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Three bright ideas that could fix fashion's environmental problems
Three bright ideas that could fix fashion's environmental problems
How Earth Went from a Sterile Rock to a Lush, Living Planet
From microbes to mammoths, life has transformed Earth into one big living system, says Ferris Jabr, author of Becoming Earth: How Our Planet Came to Life
How to Stay Safe during Lightning Storms
Each year in the U.S. lightning strikes 37 million times and kills 21 people on average. Here’s how to stay safe during lightning storms
Gateway: Up Close in Stunning Detail
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A detailed 3D animation of NASA's Gateway space station, showcasing its modules and structural components from various angles against the backdrop of deep space.NASA/Bradley Reynolds, Alberto BertolinNASA and its international partners will explore the scientific mysteries of deep space with Gateway, humanity’s first space station to orbit the Moon. Starting with the Artemis IV mission in 2028, the international teams of astronauts living, conducting science, and preparing for missions to the lunar South Pole region on Gateway will be the first humans to make their home in deep space.
This artist’s computer-generated animation presents an exterior tour of Gateway in stunning detail. Depicted Gateway elements are the:
- Power and Propulsion Element that will make Gateway the most powerful solar electric spacecraft ever flown. The module will use the Sun’s energy to power the space station’s subsystems and ionize xenon gas to produce the thrust that will maintain Gateway’s unique polar orbit around the Moon.
- HALO (Habitation and Logistics Outpost), Gateway’s command and control nexus providing communications between Earth and the lunar surface with the Lunar Link system provided by ESA (European Space Agency). HALO will house life support systems, including exercise equipment, and science payload banks.
- Lunar I-Hab, provided by ESA with hardware contributions from JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), will host environmental control and life support systems, sleeping quarters, and a galley, among other features.
- Lunar View, provided by ESA, will have refueling capabilities for the Power and Propulsion Element, cargo storage, and large windows.
- Crew and Science Airlock, provided by the Mohammad Bin Rashid Space Centre of the United Arab Emirates, for crew and hardware transfer from Gateway’s interior to the vacuum of space.
- Canadarm3 advanced external robotic system provided by CSA (Canadian Space Agency).
- Deep Space Logistics spacecraft that will transport cargo to Gateway to support Artemis missions.
- Initial Gateway science payloads that will study solar and cosmic radiation, a little-understood phenomenon that is a chief concern for people and hardware traveling through deep space, including Mars. The payloads visible in this video are ERSA (European Radiation Sensors Array), provided by ESA, attached to the Power and Propulsion Element, and the NASA-led HERMES (Heliophysics Environmental and Radiation Measurement Experiment Suite) is attached to HALO. A third radiation science payload, IDA (Internal Dosimeter Array), provided by ESA and JAXA, will be inside of HALO.
This video also depicts:
- The Orion spacecraft docked to the Crew and Science Airlock. Orion will transport international teams of astronauts and three modules (Lunar I-Hab, Lunar View and the Crew and Science Airlock) to the Gateway space station.
- Government-reference Human Landing System (HLS) that will ferry astronauts to and from the lunar South Pole region. SpaceX and Blue Origin are on contract to provide the Starship HLS and Blue Moon HLS, respectively.
Gateway is part of the Artemis architecture to return humans to the lunar surface for scientific discovery and chart a path for human exploration further into the solar system, such as to Mars and beyond.
Learn More About Gateway Facebook logo @NASAGateway @NASA_Gateway Instagram logo @nasaartemis Share Details Last Updated Jun 25, 2024 EditorBriana R. ZamoraContactBriana R. Zamorabriana.r.zamora@nasa.govLocationJohnson Space Center Related Terms Explore More 2 min read Through Astronaut Eyes, Virtual Reality Propels Gateway ForwardNASA astronauts are using virtual reality to explore Gateway. When they slip on their headsets,…
Article 3 months ago 6 min read NASA’s Artemis IV: Building First Lunar Space Station Article 3 months ago 4 min read NASA, Aerojet Rocketdyne Put Gateway Thruster System to the TestTesting of Gateway’s revolutionary propulsion system, known as the Advanced Electric Propulsion System, begins at…
Article 12 months ago Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA GatewayBuilt with international and commercial partners, Gateway will be humanity’s first space station around the Moon as a vital component…
Artemis
Moon to Mars Architecture
Orion Spacecraft
We are closer than ever to finally proving the multiverse exists
Learning from Great Tits' Urban Adaptability
One of Europe’s most common birds, the great tit, show an amazing adaptability to human-made habitats. There seem no limits for this species when it comes inventing new ways of acquiring food from people
We are closer than ever to finally proving the multiverse exists
What Does Artificial General Intelligence Actually Mean?
