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Hydrogels Could Be Ideal Radiation Protection For Astronauts
Hydrogel protection could be crucial for safe human space exploration.
It’s a key problem that will need to be addressed, if humans are to attempt deep-space, long duration missions. Not only is radiation exposure a dangerous health risk to humans, but it also poses a hazard to equipment and operating systems. Now, a team at Ghent University in Belgium are testing a possible solution: 3D printed hydrogels, which could provide deformable layers of water-filled protection.
Water acts as a great radiation shield. Relatively dense, the hydrogen-laden H2O molecule can slow down radiation particles as they zip past. Plus, water is something that astronauts will have to bring lots of on deep space missions. We have our own built-in water shielding on Earth with the atmosphere above, with the added benefit of the Earth’s magnetic field beyond.
Exposure sources are mainly two types: space weather (from the Sun) and cosmic (from outside the solar system) from ancient and exotic sources, such as supernovae explosions. The 11-year solar cycle intensifies solar activity, while we see and uptick in cosmic radiation when our Sun is at a lull.
Radiation and its risk to spaceflight. Credit: ESA Radiation Exposure on the ISSFrom the earliest days of the Space Age, astronauts have reported seeing occasional flashes in their eyes… even when closed. We now know this is due to high energy particles zipping through and interacting with the aqueous and vitreous humors (fluids) in the eye, and (somewhat disturbing to think about) the brain. Astronauts in low Earth orbit aboard the ISS have sheltered from solar storms in the past, taking advantage of the core modules which are at least surrounded by the bulk of the station.
But as far as providing personal protection, water poses a challenge. Bulky suits can limit movement and spring a leak: a bad thing to have happen in space. Super-absorbent polymers (SAPs) designed by the Chemistry and Biomaterials Group (PBM) at Ghent University could function as an alternative, and are more effective versus circulating water.
Enter HydrogelSAP can absorb a hundred times its weight in liquid. This makes it an ideal lightweight and portable material to work with. Think of the ‘monster toys’ that expand in size, just add water. Unlike traditional circulation systems, the water in hydrogel is not free-flowing, making it resistant to leakage during a puncture.
Timelapse of an expanding hydrogel, absorbing water. Credit: ESA“The beauty of this project is that we are working with a well-known technology,” says Lenny Van Daele (Ghent University) in a recent press release. “Hydrogels are found in many things we use every day.”
Hydrogels are common in consumer products, including soft contact lenses, bio-materials, and medical bandage gels.
“The super-absorbent polymer that we are using can be processed using multiple techniques, which is a rare and advantageous quality amongst polymers,” says Manon Minsart (Ghent University) in the same ESA press release. “Our method of choice is 3D printing, which allows us to create a hydrogel in almost any shape we want.”
3D printed hydrogel models of a space shuttle and an astronaut. Credit: ESA/University of Ghent. Radiation Exposure En Route to MarsThe problem posed by space radiation on long duration missions cannot be overstated. It’s something that will have to be solved, if humans are to make the long round trip journey to Mars.
Curiosity’s RAD experiment carried on its journey to the Red Planet in 2012 demonstrated the magnitude of the dilemma. Astronauts on a Mars mission would receive 60 rem/0.6 Sieverts… about a career’s-worth of acceptable radiation exposure, in one mission.
The RAD detector mounted aboard Curiosity. NASA/JPL-CaltechThe problem is far from solved, but hydrogels may provide a solution in the years to come. It will be exciting to see hydrogels used as a common feature on future deep space missions, to keep astronauts and equipment safe.
The post Hydrogels Could Be Ideal Radiation Protection For Astronauts appeared first on Universe Today.
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#743: What Else Can We Learn From Gravitational Waves?
Just a few years ago LIGO detected the first direct evidence of gravitational waves coming from colliding black holes. And there you have it. Boom! Black holes collide! But that wasn’t all we learned from gravitational waves, nor will we learn. Sure, the masses of merging black holes are nice to know, but what else can we learn from gravitational black holes?
Show Notes- Initial Discoveries and revisit to the groundbreaking detection of gravitational waves by LIGO
- Beyond black hole mergers including Neutron Star Mergers
- How gravitational wave detectors can observe other cosmic phenomena
- Multi-Messenger Astronomy
- Future Prospects including advanced detectors and space-based observatories
- Technical challenges in gravitational wave detection
Frasier Cain [00:00:50] Astronomycast episode 743, what else can we learn from gravitational waves? Welcome to Astronomycast, a weekly facts -based journey through the cosmos, where we help you understand not only what we know, but how we know what we know. I’m Fraser Cain. I’m the publisher of Universe Today. With me as always is Dr. Pamela Gay, a senior scientist for the Planetary Sciences Institute and the director of CosmoQuest. Hey, Pamela, how are you doing?
Pamela Gay [00:01:11] I’m in the United States, so it’s probably a question that you don’t want me to answer. I’m also a soft money funded scientist, so that is definitely a question you don’t want me to answer.
Speaker 4 [00:01:21] Okay.
Frasier Cain [00:01:21] Well, as a Canadian, now about to go into a trade war with you, my Canadian, sorry, my US friend, yeah, things are likewise bad.
Pamela Gay [00:01:34] Yeah, yeah. The thing that has me most concerned is the rule of law apparently no longer has any meaning in this country. There are unvetted people without security clearances that now have access to the Social Security numbers and payment history of every US taxpayer. Yeah, yeah, these are kids that are going in and installing these servers and getting access and it’s just like, yeah.
Frasier Cain [00:02:15] Anyway, just a few years ago, LIGO detected the first direct evidence of gravitational waves coming from colliding black holes.
Speaker 3 [00:02:22] And there you have it.
Frasier Cain [00:02:23] Boom, black holes collide. But that wasn’t all we learned from gravitational waves, nor will we learn. We’ll get to it in a second, but it is time for a break.
Speaker 3 [00:02:34] February is the month of love and we all deserve a little something special. Dime Beauty is having their annual valentime sale right now where you can get 25 % off everything with code valentime. It’s the perfect excuse to refresh your beauty routine or pick out a thoughtful gift. At Dime, clean is more than a standard. It’s their promise. Dedicated to skin conscious ingredients, they focus on creating beauty, skin care, body care, and fragrances that are safe, gentle, and free from harsh chemicals. With Dime, you can trust what you’re putting on your skin every single day. If you’re looking for the perfect nighttime anti -aging cream, their TBT cream is a must try. It’s packed with clean, age -defying ingredients that nourish and hydrate your skin while you sleep. But don’t just take my word for it. Over 3 ,000 five -star reviews speak for themselves. Whether it’s skin care, fragrance, or a little bit of both, Dime has something for everyone. Visit DimeBeautyCO .com and use code valentime for 25 % off right now during their valentime day sale. Grab your favorites before it’s over. DimeBeautyCO .com.
