), GEO and also in cislunar space, which should become a more active destination as NASA ramps its Artemis program. The first Orbit Fab fueling spacecraft should be in LEO by 2023 if all goes to plan.

[caltrek]

International Collaboration Offers New Evidence of a Gravitational Wave Background
January 12, 2022

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/939917

Inroduction:

(EurekAlert) The results of a comprehensive search for a background of ultra-low frequency gravitational waves has been announced by an international team of astronomers including scientists from the Institute for Gravitational Wave Astronomy at the University of Birmingham.

These light-year-scale ripples, a consequence of Einstein’s theory of general relativity, permeate all of spacetime and could originate from mergers of the most massive black holes in the Universe or from events occurring soon after the formation of the Universe in the Big Bang. Scientists have been searching for definitive evidence of these signals for several decades.

The International Pulsar Timing Array (IPTA), joining the work of several astrophysics collaborations from around the world, recently completed its search for gravitational waves in their most recent official data release, known as Data Release 2 (DR2).

This data set consists of precision timing data from 65 millisecond pulsars – stellar remnants which spin hundreds of times per second, sweeping narrow beams of radio waves that appear as pulses due to the spinning – obtained by combining the independent data sets from the IPTA’s three founding members: The European Pulsar Timing Array (EPTA), the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav), and the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array in Australia (PPTA).

These combined data reveal strong evidence for an ultra-low frequency signal detected by many of the pulsars in the combined data. The characteristics of this common-among-pulsars signal are in broad agreement with those expected from a gravitational wave “background”.

[weatheriscool]

Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument creates largest 3D map of the cosmos
https://phys.org/news/2022-01-dark-ener ... rgest.html
by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) has capped off the first seven months of its survey run by smashing through all previous records for three-dimensional galaxy surveys, creating the largest and most detailed map of the universe ever. Yet it's only about 10% of the way through its five-year mission. Once completed, that phenomenally detailed 3D map will yield a better understanding of dark energy, and thereby give physicists and astronomers a better understanding of the past—and future—of the universe. Meanwhile, the impressive technical performance and literally cosmic achievements of the survey thus far are helping scientists reveal the secrets of the most powerful sources of light in the universe.

DESI is an international science collaboration managed by the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) with primary funding for construction and operations from DOE's Office of Science.

DESI scientists are presenting the performance of the instrument, and some early astrophysics results, this week at a Berkeley Lab-hosted webinar called CosmoPalooza, which will also feature updates from other leading cosmology experiments.

[weatheriscool]

Team of astronomers finds widest separation of brown dwarf pair to date
https://phys.org/news/2022-01-team-astr ... dwarf.html
by Arizona State University

A team of astronomers, led by Arizona State University undergraduate student Emma Softich, has discovered a rare pair of brown dwarfs that has the widest separation of any brown dwarf binary system found to date.

Brown dwarfs are celestial objects that are smaller than a normal star and without sufficient mass to sustain nuclear fusion, but that are hot enough to radiate energy. Many brown dwarfs have been discovered with data from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) via the Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 citizen science project, which solicits help from the public to search the WISE image data bank to find brown dwarfs and low-mass stars, some of the sun's nearest neighbors.

For this study, the team of astronomers inspected images of Backyard Worlds discoveries, where companion brown dwarfs may have been overlooked. In so doing, they discovered a rare brown dwarf binary system (CWISE J014611.20 050850.0AB).

"Wide, low-mass systems like CWISE J014611.20-050850.0AB are usually disrupted early on in their lifetimes, so the fact that this one has survived until now is pretty remarkable," said co-author Adam Schneider of the U.S. Naval Observatory, Flagstaff Station and George Mason University.

[Yuli Ban]

NASA may need more astronauts to meet its human spaceflight goals over the coming years, according to a new report from the agency's investigative office.

