Join NASA for the Launch of the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover – NASA’s Mars Exploration Program

Join NASA for the Launch of the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover – NASA's Mars Exploration Program

Editor’s note: The story has been updated to include social-media filters that are now available.

Team with NASA to send off the Perseverance rover to Mars – from the convenience of your own home. The mission launches from Cape Canaveral, Florida, this summer, and you're invited to participate remotely – with a global, collective launch countdown where you can submit your own videos, take a photo on Mars or next to the rover, dive into an interactive launch packet, and sign up to send your name to Mars on a future space mission.

Publisher: NASA's Mars Exploration Program

Date: 2020-07-22 23:53:31 UTC

Author: mars nasa gov

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Quite a lot has been going on:

A weird long cloud on Mars has returned. It's right on schedule, scientists say. | Space

A weird long cloud has formed so many times over the same Martian volcano that scientists have given up and named it.

Meet the Arsia Mons Elongated Cloud , or AMEC. Its long bright trail has become a familiar feature over the peak known as Arsia Mons, to the southeast of the more famous Olympus Mons . Although the cloud comes and goes over the volcano, scientists say it isn't formed by the volcano itself. And it is timely: Scientists affiliated with Europe's Mars Express orbiter were waiting for it to show up again on its yearly cycle.

Publisher: Space.com

Date: 2020-07-31T11:43:35 00:00

Author: https www facebook com spacecom

Twitter: @SPACEdotcom

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Return of the extremely elongated cloud on Mars

These images of the cloud, which can reach up to 1800-km in length, were taken on 17 and 19 July by the Visual Monitoring Camera (VMC) on Mars Express, which has been studying the Red Planet from orbit for the past 16 years.

"We have been investigating this intriguing phenomenon and were expecting to see such a cloud form around now," explains Jorge Hernandez-Bernal, Ph.D. candidate at the University of the Basque Country (Spain) and lead author of the ongoing study.

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China's Mars probe completes first orbital correction - Xinhua | English.news.cn

This is an image of the scene taken at the Beijing Aerospace Control Center (BACC) in Beijing, capital of China, Aug. 2, 2020. China's Mars probe Tianwen-1 successfully carried out its first orbital correction at 7 a.m. (2300 GMT Saturday) after its 3,000N engine worked for 20 seconds, and continued to head for the Mars. (Xinhua/Cai Yang)

BEIJING, Aug. 2 (Xinhua) -- China's Mars probe Tianwen-1 successfully carried out its first orbital correction Sunday morning, according to the China National Space Administration (CNSA).

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In case you are keeping track:

This Week at NASA - A Rover Headed to Mars, Commercial Crew Return and More - SpaceRef

Our next Mars rover is on its way, preparing for the historic return of a Commercial Crew mission, and naming the crew for a future mission ... a few of the stories to tell you about - This Week at NASA.

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Mars Electric outlasts competitor and expands in Akron

This photo illustration shows Mars Electric's new Akron branch on Opportunity Parkway on the July Fourth holiday. 

It wasn't a health scare that slowed Mars down this spring, it was a construction slump. The electrical supply distributor, like other companies, says it saw its business take a hit in the early days of the crisis, with sales down as much as 30%.

But when its biggest competitor shut down in April, Mars picked up market share and resumed its growth plans, starting with an expansion in Akron, said Mars vice president of sales Michael Mammone. In June, Mars opened a 12,000-square-foot branch at 190 Opportunity Parkway in the southwest part of downtown Akron.

Publisher: Crain's Cleveland Business

Date: 2020-08-02T04:00:00-0400

Author: Dan Shingler

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This Week: Mars in 4K and Silence on Earth - Eos

Bringing Mars Rocks to Earth: Our Greatest Interplanetary Circus Act. With the latest Mars missions heading toward their destination, there is growing anticipation about what all this new robotic instrumentation might soon reveal of the Red Planet. Of course, planetary scientists and engineers have also long had the goal of bringing bits of Mars back to Earth for much closer, hands-on investigations. The complex plan taking shape to do that has a certain "Are you kidding me?