Frasier Cain [00:03:35] And we’re back. So before we get into what else can we learn about gravitational waves, can you give us like the short version of what we did learn about gravitational waves from colliding black holes?
Pamela Gay [00:03:48] So what we learned was they politely do exactly what they were supposed to do. And it’s really, really good when observation and theory match, especially when they match pretty much perfectly. So what we were eventually able to figure out, thanks to a suite of really long tunnels on the planet Earth that had mirrors and detectors and lasers that allowed us to consistently measure within a wavelength, the length of that tunnel, within a wavelength of optical light, the length of that tunnel, what we learned is as predicted when large gravitational waves pass over and through our planet, our planet will expand and squish, expand and squish and squish in a way that has a decaying frequency and amplitude that matches theory for what should happen as two masses come together and then collide.
Unidentified [00:04:55] Right.
Frasier Cain [00:04:57] So, you know, this was the prediction. I mean, it goes all the way back to Einstein when he did his theories of general relativity and said that masses moving through space time that experience, what is it, a quadrupole moment should generate gravitational waves and that, you know, you had the whole LIGO group come together to try to see whether they could actually demonstrate this. Now we knew that gravitational waves, like they had already been proven thanks to binary pulsars.
Speaker 4 [00:05:32] Right.
Pamela Gay [00:05:33] So, so what had earlier been figured out by Holst and Taylor was when you have pulsars orbiting around each other, these are two high mass objects that are not symmetric and as they go around, they are radiating energy. And because the radiating energy in the form of gravitational waves, their orbits are coming closer and closer together. The period of the orbit is changing. We can measure that extremely precisely thanks to changes in the pulsar timing as the objects move to and fro and the distances, those pulses have to travel change over the course of the orbit.
Speaker 3 [00:06:15] Right, right.
Frasier Cain [00:06:16] And they were actually able to measure that, that the pulsars as they’re going around each other, they are bleeding off that rotational, the kinetic energy into gravitational waves, that’s slowing down their, how quickly they’re going around each other and you’re actually measuring those pulsar timings and it all syncs up.
Pamela Gay [00:06:40] And they got a Nobel prize.
Frasier Cain [00:06:41] And they got a, yeah, Nobel prizes all around. But, but then, you know, when they were directly observed as opposed to indirectly just by the way that the orbits are changing, again, Nobel prizes all around. And so I guess what did we learn apart from, yes, gravitational waves are a thing, what did we learn from that original LIGO detection of, of gravitational waves?
Pamela Gay [00:07:07] Well, the one original detection was like, yay, merger. We did it. What we found from their, their population statistics is that group of intermediate mass black holes that we knew had to exist out there. And we hadn’t been able to, until recently to directly detect was finally detectable through the gravitational waves that were produced when they merged with other objects. We have also been able to see a neutron star mergers. And back in 2017, we had that, we’ve, I think, dedicated an entire episode to it, that, that event that we detected through the neutrinos, through the gravitational waves and through the light. And now we know the majority of gold comes from neutron star mergers.
Frasier Cain [00:08:00] So, so I get, you know, I was going to take that to the, as the next part in this journey, but no problem. You’re just going to speed run today’s episode, which is perfectly fine by me. I can keep up. And that is that, yeah, we got this, this confirmation that the, that the black holes mergers are actually happening. And then that taught us that, that yes, indeed as predicted black holes get closer and closer to each other as they bleed off this kinetic energy through the gravitational waves. And that in fact, neutron stars can do the same. And this is detectable by LIGO when you’ve got these gravitational waves and then you’ve got, you know, we got a confirmation that a certain class of gamma ray bursts correspond to that merger of neutron stars that we see the wreckage of this collision. We see gold, we see other heavier elements that tells us that this is the way they probably formed and not necessarily with, with core collapse supernova. So then we get another finding just a couple of years ago with the nanograv facility about through pulsar timing arrays, we get another detection of gravitational waves.
Pamela Gay [00:09:12] And here I want to separate very carefully two separate ideas. Individual pulsars should be sources of continuous gravitational waves. We do not have the technological ability to detect those right now.
Frasier Cain [00:09:28] Only if they’re unbalanced though.
Pamela Gay [00:09:31] Only if they’re asymmetric at some, some level. And we believe that they are asymmetric at some level. It doesn’t take a lot of asymmetry.
Frasier Cain [00:09:39] So it is wobble.
Speaker 4 [00:09:41] Yeah.
Pamela Gay [00:09:41] So pulsars are theorized to be a source of continuous gravitational waves. That’s not what we’re talking about right now. What you’re talking about right now is we can measure the distance to pulsars through a variety of different means, and as long as that distance stays constant, the arrival of those pulses will stay constant. And this is more precise in timing than your standard atomic clock. What the nanograv facility has been doing is monitoring the pulsations of myriad different pulsars, looking for changes in arrival time that corresponds to a gravitational wave sweeping through our galaxy and changing the distance to these pulsars. And as you look out across space, we can see three -dimensionally all these different pulsars. We understand from all of the data we have so far that gravity appears to propagate at the speed of light. Gravitational waves appear to propagate at the speed of light. And we can, if we estimate the distance to this pulsar, we estimate to one back there, we look long enough and we haven’t been able to do this yet. We’ll be able to see pulsar delay here, pulsar delay there. That’s a wave moving through space. What we’re instead seeing is over here, there seems to be differences. We’re seeing a myriad of different delays that statistically appear to There are gravitational waves regularly sweeping through our galaxy.
Frasier Cain [00:11:32] And a class of gravitational waves that we’re not able to detect directly, which are the results of the merges of supermassive black holes.
Pamela Gay [00:11:40] And this is where it gets so cool to imagine all the different things we’re going to be able to detect someday. And I don’t know if you want to get to that right now, but nanograv is probing massive objects merging, LIGO is, is observing intermediate mass down to neutron star mass objects merging each different mass of black hole as it merges a neutron star as it merges produces a different frequency and amplitude of gravitational waves. And we can get at the distance of these events through the amplitude we observe and, and the frequency tells us what was happening.
