Steps into Space - Commercialisation, Occupation, Colonization: March 2017

Friday 31 March 2017

Trilobites: A Mysterious Flash From a Faraway Galaxy

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Astronomers are puzzled by X-rays that for a brief time were a thousand times brighter than all of its home galaxy’s light.
via New York Times

Basic plasma wave physics reshaped by NASA observations

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NASA scientists are reshaping the basic understanding of a type of wave in space known as a kinetic Alfvén wave.
via Science Daily
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Waves on sun give NASA new insight into space weather forecasting

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New research has uncovered a mechanism, similar to one that occurs on Earth, which may allow new insights into forecasting space weather and activity on the sun.
via Science Daily
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3D 67P

Get out your red/cyan glasses and gaze across the surface of Churyumov-Gerasimenko, aka Comet 67P. The stereo anaglyph was created by combining two images from the Rosetta spacecraft's narrow angle OSIRIS camera taken on September 22, 2014. Stark and jagged, the 3D landscape is found along the Seth region of the comet's double-lobed nucleus. It spans about 985 x 820 meters, pocked by circular ridges, depressions, and flattened areas strewn with boulders and debris. The large steep-walled circular pit in the foreground is 180 meters in diameter. Rosetta's mission to the comet ended in September 2016 when the spacecraft was commanded to a controlled impact with the comet's surface.

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Webcast: How does CERN inform UNOSAT's humanitarian efforts

Julie Haffner

A UNOSAT officer works on satellite imagery of Haiti (Image: Maximilien Brice/ CERN)

On Friday 31 March 2017 at 11:00, Einar Bjorgo, manager of UNOSAT, will give an overview of the variety of activities carried out by UNOSAT since 2001.

Over the last 15 years, UNOSAT has helped guide emergency teams through various locations and supported to humanitarian assistance efforts and programmes to protect cultural heritage.

Hosted at CERN, UNOSAT benefits from the Organization's IT infrastructure whenever a situation requires, helping the UN to stay at the forefront of satellite-analysis. Specialists in both geographic information systems (GIS) and analysis of satellite data, supported by IT engineers and policy experts, use this knowledge to produce extremely precise maps of regions of the world affected, or threatened, by natural disaster or conflict.

Where to watch the webcast:

Webcast: http://cern.ch/go/D8GC

Indico page:https://indico.cern.ch/event/622865/

via CERN: Updates for the general public
http://home.cern/about/updates/2017/03/webcast-how-does-cern-inform-unosats-humanitarian-efforts

Not a pipe dream anymore. Space-farming: A long legacy leading us to Mars

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Research into space farming has resulted in numerous Earth-based advances (e.g., LED lighting for greenhouse and vertical farm applications; new seed potato propagation techniques, etc.) There are still many technical challenges, but plants and associated biological systems can and will be a major component of the systems that keep humans alive when we establish ourselves on the Moon, Mars and beyond.
via Science Daily
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SpaceX Launches a Satellite With a Partly Used Rocket

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The use of a rocket booster that had flown once before may open an era of cheaper space travel, particularly for business ventures like satellite companies.
via New York Times

Thursday 30 March 2017

Search for stellar survivor of a supernova explosion

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Astronomers have used the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to observe the remnant of a supernova explosion in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Beyond just delivering a beautiful image, Hubble may well have traced the surviving remains of the exploded star's companion.
via Science Daily
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SpaceX Launch Feels Familiar for Part of the Falcon 9 Rocket

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On Thursday, SpaceX will try to launch a cheaper, partiallyused rocket to take a communications satellite into orbit.
via New York Times

Solar wind stripped Martian atmosphere away

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Solar wind and radiation are responsible for stripping the Martian atmosphere, transforming Mars from a planet that could have supported life billions of years ago into a frigid desert world, according to new results.
via Science Daily
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Mysterious cosmic explosion surprises astronomers studying the distant x-ray universe

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A mysterious flash of X-rays has been discovered by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory in the deepest X-ray image ever obtained. This source likely comes from some sort of destructive event, but it may be of a variety that scientists have never seen before.
via Science Daily
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Search For Stellar Survivor of a Supernova Explosion

Star might answer question of how white dwarfs explode
Of all the varieties of exploding stars, the ones called Type Ia are perhaps the most intriguing. Their predictable brightness lets astronomers measure the expansion of the universe, which led to the discovery of dark energy. Yet the cause of these supernovae remains a mystery. Do they happen when two white dwarf stars collide? Or does a single white dwarf gorge on gases stolen from a companion star until bursting?