* * *

Observatories are spectacular and meticulously-engineered hubs of scientific research. They also work best when we maroon them in the MIDDLE OF NOWHERE

Publisher: Eos

Twitter: @AGU_Eos

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Happening on Twitter

LIVE NOW: Following a successful launch from @NASAKennedy, join Administrator @JimBridenstine & leadership for an u… https://t.co/JfyGRWrOCR NASA Thu Jul 30 15:30:34 +0000 2020

It's launch day! 🚀 Join @NASA at 7 a.m. ET for live coverage of liftoff of @NASAPersevere aboard this @ulalaunch r… https://t.co/cXqWbns7IY NASAKennedy (from Florida, USA) Thu Jul 30 08:38:04 +0000 2020

Was there once life on Mars? 👀 Our @NASAPersevere rover aims to find out during her @NASAAstrobio mission on the… https://t.co/ReKq5k78Bc NASA Sun Jul 26 17:45:06 +0000 2020

#CountdownToMars begins tomorrow, bright and early! Join me. I'll be live Tweeting the launch...with a big mug of… https://t.co/Cs6CF5uMSm maejemison (from Houston, Texas) Wed Jul 29 23:34:51 +0000 2020

What Would Happen if You Fell Into a Black Hole? | Discover Magazine

Sorry, science fiction fans. You can't actually survive a trip through a black hole. And if you tried to take a plunge into one, like Matthew McConaughey in the movie Interstellar , you'd be ripped apart long before you could find out what's on the other side.

To fully appreciate why you can't just swan dive or pilot your spaceship into a black hole, you must first understand the basic properties of these gravitational goliaths. Simply put, a black hole is a place where gravity is so strong that no light — or anything else, for that matter — can escape.

Publisher: Discover Magazine

Twitter: @DiscoverMag

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Were you following this:

A black hole circling a wormhole would emit weird gravitational waves | Science News

Gravitational wave detectors have already spotted mysterious black holes. But something even stranger might be next: wormholes.

Wormholes are hypothetical objects in which spacetime is curved into a tunnel that connects distant cosmic locales or potentially different universes ( SN: 8/5/13 ). From the outside, wormholes can appear similar to black holes. But while an object that falls into a black hole is trapped there, something that falls into a wormhole could traverse through it to the other side.

Publisher: Science News

Date: July 27 2020

Twitter: @sciencenews

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Mystery Blob Detected Hidden Deep Inside a Supernova --"Not a Pulsar or Black Hole" |

Home » Astronomy » Mystery Blob Detected Hidden Deep Inside a Supernova –“Not a Pulsar or Black Hole”

* * *

Fast forward to 2020, two teams of astronomers searching for a missing compact object that should have formed in the leftovers from the two-light-year wide blast of Supernova 1987A , leading them to wonder if instead of a neutron star it had collapsed into a black hole. A compelling case in the 33-year-old mystery has been made based on observations of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and a theoretical follow-up study.

Publisher: The Daily Galaxy

Date: 2020-07-31T14:39:45 00:00

Twitter: @dailygalaxy

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"Hall of Mirrors" --Orange Glow Around M87's Colossal Black Hole Unveils History

Home » Black Holes » “Hall of Mirrors” –Orange Glow Around M87’s Colossal Black Hole Unveils History of Observable Universe

* * *

“We were all getting together and asking: what does this thing mean?

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) image marked the endpoint of years of work undertaken by a team of 200 scientists in 59 institutes across 18 countries. The project drew on data collected by eight telescopes whose locations range from Hawaii to the South Pole.The EHT team created the equivalent of a lens the size of planet Earth by integrating data from all the telescopes that were part of the project that's 4,000 times more powerful than the Hubble Space Telescope.

Publisher: The Daily Galaxy

Date: 2020-07-31T18:00:55 00:00

Twitter: @dailygalaxy

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This may worth something:

Fastest-growing black hole in universe has huge appetite, study finds | National News |

Researchers now have a better understanding of the black hole known as J2157 and its gluttonous behavior.

The fastest-growing black hole in the universe is 34 billion times the mass of our sun and feasts on a meal the equivalent of our sun each day, according to a study.