Speaker 4 [00:12:29] Right.
Frasier Cain [00:12:31] So what’s interesting as well is, is Meerkat, which is this incredible South African radio telescope array recently confirmed the existence of this background gravitational wave to the universe in a fraction of the time that the original nanograph was able to do. And so you’ve got this independent confirmation, you know, more telescopes better, more, they looked at more pulsars for a shorter period of time and got the confirmation. So, so I think that’s where we stand today in, in what we have learned from gravitational waves so far. And so now we’re going to move on in a second and talk about what we can learn, but it is time for another break.
Speaker 3 [00:13:14] February is the month of love. And we all deserve a little something special. Dime Beauty is having their annual Valentine’s sale right now where you can get 25 % off everything with code valentine. It’s the perfect excuse to refresh your beauty routine or pick out a thoughtful gift at time. Clean is more than a standard. It’s their promise dedicated to skin conscious ingredients. They focus on creating beauty skincare, body care, and fragrances that are safe, gentle and free from harsh chemicals with time. You can trust what you’re putting on your skin every single day. If you’re looking for the perfect nighttime anti -aging cream, their TBT cream is a must try. It’s packed with clean, age defying ingredients that nourish and hydrate your skin while you sleep. But don’t just take my word for it. Over 3000 five star reviews speak for themselves, whether it’s skincare, fragrance, or a little bit of both. Dime has something for everyone. Visit DimeBeautyCO .com and use code valentine for 25 % off right now during their valentine day sale. Grab your favorites before it’s over. DimeBeautyCO .com.
Frasier Cain [00:14:15] And we’re back.
Speaker 3 [00:14:17] All right.
Frasier Cain [00:14:17] So I think we’ve got a good sense of what we’ve learned so far about gravitational waves. And so now let’s look into the future, which is, I guess, what are the kinds of questions that we think that gravitational waves can give us some kind of answer and then how can we detect them?
Pamela Gay [00:14:37] It’s not always what kind of questions can be answered so much as what parts of the universe can be probed. And one of the things you and I have talked about since day zero of, of doing astronomy cast is we cannot observe with light earlier than the release of the cosmic microwave background, but gravity doesn’t have that same issue. And in general, it’s not like we can go out and probe the gravity field of before the cosmic microwave background, the way we can probe the gravity field of a world and map out its sides. There’s no fly by of the big bang that any NASA probe’s ever going to do. But what we can do instead is look for the gravitational waves that are radiating from all directions from that early universe. And this could be part of this background of stochastic gravitational waves that we believe is out there. Now, the problem is there are a whole lot of different things that can produce gravitational waves. All it takes is an asymmetric object rotating and you’re going to start to get gravitational waves. A planet like Mars with a big old volcano on it is going to have gravitational waves, just not ones we can detect.
Frasier Cain [00:16:06] When you drive down the road, you are generating gravitational waves.
Speaker 4 [00:16:10] Yeah.
Pamela Gay [00:16:10] And, and so all these different things add up. And, and so we talk about there being the individual gravitational waves that we get from merger events that we get from supernovae explosions, unless there is somehow this miraculously, perfectly symmetric supernovae. And, okay, I don’t know how that happens, but we’ll go with that. Anything rotating that isn’t perfectly symmetric is going to radiate gravitational waves continuously. So you have things that explode and merge do a burst of gravitational waves that we see. You have things that are rotating and are asymmetric that are giving off continuous gravitational waves. And there’s this random distribution we believe of gravitational waves that we may not ever be able to figure out what is. This is the stochastic gravitational waves in the background. And some of those are probably going to come from pre CMB, pre cosmic microwave background formation physics. Now, well, there’s going to be stuff we can never figure out. There’s going to also be stuff we do figure out. And this may be the one and only way we can ever get information from before the cosmic microwave background, other than by happening to see things that are fossilized in the cosmic microwave background. And we’re only going to get so far with that as well. So it’s, it’s cool to think we still have this one pathway to understanding the early universe.
Frasier Cain [00:17:56] And what will be the sources of that gravitational wave? I mean, the term is primordial gravitational waves and, and as opposed to the background gravitational waves, they’re coming from the colliding supermassive black holes and us driving our cars down the road and so on, but there’s going to be this class of gravitational waves that will be visible, that would have been generated within that first 380 ,000 years after the big bang and in theory, right from the very beginning, right from, you know, if inflation happened, hopefully there’ll be evidence of, of that, those gravitational waves in, in, you know, coming from that inflation event, but even if there are, I mean, would there be like large masses merging and colliding early on in the universe? Like what would be that source of those first gravitational waves?
Pamela Gay [00:18:43] So there were the very own acoustic waves traveling through the early material that made up our universe, that was creating a variety of overdensities and under densities in this essentially fluid that was the early universe. And so you didn’t so much have discrete objects that were merging in, in the early universe, but you did have changes in the mass distribution over time. And there’s other things that people worry about as well. Echoes essentially from colliding black holes and neutron stars that, that are out there today could be hiding stuff that I have to admit, I don’t fully understand a lot of the papers. I do know that we both chased the, the, uh, there was, what was it?
Speaker 4 [00:19:44] 2014.
Pamela Gay [00:19:45] Oh, the bicep two, the bicep two, where they thought they were able to detect the, the effects of gravitational waves in the data they were looking at, and they didn’t. And so we should be able to see in the cosmic microwave background, depending on what’s going on, a, a essentially bunching up of material changes and how the light is being radiated. And so far we haven’t been able to find that. So that leaves the next question of, can we find these ripples from how the material was clumped up and not clumped up in the early universe? Can we find the gravitational waves from that directly? And, and that’s the next thing that we’re hoping for.
Frasier Cain [00:20:38] And I think that, you know, people are aware of the upcoming European space agencies, Lisa mission, the laser interferometer space antenna, and that’s going to be three spacecraft flying in formation, firing lasers back
Speaker 3 [00:20:50] and forth.
Frasier Cain [00:20:50] And then as gravitational waves sweep past, they will change the length of the arms and they’re like tens of thousands of kilometers long. And so it will change those and they will get direct evidence of those supermassive black holes merging. That’s the hope, but people have proposed versions of Lisa that have like maybe 12 spacecraft that maybe have longer arms and this is called the big bang explorer. And in theory, that that’s what gets you to those, those first gravitational waves, the ones, the echoes of the big bang itself. And hopefully that is, you know, is something that we will eventually see maybe in our, in our lifetimes. All right, we’re going to continue on this conversation, but it’s time for another break.