Currently, NASA only flies astronauts to the International Space Station aboard SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsules and Russia's Soyuz vehicles. But the agency's ambitious Artemis program to return humans to the moon is set to change that, with the program's first crewed mission targeting 2024. That flight is meant to be the first stage in developing a long-term lunar exploration program that supports future human exploration of Mars.

As a result, NASA is looking at sending more astronauts off-Earth — perhaps more than the agency can expect to have available, according to a report from the Office of Investigator General released on Tuesday (Jan. 11) that evaluates how NASA manages its astronauts.

"After reaching its peak of nearly 150 astronauts in 2000, the size of the corps has diminished with the end of space shuttle missions in 2011 and now stands at 44, one of the smallest cadres of astronauts in the past 20 years," officials wrote in the report. "As NASA enters a new era of human space flight, including returning to the moon and eventually landing humans on Mars, effective management of its astronaut corps — the people who fly its space flight missions — is critical to the agency’s success."

[Yuli Ban]

Damn (referring to the second tweet below). Kepler was wearing his futurist hat when he wrote that piece.

Pre-modern future predictions are always so fascinating!! I wonder just how Kepler thought it would be done or if he had any concept of outer space as we understand it

[raklian]

Pre-modern future predictions are always so fascinating!! I wonder just how Kepler thought it would be done or if he had any concept of outer space as we understand it

"Breezes of Heaven" is probably the best we can sum up his concept of outer space. Does it mean that he thought the atmosphere extended all the way to the Moon and the planets?

[weatheriscool]

SpaceX Falcon 9 booster completes tenth launch and landing in a year and a half https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-falcon ... -tenth.../

[Kevin_Hall]

Three weather satellites captured the massive underwater volcanic eruption that tore apart the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai island in the South Pacific Ocean on Saturday (Jan. 15), revealing the sheer force of the blast from different angles.

Every time I see such videos one thought always comes to my mind: "We are just the guests on this planet...".

https://www.space.com/34-image-day.html
https://www.space.com/tonga-underwater- ... pace-video

[raklian]

SpaceX and NASA Lunar HLS - Uncrewed Demo 1 Flight

[caltrek]

Jupiter
NASA

[andmar74]

Amazing Musk Starship presentation together with animations.
From 11 min 12 s :

[weatheriscool]

Hubble finds a black hole igniting star formation in a dwarf galaxy
https://phys.org/news/2022-01-hubble-bl ... -star.html
by ESA/Hubble Information Centre
Zachary Schutte (XGI), Amy Reines (XGI), Alyssa Pagan (STScI)

Black holes are often described as the monsters of the universe—tearing apart stars, consuming anything that comes too close, and holding light captive. Detailed evidence from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, however, shows a black hole in a new light: Fostering rather than suppressing star formation. Hubble imaging and spectroscopy of the dwarf starburst galaxy Henize 2-10 clearly show a gas outflow stretching from the black hole to a bright star birth region like an umbilical cord, triggering the already dense cloud into forming clusters of stars. Astronomers have previously debated that a dwarf galaxy could have a black hole analogous to the supermassive black holes in larger galaxies. Further study of dwarf galaxies, which have remained small over cosmic time, may shed light on the question of how the first seeds of supermassive black holes formed and evolved over the history of the universe.

Often portrayed as destructive monsters that hold light captive, black holes take on a less villainous role in the latest research from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. A black hole at the heart of the dwarf galaxy Henize 2-10 is creating stars rather than gobbling them up. The black hole is apparently contributing to the firestorm of new star formation taking place in the galaxy. The dwarf galaxy lies 30 million light-years away, in the southern constellation Pyxis.

A decade ago this small galaxy set off debate among astronomers as to whether dwarf galaxies were home to black holes proportional to the supermassive behemoths found in the hearts of larger galaxies. This new discovery has little Henize 2-10, containing only one-tenth the number of stars found in our Milky Way, poised to play a big part in solving the mystery of where supermassive black holes came from in the first place.