This massive, hungry black hole was first identified and studied by researchers in May 2018 . Previously, they believed it consumed the mass equivalent to our sun every two days. Now, they have a better understanding of this monster black hole and its gluttonous behavior.

Publisher: Beatrice Daily Sun

Date: 2020-07-03T12:30:00-0500

Author: Ashley Strickland CNN

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We May Be Able to Extract "Movies" of the Universe From Black Holes

Ever since the first-ever image of a black hole was published last year, physicists have been scrambling to learn as much about it as they can.

One of their astonishing new claims is that the swirling rings of light trapped in the orbit of the black hole Pōwehi can serve as a sort of historical record, New Scientist reports . The rings of photons could be like the rings of a tree — or even, tantalizingly, like frames of a movie that show the history of the universe.

Publisher: Futurism

Twitter: @futurism

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33-Year-Old Cosmic Mystery Solved?

This artist’s illustration of Supernova 1987A shows the dusty inner regions of the exploded star’s remnants (red), in which a neutron star might be hiding. This inner region is contrasted with the outer shell (blue), where the energy from the supernova is colliding (green) with the envelope of gas ejected from the star prior to its powerful detonation. Credit: NRAO/AUI/NSF, B. Saxton

Ever since astronomers witnessed one of the brightest explosions of a star in the night sky, creating Supernova  1987A (SN 1987A), they have been searching for a compact object that should have formed in the leftovers from the blast.

Publisher: SciTechDaily

Date: 2020-08-01T22:03:34-07:00

Author: Mike O

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Study reports a transition from spontaneous to stimulated Hawking radiation in a sonic black hole

In 2014 and 2016, Jeff Steinhauer of Technion, Israel, successfully conducted two significant experiments. The first one demonstrated stimulated Hawking radiation in a sonic black hole laser (SBHL). The next one showed spontaneous Hawking radiation from a sonic black hole (SBH). Both experiments were performed in an ultra-cold Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) of rubidium atoms at nano-Kelvin temperature, an extreme form of quantum fluid almost at absolute zero temperature.

To form a SBHL, the sound wave quanta phonon needs to go back and forth between two such event horizons (inner and outer) with the creation of more phonons, resulting in a stimulated Hawking radiation. This idea was first suggested by Jacobson and Corley more than a decade after Unruh's suggestion. It indicates that to realize an SBHL, spontaneous radiation from a sonic event horizon should take place at some earlier time.

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Happening on Twitter

@BernieSanders If we already had unconditional basic income, the loss of the unemployment boost would mean that peo… https://t.co/qkRrSqUhW9 scottsantens (from New Orleans, LA) Fri Jul 31 20:06:13 +0000 2020

Many headlines will say GDP fell 32.9%. What they mean is that it fell at an annualized rate of -32.9% which is t… https://t.co/HYhh70KxEN JustinWolfers (from Ann Arbor, MI) Thu Jul 30 12:36:24 +0000 2020

Full Moon August 2020: How To Harness The Moon In Aquarius

Calling all visionaries, disrupters, and change agents. As the only Aquarius full moon of 2020 beams overhead on August 3, 2020 (at 11:48 a.m. EDT), it's impossible to ignore what's going on around us. Aquarius is the sign of collaborative groups, teams and humanitarian efforts. It evokes love for our communities and the creative impulse to fight for what we believe in.

When in doubt, take the unconventional route! Aquarius is the sign that governs science and technology. Trot out those inventions and give them a beta test. Experiment in the "lab," but not when it comes to pushing people's buttons. The Water Bearer can get nervous under the heat of too much passion, emotion, and one-on-one connection. This is friendly, convivial energy at its best—platonic, playful, and decidedly not romantic. But who cares?

Publisher: mindbodygreen

Date: 2020-08-02T00:24:00.000Z

Author: https www facebook com AstroTwins

Twitter: @mindbodygreen

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Many things are taking place:

ISRO checking space enthusiast's claim of moon rover rolling on lunar surface : The Tribune

Space enthusiast Shanmuga Subramanian, who found the debris of India's moonlander Vikram, said on Saturday that Chandrayaan-2's rover Pragyan seems to be intact on the moon's surface and had rolled out a few metres from the lander.

