Astronomy

The Biden administration is marking Earth Week with announcements of solar power funding for lower-income communities, an expansion of the Climate Corps and Clean Air Act rules

China has made progress on a powerful rocket engine to power its new reusable rockets that are expected to launch the nation's planned crewed moon missions.

The finding that managed fires burn a much greater area than thought means we may be underestimating the increase in wildfires due to global heating

The finding that managed fires burn a much greater area than thought means we may be underestimating the increase in wildfires due to global heating

New research shows that looking at memorable images can warp our perception of time

New James Webb Space Telescope documentary, "Deep Sky," returns to IMAX screens for Earth Day. Watch two exclusive clips here at Space.com.

Forensic investigators can reliably measure drug and explosive residue using gels that lift fingerprint samples

Forensic investigators can reliably measure drug and explosive residue using gels that lift fingerprint samples

Six newly selected NASA airborne campaigns will focus on a range of studies focusing on Earth and its changing climate.

The influential AI design that makes chatbots tick now runs on quantum computers

Extracting, freezing and retransplanting slices of hormone-producing ovarian tissue could postpone menopause, but some experts say it’s not effective enough—or necessary

Millions of human-made objects travel at high speeds in low-Earth orbit, polluting space and increasing the chance of collision with satellites and other spacecraft

The birth of a cloned black-footed ferret named Elizabeth Ann, and her two new sisters, has sparked a new pilot program to preserve the tissues of hundreds of endangered species “just in case”

Here we look at the best photo of the total solar eclipse sent to us by our readers. From diamond rings to exquisite close-ups, we have it all and more!

Years in the making, a project in the Amazon rain forest is finally set to determine whether a rise in carbon dioxide could save one of the world’s largest carbon sinks.

Video: 00:57:15

Watch a replay of the ESA astronaut class of 2022 graduation ceremony.

ESA astronaut candidates Sophie Adenot, Rosemary Coogan, Pablo Álvarez Fernández, Raphaël Liégeois, Marco Sieber and Australian Space Agency astronaut candidate Katherine Bennell-Pegg received astronaut certification at ESA’s European Astronaut Centre on 22 April 2024. This officially marks their transition into fully-fledged astronauts, ready and eligible for spaceflight.

The group was selected in November 2022 and began their year-long basic astronaut training in April 2023.

Basic astronaut training provides the candidates with 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.

Shading the planet by spraying aerosols into the stratosphere might stave off ice sheet collapse, modelling studies suggest, but we are running out of time

Shading the planet by spraying aerosols into the stratosphere might stave off ice sheet collapse, modelling studies suggest, but we are running out of time

Astronauts on board the International Space Station are often visited by supply ships from Earth with food among other things. Take a trip to Mars or other and the distances are much greater making it impractical to send fresh supplies. The prepackaged food used by NASA loses nutritional value over time so NASA is looking at ways astronauts can produce nutrients. They are exploring genetic engineering techniques that can create microbes with minimal resource usage. 

Many of us take food and eating for granted. The food we can enjoy is usually flavoursome and the textures varied. Astronauts travelling through space generally rely upon pre-packaged food and often this can lack the taste and textures we usually enjoy. Lots of research has gone into developing a more pleasurable dining experience for astronauts but this has usually concentrated on short duration trips. 

The space station’s Veggie Facility, tended here by NASA astronaut Scott Tingle, during the VEG-03 plant growth investigation, which cultivated Extra Dwarf Pak Choi, Red Russian Kale, Wasabi mustard, and Red Lettuce and harvested on-orbit samples for testing back on Earth. Credits: NASA

During longer term missions, astronauts will have to grow their own food. Not only due to the nutritional issues that form the purpose of this article but carrying prepackaged food for flights that last many years becomes a logistic challenge and a launch overhead. To address the loss of nutritional values, the Ames Research Centre’s Space Biosciences Division has launched its BioNutrients project to enable future space travellers to grow their own supplements.

The team has announced they has come up with a solution, thanks to the wonders of genetic engineering. The approach that the team has developed involves microbial based food (similar to yeast) that can produce nutrients and compounds with small amounts of resources. 

