Space Stuff

I studied hard, I trained for years. Yay, now I'm an astronaut in space. Argggh, leukemia!
Only veteran 'nauts should think about going to Mars, judging by this research
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Floating silently among the stars may sound idyllic, but the longer you stay in space, the worse it is for your immune system, according to this latest research.

NASA teamed up with boffins at the University of Arizona, University of Houston, and Louisiana State University, in the US, to analyse blood samples from eight International Space Station astronauts. They found that natural killer cells (NK cells), a type of white blood cell critical for fighting off viral infections and cancerous tumors, were impaired for 'nauts spending longer than six months in space.
 
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NASA pops titanium tea cosy over Martian InSight probe instrument
Seismometer looking for whole lot of shakin' going on
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Pic NASA’s InSight lander has been revamped to let scientists study the interior of Mars for the first time.

The lander’s seismometer was carefully placed on the surface of the Red Planet in December last year, and has now been enclosed in a metallic dome. The cap acts as a shield protecting the sensitive Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) instrument from wind and heat, both of which can rattle the device and poison its data.

The shield is made out of chain mail and is stuffed with thermal blankets at the bottom. The shape is aerodynamic to ensure any passing wind presses the instrument towards the planet's surface so it won't topple over.

“Temperature is one of our biggest bugaboos," said Bruce Banerdt, the principal investigator for the InSight mission, on Monday.

"Think of the shield as putting a cozy over your food on a table. It keeps SEIS from warming up too much during the day or cooling off too much at night. In general, we want to keep the temperature as steady as possible."
 
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Inside-out dense iron planets probably the result of massive collision
Unusual planet compositions might point to a world-shattering origin.
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How violent are the early histories of solar systems? Planets are built by the collisions of smaller bodies, so a certain amount of violence is probably unavoidable. Our own Earth-Moon system seems to have been formed by a smash-up of two planets, while Uranus seems to have been flipped on its side by a collision, and Mercury seems to have lost a lot of its material early in its history. Is this sort of history common as planets form?

Answering these questions requires a detailed understanding of the planets themselves, knowledge difficult to attain for any solar system but our own. But now, following up on observations made with the Kepler space telescope, researchers are suggesting they've found evidence of a smash-up in an exosolar system about 1,750 light years from Earth.
 
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NASA “still working toward” 2020 launch of massive SLS rocket
Multiple concerns remain: cost, schedule, management, delayed upper stage.

NASA has continued to make progress with the development of its large Space Launch System (SLS) rocket as work continued on its critical core stage throughout the partial government shutdown, and the agency is nearing critical hardware tests. However, it now seems all but certain that NASA will miss its latest launch date for the first flight of the rocket, June 2020.

Multiple sources have told Ars that while NASA is still targeting sometime later in 2020 for a test launch of the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft, known as Exploration Mission-1, this flight is likely to slip into 2021.

This week, in response to a query about potential delays, a spokeswoman for the agency's exploration program, Kathryn Hambleton, said the agency is not ready to discuss a new schedule yet. "NASA is still assessing impacts as a result of the shutdown, but we are still working toward a launch in 2020," she told Ars.
 
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What a smashing time, cheer astroboffins: Epic exoplanet space prang evidence eyeballed
Kepler 107c is way too beefy for its own good
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Picture of the simulated crash.

Astronomers believe they may have uncovered the first tantalizing evidence of two exoplanets that have smashed into one another, according to new research.

Over short timescales, planets appear to be stagnant. Scientists have to find signs that they have undergone drastic changes that took place over millions or billions of years. They’re mainly affected by two scenarios: One where their parent star’s crippling radiation strips them of their atmospheres, and the other is having to weather the impact from crashing into other massive objects.

Scientists have found many exoplanets being battered by stellar rays, but have yet to spot a collision. Now, a large international group of researchers reckon they’ve found one that bears the brunt of such an monumental accident.
 
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French auditor says Ariane 6 rocket too conventional to compete with SpaceX
"This new launcher does not constitute a sustainable response."
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Artist's view of the configuration of Ariane 6 using two boosters (A62) on the ELA-4 launch pad together with its mobile launch gantry.

France's independent state auditor, the Cour des comptes, has raised concerns about the viability of Europe's new rocket, the Ariane 6 launcher. In its 2019 annual report, the auditor said the France-based launch company Arianespace is also being too cautious as it grapples with competitors like the US-based SpaceX.

"In 2017, Arianespace lost global leadership in the commercial market to the American company SpaceX," the report finds. "This competitor's business model is based on the breakthrough model of reusable rockets."

The report discusses the potential for further losses of market share and revenues against the rise of competition from SpaceX and a global dip in demand for the launch of commercial satellites to geostationary orbit. It also criticizes the choices European leaders made in 2014, when they selected the design for its next-generation rocket, the Ariane 6. This booster may fly for the first time in 2020 from the European spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.

"This new launcher does not constitute a sustainable response in order to be competitive in a commercial market in stagnation," the auditor's report states. The Ariane 6 rocket design is too "cautious," according to the report, relying on mostly traditional technologies.
 
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NASA has taken a significant step toward human landings on the Moon
Traditional aerospace powers as well as newer companies like SpaceX are likely to bid.

For two years, the Trump administration has made various noises about returning humans to the Moon. There have been bill signings with Apollo astronauts such as Buzz Aldrin and Harrison Schmitt. Vice President Mike Pence has traveled to NASA facilities around the country to make speeches. And the president himself has mused about the Moon and Mars.