Speaker 3 [00:21:36] February is the month of love and we all deserve a little something special dime beauty is having their annual valentine sale right now, where you can get 25 % off everything with code valentine. It’s the perfect excuse to refresh your beauty routine or pick out a gift at time. Clean is more than a standard. It’s their promise dedicated to skin conscious ingredients. They focus on creating beauty skincare, body care, and fragrances that are safe, gentle and free from harsh chemicals with time. You can trust what you’re putting on your skin every single day. If you’re looking for the perfect nighttime anti -aging cream, their TBT cream is a must try. It’s packed with clean age defying ingredients that nourish and hydrate your skin while you sleep. But don’t just take my word for it. Over 3000 five -star reviews speak for themselves, whether it’s skincare, fragrance, or a little bit of both. Dime has something for everyone. Visit dimebeautyco .com and use code valentine for 25 % off right now during their valentine day sale. Grab your favorites before it’s over. Dimebeautyco .com. And we’re back.
Frasier Cain [00:22:39] All right. So we’ve talked about the, the potential for primordial gravitational waves to give us a look into the time before the microwave background radiation. What else can we learn from gravitational waves?
Pamela Gay [00:22:55] Oh man. So this is a conversation that Paul Matt Sutter is really the one. I’m just going to say any of you have the chance to ever talk to Paul Matt Sutter. He is the expert on this.
Frasier Cain [00:23:06] This is watch his videos.
Speaker 3 [00:23:07] Yeah.
Speaker 4 [00:23:07] Or watch his podcast.
Pamela Gay [00:23:08] Yeah. The dance videos, maybe not so much, but the podcasts for sure. Um, one of the things he talks about is how the early universe could have actually in essence fractured and, and these changes in the mass that look like fractures, if you were to try and draw them out, artistically could generate gravitational waves. He talks about how as the different forces split off from one another where first there was gravity and then there was the strong and the electromagnetic and weak. So strong went off and then the electroweak and the electromagnetic split apart. And as each of these things happened, the reality of our universe, and this is all happening in fractions of the first second, all of this could have potentially left a pattern through gravitational waves on the early universe. I don’t know how we detect that.
Speaker 4 [00:24:12] I, I,
Frasier Cain [00:24:13] but in theory it’s going to be giving off gravitational waves.
Pamela Gay [00:24:15] Yeah, yeah. And so we’re at this point where things that I was always like, cool theory, dude, love it. We’ll teach it. Can’t observe it. I’m good with it though. We might actually be able to observe because there are people smarter than I am and more creative than I am. And I’m very grateful. Those people exist.
Speaker 3 [00:24:37] Yeah.
Frasier Cain [00:24:39] Um, okay.
Speaker 3 [00:24:41] What else?
Frasier Cain [00:24:42] I’ll give you, this was your title. So what else can we learn from gravitational waves?
Pamela Gay [00:24:47] I, I got this idea from you.
Speaker 3 [00:24:50] Um, okay. Wait, what?
Frasier Cain [00:24:52] That was the title that couldn’t have been the title.
Speaker 3 [00:24:54] I keep you. All right.
Frasier Cain [00:24:55] Well, I’ll give you a couple more then.
Speaker 3 [00:24:56] Fine.
Frasier Cain [00:24:56] Uh, so one of the other ideas is that you had, um, cosmic strings that, that, you know, if they’re, you know, one of the theories about the sort of underlying nature of matter is that, that it’s made of these wiggly, jiggly strings.
Pamela Gay [00:25:11] And that theory, I’m so much of a proponent.
Frasier Cain [00:25:15] But if, and, and you can’t direct them directly, but if, uh, that theory is correct, then, then those, what would have been tiny strings at the beginning of the universe would have sort of accreted more material, grown larger and could be potentially light years across and these giant cosmic strings moving through the universe, colliding, um, and causing gravitational waves. And so one of the possible things that you could detect with gravitational wave observatories is, is colliding.
Pamela Gay [00:25:48] Um, and over time we’re getting more and more evidence that those suckers don’t exist.
Frasier Cain [00:25:52] Just, just to be clear, because you would see them with gravitational lensing as well. And these large scale surveys haven’t turned that up. So, uh, the other thing that I like is that we could use them to find aliens flying through space in their warp drives. That’s right. And so in theory, a spacecraft as it is, you know, as when the, when the enterprise goes from star to star, it’s going to be using the warp drive. And that’s going to be going to be shifting space time. It’s going to be bending space time to its will to be able to make this spacecraft go. And then in theory, that’s going to cause a wake, a gravitational wave wake, um, which is pretty cool. And so, but the sort of the coolest idea about this, and this was like a paper that just came out fairly recently was people were saying, Oh, we won’t necessarily be able to detect the wakes. That’s like, there’s not enough going on there. Um, but what we will be able to detect is the detonation, the catastrophic failure of the warp drives in these, uh, spacecraft. And so you’ll have the spacecraft is going, the warp drive collapses, destroys the spacecraft, sends out ripples of gravitational waves. And that might be just within reach of what we could do with, with gravitational waves, which I think is, uh, is fantastic. So, uh, you know, you’re wondering, and then the sort of last thing that’s on my sort of mental list right now is that we could potentially use gravitational waves as a communications tool. So, you know, this is beyond our capability today, obviously, but gravitational waves pass nicely through almost anything. They’ll pass through through planets. They’ll pass through stars.
Pamela Gay [00:27:40] What don’t they pass through nicely?
Speaker 3 [00:27:42] Uh, black holes. Yeah.
Pamela Gay [00:27:44] I mean, they pass through them.
Speaker 3 [00:27:47] So they’ll pass, they’ll pass. Yeah.
Frasier Cain [00:27:49] They’ll pass around them.
Pamela Gay [00:27:50] Yeah.
