"For the sage, time is only of significance in that within it the steps of becoming can unfold in clearest sequence."

— I Ching

Astronomy

Crew-8 Arrives at the ISS, Despite a Crack in the Capsule

Universe Today - Wed, 03/06/2024 - 10:07pm

Space travel seems to be a fairly regular occurrence now with crews hopping up and down to the International Space Station. This week, another crew arrived on board a SpaceX Dragon capsule known as Endeavour.  On board were NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt and Jeanette Epps along with cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin. The ISS already had seven people on board so this brought the total crew to eleven. The launch almost got cancelled due to a crack in the hatch seal. 

The construction of the International Space Station began in 1998 with the launch of the Zarya module on 20 November. It was finally completed in when the final Russian research module Rassvet was added in in May 2010 with the station completed in 2011. Despite not being finished until then, the first crew, known as Expedition 1 arrived on 2 November 2000 and it has been occupied ever since. 

International Space Station. Credit: NASA

Now completed, the station is 109m x 73m and has 16 pressurised modules within which the crew live, sleep and conduct experiments while orbiting the Earth. Getting to and from the ISS is never an easy mission, after all you can’t just nip up to it on a whim, at least not yet – I’m sure in the future this will be a thing but alas not just yet. Currently the only way to the ISS is either the SpaceX Dragon capsule or in the case of the Russian cosmonauts, the Soyuz module. 

The latest team, Crew 8, launched from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Centre around 4am on Monday 4th March. They have joined the Expedition 70 crew comprising of Jasmin Moghbeli, Loral O’Hara, from ESA (European Space Agency) Andreas Mogensen from JAXA (Japan Aerospace Agency) Satoshi Furukawa, and cosmonauts Konstantin Borisov, Oleg Kononenko, and Nikolai Chub. The trip to ISS however, nearly got scrubbed 30 mins before launch!

The engineer team completing the final checks of the hatch and its sealing systems noticed a crack when documenting the findings. It may sound serious and to be fair, I wouldn’t want to fly into space with something that had a dodgy seal. The crack the team identified though was in a silicon like sealant that was a top coating to the hatch pressure seal which itself is over the main seal for the hatch. Fortunately, the silicon like material (known as RTV) expands under heating so it was hoped it would seal itself on launch. 

Fortunately, and as history now shows, the launch was successful and Crew 8 arrived at the ISS safe and sound and ready to get on with their work on board what is the worlds most expensive but fascinating laboratory. 

Source : Four Crew-8 Members Enter Station for Six-Month Mission

https://www.digitaltrends.com/space/nasa-crew-8-spacecraft-crack/

The post Crew-8 Arrives at the ISS, Despite a Crack in the Capsule appeared first on Universe Today.

Categories: Astronomy

Astronomers Find the Most Massive Pair of Supermassive Black Holes Ever Seen

Universe Today - Wed, 03/06/2024 - 8:23pm

Supermassive black holes have been found at the heart of most galaxies but understanding how they have formed has eluded astronomers for some time. One of the most popular theories suggests they merge over and over again to form larger black holes. A recent discovery may support this however the pair of supermassive black holes are orbiting 24 light years apart and measure an incredible 28 billion solar masses making it the heaviest ever seen. 

A black hole is a region of space within which the escape velocity is greater than the speed of light. Ok so the definition is a little more complicated than that but that will suffice for now. They are objects that have undergone gravitational collapse with their largest versions, the supermassive black holes which have a mass from hundreds of thousands to billions of times that of the Sun. It’s now thought that nearly every massive galaxy has a supermassive black hole at its core. 

Galaxy mergers seem to be common with many examples visible in the sky like the classic Whirlpool Galaxy in the northern hemisphere. When they do, it is thought their black holes can form a binary pair. Ultimately it is believed they merge however this has never been observed. A paper that was recently published in the Astrophysical Journal and authored by a team led by Tirth Surti explores this process. 

Magnetic fields mapped within the Whirlpool Galaxy. Credit: NASA, SOFIA science team, ESA, STScI

One such binary black hole system exists inside elliptical galaxy B2 0402+379 (a catchy name if ever there was one) and the team analysed its data from the Gemini North Telescope. It’s possible to resolve this binary system so the team could study it in more detail than any before. The black holes are separated by only 24 light years and data shows the system to be an impressive 28 billion times the mass of the Sun. 

The team studied the stars in the vicinity of the black holes using the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph (GMOS) so they could determine their velocity. Measuring the velocity enabled the team to determine the mass of the black hole binary pair but also supports the theory that the mass of the black hole plays a role in delaying and even stalling their merging!

