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ESA astronaut graduation: launching into the future
One year of basic training will soon bear fruit for ESA’s astronaut candidates Sophie Adenot, Pablo Álvarez Fernández, Rosemary Coogan, Raphaël Liégeois, Marco Sieber and Australian Space Agency astronaut candidate Katherine Bennell-Pegg.
On 22 April 2024, these astronaut candidates will receive their certification at ESA's European Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany, officially becoming fully fledged astronauts eligible for spaceflight.
Week in images: 08-12 April 2024
Week in images: 08-12 April 2024
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ESA astronaut class of 2022 graduation ceremony
As they reach the end of one year of rigorous basic astronaut training, ESA astronaut candidates Sophie Adenot, Rosemary Coogan, Pablo Álvarez Fernández, Raphaël Liégeois, Marco Sieber and Australian Space Agency astronaut candidate Katherine Bennell-Pegg will receive astronaut certification at ESA’s European Astronaut Centre on 22 April 2024.
The group was selected in November 2022 and began their training in April 2023.
Basic astronaut training provides the candidates with an overall familiarisation and training in various areas, such as spacecraft systems, spacewalking, flight engineering, robotics and life support systems, as well as survival and medical training.
Following certification, the new astronauts will move on to the next phases of pre-assignment and mission-specific training, paving the way for future missions to the International Space Station and beyond.
Join us for the graduation ceremony live on ESA Web TV on Monday 22 April from 10:00 – 11:30 CEST.
What Is Pollution Doing to Our Brains? 'Exposomics' Reveals Links to Many Diseases
The new science of "exposomics" shows how air pollution contributes to Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, bipolar disorder and other brain diseases
Sierra Space wants to drop cargo from orbit to anywhere on Earth in 90 minutes
Juice’s first year in space: “it’s real now”
One year since the launch of ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice), we catch up with core team members Claire Vallat, Giuseppe Sarri, Olivier Witasse and Ignacio Tanco.
From memories of launch day to hopes for the future, they talk honestly about the ups and downs of flying a space mission, and reveal how they’re ensuring that Juice will be a huge success.
Space Junk from the International Space Station Struck a Home in Florida
Three years ago astronauts threw out the largest piece of trash ever tossed from the International Space Station. Now some of it has punched a hole through a house in Naples, Fla.
A Random Influx of DNA from a Virus Helped Vertebrates Become So Stunningly Successful
Insertion of genetic material from a virus into the genome of a vertebrate ancestor enabled the lightning-quick electrical impulses that give animals with backbones their smarts
Hubble Spots a Galaxy Hidden in a Dark Cloud
2 min read
Hubble Spots a Galaxy Hidden in a Dark Cloud This Hubble image features the spiral galaxy IC 4633. ESA/Hubble & NASA, J. Dalcanton, Dark Energy Survey/DOE/FNAL/DECam/CTIO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA; Acknowledgement: L. ShatzThe subject of this image taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope is the spiral galaxy IC 4633, located 100 million light-years away from us in the constellation Apus. IC 4633 is a galaxy rich in star-forming activity and also hosts an active galactic nucleus at its core. From our point of view, the galaxy is tilted mostly towards us, giving astronomers a fairly good view of its billions of stars.
However, we can’t fully appreciate the features of this galaxy — at least in visible light — because it’s partially concealed by a stretch of dark dust (lower-right third of the image). This dark nebula is part of the Chamaeleon star-forming region, itself located only around 500 light-years from us, in a nearby part of our Milky Way galaxy. The dark clouds in the Chamaeleon region occupy a large area of the southern sky, covering their namesake constellation but also encroaching on nearby constellations, like Apus. The cloud is well-studied for its treasury of young stars, particularly the cloud Cha I, which both Hubble and the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope have imaged.
The cloud overlapping IC 4633 lies east of the well-known Cha I, II, and III, and is also known as MW9 and the South Celestial Serpent. Classified as an integrated flux nebula (IFN) — a cloud of gas and dust in the Milky Way galaxy that’s not near to any single star and is only faintly lit by the total light of all the galaxy’s stars — this vast, narrow trail of faint gas that snakes over the southern celestial pole is much more subdued looking than its neighbors. Hubble has no problem making out the South Celestial Serpent, though this image captures only a tiny part of it.