Frasier Cain [00:27:51] Um, right. That a, that like when a gravitational wave passes a black hole, it will, any part of the gravitational wave that directly falls within the event horizon of the black hole gets added to the black hole. You convert the mass energy of the gravitational wave and you end up with, uh, additional mass in the black hole, but, but anything that, you know, but otherwise they get distorted. They get twisted as they go near the black hole. But in theory, if you could move a mass in a certain way, you could generate gravitational waves. You could modulate the gravitational waves. And if you have a detection system that is good enough, you could theoretically detect it. And it might very well be that, that some future advanced civilization could use these gravitational waves as a way to communicate. And in fact, that might be the best way to communicate. And so the reason we don’t see any evidence of aliens out there is because they’re all using gravitational waves to communicate with each other in some way that we haven’t figured out yet. So, um, so there’s a lot of like cool science fiction ideas on what you could use gravitational ways for.
Pamela Gay [00:28:55] What I love about doing the show is I don’t generally keep up to date on all of the theoretical technology research going on, which is not my thing. Totally your thing. And, and so over the years, the show has totally become a collaboration because of all the interviews you’ve done with folks with NIAC funding, folks who are thinking out of the box with the technology for communications and thrust and everything else. Cause I would never have come up with those in any of the research that I was doing. I sort of hit the, uh, here are some papers. I don’t fully understand on primordial, uh, primordial gravitational waves.
Frasier Cain [00:29:39] So that’s the other thing is searching, potentially finding primordial gravitational waves, sorry, primordial black holes. So that there is a minimum size of black hole that should be created naturally through the collapse of a massive star and that then if we detect the mergers of any black holes that are not mergers between neutron stars that are lower than the mass of that minimum mass level, then that immediately confirms the existence of these primordial black holes. Uh, one of the things that we haven’t seen so far is mergers between white dwarfs and neutron stars or white dwarfs.
Pamela Gay [00:30:20] And the frequency is wrong.
Frasier Cain [00:30:21] Well, but Lisa isn’t your tool. Lisa is the one that gets us the colliding supermass of black holes. There’s an extension to LIGO call. So there’s a couple of extensions to LIGO and a new thing called the Einstein telescope. And that will have, so right now LIGO has arms that are a few 10 kilometers, 15, I forget the length of the arms on like that.
Speaker 3 [00:30:46] Yeah.
Frasier Cain [00:30:46] But, but the Einstein telescope will be 40. And so it’ll be like the largest feasible gravitational wave observatory that you can put on earth. And what’s nice is that it just blends in with the rest of the existing, uh, community. So, um,
Pamela Gay [00:31:01] did they change Lisa? Cause Lisa was originally billed as the white dwarf merger detector.
Frasier Cain [00:31:08] I, I don’t, I don’t think so. I mean, maybe Lisa will also be able to do white dwarfs, but it’s the, it’s the longer, slower mergers that they’re going to go after. It’s these longer baseline ground observatories, but like, like the gravitational wave observatories are kind of like telescopes. You tune them to specific frequencies and then that’s what you’re
Speaker 3 [00:31:28] looking for.
Frasier Cain [00:31:29] But, but yeah. So in theory, we will get these confirmations that white dwarfs collide with, with black holes, that white dwarfs collide with
Pamela Gay [00:31:35] neutral.
Frasier Cain [00:31:35] Like obviously this is happening, but that’ll tell us which of the kinds of explosions that we see in the universe are matched with these kinds of mergers. So, uh, so it’s a lot of things, but as soon as you move mass, then you get to observe the gravitational ways of that
Speaker 3 [00:31:51] thing.
Frasier Cain [00:31:51] So, all right. We’ve reached the end of our show. Thank you, Pamela.
Pamela Gay [00:31:55] Thank you, Fraser. And thank you everyone who is watching this video and apologies. I do not know why my camera decided it needed to, uh, completely lose its mind for a moment, but that is what it did. I mean, I understand. I think I’ve completely lost my mind for a moment, a few times over the weekend. Um, this week we would really like to thank, uh, some of our $10 or not patrons, uh, this week we would like to thank Alex Rayne, Andrew, Palestra, uh, Antasor, Astro Bob, Astro Sets, Benjamin Carrier, Benjamin Davies, Bill Smith, Bob Krell, Boogie Net, Brenda, Brian Kilby, Bruce Amazines, Manski, Claudia Mastriani, Cody Rose, David, David Rosetta, uh, Diane Philippon, Don Mundus, Frodo Tanenbe, I think I said that time, uh, Jeff, uh, McDonald Gold, Hal McKinney, Janelle, Jeremy Kerwin, Jim McGeehan, Jimmy Drake, Jordan Turner, Justin Proctor, Katie and Ulyssa, uh, Christian Magersholt, uh, Mark Schneider, Michael Purcell, Michael Regan, Nate Detweiler, Papa Hotdog, Rando, Robert Hundle, Robert Palasma, Ryan Amory, the Air Major, Thomas Gazetta, Timelord Irowe, Will Hamilton, William Andrews. Thank you all so very much. You make this show possible.
Frasier Cain [00:33:29] Thanks everyone. And we will see you next week.
Speaker 4 [00:33:31] Bye bye.
Pamela Gay [00:33:38] Astronomycast is a joint product of Universe Today and the Planetary Science Institute. Astronomycast is released under a Creative Commons Attribution License. So love it, share it, and remix it. But please credit it to our hosts, Fraser Cain and Dr. Pamela Gay. You can get more information on today’s show topic on our website, astronomycast .com. This episode was brought to you thanks to our generous patrons on Patreon. If you want to help keep this show going, please consider joining our community at patreon .com slash astronomycast. Not only do you help us pay our producers a fair wage, you will also get special access to content right in your inbox and invites to online events. We are so grateful to all of you who have joined our Patreon community already. Anyways, keep looking up. This has been Astronomycast.
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Live RecordingThe post #743: What Else Can We Learn From Gravitational Waves? appeared first on Astronomy Cast.
NASA denies setting 'new bans' for employees amid reports of removing LGBTQI+ symbols from offices
To Probe the Interior of Neutron Stars, We Must Study the Gravitational Waves from their Collisions
When massive stars reach the end of their life cycle, they undergo gravitational collapse and shed their outer layers in a massive explosion (a supernova). Whereas particularly massive stars will leave a black hole in their wake, others leave behind a stellar remnant known as a neutron star (or white dwarf). These objects concentrate a mass greater than the entire Solar System into a volume measuring (on average) just 20 km (~12.5 mi) in diameter. Meanwhile, the extreme conditions inside neutron stars are still a mystery to astronomers.