If the second theory is true, the normal star should survive. Astronomers used NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to search the gauzy remains of a Type Ia supernova in a neighboring galaxy called the Large Magellanic Cloud. They found a sun-like star that showed signs of being associated with the supernova. Further investigations will be needed to learn if this star is truly the culprit behind a white dwarf's fiery demise.

via Hubble - News feed
http://hubblesite.org/news_release/news/2017-16

Young Stars and Dusty Nebulae in Taurus

This complex of dusty nebulae lingers along the edge of the Taurus molecular cloud, a mere 450 light-years distant. Stars are forming on the cosmic scene. Composed from almost 40 hours of image data, the 2 degree wide telescopic field of view includes some youthful T-Tauri class stars embedded in the remnants of their natal clouds at the right. Millions of years old and still going through stellar adolescence, the stars are variable in brightness and in the late phases of their gravitational collapse. Their core temperatures will rise to sustain nuclear fusion as they grow into stable, low mass, main sequence stars, a stage of stellar evolution achieved by our middle-aged Sun about 4.5 billion years ago. Another youthful variable star, V1023 Tauri, can be spotted on the left. Within its yellowish dust cloud, it lies next to the striking blue reflection nebula Cederblad 30, also known as LBN 782. Just above the bright bluish reflection nebula is dusty dark nebula Barnard 7.

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Wednesday 29 March 2017

Organic-inorganic heterostructures with programmable electronic properties

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Researchers have devised a novel supramolecular strategy to introduce tunable 1D periodic potentials upon self-assembly of ad hoc organic building blocks on graphene, opening the way to the realization of hybrid organic-inorganic multilayer materials with unique electronic and optical properties.
via Science Daily

NASA Announces Astronomy and Astrophysics Fellows for 2017

Some of the world's most exciting, young scientists to help NASA explore mysteries of the cosmos
NASA has selected 28 Fellows for its prestigious Einstein, Hubble, and Sagan fellowships. Each post-doctoral fellowship provides three years of support to awardees to pursue independent research in astronomy and astrophysics. The new Fellows will begin their programs in the fall of 2017 at a host university or research center of their choosing in the United States.

via Hubble - News feed
http://hubblesite.org/news_release/news/2017-13

Nebula with Laser Beams

Four laser beams cut across this startling image of the Orion Nebula, as seen from ESO's Paranal Observatory in the Atacama desert on planet Earth. Not part of an interstellar conflict, the lasers are being used for an observation of Orion by UT4, one of the observatory's very large telescopes, in a technical test of an image-sharpening adaptive optics system. This view of the nebula with laser beams was captured by a small telescope from outside the UT4 enclosure. The beams are visible from that perspective because in the first few kilometers above the observatory the Earth's dense lower atmosphere scatters the laser light. The four small segments appearing beyond the beams are emission from an atmospheric layer of sodium atoms excited by the laser light at higher altitudes of 80-90 kilometers. Seen from the perspective of the UT4, those segments form bright spots or artificial guide stars. Their fluctuations are used in real-time to correct for atmospheric blurring along the line-of-sight by controlling a deformable mirror in the telescope's optical path.

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Silicon sandwiches feed LHC’s upgraded collision appetite

Tuesday 28 March 2017

Sun: Igniting a solar flare in the corona with lower-atmosphere kindling

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Recent images have revealed the emergence of small-scale magnetic fields in the lower reaches of the corona researchers say may be linked to the onset of a main flare.
via Science Daily
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How a young-looking lunar volcano hides its true age

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A young-looking volcanic caldera on the Moon has been interpreted by some as evidence of relatively recent lunar volcanic activity, but new research suggests it's not so young after all.
via Science Daily
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Final two ExoMars landing sites chosen

Two ancient sites on Mars that hosted an abundance of water in the planet’s early history have been recommended as the final candidates for the landing site of the 2020 ExoMars rover and surface science platform: Oxia Planum and Mawrth Vallis.

via ESA Space Science
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/ExoMars/Final_two_ExoMars_landing_sites_chosen

Graphene-based neural probes probe brain activity in high resolution

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Graphene-based transistors enable a flexible neural probe with excellent signal-to-noise ratio. Such probes are useful for examining neural activity for understanding diseases, as well as in neuroprosthetics for control of artificial limbs.
via Science Daily

How graphene could cool smartphone, computer and other electronics chips

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With graphene, researchers have discovered a powerful way to cool tiny chips – key components of electronic devices with billions of transistors apiece.
via Science Daily