Text credit: European Space Agency (ESA)
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Media Contact:
Claire Andreoli
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
claire.andreoli@nasa.gov
Since its 1990 launch, the Hubble Space Telescope has changed our fundamental understanding of the universe.
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Untangling the enigmatic origins of the human family’s newest species
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Black Scientists Are Building Their Own Vital Communities
A person-centric scientific conference demonstrates that gathering can counter the isolation of underrepresentation
How Do Tides Shape Earth and the Solar System?
The ocean’s twice-daily rise and fall is only the most obvious effect of tides—they slow Earth’s spin and shape stars and galaxies, too
NASA is Building an Electrodynamic Shield to Deal with all that Dust on the Moon and Mars
Exploration of the Moon or other dusty environments comes with challenges. The lunar surface is covered in material known as regolith and its a jaggy, glassy material. It can cause wear and tear on equipment and can pose a health risk to astronauts too. Astronauts travelling to Mars would experience dust saucing to everything, including solar panels leading to decrease in power. To combat the problems created by dust, NASA is working on an innovative electrodynamic dust shield to remove dust and protect surfaces from solar panels to space suits.
Dust is common on Earth as much as it is on other worlds although of course the source can be very different. It plagues are homes and leads to the constant battle to remove it from our homes in the almost ritualistic activity of dusting. Even here there are a multitude of sprays, brushes and rags that claim to help. Some even employ the electrostatic force to help repel dust from surfaces. It is a mere annoyance to us, perhaps causing the odd electrical device to over heat but largely its a small part of our lives. On alien worlds, it can lead to serious equipment malfunction and serious health hazards.
Researchers at NASAs Kennedy Space Centre in Florida are now turning to electrostatic forces for help to keep astronauts and equipment dust free. Technology is being developed that has been called the Electrodynamic Dust Shield (EDS) – I rather wish they dropped the word dust from the title to make it sound a little more StarTrek! The shield uses transparent electrodes and electric fields to electrically remove dust from surfaces.The idea was inspired by the electric curtain concept that was developed by NASA in 1967 but this new EDS has been in development since 2004.
A close-up view of astronaut Buzz Aldrin’s bootprint in the lunar soil, photographed with the 70mm lunar surface camera during Apollo 11’s sojourn on the moon. Image by NASADust exposure is a real concern for Commercial Lunar Payload Services and Artemis missions as the material can get into gaskets and seals, hatches and even potentially lunar habitats compromising their integrity. Dr Charles Buhler, lead scientist said “For these CPLS and Artemis missions, dust exposure is a concern because the lunar surface is far different than what we’re used to here.”
It’s the nature of the stuff to, not just that it gets everywhere like sand after a day at the beach. It is really abrasive like tiny pieces of glass because, unlike Earth where weathering tends to dull sharp edges, no such process occurs on the Moon. Even brushing the stuff off surfaces can lead to problems.
The technology has been tested in vacuum chambers to simulate the space environment and results looked very promising. The Apollo missions collected samples of lunar regolith and some of this was used in the testing. The material was ejected from the surface within seconds. Following the successful tests, EDS materials were embedded on glass panels and test spacesuit fabrics on board the International Space Station and more recently Intuitive Machines first lunar lander too. EDS technology was used in lenses in the EagleCam CubeSat camera. Data is now being collected and future missions will carry the EDS concept to further test its capability to keep machines and humans safe on dusty worlds.
Source : NASA Technology Helps Guard Against Lunar Dust
The post NASA is Building an Electrodynamic Shield to Deal with all that Dust on the Moon and Mars appeared first on Universe Today.
Water purifier is powered by static electricity from your body
Water purifier is powered by static electricity from your body
A tour of the International Space Station with Andreas Mogensen
On the last day of his Huginn mission, ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen takes us on a tour of the place he called home for 6 months: the International Space Station. From the beautiful views of Cupola to the kitchen in Node 1 filled with food and friends and all the way to the science of Columbus, the Space Station is the work and living place for astronauts as they help push science forward.