In 2017, the first collision between two neutron stars was detected from the gravitational waves (GWs) it produced. Since then, astronomers have theorized how GWs could be used to probe the interiors of neutron stars and learn more about the extreme physics taking place. According to new research by a team from Goethe University Frankfurt and other institutions, the GWs produced by binary neutron star (BNS) mergers mere milliseconds after they merge could be the best means of probing the interiors of these mysterious objects.
The research was conducted by a group led by Luciano Rezzolla, a professor from the Institute for Theoretical Physics (ITP) at Goethe University and a Senior Fellow with the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies (FIAS). The research team also includes members of the ExtreMe Matter Institute (EMMI-GSI), Darmstadt Technical University (TU Darmstadt), and the University of Stavanger in Norway. The paper detailing their findings appeared on February 3rd in Nature Communications.
Light bursts from the collision of two neutron stars. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/CI LabOriginally predicted by Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity (GR), gravitational waves are ripples in spacetime caused by the merger of massive objects (like white dwarfs and black holes). While the most intense GWs are produced from mergers, BNS emit GWs for millions of years as they spiral inward toward each other. The post-merger remnant (a massive, rapidly rotating object) also emits GWs in a strong but narrow frequency range. This last signal, the team argues, could hold crucial information about how nuclear matter behaves at extreme densities and pressures (aka. “equation of state“).
As the team explained in their paper, the amplitude of post-merger GWs behaves like a tuning fork after it is struck. This means that the GW signal goes through a phase (which they have named the “long ringdown”) where it increasingly trends toward a single frequency. Using advanced simulations of merging neutron stars, the team identified a strong connection between these unique characteristics and the properties of the densest regions in the core of neutron stars. As Dr. Rezzolla explained in a University of Goethe press release:
“Thanks to advances in statistical modeling and high-precision simulations on Germany’s most powerful supercomputers, we have discovered a new phase of the long ringdown in neutron star mergers. It has the potential to provide new and stringent constraints on the state of matter in neutron stars. This finding paves the way for a better understanding of dense neutron star matter, especially as new events are observed in the future.”
By analyzing the long ringdown phase, they argue, astronomers can significantly reduce uncertainties in the equation of state for neutron stars. “By cleverly selecting a few equations of state, we were able to effectively simulate the results of a full statistical ensemble of matter models with considerably less effort,” said co-author Dr. Tyler Gorda. “Not only does this result in less computer time and energy consumption, but it also gives us confidence that our results are robust and will be applicable to whatever equation of state actually occurs in nature.“
An artist’s concept of how LISA will work to detect gravitational waves from orbit in space. Credit: ESAIn this sense, post-merger neutron stars could be used as “tuning forks” for investigating some of the deepest cosmic mysteries. Said Dr. Christian Ecker, an ITP postdoctoral student, and the study’s lead author:
“Just like tuning forks of different material will have different pure tones, remnants described by different equations of state will ring down at different frequencies. The detection of this signal thus has the potential to reveal what neutron stars are made of. I am particularly proud of this work as it constitutes exemplary evidence of the excellence of Frankfurt- and Darmstadt-based scientists in the study of neutron stars.”
This research, added Dr. Ecker, compliments the work of the Exploring the Universe from Microscopic to Macroscopic Scales (ELEMENTS) research cluster. Located at the Giersch Science Center (GSC), this cluster combines the resources of Goethe University, TU Darmstadt, Justus Liebig University Giessen (JLU-Gießen), and the Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (GSI-FAIR). Their aim is to combine the study of elementary particles and large astrophysical objects with the ultimate goal of finding the origins of heavy metals (i.e. platinum, gold, etc.) in the Universe.
While existing GW observatories have not detected post-merger signals, scientists are optimistic that next-generation instruments will. This includes the Einstein Telescope (ET), a proposed underground observatory expected to become operational in the next decade, and the ESA’s Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA), the first GW observatory ever proposed for space, currently scheduled for deployment by 2035. With the completion of these and other third-generation GW observatories, the long ringdown could serve as a powerful means for probing the laws of physics under the most extreme conditions.
Further Reading: Goethe University
The post To Probe the Interior of Neutron Stars, We Must Study the Gravitational Waves from their Collisions appeared first on Universe Today.
The JWST Gives Us Our Best Image of Planets Forming Around a Star
Planets are born in swirling disks of gas and dust around young stars. Astronomers are keenly interested in the planet formation process, and understanding that process is one of the JWST’s main science goals. PDS 70 is a nearby star with two nascent planets forming in its disk, two of the very few exoplanets that astronomers have directly imaged.
Researchers developed a new, innovative approach to observing PDS 70 with the JWST and uncovered more details about the system, including the possible presence of a third planet.
PDS 70 is an orange dwarf star about 370 light-years away and hosts two young, growing planets: PDS 70b and PDS 70c. The European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) imaged both of the planets directly, and PDS 70b has the distinction of being the very first protoplanet every imaged directly. The VLT accomplished the feat in 2018 with its groundbreaking SPHERE instrument.
The SPHERE observations, along with other observations, allowed astronomers to get a much more detailed look at the planets’ atmospheres, masses, and temperatures.
Now, the JWST has taken another look at the pair of young planets. The results are in a new paper in The Astronomical Journal. It’s titled “The James Webb Interferometer: Space-based Interferometric Detections of PDS 70 b and c at 4.8 ?m,” and the lead author is Dori Blakely. Blakely is a grad student in Physics and Astronomy at the University of Victoria, BC, Canada.
The JWST’s Near Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS) has a feature called Aperture Masking Interferometry (AMI), which allows it to function as an interferometer. It uses a special mask with tiny holes over the telescope’s primary mirror. The interferogram it creates has a much higher resolution because the effective size of the telescope becomes much larger.
“In this work, we present James Webb Interferometer observations of PDS 70 with the NIRISS F480M filter, the first space-based interferometric observations of this system,” the authors write. They found evidence of material surrounding PDS 70 b and c, which strengthens the idea that the planets are still forming.
“This is like seeing a family photo of our solar system when it was just a toddler. It’s incredible to think about how much we can learn from one system,” lead author Blakely said in a press release.
This is a colour-enhanced image of millimetre-wave radio signals from the ALMA observatory from previous research. It shows the PDS 70 star and both exoplanets. Image Credit: A. Isella, ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)Previous observations of the PDS 70 planets were made at shorter wavelengths, which were best explained by models for low-mass stars and brown dwarfs. But the JWST observed them at longer wavelengths, the longest they’d ever been observed with. These observations detected more light than previous observations, and the low-mass/brown dwarf models couldn’t account for the light.