King of Wings Hoodoo under the Milky Way

This rock structure is not only surreal -- it's real. The reason it's not more famous is that it is, perhaps, smaller than one might guess: the capstone rock overhangs only a few meters. Even so, the King of Wings outcrop, located in New Mexico, USA, is a fascinating example of an unusual type of rock structure called a hoodoo. Hoodoos may form when a layer of hard rock overlays a layer of eroding softer rock. Figuring out the details of incorporating this hoodoo into a night-sky photoshoot took over a year. Besides waiting for a suitably picturesque night behind a sky with few clouds, the foreground had to be artificially lit just right relative to the natural glow of the background. After much planning and waiting, the final shot, featured here, was taken in May 2016. Mimicking the horizontal bar, the background sky features the band of our Milky Way Galaxy stretching overhead.

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Monday 27 March 2017

From the room next door to the next planet over

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The new Albert Chadwick Research Room inside the Roberts Proton Therapy Center is no ordinary laboratory space. In fact, there’s nothing else quite like it anywhere else in the United States, and whether it’s treating patients with cancer or helping NASA with its plans to send astronauts to Mars, the discoveries that could propel scientists forward will happen right here.
via Science Daily
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Timing a space laser with a NASA-style stopwatch

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To time how long it takes a pulse of laser light to travel from space to Earth and back, you need a really good stopwatch -- one that can measure within a fraction of a billionth of a second. That kind of timer is exactly what engineers have built at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, for the Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite-2.
via Science Daily
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Stars born in winds from supermassive black holes

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Observations using ESO's Very Large Telescope have revealed stars forming within powerful outflows of material blasted out from supermassive black holes at the cores of galaxies. These are the first confirmed observations of stars forming in this kind of extreme environment. The discovery has many consequences for understanding galaxy properties and evolution.
via Science Daily
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NASA spacecraft investigate clues in radiation belts

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NASA's Van Allen Probes uncover new phenomena in our near-Earth environment with their unique double orbit. Recently, the spacecraft were in just the right place, at just the right time, to catch an event caused by the fallout of a geomagnetic storm as it happened.
via Science Daily
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Planetary waves, first found on Earth, are discovered on sun

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The same kind of large-scale planetary waves that meander through the atmosphere high above Earth's surface may also exist on the sun, according to a new study.
via Science Daily
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Cosmic collisions at the LHCb experiment

Black Hole Accreting with Jet

What happens when a black hole devours a star? Many details remain unknown, but recent observations are providing new clues. In 2014, a powerful explosion was recorded by the ground-based robotic telescopes of the All Sky Automated Survey for SuperNovae (ASAS-SN) project, and followed up by instruments including NASA's Earth-orbiting Swift satellite. Computer modeling of these emissions fit a star being ripped apart by a distant supermassive black hole. The results of such a collision are portrayed in the featured artistic illustration. The black hole itself is a depicted as a tiny black dot in the center. As matter falls toward the hole, it collides with other matter and heats up. Surrounding the black hole is an accretion disk of hot matter that used to be the star, with a jet emanating from the black hole's spin axis.

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Red Planet rover

Space Science Image of the Week: New views of the ExoMars rover as teams discuss landing sites
via ESA Space Science
http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2017/03/ExoMars_rover

Sunday 26 March 2017

Scientists discover new 'boat' form of promising semiconductor GeSe

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Researchers have discovered a new form of the simple compound GeSe that has surprisingly escaped detection until now. This so-called beta-GeSe compound has a ring type structure like graphene and could have similarly valuable properties for electronic applications.
via Science Daily

Tardigrade in Moss

Is this an alien? Probably not, but of all the animals on Earth, the tardigrade might be the best candidate. That's because tardigrades are known to be able to go for decades without food or water, to survive temperatures from near absolute zero to well above the boiling point of water, to survive pressures from near zero to well above that on ocean floors, and to survive direct exposure to dangerous radiations. The far-ranging survivability of these extremophiles was tested in 2011 outside an orbiting space shuttle. Tardigrades are so durable partly because they can repair their own DNA and reduce their body water content to a few percent. Some of these miniature water-bears almost became extraterrestrials recently when they were launched toward to the Martian moon Phobos on board the Russian mission Fobos-Grunt, but stayed terrestrial when a rocket failed and the capsule remained in Earth orbit. Tardigrades are more common than humans across most of the Earth. Pictured here in a color-enhanced electron micrograph, a millimeter-long tardigrade crawls on moss.