In a series of tweets along with the pictures of the moon surface, Subramanian said: "Chandrayaan-2's Pragyan "ROVER" intact on Moon's surface & has rolled out few metres from the skeleton Vikram lander whose payloads got disintegrated due to rough landing." "We have received communication from him (Subramanian). Our experts are analysing the same," K. Sivan, Chairman, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), told IANS.

Publisher: Tribuneindia News Service

Author: Tribune News Service

Twitter: @&via=thetribunechd

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Star Points: Choppering around the Titan moon - Carroll County Times

Space travel is a great way to get from point A to point B when those points are worlds apart. But how do you move around once you get there?

They didn't, at first. The Surveyor lunar landers in the 1960s used cameras for peering into the distance. The first half dozen Apollo program moonwalking astronauts used their legs for getting around. The rest of them hauled a dune buggy-like "rover" up to the moon. The rover let the astronauts travel for miles around the landing sites.

Publisher: baltimoresun.com/maryland/carroll

Date: AAC9C18F70AC386BC4DCF4DDF9BF1786

Author: Curtis Roelle

Twitter: @CCTNews

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China's Chang'e 4 moon mission completes 20th day on lunar farside | Space

China's Chang'e 4 moon lander and rover have concluded their science tasks for a 20th lunar day on the far side of the moon.

Both the mission's lander and Yutu 2 rover resumed their activities on July 14 following sunrise over their location in Von Kármán crater on the far side of the moon. The lander powered down July 26 at 10:20 p.m. EDT (0220 GMT July 27), with Yutu 2 having already gone into a dormant state about 10 hours earlier, at 12:34 p.m. EDT (1634 GMT).

Publisher: Space.com

Date: 2020-07-30T16:04:32 00:00

Author: https www facebook com spacecom

Twitter: @SPACEdotcom

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Full Moon August 2020 USA Time | Brevard Times

Skywatchers will be able to see August's Full Moon beginning with a moonrise over the Atlantic Ocean on Florida's east coast around 8:35 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (with a few minutes deviation depending on your exact location.)

* * *

The moon will technically be at its fullest at 11:19 a.m. EDT which occurs before the moonrise and out of sight from U.S. viewers.

For those planning a stroll along the beach to watch the Full Moon , August's Full Moon will cause over a 4-foot high tide on August 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th which may increase the storm surge effects from Hurricane Isaias along the U.S. east coast.

Publisher: Brevard Times

Date: 2020-08-01T05:18:28 00:00

Twitter: @BrevardTimes

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August's full moon rises Sunday night

"August's full moon was traditionally called the Sturgeon Moon because the giant sturgeon of the Great Lakes and Lake Champlain were most readily caught during this part of summer," according to The Old Farmer's Almanac .

Publisher: https://www.fox19.com

Date: 2020-07-31T18:25:20.580Z

Author: Ed Payne

Twitter: @FOX19

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August's Full Sturgeon Moon 2020 | Mental Floss

This summer has been an especially exciting time for avid sky-gazers—the NEOWISE comet flew close to Earth in mid-July, and the ongoing Perseid meteor shower is gearing up for its peak around August 11. Though full moons aren't quite as rare, the sight of a glowing white orb illuminating the night is still worth a glance out your window.

Each month's full moon has a nickname (or multiple nicknames), usually of folk origin, that coincides with certain plant, animal, or weather activity common at that time of year. January's full moon, for example, was named the "wolf moon" because wolves were said to howl more often during January. June's "strawberry moon" occurred when strawberries were ripe and ready to be picked.

Date: 2020-07-31T15:00:00 00:00

Twitter: @mental_floss

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China's Mars Mission Took This Picture of the Earth and Moon - Universe Today

No matter where you are, where you've been and where you're going, it's always good to see home.  And we all love seeing pictures of our home planet, as seen from space.

The latest image of the Terran System comes from China’s Mars mission, Tianwen-1, which launched on July 23. It captured an image of the Earth and Moon, seen from about 1.2 million km from Earth, according to the China National Space Administration (CNSA).

