The thread for space cadets!

Also giant news, the 4th Starship was a success!
Starting around the 33-minute mark.


Launched with 32 out of 33 main rocket thrusters.

At 1hour 31m Starship burns up a bit trying to land in the ocean west of Australia. Amazing.

It completed its flip and landed in the ocean successfully.
Then sank I guess.


The point is to be reusable, so it needs to land intact at a precise spot someday and undergo maintenance. :popcorn:
 
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‘Fantastic’ particle could be most energetic neutrino ever detected

An observatory still under construction at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea has spotted what could be the most energetic neutrino ever detected. Such ultra-high-energy neutrinos — tiny subatomic particles that travel at nearly the speed of light — have been known to exist for only a decade or so, and are thought to be messengers from some of the Universe’s most cataclysmic events, such as growth spurts of supermassive black holes in distant galaxies.

Neutrino physicist João Coelho stunned researchers at the Neutrino 2024 conference in Milan, Italy, on 18 June, when he revealed the discovery only at the very end of his talk.

The neutrino detection was “a fantastic event”, says Francis Halzen, a physicist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He added that the observation highlights the potential of the Astroparticle Research with Cosmics in the Abyss (ARCA) observatory — a forest of detectors on ‘strings’ attached to the 3,500-metre-deep sea floor southeast of the Italian island of Sicily.

The neutrino “really stands out, very far away from anything else”, said Coelho, who is at the AstroParticle and Cosmology Laboratory in Paris. He did not disclose the precise direction from which the particle had come, nor when the observation occurred: doing so could have tipped off competitors about the possible origin of the neutrino, researchers at the conference told Nature. Coelho instead promised that these details would be revealed in a paper further down the line. “It would be really interesting to see where in the sky the neutrino originated,” says Nepomuk Otte, a physicist at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta.

The majority of the light that ARCA detects is the result of highly energetic cosmic-ray particles, which produce showers of electrically charged subatomic particles when they hit Earth’s atmosphere. These particle showers can travel in water for kilometres and leave behind faint flashes of light, which ARCA is designed to spot.

The observatory can also detect light from other kinds of particle, including neutrinos. It does not ‘see’ neutrinos directly. Instead, when a neutrino hits a molecule — of air, water or underlying rock — it can create a highly energetic charged particle called a muon, which produces a shower of other charged particles as it moves through the detector. Neutrinos can travel through Earth, so the particle showers that they produce can come from any direction, whereas those resulting from cosmic rays tend to come from the atmosphere. So, when ARCA detects a shower from above, it can be difficult to determine the source, but showers that are horizontal or upwards-moving are most likely to be neutrinos, says Elisa Resconi, a neutrino physicist at the Technical University of Munich in Germany.

But for the highest-energy neutrinos — those carrying half a petaelectronvolt (0.5x1015 eV) or more — the Earth acts as a barrier, says Resconi. That leaves a strip of sky around the horizon where the Earth-skimming particles can be detected and easily distinguished from cosmic rays. “We have this narrow region in which we can see very clean signatures of these neutrinos,” says Resconi, who is part of the collaboration that discovered ultra-high-energy neutrinos around a decade ago; that group used the much larger IceCube Neutrino Observatory, a detector similar to ARCA that is embedded in Antarctic ice.

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Five ARCA detectors on board a ship, ready for deployment.
 

Crazy how much time and effort this kid must've put into this to put it out for free (3 hours I've watched about half), I wonder how he makes his living
 
They reckon there are 400 million supernova visible at any one point.

James Web looked at a little bit of the sky, and found 83 transients, of which 79 are supernova. Scale that up to the whole sky and it makes 400 million :run:

NASA

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Blue circles are supernova

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z ~ 3.8 is when the universe was only slightly more that 10% of its age today, at 1.66 billion years after the big bang (assuming an flat universe, or something).
Spoiler Youtube reference :
 
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Chinese researchers discover naturally occurring few-layer graphene in the Chang’e-5 lunar samples for 1st time
Chinese researchers have recently discovered a naturally occurring few-layer graphene for the first time in the lunar samples brought back by Chang’e-5 probe, which provides new insights into the moon’s geological activities, evolutionary history, and environmental characteristics, broadening understanding of the complex mineral composition of lunar soil and offering important information and clues for resource utilization on the moon.

