April 5, 2021
The gag practically writes itself…
…but seriously, this is neat. One source of the X-Rays is the Sun (it also bounces off of Jupiter and Saturn). But there may be yet another source…perhaps the rings of Uranus or the planet itself.
And no, it’s not really pink. That’s just a Chandra X-ray image.
Shame, really.
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/images/first-x-rays-from-uranus-discovered.html
February 10, 2021
Congratulations, UAE! The Hope Probe (al-Amal) successfully entered Mars orbit on February 9th.
Made in the US (Boulder, Colorado) and the United Arab Emirates (Dubai) and launched from Japan, it shows what hat can be accomplished through international cooperation instead of competition.
Maybe it is truly Hope, after all, and not just for Arab states.
February 5, 2021
Looks like Mars doesn’t spin perfectly on its axis. In fact, it wobbles.
And no one knows why.
This makes Mars only the second planet in our solar system to exhibit what’s called the “Chandler wobble.”
The other planet?
Why, Earth, of course.
(And, no, nobody knows why. Hmm. Chandler?)
February 4, 2021
There’s a reason I didn’t post a while ago about the supposed “there’s life in the clouds of Venus” finding.
It was just a big load of gas.
Sorry, folks. Venus is a big rotten egg. 🥚
https://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/signs-life-venus-might-just-be-ordinary-sulfur-gas-n1256739
February 4, 2021
A crewed mission to Mars may be more practical thanks to a new rocket concept developed by Fatima Ebrahimi, a physicist at the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), that uses magnetic fields to generate thrust.
https://newatlas.com/space/magnetic-reconnection-rocket-thruster-concept-spaceflight-mars/
Looks good so far…
…although it’s just a computer simulation right now and the magnetic thruster model hasn’t even been built yet.
Ah, well, just repurpose an existing ion thruster, right?
Hmm. I’m not a rocket scientist, but.. 🚀
February 1, 2021
OK, hands up who thinks this is a really super dumb and risky idea but isn’t terribly surprised by the super dumb and risky things Musk continually blurts out? 🤷♂️
January 27, 2021
NASA ended the US’s interest in spaceplanes when it scrapped the shuttle fleet a decade ago.
But other space agencies and private companies in other countries are very much in the game. ESA, India, even the UK.
And, of course…
Whichever future the spaceplane does have, it will involve China. “We know very little about the launch [of China’s experimental spaceplane],” says Deville. “But it shows that China is serious about developing its spaceplane concepts.”
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210121-spaceplanes-the-return-of-the-reuseable-spacecraft
January 22, 2021
Hey, everyone! If you look up at the right time, you can…
Uh. Yeah, anyway.
https://www.space.com/uranus-mars-moon-conjunction-january-2021
December 18, 2020
Despite the lack of large marsquakes, the researchers were able to estimate how thick Mars’ crust is. They predict it has three layers—but possibly two—that are between 12.4 and 23 miles thick, reports Nature. Mars’ crust is considerably thinner than that of Earth, which can be up to 25 miles thick—and that’s surprising, reports Science.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/robotic-explorer-mars-offers-sneak-peek-mars-inner-layers-180976568/
Lots of small “Marsquakes,” but nothing big. Max M4.5.
A techtonically silent world. Might explain the weak magnetic field which allowed solar winds to rip off its atmosphere long ago.
November 6, 2020
Cyclopropenylidene is the second cyclic or closed-loop molecule detected at Titan; the first was benzene in 2003. Benzene is an organic chemical compound composed of carbon and hydrogen atoms…Cyclic molecules are crucial because they form the backbone rings for the nucleobases of DNA, according to NASA.
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/28/world/titan-atmosphere-molecule-chemistry-scn-trnd/index.html
The only moon in the solar system that has an atmosphere…4 times denser than the Earth, actually.
Except it rains ethane and methane and is -270C. Not exactly a place to plan a vacation.
But the organic molecules may (BIG may) hint at life of some sort.
And we only have to wait until 2034 to find out!
(See more about the “Dragonfly” here: https://edition.cnn.com/2019/06/27/world/nasa-dragonfly-titan-mission-scn-trnd/index.html)
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