However, beyond talk of returning humans to the Moon, much of the country's civil space policy and budgeting priorities really hadn't changed much until late last week. On Thursday, NASA released a broad agency announcement asking the US aerospace industry for its help to develop large landers that, as early as 2028, would carry astronauts to the surface of the Moon.
 
To almost no one’s surprise, Mars One is done
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Mars One had some drawings. But that is about it.

To the surprise of almost no one, Mars One appears to be dead. This project, founded in 2013, said it would raise funds from fees and marketing rights in order to send humans on a one-way mission to settle the Red Planet.

Now, thanks to a user on Reddit, we know that the effort has come to an apparent end. Mars One consists of two entities: the Dutch not-for-profit Mars One Foundation and the publicly traded, Swiss-based Mars One Ventures. A civil court based in Basel, Switzerland, opened bankruptcy proceedings on the latter company in mid-January. Efforts on Monday to contact officials with Mars One were not successful.
 
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Robert said:
To almost no one’s surprise, Mars One is done
roadmap2011-800x280.jpg

Mars One had some drawings. But that is about it.

To the surprise of almost no one, Mars One appears to be dead. This project, founded in 2013, said it would raise funds from fees and marketing rights in order to send humans on a one-way mission to settle the Red Planet.

Now, thanks to a user on Reddit, we know that the effort has come to an apparent end. Mars One consists of two entities: the Dutch not-for-profit Mars One Foundation and the publicly traded, Swiss-based Mars One Ventures. A civil court based in Basel, Switzerland, opened bankruptcy proceedings on the latter company in mid-January. Efforts on Monday to contact officials with Mars One were not successful.
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I seem to remember arguing with some people at the time who thought this was the real deal. How many people applied to them? I wouldn't exactly call that "almost no one".
 
redrumloa said:
I seem to remember arguing with some people at the time who thought this was the real deal. How many people applied to them? I wouldn't exactly call that "almost no one".
-EMPHASIS MINE-
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I think they mean to almost no one's surprise now.
Even most of those who were "selected" must have realised things were not going well quite some time ago.
 
Sad news:
Nasa makes final attempt to communicate with Mars rover
Mars rover, Opportunity, has been sending data to Earth for 15 years but fell silent eight months ago
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The rover Opportunity on the surface of Mars.

The veteran Mars rover, Opportunity, appears to have bitten the dust. The golf-buggy sized robotic vehicle last made contact with Earth eight months ago, but fell silent after being caught in a global dust storm.

The rover landed on the red planet in January 2004 shortly after its twin – a rover called Spirit. However the latter got stuck in soil in 2009, and was declared dead in 2011.

By contrast, Opportunity has continued to trundle over the surface of Mars and send data back to Earth, acting as as sort of remote geologist. Over the 15 years it has spent on Mars, Opportunity has clocked up more than 45km – despite being designed to travel a mere 1,006 meters and last just 90 Martian days.

Opportunity has made a host of important discoveries, among them confirming that parts of Mars were once covered in water, and could have been a habitable environment, and finding the first meteorite ever to be discovered on another planet, The rover has also sent back stunning images, including capturing a Martian “dust devil” twisting across the planet’s surface and panoramic shots that provided breathtaking views of Martian craters.

The final attempt at communication on Tuesday night was, it seems, an emotional affair.Tanya Harrison, a planetary scientist who worked on the mission tweeted: “There were tears. There were hugs. There were memories and laughs shared.”
 
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Aluminum may be key to making exosolar systems with water worlds
Radioactive aluminum could control water content of planetary building blocks.
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Should we expect all the planets of an exosolar system to have similar levels of water?

Mini-Neptunes. Super-Earths. There's a huge diversity of exoplanets out there, many of them unlike anything we have in our Solar System. So how does a single physical process—the aggregation of bodies within a disk of gas and dust—produce so many different outcomes?

That's a question tackled by a paper in this week's Nature Astronomy. An international team of researchers has modeled the formation of planets early in the history of exosolar systems. And they find it's possible to radically change the water content of planets based on the amount of a radioactive element present in the material forming the exosolar system. The difference, they suggest, can determine whether a system is filled with ocean worlds or whether it winds up looking more like our own Solar System.
 
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NASA emphasizing “speed” in its return to the Moon
"We think this is the right basic architecture, but we aren't closed-minded,"

On Thursday, NASA leaders held an industry day to answer questions about the space agency's plans to develop landers that will ultimately enable a human return to the Moon. Their overriding message to the US aerospace community is that NASA is serious about returning to the Moon, and the agency needs the community's help in order to do so as soon as possible.

"We want to strike a balance between getting to the Moon as fast as possible while also, when we get to the Moon, we're there to stay," NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said during a media call before the event. "This is the big vision."
 
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adz said:
That would be a freaky sight to say the least, shame I'm on the other side of the globe :mad:
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Not much more luck for me. I live in a heavily street-lit area and it's often overcast anyway. I'm lucky to get a decent glimpse of Saturn through the scope a couple of times a year.
 
Robert said:
Not much more luck for me. I live in a heavily street-lit area and it's often overcast anyway. I'm lucky to get a decent glimpse of Saturn through the scope a couple of times a year.
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I live semi-rural so I get somewhat darkish sky's, plus I have a totally unobscured view of the southern sky, so it's not all bad :)
 
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