It turns out that B2 0402+379 is a so called ‘fossil cluster’ which means that it is the result of the merging of an entire cluster of galaxies. After such mergers, the black holes don’t crash head on into each other, instead they tend to swing by each other and fall into a bound orbit around a common centre of gravity. As they swing by each other, energy is transferred from the black holes to the nearby stars. As they lose energy, they get closer and closer and in the case of stellar mass black holes, they merge. This never seems to happen with supermassive binary black holes. 

In the case of binary black holes with large mass, the team propose that a huge number of stars would be needed in the vicinity to slow them sufficiently to bring them close enough to merge. Instead, the black holes seem to have ejected nearly all the matter from the region leaving it local mass low enough that the pair’s orbits are not able to slow and merge. Whether this is the ultimate fate and the binary pair are destined to orbit forever or eventually merge is still yet to be determined. If they do merge however, it is likely that the resultant gravitational wave will be far more powerful, potentially hundreds of millions of times more than a stellar mass merger. 

Source : Astronomers Measure Heaviest Black Hole Pair Ever Found

The post Astronomers Find the Most Massive Pair of Supermassive Black Holes Ever Seen appeared first on Universe Today.

Categories: Astronomy

Microplastics linked to a greater risk of heart attack and stroke

New Scientist Space - Cosmology - Wed, 03/06/2024 - 6:00pm
People with artery plaques containing microplastics were about four times as likely to have a heart attack or stroke as those with plastic-free plaques
Categories: Astronomy

Microplastics linked to a greater risk of heart attack and stroke

New Scientist Space - Space Headlines - Wed, 03/06/2024 - 6:00pm
People with artery plaques containing microplastics were about four times as likely to have a heart attack or stroke as those with plastic-free plaques
Categories: Astronomy

NASA taps Nikon cameras to help Artemis astronauts photograph the moon

Space.com - Wed, 03/06/2024 - 5:00pm
NASA wants Artemis moon astronauts to have the perfect moon camera — Nikon is on the case.
Categories: Astronomy

'Constellation' season 1 episode 5 review: Less paranoia, more reveals

Space.com - Wed, 03/06/2024 - 4:30pm
Episode 5 of Apple TV+'s 'Constellation' focuses on expanding the conspiracy theories as worlds begin to collide and merge.
Categories: Astronomy

Qué Buscar y Cuándo Durante un Eclipse Solar Total

Sky & Telescope Magazine - Wed, 03/06/2024 - 4:10pm

Los fenómenos astronómicos y terrestres que no se debe perder durante el eclipse solar total del 8 de abril de 2024.

The post Qué Buscar y Cuándo Durante un Eclipse Solar Total appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

Categories: Astronomy

April 8 total solar eclipse boosts ticket sales for United Airlines

Space.com - Wed, 03/06/2024 - 4:00pm
Demand is soaring for United Airlines flights to and from cities in the April 8 solar eclipse's path of totality.
Categories: Astronomy

What’s the Best Way to Pack for Space?

Universe Today - Wed, 03/06/2024 - 3:17pm

Packing to go to space is a lot like getting ready for a plane ride with only a carry-on bag. You have to maximize the use of the space in your bag at the same time you want to make sure you have what you need. That’s the challenge astronauts face in the upcoming Artemis moon missions. So, NASA held a competition to figure out the best and most innovative ways to store cargo for the missions.

The Lunar Gateway Cargo Packing and Storing challenge asked members of the public to come up with good ways to pack materials in the limited space on the lunar Gateway that will be orbiting the Moon. The idea inspired some 90 participants from 35 countries to step up and show off their packing skills. It also helped that there were cash prizes for the winners. Everybody submitted written solutions and 3D computer models to show what could be done for astronauts who would need easy, quick access to their cargo.

The design parameters had to take into account storing the cargo delivered to the gateway by the logistics module. The most efficient space design would allow astronauts to access the cargo easily in the module, which will also be their food and supply storage room, plus a place to store trash. So, given everything that needs to be placed there efficiently, the idea was to maximize volume and minimize mass.

And the Winner is…

The best design came from Austria, made by designer Kriso Leinfellner. It’s called QASIS, short for Quick Access Storage in Space. It’s a fairly straightforward method of stacking and packing that maximizes the amount of space the cargo takes up. It also proposes lightweight storage structures and does not rely on motors or batteries to power cranes or other equipment to move the boxes.
Leinfellner won $3,000.00 for this design.

Four other prizes of amounts ranging from $2,000.00 to $250.00 were awarded to winners from Turkey, Brazil, Nigeria, and Germany. They took into account launch and orbital conditions, and several specified manual and/or automated systems to move cargo around for access.

