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Universe Today
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Image Credit: Universe Today
China Plans to Retrieve Mars Samples by 2031
- China’s Tianwen-3 mission is currently scheduled for launch in 2028, according to lead author Zengqian Hou, and should return Mars samples by 2031.
- China has already conducted a sample-return mission on the moon via Chang’e-6 mission in 2021 but the Mars mission will be a more complex mission due to its distance from Earth.
- The team has identified 86 landing sites in the Chryse Planitia and Utopia Planitia regions, considered good locations to search for potential biosignatures indicating the presence of past life.
- Tianwen-3 is expected to carry payloads developed with international partners, and new instruments specifically designed to detect biosignatures as part of the 13-phase mission plan.
- The success of the China National Space Administration's (CNSA) previous missions, Tianwen-1 and Chang’e-5, has solidified China's place as a global contender in space exploration.
- China has also announced that it will explore the Jupiter system through its Tianwen-4 mission, to learn more about the planet's moons and their evolutionary history.
- The CNSA's plans to retrieve samples from Mars before both NASA and ESA would allow China to become the first country to return Martian samples to Earth.
- China plans to expand its space efforts, including the creation of the International Lunar Research Station to be set up by 2035.
- The team's proposed exploration strategy involves multi-point surface sampling, fixed-point in-depth drilling, and in-flight vehicle sampling.
- The Mars Sample Return mission, which is currently in its design phase and set to launch in the 2030s, is now being challenged by China's proposed mission.
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Insider
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Image Credit: Insider
Meet Jared Isaacman, the billionaire Trump picked to lead NASA
- Billionaire CEO and former SpaceX astronaut, Jared Isaacman, is President-elect Donald Trump's pick to lead NASA.
- Isaacman conducted the first-ever commercial spacewalk on a SpaceX mission, and has flown to space twice, funding and commanding his own flights.
- He dropped out of high school at 15 and founded two multibillion-dollar companies.
- Isaacman's net worth is estimated at $1.7 billion, with philanthropic involvement in the Make-A-Wish Foundation and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.
- He is married with two daughters and his family is enthusiastic about his mission to space.
- Isaacman is a passionate pilot and holds a world record for flying around the globe.
- He is Trump's unconventional pick for NASA Administrator, but experts see his commercial spaceflight background as a benefit to the agency.
- In an X post, Isaacman called the nomination "the honor of a lifetime" and pledged to prioritize space exploration.
- Isaacman is known for his "stellar" managerial skills, according to Michelle Hanlon, executive director of the Center for Air and Space Law at the University of Mississippi School of Law.
- This story was originally published on September 11, 2024, and most recently updated on December 4, 2024.
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Guardian
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Image Credit: Guardian
Scientists close to solving mystery of how universe's giant galaxies formed
- Galaxies crashing together 12bn years ago could have caused the universe’s biggest galaxies to form, according to research.
- Astronomers at the University of Southampton are studying how elliptical galaxies were created, which has been a long-standing mystery in astronomy.
- The researchers discovered that two disc galaxies colliding caused gas to sink towards their center, resulting in the formation of trillions of new stars.
- Their findings, based on analyzing over 100 star-forming galaxies using the world’s largest radio telescope, bring scientists closer to understanding early galaxy formation and the evolution of the universe.
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Spaceflightnow
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SpaceX to launch 350th mission using a flight-proven Falcon 9 rocket booster during Starlink mission from California
- SpaceX aims to launch its 350th mission using a flight-proven Falcon 9 rocket booster.
- The mission, Starlink 9-14, will attempt the 300th successful booster landing.
- The liftoff is scheduled from Vandenberg Space Force Base with no confirmed livestream availability.
- The mission carries 20 Starlink V2 Mini satellites, including 13 with Direct to Cell capabilities.
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Livescience
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Image Credit: Livescience
Geminid meteor shower 2024: How to see the year's last big display of 'shooting stars' before it's too late
- The Geminids meteor shower, the most prolific meteor shower of the year, will peak on Dec. 13 and 14.