According to the research team from Jilin University, it is estimated that approximately 1.9 percent of the total interstellar carbon exists in the form of graphene, whose morphology and properties are determined by a specific formation process. Therefore, natural graphene can provide important reference and information for the geological evolution of celestial bodies and the in-situ resource utilization on the moon.

The research team collected Raman spectra, which is used to investigate lunar soils, from areas of the lunar samples with relatively high carbon content, and confirmed that the crystallization quality of the graphite carbon in the lunar samples is relatively high.

The researchers found that areas of the lunar soil samples containing carbon also contain iron compounds, which the researchers believe is closely related to the formation of graphene.

Through observation and analysis, the research team confirmed that the graphite form of carbon detected in the lunar soil samples is a type of few-layer graphene.

The research team confirmed that the formation of few-layer graphene and graphite carbon may originate from mineral catalytic processes induced jointly by the solar wind and early volcanic eruptions on the moon.

The research conducted by the researchers from Jilin University and the Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and supported by China National Space Administration Lunar Exploration and Space Engineering Center, has recently been published in the National Science Review, a peer-reviewed journal aimed at reporting cutting-edge developments across science and technology in China and around the world.

A total of 1,731 grams of lunar samples were brought back by Chang’e-5 mission in December 2020. These samples were the first ever obtained from a younger region of the lunar surface which contains volcanic rocks. They are also the first extraterrestrial celestial bodies' samples brought back to Earth by Chinese scientists.

As of early June this year, a total of 258 lunar samples weighing 77.7 grams have been collected by Chang’e-5 have been distributed to 114 research teams from 40 research institutions. Researchers studying these lunar samples have accomplished a number of milestone achievements with over 70 findings being published in major academic journals both at home and abroad.
 
Chang’e-6 expected to bring back basalt from moon’s far side from 2.5 billion years ago: study
The samples China's Chang'e-6 lunar probe will bring back to Earth from the moon is possibly basalt from 2.5 billion years ago, Chinese scientists said in a latest study published in The Innovation, a partner journal of Cell Press, on Tuesday, the day Chang'e-6 is scheduled to come back to its home planet with the world’s first sample from the moon’s far side after a 53-day journey in space, the Global Times learned from the press.

Chang'e-6 probe was launched on May 3. After experiencing lunar orbit insertion and the separation of the lander-ascender combination and the orbiter-returner combination, it successfully landed within the Apollo crater, which is inside the largest impact basin on the Moon, i.e., South Polar-Aitken (SPA) basin.

Research on the returned samples could provide ground truth for the study of the geological evolution history of the moon. However, previous missions all collected samples from the nearside of the moon, which is significantly different to the far side of the moon in terms of the thickness of the lunar crust, magma activities, and compositions. Therefore, the samples from the far side of the moon are of great significance for a comprehensive understanding of the history of the moon, read the study.

"There are significant differences between the terrain, lunar crust thickness, magma activity, and composition of the near side and far side of the moon. Chang'e 6 has obtained samples from the far side of the moon for the first time, which is expected to reveal one of the most fundamental scientific questions in lunar science research: what causes the differences between the two sides of the moon?" Yue Zongyu, first-author of the study and researcher from the Institute of Geology and Geophysics Chinese Academy of Sciences, said in a statement the Cell Press sent to the Global Times.

According to the numerical simulation of the formation process of the SPA, scientists found that Chang’e-6 landed at the edge of the SPA impact melting zone that is presumably composed by the impact melt of the lunar mantle. The Apollo crater subsequently excavated deep material further, which constitutes the basement of the Chang’e-6 landing area. Later erupted basalt covered these basement rocks, and they also constitute the main source of the Chang'e-6 samples.

Based on the dating method of crater size-frequency distribution, scientists found the basalt is from about 2.5 billion years ago. The Chang’e-6 samples also possibly contain the basement rocks as excavated and ejected by craters, and they can provide crucial information for our understanding of the lunar geological history along with the basalt samples, according to the study.

“What I most hope for is that the samples brought back by Chang'e 6 contain some impact melt materials from the Apollo impact craters and the SPA basin (fragments produced when smaller celestial bodies impact the moon), which can provide crucial clues for studying the early impact flux on the moon. Once we obtain this information, it will not only help clarify the role of early meteorite impacts in the formation of the moon, but also have significant implications in analyzing the early impact history within the solar system," Yue noted.