Claims of artificial general intelligence are increasingly common. But can anyone agree on what it is?
China’s Chang’e 6 returns with first rocks from far side of the moon
China’s Chang’e 6 returns with first rocks from far side of the moon
Warm water seeping under Antarctic ice sheets may accelerate melting
Warm water seeping under Antarctic ice sheets may accelerate melting
This impossibly massive black hole wasn't very hungry during the dawn of time
Media briefing on Ariane 6’s inaugural flight
Watch the replay of the Ariane 6 inaugural flight pre-launch media briefing to learn more about the first flight of Europe’s new heavy lift launch vehicle.
Jupiter’s upper atmosphere surprises astronomers
Using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, scientists observed the region above Jupiter’s iconic Great Red Spot to discover a variety of previously unseen features. The region, previously believed to be unremarkable in nature, hosts a variety of intricate structures and activity.
China’s Chang’e-6 Probe Drops Off Samples From Moon’s Far Side
Three weeks after it lifted off from the far side of the moon, China’s Chang’e-6 spacecraft dropped off a capsule containing first-of-its-kind lunar samples for retrieval from the plains of Inner Mongolia.
The gumdrop-shaped sample return capsule floated down to the ground on the end of a parachute, with the descent tracked on live television. After today’s touchdown, at 2:07 p.m. local time (0607 GMT), members of the mission’s recovery team checked the capsule and unfurled a Chinese flag nearby.
Chang’e-6, which was launched in early May, is the first robotic mission to land and lift off again from the moon’s far side — the side that always faces away from Earth. It’s also the first mission to bring dirt and rocks from the far side back to Earth.
“The Chang’e-6 lunar exploration mission achieved complete success,” Zhang Kejian, director of the China National Space Administration, said from mission control. Chinese President Xi Jinping extended congratulations to the mission team, the state-run Xinhua news service reported.
Chang’e-6 followed a flight plan similar to the one used for Chang’e-5, a mission that brought back samples from the moon’s Earth-facing side in 2020. After entering lunar orbit, the spacecraft sent a lander down to the moon’s South Pole-Aitken Basin region.
The lander used an onboard drill and robotic arm to collect and store samples on its ascent stage. It also gathered data about its surroundings with a radon detector, a negative-ion detector and a mini-rover. Data and telemetry were relayed between Chang’e-6 and Earth via China’s Queqiao-2 satellite.
On June 4, Chang’e-6’s ascent stage lifted off for a rendezvous with the orbiting spacecraft. The samples were transferred to a re-entry capsule, and the spacecraft left lunar orbit several days ago for the trip back to Earth. The re-entry capsule was released as the spacecraft sped about 5,000 kilometers (3,100 miles) over the South Atlantic Ocean, CNSA said in a mission update.
After an initial round of processing at the landing site in China’s Inner Mongolia region, the capsule is due to be airlifted to Beijing, where the mission’s precious cargo will be removed for distribution to researchers.
The samples are expected to include volcanic rock and other materials that could shed fresh light on the moon’s origins and compositional differences between the near side and the far side. Scientists may also learn more about resources in the moon’s south polar region. That region is of high interest because it’s thought to harbor deposits of water ice that could be used to support future lunar settlements.
NASA is targeting the south polar region for a series of robotic missions — leading up to a crewed landing during the Artemis 3 mission, which is currently scheduled for 2026. China has its own lunar ambitions, including plans for sending astronauts to the lunar surface by 2030.
The post China’s Chang’e-6 Probe Drops Off Samples From Moon’s Far Side appeared first on Universe Today.