It joins a great group of photos taken of our "pale blue dot" from missions like Voyager, Cassini, Mars Express, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and of course, the Apollo missions to the Moon. You can see a gallery of Earth-Moon images as seen from other words here.

Publisher: Universe Today

Date: 2020-07-31T10:48:16-04:00

Author: https www facebook com nancy atkinson4

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Happening on Twitter

The top 3 #astronomy events to look for in August: 1. Full Sturgeon Moon (Aug. 3) 2. Perseid Meteor Shower (Aug. 11… https://t.co/HfpHKf3KxH AccuAstronomy (from State College, PA) Fri Jul 31 15:14:02 +0000 2020

The rising of the next full Moon— aka the"Sturgeon Moon" —will take place on Monday, August 3, 2020 🌕 Did you know… https://t.co/oVRduMp98r weathernetwork (from Canada) Sat Aug 01 21:00:00 +0000 2020

PASS IT ON: Full Moon arrives Monday! During the month of August, this Moon is known as the Full Sturgeon Moon. Pho… https://t.co/MFphnEy48L mark_tarello (from Mankato, Minnesota.) Sat Aug 01 15:07:42 +0000 2020

August's full moon rises Sunday night https://t.co/CYQ9mYPyLs WAFB (from Baton Rouge, LA) Fri Jul 31 19:35:37 +0000 2020

2 Indian teens discover Earth-bound asteroid: ‘This was a dream’ - National |

Forget an A+ — two teenage girls in India far surpassed getting an excellent grade when they happened to stumble upon an Earth-bound asteroid.

Vaidehi Vekariya and Radhika Lakhani, Grade 10 students from the city of Surat in the western Indian state of Gujarat, were participating in a joint SPACE India and NASA project, the International Astronomical Search Collaboration (IASC), which allows students to analyze images taken by a telescope located at the University of Hawaii.

Publisher: Global News

Twitter: @globalnews

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And here's another article:

2 high school girls in India discover asteroid moving toward Earth while working on project with

Two Indian schoolgirls have  discovered an asteroid  which is slowly shifting its orbit and moving toward Earth.

Radhika Lakhani and Vaidehi Vekariya, both studying in 10th grade, were working on a school project when they discovered the asteroid, which they named HLV2514.

The girls, from the city of Surat in the western Indian state of Gujarat, were participating in a Space India and NASA project, which allows students to analyze images taken by a telescope positioned at the University of Hawaii.

Publisher: KTLA

Date: 2020-07-30T20:36:11 00:00

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watch how NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will navigate to an asteroid

'I wanted to create a piece that's completely unnoticeable and so familiar, you're just going to walk past it.'

affecting the metal's chemicals, different heated temperatures cause the car's steel body to change in shade.

the team aims to make MRI scans accessible to a wider population, enabling early detection of dementia and stroke prevention.

they are 'revolutionizing the auto industry by ree-thinking, ree-inventing and ree-structuring the way we make cars'.

Publisher: designboom | architecture & design magazine

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Surat News: Two Surat girls discover asteroid; Nasa confirms | Surat News - Times of India

Publisher: The Times of India

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Cave sediments suggest global cooling 13K years ago not caused by asteroid - UPI.com

July 31 (UPI) -- Geochemical signatures found in sediments recovered from a Texas cave suggest the Younger Dryas, a period of global cooling that occurred 13,000 years ago, was caused by a series of Earth-based processes, not an extraterrestrial impact.

Previously, scientists in search of an explanation for the Younger Dryas have pointed to spikes in several rare earth metals as evidence that an asteroid or comet impact triggered the cooling. Advertisement

Publisher: UPI

Date: 2020-07-31T17:05:06-04:00

Author: Brooks Hays

Twitter: @UPI

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Asteroid Impact, Not Volcanism, Likely Spelled Dinosaurs' End - Eos

An argument millions of years in the making might finally be settled. Using climate and habitat modeling, researchers have found new evidence that an asteroid impact, not volcanism, likely caused the end Cretaceous extinction of nonavian dinosaurs. The asteroid strike—in the modern-day Yucatan Peninsula—was primarily responsible for the die-off, the team concluded, because it triggered a deadly "impact winter" that might have been more than 60°C colder than usual.