 
Europe’s heavy-lift rocket ready to launch

After years of delays, the heavy-lift launcher Ariane 6 is scheduled for an inaugural flight next week. Some European missions have been grounded since Ariane 5, which sent the James Webb Space Telescope into orbit, was retired last year. “You don’t want to depend on anybody, and that’s why all spacefaring nations want their own access to space,” says Lucia Linares from the European Space Agency. Ariane 6 has already been booked for around 30 launches, including for commercial customers.

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The Ariane 6 rocket on the launch pad at Europe’s spaceport in French Guiana. Credit: M. Pédoussaut/ESA
 
Stars hint at an unusual black hole lurking in our Galaxy

By perusing two decades’ worth of pictures from the Hubble Space Telescope archives, astrophysicists have found what could be evidence of a nearby black hole at least 8,200 times as massive as the Sun.

The object would be the second-largest black hole to be found in our Galaxy, if further studies can confirm the findings, which are described today in Nature. It could also be the strongest candidate yet for an intermediate-mass black hole — an object in the enigmatic no man’s land between the ‘supermassive’ black holes thought to lie at the centre of most galaxies, and much smaller ones that weigh about as much as a single large star.

Astrophysicist Maximilian Häberle at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany, and his collaborators examined more than 500 images of ω Centauri, a dense cluster of 10 million stars roughly 18,000 light years (5.43 kiloparsecs) from the Solar System. The images had mostly been taken to help calibrate Hubble’s instruments over the years.

The team patched the images together to reconstruct the movement of more than 150,000 stars in the cluster. Most stars moved as theoretical models predicted, Häberle says. “But then, there were some that were moving faster.” Seven stars, all close to the centre of ω Centauri, were moving too fast to be held by the gravity of the cluster alone.

This suggested that the stars had been accelerated by the gravitational pull of a massive object, such as a black hole. From the stars’ velocities, the object would need to be at least 8,200 solar masses, but it could weigh as much as 50,000 Suns. “We did not know before whether we would find it or not,” says Häberle. “It was a little bit of a risk, and we might have found nothing.”

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Underground cave found on moon could be ideal base for explorers

Researchers find evidence for cave accessible from surface – which could shelter humans from harsh lunar environment

Ian Sample Science editor
Mon 15 Jul 2024 11.00 EDT
Researchers have found evidence for a substantial underground cave on the moon that is accessible from the surface, making the spot a prime location to build a future lunar base.

The cave appears to be reachable from an open pit in the Mare Tranquillitatis (Sea of Tranquility), the ancient lava plain where the Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin first set foot on the moon more than half a century ago.

Analysis of radar data collected by Nasa’s lunar reconnaissance orbiter (LRO) revealed that the Mare Tranquillitatis pit, the deepest known pit on the moon, leads to a cave 45 metres wide and up to 80 metres long, an area equivalent to 14 tennis courts. The cave lies about 150 metres beneath the surface.

Lorenzo Bruzzone, of the University of Trento in Italy, said the cave was “probably an empty lava tube”, adding that such features could serve as human habitats for future explorers as they were “a natural shelter against the harsh lunar environment”.

Lunar orbiters first spotted pits on the moon more than a decade ago. Many are thought to be “skylights” that connect to underground caves such as lava tubes, giant underground tunnels that form through volcanic processes.

Such caves could form the basis for a moonbase or an emergency lunar shelter because the temperature is relatively stable inside and astronauts would be naturally shielded from harmful cosmic rays, solar radiation and micrometeorites.

Previous images taken from the LRO showed that the bottom of the Mare Tranquillitatis pit was strewn with boulders up to 10 metres wide. But it was unclear whether the pit was enclosed or served as an entry point to an underground cave, such as a lava tube whose roof had collapsed.

Writing in Nature Astronomy, the scientists describe how they used LRO data and computer simulations to show that the 100 metre-wide pit, which is bordered by vertical or overhanging walls, leads to a sloping floor and a cave that extends for tens of metres westwards.

Researchers are keen to study the rocks inside such caves as they are likely to hold clues to the moon’s formation and volcanic history. The caves may also contain water ice, a resource Bruzzone said was essential for long-term lunar missions and colonisation.