The JWST observations hint at the presence of warm material around both planets, which is interpreted as material accreting from a circumplanetary disk. “Our photometry of both PDS 70 b and c provides tentative evidence of mid-IR circumplanetary disk emission through fitting spectral energy distribution models to these new measurements and those found in the literature,” the authors write.
This image from the study shows PDS 70 and its two planets with circumplanetary disks. The disks indicate that the planets are still growing by accumulating material, likely gas, from their disks. The larger orange feature is part of the larger disk surrounding the star and the planets. Image Credit: Blakely et al. 2025.The results indicate that PDS 70 and its planets are vying for the same material needed to grow larger. The star is a T-Tauri star that’s only about 5.4 million years old. It won’t reach the Main Sequence for tens of millions more years and is still actively accreting material.
“These observations give us an incredible opportunity to witness planet formation as it happens,” said co-author Doug Johnstone from the Herzberg Astronomy and Astrophysics Research Centre. “Seeing planets in the act of accreting material helps us answer long-standing questions about how planetary systems form and evolve. It’s like watching a solar system being built before our very eyes.”
The new research also presents additional evidence supporting a third planet around the stars, putatively named PDS 70d.
A 2024 paper presented hints of a third planet. However, there was much uncertainty. The authors of that paper wrote that they may have found another exoplanet, but it could also be a dust clump or an inner spiral of material. “Follow-up studies of d are therefore especially exciting,” the authors wrote.
While this new research isn’t solely a follow-up study on the potential exoplanet, it has constrained some of the object’s properties, whatever it may be.
This image from the research shows PDS 70 and the two planets. On the right side of the image is part of the larger circumstellar disk. This image shows increased emissions as a bright triangle. Current observations can’t discern whether this is a disk feature, a spiral or clumpy structure of gas, a stream of gas between PDS 70 b and c, or an additional planet, as suggested by previous research. Image Credit: Blakely et al. 2024.If there is a third planet, it is significantly different from the other two. “… if the previously observed emission at shorter wavelengths is due to a planet, this putative planet has a different atmospheric composition than PDS 70 b or c,” the authors explain.
“Follow-up observations will be needed to determine the nature of this emission.”
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25 Years Ago: STS-99, the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission
On Feb. 11, 2000, space shuttle Endeavour took to the skies on its 14th trip into space on the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM). The international STS-99 crew included Commander Kevin Kregel, Pilot Dominic Gorie, and Mission Specialists Gerhard Thiele of Germany representing the European Space Agency, Janet Kavandi, Janice Voss, who served as payload commander on the mission, and Mamoru Mohri of the National Space Development Agency (NASDA) of Japan, now the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.
During their 11-day mission, the astronauts used the radar instruments in Endeavour’s payload bay to obtain elevation data on a near global scale. The data produced the most complete, high-resolution digital elevation model of the Earth. The SRTM comprised a cooperative effort among NASA with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, managing the project, the Department of Defense’s National Imagery and Mapping Agency, the German space agency, and the Italian space agency. Prior to SRTM, scientists had a more detailed topographic map of Venus than of the Earth, thanks to the Magellan radar mapping mission.
The STS-99 crew patch. Official photo of the STS-99 crew of Janice Voss, left, Mamoru Mohri of the National Space Development Agency of Japan, now the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Kevin Kregel, Dominic Gorie, Gerhard Thiele of Germany representing the European Space Agency, and Janet Kavandi. The Shuttle Radar Topography Mission patch. Schematic of the Space Radar Topography Mission payloads including the deployed mast. The mast antenna during preflight processing.NASA assigned the STS-99 crew in October 1998. For Kregel, selected by NASA as an astronaut in 1992, STS-99 marked his fourth trip to space, having served as pilot on STS-70 and STS-78 and commanded STS-87. Gorie and Kavandi, both selected in 1994, previously flew together as pilot and mission specialist, respectively, on STS-91, the final Shuttle Mir docking mission. Voss, selected in 1990, served as a mission specialist on STS-57 and STS-63, and as payload commander on STS-83 and STS-94. NASDA selected Mohri as an astronaut in 1985 and he previously flew as a payload specialist on STS-47, the Spacelab-J mission. Selected as an astronaut by the German space agency in 1987, Thiele joined the European Astronaut Corps in 1998, completing his first spaceflight on STS-99.
The SRTM used an innovative technique called radar interferometry to image the Earth’s landmasses at resolutions up to 30 times greater than previously achieved. Two of the synthetic aperture radar instruments comprising the SRTM payload had flown previously, on the STS-59 Shuttle Radar Laboratory-1 (SRL-1) and the STS-68 SRL-2 missions in April and October 1994, respectively. A second receiver antenna, placed at the end of a 200-foot deployable mast, enabled the interferometry during SRTM.
The SRTM payload in Endeavour’s cargo bay in the orbiter processing facility. Endeavour rolls out to Launch Pad 39A. The STS-99 crew walks out of crew quarters for the van ride to the launch pad.Workers rolled Endeavour to the Vehicle Assembly Building on Dec. 2 for mating with its external tank and solid rocket boosters, and then out to Launch Pad 39A on Dec. 13. The astronauts traveled to Kennedy to participate in the Terminal Countdown Demonstration Test Jan. 11-14, returning afterwards to Houston for final training. They traveled back to Kennedy on Jan. 27 for the first launch attempt four days later. After two launch attempts, the STS-99 mission prepared to liftoff on Feb. 11, 2000.
Liftoff! Space shuttle Endeavour takes to the skies to begin the STS-99 mission.At 12:43 p.m. EST, Endeavour thundered into the sky from Kennedy’s Launch Pad 39A to begin the STS-99 mission. Thirty-seven minutes later, a brief firing of the orbiter’s two engines placed Endeavour in the proper 145-mile orbit for the radar scanning.