- The shower will be somewhat dampened by the presence of a near-full moon, making it harder to see the shooting stars.
- To observe the Geminids, find a spot away from artificial lights, with your back to the moon, and allow your eyes to adjust to the darkness.
- The Geminids are caused by an asteroid called 3200 Phaethon, and they tend to be yellow but may also appear white and green.
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Nasa
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Turn Supermoon Hype into Lunar Learning
- Supermoons get lots of publicity from the media, but is there anything to them beyond the hype?
- Astronomers can use the concept of supermoons to teach astronomy concepts and engage visitors during star parties.
- Supermoons are a result of the moon being at its closest position to Earth during its full phase.
- NASA has a classroom activity called Measuring the Supermoon, where students can measure the size of the full moon and compare their results.
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Nasa
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Image Credit: Nasa
Dragon Packed With Science and Now Targets Friday Undocking
- The SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft is scheduled to undock from the International Space Station on Friday, carrying over 6,000 pounds of science, supplies, and hardware.
- NASA astronauts are loading completed science experiments and lab hardware inside the Dragon spacecraft for retrieval and analysis on Earth.
- The resupply spacecraft's return was postponed from Thursday to Friday due to forecasted high winds at the splashdown site.
- The crew aboard the International Space Station conducted various tasks, including servicing science hardware, loading cargo, and preparing for future spacewalks.
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Universe Today
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Image Credit: Universe Today
Here’s How Interstellar Objects and Rogue Planets Can be Trapped in the Solar System
- In their research note, the authors describe the permanent capture of an ISO this way: “The permanent capture of a small body, P, about the Sun, S, from interstellar space occurs when P can never escape back into interstellar space and remains captured within the Solar System for all future time, moving without collision with the Sun.”
- Our Solar System’s phase space has capture points where an ISO can find itself gravitationally bound to the Sun.
- Phase space is a mathematical representation that describes the state of a dynamical system like our Solar System.
- The upcoming Vera Rubin Observatory is expected to discover many more ISOs.
- The paper focuses on the theoretical nature of phase space and ISO capture.
- The researchers identified openings in the Solar System’s phase space that could allow some of these objects, or ISOs or rogue planets, to reach permanent weak capture.
- Every million years, about two of our stellar neighbours come within a few light years of Earth.
- There’s not much debate that rogue planets exist likely in large numbers.
- The Oort Cloud’s outer boundary is about 1.5 light years away, so some of these stellar encounters could easily dislodge objects from the cloud and send them toward the inner Solar System.
- Permanent capture points are regions in space where an object can be permanently captured into a stable orbit.
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Nasa
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Image Credit: Nasa
NASA Leadership to Provide Update on Artemis Campaign
- NASA Administrator Bill Nelson and leadership will hold a news conference at 1 p.m. EST, Thursday, Dec. 5, at the agency’s headquarters in Washington to provide a briefing about the agency’s Artemis campaign.
- Participants include NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy, NASA Associate Administrator Jim Free, Catherine Koerner, and Amit Kshatriya.
- Through the Artemis campaign, NASA aims to establish a long-term presence at the Moon for scientific exploration, learn how to live and work away from home, and prepare for future human exploration of Mars.
- The campaign involves various components such as the SLS rocket, exploration ground systems, Orion spacecraft, human landing systems, next-generation spacesuits, Gateway lunar space station, and future rovers.
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Universe Today
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Image Credit: Universe Today
MeerKAT Confirms the Gravitational Wave Background of the Universe in Record Time
- MeerKAT, a radio array located in South Africa, has confirmed the existence of the cosmic background of gravitational waves.
- The North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav) had previously released their observations based on millisecond pulsars.
- MeerKAT gathered data on 83 pulsars in just four and a half years, confirming the existence of cosmic gravitational waves.
- Further data is needed to determine the origin of these waves, which may be generated by binary black holes in the Milky Way.
