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Space

SPACE: Why Is the Universe Moving Too Fast?

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The universe is moving too fast and nobody knows why. Back in the early years of the universe, right after the Big Bang, everything blasted away from everything else. We can still see the light from that blast, by observing very faraway parts of the universe where light takes billions of years to reach our telescopes. And we can measure how fast things were moving in those faraway spotsBased on that speed, we can calculate how fast the universe should be expanding today. But when astronomers have tried to directly measure how fast the universe is expanding today — a … Read more

Take a Walk On the Dark Side (of the Moon) – Live Science

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Looking up at the silvery orb of the Moon, you might recognize familiar shadows and shapes on its face from one night to the next. You see the same view of the Moon our early ancestors did as it lighted their way after sundown. Only one side of the spherical Moon is ever visible from Earth — it wasn’t until 1959 when the Soviet Spacecraft Luna 3 orbited the Moon and sent pictures home that human beings were able to see the “far side” of the Moon for the first time. A phenomenon called tidal locking is responsible for the … Read more

Let’s Move the Earth

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Earth - pixabay

In the Chinese science fiction film The Wandering Earth, recently released on Netflix, humanity attempts to change the Earth’s orbit using enormous thrusters in order to escape the expanding sun — and prevent a collision with Jupiter. The scenario may one day come true. In five billion years, the sun will run out of fuel and expand, most likely engulfing the Earth. A more immediate threat is a global warming apocalypse. Moving the Earth to a wider orbit could be a solution — and it is possible in theory. But how could we go about it and what are the … Read more

SPACE: Nasa Developing Soft Robots for Planetary exploration – And They’re Weird

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Think robots are all square corners and rigid metal parts? Think again. Two interns at NASA are part of a larger group working on “soft robots” that could be used for exploring worlds beyond Earth. This includes the moon, NASA’s next major destination for astronauts. The advantage of a soft robot is that it’s flexible and, in some ways, better able to adapt to new environments. Soft robots move in ways similar to living organisms, which expands their range of motion, perhaps making it easier to squeeze into a tight spot, for example. Interns Chuck Sullivan and Jack Fitzpatrick are … Read more

SPACE: Thar Be Quakes on Mars

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Scientists just felt the Red Planet move under their feet — robotically from millions of miles away, on the stark surface of Mars. On April 6, NASA’s InSight lander sensed its first confirmed marsquake, a phenomenon scientists suspected, but couldn’t confirm, occurred on the neighboring planet. Measuring the Martian equivalent of earthquakes, seismic waves traveling through the interior of the planet, was among the lander’s key science goals. “We’ve been waiting months for our first marsquake,” Philippe Lognonné, the principal investigator for the seismometer instrument, said in a statement released by the French space agency, which runs the instrument with … Read more

SPACE: Something’s Poking Holes in the Milky Way

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Milky Way - Pixabay

There’s a “dark impactor” blasting holes in our galaxy. We can’t see it. It might not be made of normal matter. Our telescopes haven’t directly detected it. But it sure seems like it’s out there. “It’s a dense bullet of something,” said Ana Bonaca, a researcher at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, who discovered evidence for the impactor. Bonaca’s evidence for the dark impactor, which she presented April 15 at the conference of the American Physical Society in Denver, is a series of holes in our galaxy’s longest stellar stream, GD-1. Stellar streams are lines of stars moving together across … Read more

Is Mars Venting Its Water Into Space?

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Mars

There’s a hole in the Martian atmosphere that opens once every two years, venting the planet’s limited water supply into space — and dumping the rest of the water at the planet’s poles. That’s the explanation advanced by a team of Russian and German scientists who studied the odd behavior of water on the Red Planet. Earthbound scientists can see that there’s water vapor high in the Martian atmosphere, and that water is migrating to the planet’s poles. But until now, there was no good explanation for how the Martian water cycle works, or why the once-drenched planet is now … Read more

SPACE: Algae – It’ What’s For Dinner

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algae - deposit photos

Astronauts on the International Space Station will begin testing an innovative algae-powered bioreactor to assess its feasibility for future long-duration space missions. The algae-powered bioreactor, called the Photobioreactor, represents a major step toward creating a closed-loop life-support system, which could one day sustain astronauts without cargo resupply missions from Earth. This will be particularly important for future long-duration missions to the moon or Mars, which require more supplies than a spacecraft can carry, according to a statement from the German Aerospace Center (DLR). The Photobioreactor arrived at the space station Monday (May 6) on a SpaceX Dragon cargo ship. The … Read more

SPACE: Did A Neutron Star Collision Shower Early Earth With Elements Crucial for Life?

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neutron star collision - NASA

Two astronomers think they’ve pinpointed the ancient stellar collision that gave our solar system its cache of precious gold and platinum — some of it, anyway. In a new study published May 1 in the journal Nature, the duo analyzed the remnants of radioactive isotopes, or versions of molecules with different numbers of neutrons, in a very old meteorite. Then, they compared those values with isotope ratios produced by a computer simulation of neutron star mergers — cataclysmic stellar collisions that can cause ripples in the fabric of space-time. The researchers found that a single neutron star collision, starting about … Read more

U=(N/T)M*G: Imminent

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As I read this article, I didn’t realize all the pieces had started coming together. That humanity was really on the brink of finding life outside of our little half-evolved mudball. A dream so many have and labored toward about to come to fruition. The real interesting information, the bit that sucked me down the biological rabbit hole, was the many many ways life might manifest. Yes, science fiction has explored a wide variety of alien lifeforms, but I think, when it’s all said and done, the life we do find won’t be anything like we imagined. As a science … Read more