Packing Space for Artemis and the Gateway

The Artemis program will have multiple missions, and the logistics will vary with each crew or cargo trip. So, the “packing space” challenge used the following scenario. A crew of four launches in the Orion capsule on top of an SLS rocket on a three-week mission to the Gateway. Two crew members will then travel on to the Moon to spend a week of exploration and science experiments. Before the crew arrives at Gateway, it will have already been visited by an uncrewed Logistics module packed with supplies. It will be there waiting for the astronauts to arrive about a week later.

The lunar module on approach to the Moon and Gateway station. Courtesy NASA and SpaceX.

Just to make things more complicated, there won’t be a lot of space available at the Gateway. NASA’s plans show that the station will be about the size of a one-bedroom apartment, so a fraction of the size of the International Space Station. Once the astronauts get there, they’ll move in, using an internal system to help them stow the supplies. The contest asked entrants to design that stowage system.

Artemis Mission Overview

The Artemis mission is an ambitious long-range plan for lunar exploration and eventual habitation. It focuses primarily on scientific exploration of the lunar surface. Lessons learned on the Moon will translate to longer-term missions to Mars. The Gateway part of the mission is crucial. It provides an orbiting space station on the Moon, which will function as a transfer point and supply depot. There are Deep Space Logistics project offices at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. However, the Kennedy Space Center is responsible for leading the commercial supply chain. That team solicits and procures bids for cargo transport, equipment acquisition, and consumable supplies for the mission—both in the gateway and on the lunar surface.

The complex supply logistics of the Artemis mission. Courtesy NASA. (Click to enlarge.)

Why such a complex chain? It’s a complex mission, involving the construction of the Gateway, which requires transport of materials to the “construction site” in lunar orbit. It’s going to be there for several years, so long-term viability is important. It serves as the link to the lunar surface and so it will become the staging area for materials needed on the Moon for bases and installations.

Everything for Artemis and its Gateway has to withstand the rigors of launch, orbital insertion at the Moon, and use/reuse by the astronauts who will be passing through. Five Artemis missions will happen. Others are still in the proposal stages. Artemis 1 flew in 2022 as an uncrewed test flight. It “practiced” putting Orion into lunar orbit and then brought the capsule back to Earth. Artemis 2 could fly in late 2025, although that will likely slip. It will be the first crewed test flight and will do orbital testing around Earth and the Moon. Artemis 3 will be the first crewed lunar landing, bringing a diverse set of astronauts to the newly built lunar Gateway and then to the Moon. After that, Artemis 4 and 5 will fly (dates still to be determined) and will take astronauts to the gateway and lunar surface for further explorations.

For More Information

NASA Names Winners in Lunar Gateway Packing and Storing Challenge
Gateway Logistics

The post What’s the Best Way to Pack for Space? appeared first on Universe Today.

Categories: Astronomy

Hunger-inducing mutation makes some Labradors more likely to get fat

New Scientist Space - Space Headlines - Wed, 03/06/2024 - 3:00pm
Dogs with a mutation in the POMC gene, common in Labradors and flat-coated retrievers, have a stronger appetite for snacks between meals and a lower metabolic rate
Categories: Astronomy

Hunger-inducing mutation makes some Labradors more likely to get fat

New Scientist Space - Cosmology - Wed, 03/06/2024 - 3:00pm
Dogs with a mutation in the POMC gene, common in Labradors and flat-coated retrievers, have a stronger appetite for snacks between meals and a lower metabolic rate
Categories: Astronomy

Many Labrador Retriever Dogs Really Are Hungry All the Time—It’s in Their Genes

Scientific American.com - Wed, 03/06/2024 - 3:00pm

One in four Labrador retrievers carries a gene that tricks their brain into thinking they’re starving

Categories: Astronomy

Webb Sees a System That Just Finished Forming its Planets

Universe Today - Wed, 03/06/2024 - 2:54pm

Nearly 5 billion years ago a region of gas gravitationally collapsed within a vast molecular cloud. At the center of the region, the Sun began to form, while around it formed a protoplanetary disk of gas and dust out of which Earth and the other planets of the solar system would form. We know this is how the solar system began because we have observed this process in systems throughout the galaxy. But there are details of the process we still don’t understand, such as why gas planets are relatively rare in our system.

Our solar system only has four gas planets. The rest are the rocky worlds of the inner solar system. Then there are countless asteroids and the icy worlds of Pluto and the outer solar system. Most of them don’t contain a lot of volatile gasses, which is strange because early protoplanetary disks typically have a hundred times more gas than dust. So how does a gassy disk evolve into a planetary system of mostly rock? The answer can be found in recent observations of a young system known as TCha.

