Lifeboat Foundation

Next month, a total solar eclipse will pass over a slice of the South Pacific, Chile, and Argentina—and directly over an observatory in the Andes run by the National Science Foundation.

Astronomers and physicists are now preparing the experiments they plan to run during the eclipse. As with past eclipses, these experiments will focus on observing the Sun, as well as the effects of eclipses on Earth.

In the age of big data, we are quickly producing far more digital information than we can possibly store.

Last year, $20 billion was spent on new data centers in the US alone, doubling the capital expenditure on data center infrastructure from 2016.

And even with skyrocketing investment in data storage, corporations and the public sector are falling behind.

Continue reading “A Data Storage Revolution? DNA Can Store Near Limitless Data in Almost Zero Space” »

Exactly how and when the Saturn’s rings formed is an issue that has fascinated astronomers and planetary scientists for centuries.

The rings are made mostly of particles of water ice that range in size from smaller than a grain of sand to as large as mountains.

Continue reading “Origins of Saturn’s rings are uncovered thanks to NASA’s Cassini probe” »

The Lunar Polar Gas-Dynamic Mining Outpost (LGMO) (see quad chart graphic) is a breakthrough mission architecture that promises to greatly reduce the cost of human exploration and industrialization of the Moon. LGMO is based on two new innovations that together solve the problem of affordable lunar polar ice mining for propellant production. The first innovation is based on a new insight into lunar topography: our analysis suggests that there are large (hundreds of meters) landing areas in small (0.5−1.5 km) nearpolar craters on which the surface is permafrost in perpetual darkness but with perpetual sunlight available at altitudes of only 10s to 100s of meters. In these prospective landing sites, deployable solar arrays held vertically on masts 100 m or so in length (lightweight and feasible in lunar gravity) can provide nearly continuous power.

This mission is going underground.

Space Technology Mission Directorate, STMD

2022: First astronauts.

Not content with just sending astronauts into the cosmos, India is also planning an ambitious project to develop and launch its own space station, the head of its space agency has announced.

Dr Kailasavadivoo Sivan, Chairman of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), told reporters on Thursday that the effort will be an extension of its Gaganyaan mission, which aims to blast New Delhi’s first ever astronauts into orbit by August 2022.

Continue reading “India sets sights on its own space station around 2030 World News” »

Are ‘one-in-a-thousand-year’ catastrophic impacts by meteors actually more frequent? Earth’s close call this summer with a meteor swarm will give astronomers a chance to figure out the risk potential.

Asteroid mining. Gene editing. Synthetic meat. We could provide for the needs of everyone, in style. It just takes some imagination.