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Saturday 25 March 2017

Self-healing graphene holds promise for artificial skin in future robots

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A new study offers a novel solution where a sub-nano sensor uses graphene to sense a crack as soon as it starts nucleation, or after the crack has spread a certain distance. This technology could quickly become viable for use in the next generation of electronics.
via Science Daily

Ganymede's Shadow

Approaching opposition early next month, Jupiter is offering some of its best telescopic views from planet Earth. On March 17, this impressively sharp image of the solar system's ruling gas giant was taken from a remote observatory in Chile. Bounded by planet girdling winds, familiar dark belts and light zones span the giant planet spotted with rotating oval storms. The solar system's largest moon Ganymede is above and left in the frame, its shadow seen in transit across the northern Jovian cloud tops. Ganymede itself is seen in remarkable detail along with bright surface features on fellow Galilean moon Io, right of Jupiter's looming disk.

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Friday 24 March 2017

Trilobites: Visualizing the Cosmic Streams That Spew Meteor Showers

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Researchers recorded more than 300,000 meteoroid trajectories since 2010 to depict the drifting paths of meteor showers that Earth passes through.
via New York Times

Astronomers identify purest, most massive brown dwarf

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Astronomers have identified a record breaking brown dwarf (a star too small for nuclear fusion) with the 'purest' composition and the highest mass yet known. The object, known as SDSS J0104+1535, is a member of the so-called halo -- the outermost reaches -- of our galaxy, made up of the most ancient stars.
via Science Daily
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Art-science residency

Aoife van Linden Tol, recipient of the first ESA–Ars Electronica residency, spent three weeks at ESA researching for her Star Storm project
via ESA Space Science
http://blogs.esa.int/artscience/2017/03/24/stellar-start-for-aoife-van-linden-tol-s-residency/

The Comet, the Owl, and the Galaxy

Comet 41P/Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresak poses for a Messier moment in this telescopic snapshot from March 21. In fact it shares the 1 degree wide field-of-view with two well-known entries in the 18th century comet-hunting astronomer's famous catalog. Sweeping through northern springtime skies just below the Big Dipper, the faint greenish comet was about 75 light-seconds from our fair planet. Dusty, edge-on spiral galaxy Messier 108 (bottom center) is more like 45 million light-years away. At upper right, the planetary nebula with an aging but intensely hot central star, the owlish Messier 97 is only about 12 thousand light-years distant though, still well within our own Milky Way galaxy. Named for its discoverer and re-discoverers, this faint periodic comet was first sighted in 1858 and not again until 1907 and 1951. Matching orbit calculations indicated that the same comet had been observed at widely separated times. Nearing its best apparition and closest approach to Earth in over 100 years on April 1, comet 41P orbits the Sun with a period of about 5.4 years.

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Gravitational Wave Kicks Monster Black Hole Out Of Galactic Core

Runaway black hole is the most massive ever detected far from its central home
Normally, hefty black holes anchor the centers of galaxies. So researchers were surprised to discover a supermassive black hole speeding through the galactic suburbs. Black holes cannot be observed directly, but they are the energy source at the heart of quasars — intense, compact gushers of radiation that can outshine an entire galaxy. NASA's Hubble Space Telescope made the discovery by finding a bright quasar located far from the center of the host galaxy.

Researchers estimate that it took the equivalent energy of 100 million supernovas exploding simultaneously to jettison the black hole. What could pry this giant monster from its central home? The most plausible explanation for this propulsive energy is that the monster object was given a kick by gravitational waves unleashed by the merger of two black holes as a result of a collision between two galaxies. First predicted by Albert Einstein, gravitational waves are ripples in the fabric of space that are created when two massive objects collide.

via Hubble - News feed
http://hubblesite.org/news_release/news/2017-12

A Space Odyssey: Making Art Up There

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The artist Eduardo Kac and Thomas Pesquet, a Frenchman on the International Space Station, have created art in space.
via New York Times

Thursday 23 March 2017

Trilobites: How Comet 67P’s Face Changed During Its Trip Around the Sun

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During the two years that the Rosetta spacecraft stalked the comet, it observed cliffs that collapsed, boulders that moved and eruptions of dust and gas.
via New York Times

Gravitational wave kicks monster black hole out of galactic core

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Astronomers have uncovered a supermassive black hole that has been propelled out of the center of the distant galaxy 3C 186. The black hole was most likely ejected by the power of gravitational waves.
via Science Daily
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Hand-held X-ray sources