The general idea is that during the later stage of planetary formation the central star increases in brightness. The light from the star then drives winds within the disk which clears any remaining gas from the system. While this model can explain the type of planetary systems we observe, the process hasn’t been observed directly. That is, until this recent study.

How photon pressure can clear a planetary system of gas. Credit: Naman S. Bajaj, et al

TCha is a system in the late stages of planetary formation. Earlier observations found it has a large dust gap within the disk with a radius of more than 30 AU, indicating that much of the early material has already cleared. So in this new study, the team used observations from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to measure the spectral lines of ionized argon and neon. This study is the first observation of a particular argon line, Ar III.

The team made two main discoveries. The first is based on the ionizing energy levels, which indicates that argon is mostly ionized by extreme ultraviolet light, while neon is mostly ionized by X-rays. The second is that both gases are rapidly expanding away from the star, as seen by the Doppler shift of the spectral lines. Together these discoveries show that the gases are part of a stellar wind driven by high-energy photons.

Based on the observations, the team estimates that the TCha disk is losing about a Moon’s worth of mass every year, which is fast enough to clear the planetary disks in agreement with observations of planetary systems. While there are many details of planetary evolution we still don’t understand, this study supports the standard model.

Reference: Naman S. Bajaj, et al. “JWST MIRI MRS Observations of T Cha: Discovery of a Spatially Resolved Disk Wind.” The Astronomical Journal 167 (2024): 127.

The post Webb Sees a System That Just Finished Forming its Planets appeared first on Universe Today.

Categories: Astronomy

How Heavy Is a Neutrino? Physicists Are Still Racing to Find Answers

Scientific American.com - Wed, 03/06/2024 - 2:45pm

A new generation of lab experiments is aiming to weigh neutrinos with astonishing accuracy

Categories: Astronomy

Webb Sees a Surprisingly Active Galaxy When the Universe Was Only 430 Million Years Old

Universe Today - Wed, 03/06/2024 - 2:32pm

Unlocking the mysteries of the early Universe is one of the JWST’s primary endeavours. Finding and examining some of the first galaxies is an important part of its work. One of the Universe’s first galaxies is extraordinarily luminous, and researchers have wondered why. It looks like the JWST has found the answer.

The galaxy at issue is named GN-z11, and it existed when the Universe was less than half a billion years old. The Hubble first spotted it in 2016, with help from the Spitzer Space Telescope. At the time, it was the most distant, ancient galaxy ever spotted. In the paper announcing the discovery, the authors wrote, “GN-z11 is luminous and young, yet moderately massive, implying a rapid build-up of stellar mass in the past.”

They also wrote that “Future facilities will be able to find the progenitors of such galaxies at higher redshift and probe the cosmic epoch at the beginning of reionization.” Now that the JWST is deep into its mission, that’s exactly where we find ourselves. It also took a closer look at GN-z11.

The discoverers suggested that the galaxy’s high luminosity could be caused by an active galactic nucleus (AGN) but weren’t certain. New research based on JWST observations shows that they were right. It looks like the galaxy’s luminosity comes from a supermassive black hole (SMBH) in the galaxy’s centre, lighting it up as it actively accretes matter. One of the telltale signs is a gas clump near the SMBH.

“We found extremely dense gas that is common in the vicinity of supermassive black holes accreting gas,” explained principal investigator Roberto Maiolino of the Cavendish Laboratory and the Kavli Institute of Cosmology at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. “These were the first clear signatures that GN-z11 is hosting a black hole that is gobbling matter.”

Scientists know that the region near an SMBH is extremely hot and that gas clumps form near there. The hole’s powerful gravity creates a swirling accretion disk of material near it, and the material in the disk can be accelerated to relativistic speeds. At those speeds, the molecules collide and generate friction. That generates heat that can reach a temperature of millions of degrees. The extreme heat drives gas outward at extremely high speeds, but it can also drive the gas to form dense clumps like the ones JWST found at GN-z11.

The clump lacks metallicity, so it’s likely primordial in nature, uncontaminated by heavier elements that would only later be created by successive generations of stars.

This graphic shows a clump of pristine helium near GN-z11. The full spectrum shows no evidence of other elements and so suggests that the helium clump is fairly pristine, made almost entirely of hydrogen and helium gas left over from the Big Bang. It’s uncontaminated by heavier elements produced by stars. Theory and simulations in the vicinity of particularly massive galaxies from these epochs predict that there should be pockets of pristine gas surviving in the halo, and these may collapse and form Population III star clusters. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Ralf Crawford (STScI) CC BY 4.0 INT

We’ve never seen the Universe’s first stars, the Population III stars. But as the very first stars, they formed from hydrogen and helium, all that was available at the time. Finding those first stars is an important goal in astronomy, so finding these similarly pristine clumps is important. The gas clumps found by JWST are also made only of hydrogen and helium, so they could be precursors to the formation of Population III stars.