There's good motivation for this study, said Kunio Kaiho , a geologist at Tohoku University in Japan not involved in the research. All five major mass extinctions during the Phanerozoic have coincided with large volcanic eruptions, he said. "Researchers want to understand whether four mass extinctions were caused by volcanism and one is exceptional, or whether all five were caused by volcanism."

Publisher: Eos

Twitter: @AGU_Eos

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Space objects defined: The differences between comets, meteors, and asteroids | RochesterFirst

ROCHESTER, NY (WROC) – One of the biggest science headlines of July 2020 has been the Neowise Comet that graced skies of the Northern Hemisphere for weeks on end. Let’s dive into the difference between the flying objects we see in space here. We will go in alphabetical order.

* * *

A rock material that revolves around the sun and remains in orbit. Think of an asteroid as a rock that hangs out with other asteroids in a large belt within the solar system inbetween Mars and Jupiter. You may recognize this from popular space movies such as Star Wars that frequently features asteroid belts or asteroid fields.

Publisher: RochesterFirst

Date: 2020-07-21T16:44:08 00:00

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Asteroids may be the reason Earth is covered in water

The origin of water on Earth has long been a contested question — water forms in the course of many chemical reactions, and it is also a major component of comets. So, researchers frequently debate which of these is the ultimate source of most of the water on our planet.

A new study reveals that chemical reactions within asteroids may have freed water, slowly covering the Earth in water.

Usually, astronomers thought of water from space as coming from comets — essentially, dirty snowballs — from beyond the "ice line" of our Solar System, where water stays eternally frozen. This water would come trapped in hydrous silicates, which could then be freed from its rocky matrix.

Publisher: The Next Web

Date: 2020-07-23T11:00:34 02:00

Author: The Cosmic Companion

Twitter: @thenextweb

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The Mystery of Titan's Expanding Orbit - Scientific American

Seen through the eyes of some omnipotent time traveler, our solar system—like any planetary system—is a heaving, pulsing thing. Across millions and billions of years its contents ebb and flow.

But some things are assumed to be comparatively dull and unchanging. Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, for instance, was expected to sit in its orbit with little alteration to that position over the billions of years since its formation. Now a study published in Nature Astronomy by Lainey, et al., has used measurements from the Cassini spacecraft (which orbited Saturn from 2004 to 2017) to determine that Titan has an orbit that grows by an astonishing 11 centimeters each year.

Publisher: Scientific American

Author: Caleb A Scharf

Twitter: @sciam

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While you're here, how about this:

Imaging the Earth from Lunar orbit | The Planetary Society

Earlier this week, on October 10, radio amateurs all around the world worked together to get the Chinese Longjiang-2 spacecraft to take an image of the Earth and the far side of the Moon. Radio commands were generated by MingChuan Wei in China, transmitted to the spacecraft by Reinhard Kuehn in Germany after which they were received by the spacecraft in lunar orbit.

Since June this year, the Chinese Longjiang-2 (also known as DSLWP-B) microsatellite has been orbiting the Moon. The satellite is aimed at studying radio emissions from stars and galaxies at very long wavelength radio waves (wavelengths of 1 to 30 meters). These radio waves are otherwise blocked by the Earth's atmosphere, while the lunar environment offers protection from Earth-based and human-made radio interference.

Publisher: The Planetary Society

Twitter: @exploreplanets

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Giant exoplanets directly observed orbiting Sun-like star – Physics World

The first ever direct image of a young Sun-like star accompanied by two giant exoplanets has been captured by astronomers using the Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile. The two planets are orbiting the star TYC 8998-760-1, which lies 300 light-years away from Earth. The star has an almost identical mass to our Sun, but is just 17 million years old compared with 4.6 billion years for our Sun.

Perhaps the most striking feature of this system is the large mass of the planets and their giant orbits. The inner planet has 14 times Jupiter’s mass and the outer one six times. They orbit at distances of roughly 160 and 320 times the Earth–Sun distance respectively, which is more than 30 times larger than the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn.