At least 200 pits have been spotted on the moon and many found on lava fields could be entrances to cavernous subterranean lava tubes. “The main advantage of caves is that they make available the main structural parts of a possible human base without requiring complex construction activities,” said Leonardo Carrer, the study’s first author.

In preparation for humans returning to the moon, space agencies are already wondering how to assess the structural stability of caves and reinforce their walls and ceilings. Habitats may also need monitoring systems to warn of movement or seismic activity and have separate areas for astronauts to retreat to should sections of their cave collapse.

“Lunar cave systems have been proposed as great places to site future crewed bases, as the thick cave ceiling of rock is ideal to protect people and infrastructure from the wildly varying day-night lunar surface temperature variations and to block high energy radiation which bathes the lunar surface,” said Katherine Joy, professor in earth sciences at the University of Manchester. “However, we currently know very little about the underground structures below these pit entrances.”

Robert Wagner, a researcher at Arizona State University, said one of the biggest challenges would be access. “Getting into that pit requires descending 125 metres before you reach the floor, and the rim is a steep slope of loose debris where any movement will send little avalanches down on to anyone below,” he said. “It’s certainly possible to get in and out, but it will take a significant amount of infrastructure.”
 
Underground cave found on moon could be ideal base for explorers

Researchers find evidence for cave accessible from surface – which could shelter humans from harsh lunar environment

Ian Sample Science editor
Mon 15 Jul 2024 11.00 EDT
They are full of clangers though?

Spoiler Pictures for comparison :
What they found:
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Clangers home:
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Sulfur crystals found on Mars

NASA revealed the find in a post last week, recounting how the rover was trundling up the Gediz Vallis channel – a formation it's thought was carved by a river around three billion years ago. The channel is of interest as the ridges offer a good look at plenty of layers of Martian rock.

The channel is a known source of sulfates: salty stuff that forms when water evaporates. The presence of sulfates is another reason we're visiting Gediz Vallis channel.

As Curiosity went about its business, the rolling lab crushed a rock that, upon further inspection, was found to be composed entirely of pure sulfur.

Curiosity also spotted many more rocks that, on the outside, look like the piece of pure sulfur it crushed.

Sulfur only forms under specific conditions, so finding plenty of it in one spot is tantalizing and unexpected.

"Finding a field of stones made of pure sulfur is like finding an oasis in the desert," gushed Curiosity's project scientist, Ashwin Vasavada of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. "It shouldn't be there, so now we have to explain it. Discovering strange and unexpected things is what makes planetary exploration so exciting."

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And now they may have found the remains of Martians

These tiny ‘leopard spots’, discovered in a rock on Mars by NASA’s Perseverance rover, could be possible signs of microbes that once lived on the red planet. “On Earth, these types of features in rocks are often associated with the fossilized record of microbes living in the subsurface,” says astrobiologist and Perseverance team member David Flannery. Without returning a rock sample to Earth, it will be difficult to further investigate the spots’ origin. “We have zapped that rock with lasers and X-rays and imaged it literally day and night from just about every angle imaginable,” says the rover’s project scientist Ken Farley. “Scientifically, Perseverance has nothing more to give.”

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Underground cave found on moon could be ideal base for explorers

Researchers find evidence for cave accessible from surface – which could shelter humans from harsh lunar environment

Ian Sample Science editor
Mon 15 Jul 2024 11.00 EDT
Hold parties in there, all proceeds go towards nasa
 
nasa will not be allowed on Mars . In case you haven't heard about rich men .
 
trying to discover whether ı would give a lift . Presumably .
 
Super blue Moon

The Moon is not only full, but it's also a supermoon, and it's a blue Moon (the article explains all this).

I can't see it because - surprise! - the sky is completely clouded over and we're having a thunderstorm.

One guy in the comments said he was having trouble with his TV reception and wanted to know if the Moon is to blame. :wallbash:

Here's a Supermoon from 2013:

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Freak Tesla accidents; superyachts sinking; submersibles imploding
Lots of billionaires risking their lives and dying lately.

Now another billionaire will attempt the 1st private space walk about 3 times higher than the space station!
3 days from now, on August 27th.


Good luck Polaris Dawn :salute:
 
NASA astronauts stuck in space:


They will be coming back in a SpaceX spacecraft next year.

 
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