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Brighter Side of News
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Image Credit: Brighter Side of News
Evidence of primordial black holes may be hiding in everyday objects on Earth
- Primordial black holes (PBHs) are theorized to have mass ranging from a mountain’s worth compressed into the size of an atom to much smaller quantities.
- Recent research introduces innovative approaches to identify PBHs, suggesting they could leave detectable marks on planets, asteroids, and even materials on Earth.
- PBHs might interact with celestial and terrestrial objects and leave behind a narrow, straight tunnel when passes through solid objects without a liquid core.
- The probability of a PBH passing through a boulder in its billion-year existence is estimated to be minuscule—around 0.000001.
- The researchers suggest that large slabs of metal or ancient rock could serve as detectors, monitored for the sudden appearance of these microscopic tunnels.
- Existing models of physics, from general relativity to quantum mechanics, are over a century old and have yet to solve the puzzle of dark matter.
- The smartest people on the planet have been working on these problems for 80 years and haven’t solved them.
- These studies open new doors for exploring the invisible forces shaping the universe, proving that thinking outside the box remains vital in scientific discovery.
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Guardian
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Image Credit: Guardian
Trump taps billionaire and private astronaut Jared Isaacman to lead Nasa
- Billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman has been nominated by Donald Trump to lead Nasa.
- Isaacman, the founder of Draken International and an experienced jet pilot, led the first all-private crew of astronauts and made the first civilian spacewalk.
- If confirmed, Isaacman will guide Nasa through its plans to return humans to the moon and send crews to Mars.
- His nomination raises questions about the future of the government-funded Space Launch System rocket in the Artemis program.
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Universe Today
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Image Credit: Universe Today
Could We Use An Asteroid to Shield Astronauts On Their Way to Mars?
- A paper from scientists in Kyiv suggests using Near Earth Objects (NEOs) as shielding for astronauts on trips to Mars.
- They analyzed the orbits of over 35,000 NEOs and found 120 potential candidates for shielding.
- Some asteroids could allow for multiple transfers between Earth, Venus, and Mars.
- Using asteroids for shielding is still a concept that requires further research and development.
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Nasa
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Image Credit: Nasa
NASA’s C-20A Studies Extreme Weather Events
- NASA's C-20A aircraft can carry key instruments providing data to assess and model disaster impacts and potentially make predictions about hazards.
- The C-20A is a military version of the Gulfstream III business jet and operates as an airborne science aircraft for a variety of Earth science research missions.
- The plane was deployed in the aftermath of Hurricane Milton to collect detailed data about the affected flood areas using the Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAVSAR) instrument to help inform disaster response and preparation in the future.
- UAVSAR uses a technique called interferometry to detect subtle changes to Earth’s surface and can measure terrain changes or impacts before and after a natural disaster.
- UAVSAR can also provide more detail than satellite radars and calibrate ground-based instruments. We can design overlapping flights in three or more directions to detect more textures and motions on the Earth’s surface, a big advantage over single flights.
- The C-20A team also used the UAVSAR to investigate the Portuguese Bend landslide in Rancho Pales Verdes, which has been moving at increasing rates during dry seasons.
- Airborne data can inform how scientists and experts understand extreme phenomena on the ground.
- NASA's C-20A was also used to provide crucial insight for studies of wildfire, as the Fire and Smoke Model Evaluation Experiment (FASMEE) deployed flights of the C-20A to study fire behavior and smoke.
- Researchers on the FASMEE experiment will use the collected data to better understand fire behavior and smoke production and help mitigate fire risk, restore degraded ecosystems, and protect human communities from catastrophic fire.
- Jacquelyn Shuman, FireSense project scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley said, “We can explore how fire managers can use airborne data to help make decisions about fires.”
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Universe Today
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Image Credit: Universe Today
Maybe Venus Was Never Habitable
- Venus, Earth, and Mars were once similar but evolved differently over time.
- Mars lost its water and atmosphere due to weak gravity and no strong magnetic field.
- Venus, despite having similarities to Earth, turned into a hot, toxic planet.
- New research suggests that Venus never retained water and did not become a wet world.
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