The secret is to store dried microbes and take food grade bioreactors along on the trip. Until now I never knew what a bioreactor was nor that they even existed. I live in the world of physics and astrophysics so this concept intrigued me. Turns out that a bioreactor does just what it says. It is a container of some form, often made from steel inside which, a biologically active environment can be maintained. Often chemical processes are carried out inside which involve organisms undergoing either aerobic or anaerobic processes. They are often used to grow cells or tissues and it is within these that NASA pins their hopes on cultivating food in space. 

Even years after departure, the dried out microbes can be rehydrated many years later and cultured inside the bioreactor, creating the nutrients astronauts need. To date, the team has managed to produce carotenoids (a pigment found in nature) which are used for antioxidants, follistatin for muscle loss and yogurt and kefir to keep the gut in good health. The real challenge though is making food that the astronauts will want to eat. 

Source : BioNutrients Flight Experiments

The post Astronaut Food Will Lose Nutrients on Long-Duration Missions. NASA is Working on a Fix appeared first on Universe Today.

A surprise appearance of a new comet made the April 8th total solar eclipse all the more memorable.

Any dedicated ‘umbraphile’ will tell you: no two eclipses are exactly the same. Weather, solar activity, and the just plain expeditionary nature of reaching and standing in the shadow of the Moon for those brief moments during totality assures a unique experience, every time out. The same can be said for catching a brief glimpse of what’s going on near the Sun, from prominences and the pearly white corona to the configuration of bright planets… and just maybe, a new comet.

The Discovery

While many planned to try and spy periodic Comet 12P Pons-Brooks during totality, astronomer Karl Battams at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory alerted us to another possibility. A new sungrazing comet, spotted just hours prior. The Kreutz family comet was seen by Worachate Boonplod in the field of view of the joint NASA/ESA Solar Heliospheric Observatory’s (SOHO) LASCO C3 and C2 imagers. These are equipped with Sun-covering coronagraphs that allow it to see the near solar environment. The mission was launched over a quarter of a century ago in 1995. SOHO was deployed to the sunward L1 Earth-Sun Lagrange point nearly a million miles distant. SOHO has since proven itself to be a crucial workhorse in solar heliophysics.

Doomed SOHO-5008 (lower left). Credit: NASA/ESA/SOHO

The comet soon received the formal designation of SOHO-5008. That’s right: SOHO has led to the discovery of over 5,000 comets in its career. Most of these discoveries were thanks to the efforts of dedicated online sleuths, scouring recent LASCO images.

At the time, the doom’d comet was a faint object, located only a few degrees from the Sun. The icy interloper was a tough target to nab during the fleeting minutes of totality, but at least two dedicated astrophotographers managed to catch it. Lin Zixuan saw it imaging from northern New Hampshire. Petr Horálek from the Institute of Physics in Opava Czechia (Czech Republic) was imaging from Mexico as he caught the object.

Like so many other sungrazers, the comet met its demise shortly after discovery (less than 12 hours, in fact), like a sundiving spaceship at a Disaster Area concert right out of Douglas Adam’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

A Brief History of Sungrazers

This sort of SOHO versus comet, versus eclipse discovery has only occurred twice: once in 2008 and again in 2020). SOHO wasn’t designed per se to find comets, but its prolific nature as a comet hunter has become an essential part of the legacy of the mission. SOHO has defined whole new families of Kreutz, Marsden and Kracht sungrazing comets. And to think, prior to the mission, only sixteen sungrazing comets were even known of.

One similar case was the Great Comet of 1948, which was also discovered by stunned observers during a total solar eclipse. Another was C/1965 Ikeya-Seki, which went on to become one of the truly great comets of the 20th century. More recently, C/2011 W3 Lovejoy surprised everyone by surviving its perihelion passage 140,000 kilometers from the surface of the Sun. Just one year later, however, 2012 S1 ISON didn’t.

It was a thrilling celestial spectacle, with an added treat.

The post There Was a Doomed Comet Near the Sun During the Eclipse appeared first on Universe Today.