Publisher: Physics World

Date: 2020-07-23T21:44:17 00:00

Twitter: @PhysicsWorld

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NASA Space Station On-Orbit Status 29 July, 2020 - Suit Checks - SpaceRef

The Expedition 63 crew checked out SpaceX Crew Dragon suits today and stayed busy with a full slate of space research.

The International Space Station also completed the first of three orbital reboosts to get ready for the next crew mission in October.

The homebound-duo started the day replacing environmental control system (ECS) hardware aboard the orbiting lab. That work required temporarily removing a plant habitat from the Unity module to access the ECS.

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This may worth something:

What is CAPSTONE? | NASA

Publisher: NASA

Date: 2020-07-31T12:04-04:00

Twitter: @11348282

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Space Force on alert: Behind Russia's mysterious testing of deadly anti-satellite weapons in

Last week, the head of the U.S.'s newest military branch, the Space Force, cautioned publicly for the first time that Moscow had undertaken at least two concerning anti-satellite weapon tests in recent months, in a potential bid to develop on-orbit efficiency that could dangerously hinder the U.S.'s heavy dependency on space-based systems.

"On July 15, Russia injected a new object into orbit from Cosmos 2543," the U.S. Space Force said in a statement . "Russia released this object in proximity to another Russian satellite, (which was) inconsistent with the system's stated mission as an inspector satellite."

Publisher: Fox News

Date: 2020-07-29

Twitter: @foxnews

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U.S. And U.K. Accuse Russia Of In-Orbit Test Of Nesting Doll Anti-Satellite Weapon

Soyuz 2-1V launch of Kosmos 2542 Novermber 2019, before it released Kosmos 2543 which in turn ... [+] released Object 45915, a possible anti-satellite weapon

USA 245 changed course to stay clear of the Kosmos 2543 trailing it. On July 15, an unidentified object separated from Kosmos 2543, showing another level of nesting. This new object, designated 45915 by the U.S. is believed to be an anti-satellite weapon, although there was no explosion, target hit or other effect.

Publisher: Forbes

Date: 2020-07-24

Author: David Hambling

Twitter: @forbes

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There are Natural Starshades Out There, Which Would Help Astronomers Image Exoplanets - Universe

In the past few decades, the study of extrasolar planets has grown by leaps and bounds, with the confirmation of over 4000 exoplanets . With so many planets available for study, the focus of exoplanet-researchers is shifting from discovery to characterization. In the coming years, new technologies and next-generation telescopes will also enable Direct Imaging studies, which will vastly improve our understanding of exoplanet atmospheres.

To facilitate this process, astronomers will rely on costly technologies like coronagraphs and starshades, which block out the light of a star so any planets orbiting it will become more visible. However, according to a new study by an international team of astronomers and cosmologists, eclipsing binary stars could provide all the shading that’s needed to directly image planets orbiting them.

Publisher: Universe Today

Date: 2020-07-31T16:08:23-04:00

Author: https www facebook com Storiesbywilliams 205745679447998 ref hl

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Happening on Twitter

Data from the Cassini spacecraft has shown that Saturn's largest moon Titan has an orbit that grows by an astonishi… https://t.co/608V9uvBOd sciam (from New York City) Thu Jul 30 17:10:13 +0000 2020

Saturn may get "strummed" by Titan in a resonance that makes their gravitational interaction more powerful. Another… https://t.co/lf7dY8hcdJ laurahelmuth (from Washington DC) Thu Jul 30 14:50:45 +0000 2020

Animation reveals invisible center of solar system that's not the sun - Business Insider

It's common knowledge that the sun is the center of the solar system. Around it, the planets orbit — along with a thick belt of asteroids, some meteor fields, and a handful of far-traveling comets.

* * *

That center of mass, called the barycenter, is the point of an object at which it can be balanced perfectly, with all its mass distributed evenly on all sides. In our solar system, that point rarely lines up with the center of the sun.

Publisher: Business Insider

Date: 2020-07-26

Author: Morgan McFall Johnsen

Twitter: @SciInsider

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Not to change the topic here:

Other solar systems could cram in as many as seven Earth-like planets - CNET

This illustration compares the Trappist-1 system and the three planets in its habitable zone (in green) with our own solar system.