China returns samples from the moon's far side in historic 1st (video)
Simulating the Last Moments Before Neutron Stars Merge
When stars reach the end of their life cycle, they shed their outer layers in a supernova. What is left behind is a neutron star, a stellar remnant that is incredibly dense despite being relatively small and cold. When this happens in binary systems, the resulting neutron stars will eventually spiral inward and collide. When they finally merge, the process triggers the release of gravitational waves and can lead to the formation of a black hole. But what happens as the neutron stars begin merging, right down to the quantum level, is something scientists are eager to learn more about.
When the stars begin to merge, very high temperatures are generated, creating “hot neutrinos” that remain out of equilibrium with the cold cores of the merging stars. Ordinarily, these tiny, massless particles only interact with normal matter via weak nuclear forces and possibly gravity. However, according to new simulations led by Penn State University (PSU) physicists, these neutrinos can weakly interact with normal matter during this time. These findings could lead to new insights into these powerful events.
Pedro Luis Espino, a postdoctoral researcher at Penn State and the University of California, Berkeley, led the research. He was joined by fellow astrophysicists from PSU, the Theoretical Physics Institute at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena, the University of Trent, and the Trento Institute for Fundamental Physics and Applications (INFN-TIFPA). A paper describing their simulations, “Neutrino Trapping and Out-of-Equilibrium Effects in Binary Neutron-Star Merger Remnants,” recently appeared in the journal Physical Reviews Letters.
Artist’s conception of a neutron star merger. This process also creates heavy elements. Credit: Tohoku UniversityOriginally predicted by Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity, gravitational waves (GW) are essentially ripples in spacetime caused by the collapse of stars or the merger of compact objects (such as neutron stars and black holes). Neutron stars are so named because their incredible density fuses protons and electrons together, creating stellar remnants composed almost entirely of neutrons. For years, astronomers have studied GW events to learn more about binary companions and what happens at the moment they merge. Said Pedro Luis Espino, a postdoctoral researcher at Penn State and the University of California, Berkeley, explained in a Penn State press release:
“For the first time in 2017, we observed here on Earth signals of various kinds, including gravitational waves, from a binary neutron star merger. This led to a huge surge of interest in binary neutron star astrophysics. There is no way to reproduce these events in a lab to study them experimentally, so the best window we have into understanding what happens during a binary neutron star merger is through simulations based on math that arises from Einstein’s theory of general relativity.”
While neutron stars are effectively cold, they can become extremely hot during a merger, especially at the interface (the point where the two stars are making contact). In this region, temperatures can reach the trillions of degrees Kelvin, but the stars’ density prevents photons from escaping to dissipate the heat. According to David Radice, an assistant professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the Eberly College of Science at Penn State and one of the team leaders, this heat may be dissipated by neutrinos, which are created during the collision as neutrons are smashed to form protons, electrons, and neutrinos.
“The period where the merging stars are out of equilibrium is only 2 to 3 milliseconds, but like temperature, time is relative here, the orbital period of the two stars before the merge can be as little as one millisecond,” he said. “This brief out-of-equilibrium phase is when the most interesting physics occurs, once the system returns to equilibrium, the physics is better understood.”
To investigate this, the research team created supercomputer simulations that modeled the merger and associated physics of binary neutron stars. Their simulations showed that even neutrinos can be trapped by the heat and density of the merger, that the hot neutrinos are out of equilibrium with the still cool cores, and can interact with the matter of the stars. Moreover, their simulations indicate that the physical conditions present during a merger can affect the resulting GW signals. Said Espino:
“How the neutrinos interact with the matter of the stars and eventually are emitted can impact the oscillations of the merged remnants of the two stars, which in turn can impact what the electromagnetic and gravitation wave signals of the merger look like when they reach us here on Earth. Next-generation gravitation-wave detectors could be designed to look for these kinds of signal differences. In this way, these simulations play a crucial role allowing us to get insight into these extreme events while informing future experiments and observations in a kind of feedback loop.”
This is certainly good news for gravitational wave astronomy and for scientists hoping to use GW events to probe the interiors of neutron stars. Knowing what conditions are present during mergers based on the type of GW signals produced could also provide new insight into supernovae, Gamma-ray Bursts, Fast Radio Bursts, and the nature of Dark Matter.
Further Reading: PSU, Physical Review Letters
The post Simulating the Last Moments Before Neutron Stars Merge appeared first on Universe Today.