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Electronic oscillations in graphene could make a tabletop — or even handheld — source of X-rays a reality, report researchers.
via Science Daily

A tough coat for silicon

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Supercritical carbon dioxide delivers protective molecules to semiconductor surfaces, report researchers in a new article.
via Science Daily

SH2-155: The Cave Nebula

This skyscape features dusty Sharpless catalog emission region Sh2-155, the Cave Nebula. In the telescopic image, data taken through a narrowband filter tracks the reddish glow of ionized hydrogen atoms. About 2,400 light-years away, the scene lies along the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy toward the royal northern constellation of Cepheus. Astronomical explorations of the region reveal that it has formed at the boundary of the massive Cepheus B molecular cloud and the hot, young stars of the Cepheus OB 3 association. The bright rim of ionized hydrogen gas is energized by radiation from the hot stars, dominated by the brightest star above and left of picture center. Radiation driven ionization fronts are likely triggering collapsing cores and new star formation within. Appropriately sized for a stellar nursery, the cosmic cave is over 10 light-years across.

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Caught on camera: Chemical reactions 'filmed' at the single-molecule level

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Scientists have succeeded in ‘filming’ inter-molecular chemical reactions – using the electron beam of a transmission electron microscope (TEM) as a stop-frame imaging tool. They have also discovered that the electron beam can be simultaneously tuned to stimulate specific chemical reactions by using it as a source of energy as well as an imaging tool.
via Science Daily

Wednesday 22 March 2017

Tracing aromatic molecules in the early Universe

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A molecule found in car engine exhaust fumes that is thought to have contributed to the origin of life on Earth has made astronomers heavily underestimate the amount of stars that were forming in the early Universe, a study has found. That molecule is called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon. On Earth it is also found in coal and tar. In space, it is a component of dust.
via Science Daily
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Upper part of Earth’s magnetic field reveals details of a dramatic past

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Satellites have been mapping the upper part of the Earth magnetic field by collecting data for three years and found some amazing features about the Earth’s crust. The result is the release of highest resolution map of this field seen from space to date. This ‘lithospheric magnetic field’ is very weak and therefore difficult to detect and map from space. But with the Swarm satellites it has been possible.
via Science Daily
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Comet 67p full of surprises: Growing fractures, collapsing cliffs and rolling boulders

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Images returned from the European Space Agency's Rosetta mission indicate the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko was a very active place during its most recent trip through the solar system, says a new study.
via Science Daily
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Central Cygnus Skyscape

In cosmic brush strokes of glowing hydrogen gas, this beautiful skyscape unfolds across the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy near the northern end of the Great Rift and the center of the constellation Cygnus the Swan. A 36 panel mosaic of telescopic image data, the scene spans about six degrees. Bright supergiant star Gamma Cygni (Sadr) to the upper left of the image center lies in the foreground of the complex gas and dust clouds and crowded star fields. Left of Gamma Cygni, shaped like two luminous wings divided by a long dark dust lane is IC 1318 whose popular name is understandably the Butterfly Nebula. The more compact, bright nebula at the lower right is NGC 6888, the Crescent Nebula. Some distance estimates for Gamma Cygni place it at around 1,800 light-years while estimates for IC 1318 and NGC 6888 range from 2,000 to 5,000 light-years.

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Tuesday 21 March 2017

Less radiation in inner Van Allen belt than previously believed

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The inner Van Allen belt has less radiation than previously believed, according to a recent study. Observations from NASA's Van Allen probes show the fastest, most energetic electrons in the inner radiation belt are actually much rarer and harder to find than scientists expected. This is good news for spacecraft that are orbiting in the region and can be damaged by high levels of radiation.
via Science Daily
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New gel-like coating beefs up the performance of lithium-sulfur batteries

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Scientists have developed an ultra-thin coating material that has the potential to extend the life and improve the efficiency of lithium-sulfur batteries, one of the most promising areas of energy research today.
via Science Daily

Astronomers hazard a ride in a 'drifting carousel' to understand pulsating stars

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What sounds like a stomach-turning ride at an amusement park might hold the key to unraveling the mysterious mechanism that causes beams of radio waves to shoot out from pulsars -- super-magnetic rotating stars in our galaxy.
via Science Daily
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When helium behaves like a black hole

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A team of scientists has discovered that a law controlling the bizarre behavior of black holes out in space -- is also true for cold helium atoms that can be studied in laboratories. This finding may be a step toward a long-sought quantum theory of gravity and new advances in quantum computing.
via Science Daily
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