“The fact that we don’t see anything else beyond helium suggests that this clump must be fairly pristine,” said Maiolino. “This is something that was expected by theory and simulations in the vicinity of particularly massive galaxies from these epochs – that there should be pockets of pristine gas surviving in the halo, and these may collapse and form Population III star clusters.”

Population III stars were the Universe’s first stars and contained only hydrogen and helium. They were extremely massive, luminous stars, and many of them exploded as supernovae. Image Credit: DALL-E

Two more pieces of evidence support the black hole hypothesis. Accreting black holes produce ionized chemical elements, and the JWST found evidence of them. The powerful space telescope also detected high winds with velocities of 800 to 1000 km/s-1 near the black hole, another result of the processes involved in actively accreting black holes. (Some rare starburst galaxies can also produce powerful winds, but they show less ionization.)

“Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) has revealed an extended component, tracing the host galaxy, and a central, compact source whose colours are consistent with those of an accretion disc surrounding a black hole,” said investigator Hannah Übler, also of the Cavendish Laboratory and the Kavli Institute.

There doesn’t seem to be much doubt that GN-z11 has a black hole and its accretion disk in its center. But the fact that this galaxy’s extreme luminosity is powered by a black hole raises interesting questions. It has to do with black hole seeds and the Eddington rate.

Scientists think that black holes in the early Universe could have formed differently than stellar mass black holes, which form when a star collapses under its own gravity. Instead, these ancient black holes formed from seeds, collections of matter massive enough to collapse directly into black holes. There could be large, intermediate, and small black hole seeds. The researchers behind these results write that the black hole is “… accreting at about five times the Eddington rate. These properties are consistent with both heavy seeds scenarios and scenarios considering intermediate and light seeds experiencing episodic super-Eddington phases.”

The Eddington rate is the rate at which a black hole has to accrete matter to reach the Eddington limit. The Eddington limit is the maximum luminosity an object can reach while its outward force of radiation is equal to its inward force of gravity.

But black holes can exceed the Eddington limit during super-Eddington episodes. Those episodes may be able to explain the rapid assembly of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in the Universe’s first billion years. Super-Eddington episodes are associated with radiatively inefficient accretion and are often accompanied by powerful outflowing winds and jets.

If the researchers are correct, then they’ve figured out the mystery behind this extremely ancient and extremely luminous galaxy. “Our finding explains the high luminosity of GN-z11…,” the authors write.

Note: The research on the pristine gas clump in GN-z11’s halo has been accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics. The results of the study of GN-z11’s black hole were published in the journal Nature on 17 January 2024

The post Webb Sees a Surprisingly Active Galaxy When the Universe Was Only 430 Million Years Old appeared first on Universe Today.

Categories: Astronomy

We should be open about organoid research to avoid a backlash

New Scientist Space - Space Headlines - Wed, 03/06/2024 - 2:00pm
Research that involves creating "mini-organs" from human cells, including those from fetuses, may leave people uncomfortable – so the best approach is to explain the reasoning behind the work and its potential benefits
Categories: Astronomy

We should be open about organoid research to avoid a backlash

New Scientist Space - Cosmology - Wed, 03/06/2024 - 2:00pm
Research that involves creating "mini-organs" from human cells, including those from fetuses, may leave people uncomfortable – so the best approach is to explain the reasoning behind the work and its potential benefits
Categories: Astronomy

The scientific secrets to baking a perfectly moist chocolate cake

New Scientist Space - Cosmology - Wed, 03/06/2024 - 2:00pm
Keeping your chocolate cake moist and delicious when you make it party-sized is tricky, but not impossible, says Catherine de Lange
Categories: Astronomy

The scientific secrets to baking a perfectly moist chocolate cake

New Scientist Space - Space Headlines - Wed, 03/06/2024 - 2:00pm
Keeping your chocolate cake moist and delicious when you make it party-sized is tricky, but not impossible, says Catherine de Lange
Categories: Astronomy

The Tomb of the Mili Mongga review: Hunting for giants in Indonesia

New Scientist Space - Space Headlines - Wed, 03/06/2024 - 2:00pm
Samuel Turvey set off for Indonesia in search of fossils and found all sorts of wonders – including the strange story of mythical wild men who just might be lurking on the island of Sumba
Categories: Astronomy