The researchers created a solar system computer model and ran simulations on planet interactions over great spans of time. The data revealed that a sun-like star could support up to six planets with liquid water, while some other stars could conceivably handle up to seven.

"More than seven, and the planets become too close to each other and destabilize each other's orbits," said Kane.

Publisher: CNET

Author: Amanda Kooser

Twitter: @CNET

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Solar system's moons in relation to Earth video

The multitude of moons orbiting the planets of our solar system represent the incredible diversity of heavenly bodies that inhabit this tiny corner of the universe. Satellites that call this cosmic neighborhood home come in all iterations, from oblong, dented, and lumpy, to marble-smooth, multi-cratered, and pock-marked.

It's tough to wrap one's head around such variations in size, shape, and surface features without rolling them all out and comparing them to the scale of some of Earth's greatest monuments and skylines.

Publisher: SYFY WIRE

Date: 2020-07-30T11:26:50-04:00

Author: Jeff Spry

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What the first snapshot of another solar system can teach us - CSMonitor.com

For the first time, a telescope has captured a family portrait of another solar system with not just one, but two planets posing directly for the cameras while orbiting a star like our sun.

This baby sun and its two giant gas planets are fairly close by galactic standards at 300 light-years away.

The snapshot – released Wednesday – was taken by the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile's Atacama Desert.

Publisher: The Christian Science Monitor

Date: 2020-07-22T12:03-05

Author: The Christian Science Monitor

Twitter: @csmonitor

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And here's another article:

There Might Be an Entire Orbit, Filled with Asteroids that Came from Outside the Solar System -

Aliens could be all around us. Lurking on the edge, waiting to invade our solar system. Not little green creatures, but asteroids from other stars. That’s the conclusion of a new study published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society .

The outer solar system is filled with asteroids and comets. Most of them formed as a part of the solar system about 4.5 billion years ago. They tend to have stable orbits, though a rare interaction might fling them out of the solar system, or send them tumbling toward the inner solar system. But there are some outer solar system bodies that are a bit unusual.

Publisher: Universe Today

Date: 2020-07-29T10:57:21-04:00

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Volatile Sample Return in the Solar System - Astrobiology

Volatile measurement capabilities for returned samples are superior to those for in situ spacecraft. Here examples for a comet is shown Left: isotopic measurement precision for selected volatiles. Right: molecular detections for selected classes of organics.

We advocate for the realization of volatile sample return from various destinations including: small bodies, the Moon, Mars, ocean worlds/satellites, and plumes. As part of recent mission studies (e.g., Comet Astrobiology Exploration SAmple Return (CAESAR) and Mars Sample Return), new concepts, technologies, and protocols have been considered for specific environments and cost.

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What's Left Behind When You Boil A Gas Giant?

When large, massive, gas giant exoplanets come too close to their parent star, the outer gas ... [+] envelope can be mostly or entirely stripped away. What remains might be an exposed planetary core, not much bigger than Earth but comparable in mass to a world like Neptune or Uranus.

When we take a look at the planets in our Solar System, there's a pretty clear difference between the four inner, rocky worlds and the outer, gaseous, giant planets. Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars are all small, low in mass, and dense, with atmospheres that represent only a tiny fraction-of-a-percent of the planet's overall matter.

Publisher: Forbes

Date: 2020-07-29

Author: Ethan Siegel

Twitter: @forbes

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First-ever image of new planetary system could hold clues to our own evolution

New Delhi: The European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope has taken the first-ever image of a young, Sun-like star accompanied by two giant exoplanets.

The new planetary system, known as TYC 8998-760-1, is located about 300 light years away. Such direct images of systems with multiple exoplanets are extremely rare and never before have astronomers directly observed more than one planet orbiting a star similar to the Sun.

The star has two gas giants orbiting at distances of 160 and about 320 times the Earth-Sun distance. This means that the planets are much further away from their star than Jupiter or Saturn are from the Sun.

Publisher: ThePrint

Date: 2020-07-26T03:54:25 00:00

Twitter: @ThePrintIndia

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