The SRTM instruments in Endeavour’s payload bay with the mast holding the second antenna receiver deployed at right. The antenna at the end of the deployed mast. STS-99 astronauts Janet Kavandi, left, Dominic Gorie, and Mamoru Mohri in Endeavour’s middeck. Astronaut Janice Voss in the commander’s seat on Endeavour’s flight deck. Astronauts Kevin Kregel, left, and Gerhard Thiele on Endeavour’s flight deck.Shortly after reaching orbit, the crew opened the payload bay doors and deployed the shuttle’s radiators. Kavandi and Thiele turned on the instruments, deployed the 200-foot mast, and conducted initial checkouts of the radars. The crew split into two shifts to enable data collection around the clock during the mission. After overseeing the initial activation of the radars, the red shift of Kregel, Kavandi, and Thiele began their first sleep period as the blue shift of Gorie, Voss, and Mohri picked up with activation and began the first data takes.
The major crew activity for SRTM involved changing tapes every 30 minutes. The SRTM generated 332 high density tapes during more than 222 hours of data collection and these recordings covered 99.96 percent of the planned observations. Data collection finished on the mission’s 10th flight day, after which the astronauts reeled the mast back into its container in the payload bay.
EarthKAM image of the greater Boston area. The EarthKAM camera mounted in a space shuttle window. STS-99 crew Earth observation photograph of El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. STS-99 crew Earth observation photograph of the Galapagos Islands. STS-99 crew Earth observation photograph of the greater New York area. STS-99 crew Earth observation photograph of Erg Chech, or sand sea, in the Algerian Sahara.NASA’s EarthKAM program enabled middle school students to remotely take photographs of the Earth using an electronic still camera mounted in one of the shuttle’s windows. The University of California at San Diego houses the control center for EarthKAM, linked with middle schools via the Internet. Students choose Earth targets of interest, and the camera takes photos of that region as the shuttle passes overhead. A then-record 75 schools from around the world participated in the EarthKAM project on STS-99, the camera returning 2,715 images of the Earth.
The STS-99 astronauts also spent time taking photographs of the Earth using handheld cameras and the high inclination orbit enabled views of some parts of the Earth rarely seen by shuttle astronauts.
The six-person STS-99 crew pose for their inflight photo. Kevin Kregel guides Endeavour to a smooth touchdown on the Shuttle Landing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The STS-99 crew poses with NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin under Endeavour at the Shuttle Landing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Kevin Kregel addresses the crowd at Houston’s Ellington Field during the welcome home ceremony for the STS-99 crew.On Feb. 22, the crew closed Endeavour’s payload bay doors, donned their launch and entry suits, and strapped themselves into their seats for entry and landing. Kregel piloted Endeavour to a smooth landing on Kennedy’s Shuttle Landing Facility. The crew had flown 181 orbits around the Earth in 11 days, 5 hours, and 39 minutes. Enjoy the crew narrate a video about the STS-99 mission.
Postscript
Final coverage map for the SIR-C radar, indicating 99.96 percent coverage of planned land mass targets, with many areas imaged more than once. False-color image generated from SRTM data of the island of Oahu. False-color image generated from SRTM data of Mt. Cotopaxi in Ecuador, the tallest active volcano in the world.During the 11-day mission, SRTM collected more than one trillion data points, generating 12.3 terabytes of 3-D data of the Earth. Earnest Paylor, SRTM program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., called the mission “a magnificent accomplishment.” He cited that SRTM imaged by radar equatorial regions of the Earth previously unmapped due to constant cloud cover.
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NASA’s Polar Ice Experiment Paves Way for Future Moon Missions
NASA’s Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment-1 (PRIME-1) is preparing to explore the Moon’s subsurface and analyze where lunar resources may reside. The experiment’s two key instruments will demonstrate our ability to extract and analyze lunar soil to better understand the lunar environment and subsurface resources, paving the way for sustainable human exploration under the agency’s Artemis campaign for the benefit of all.
Its two instruments will work in tandem: The Regolith and Ice Drill for Exploring New Terrains (TRIDENT) will drill into the Moon’s surface to collect samples, while the Mass Spectrometer Observing Lunar Operations (MSOLO) will analyze these samples to determine the gas composition released across the sampling depth. The PRIME-1 technology will provide valuable data to help us better understand the Moon’s surface and how to work with and on it.
“The ability to drill and analyze samples at the same time allows us to gather insights that will shape the future of lunar resource utilization,” said Jackie Quinn, PRIME-1 project manager at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. “Human exploration of the Moon and deep space will depend on making good use of local resources to produce life-sustaining supplies necessary to live and work on another planetary body.”
The PRIME-1 experiment is one of the NASA payloads aboard the next lunar delivery through NASA’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative, set to launch from the agency’s Kennedy Space Center no earlier than Wednesday, Feb. 26, on Intuitive Machines’ Athena lunar lander and explore the lunar soil in Mons Mouton, a lunar plateau near the Moon’s South Pole.
Developed by Honeybee Robotics, a Blue Origin Company, TRIDENT is a rotary percussive drill designed to excavate lunar regolith and subsurface material up to 3.3 feet (1 meter) deep. The drill will extract samples, each about 4 inches (10 cm) in length, allowing scientists to analyze how trapped and frozen gases are distributed at different depths below the surface.
The TRIDENT drill is equipped with carbide cutting teeth to penetrate even the toughest lunar materials. Unlike previous lunar drills used by astronauts during the Apollo missions, TRIDENT will be controlled from Earth. The drill may provide key information about subsurface soil temperatures as well as gain key insight into the mechanical properties of the lunar South Pole soil. Learning more about regolith temperatures and properties will greatly improve our understanding of the environments where lunar resources may be stable, revealing what resources may be available for future Moon missions.
A commercial off-the-shelf mass spectrometer, MSOLO, developed by INFICON and made suitable for spaceflight at Kennedy, will analyze any gas released from the TRIDENT drilled samples, looking for the potential presence of water ice and other gases trapped beneath the surface. These measurements will help scientists understand the Moon’s potential for resource utilization.
Under the CLPS model, NASA is investing in commercial delivery services to the Moon to enable industry growth and support long-term lunar exploration. As a primary customer for CLPS deliveries, NASA is one of many customers on future flights. PRIME-1 was funded by NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate Game Changing Development program.
Learn more about CLPS and Artemis at:
Trump Gives EPA One Week to Decide on Abandoning Climate Pollution Regulation
President Trump ordered EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin to decide by next week whether the agency could abandon its authority to regulate climate pollution under the Clean Air Act
New Bird Flu Strain in Cows and Cat Infections Raise Concern for Human Exposure
Scientists have reported a new strain of bird flu in Nevada dairy cattle. And viral spread in pet cats has fueled worries over increased risk of exposure to humans
