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Category: space – Page 137

New data from ALICE may contribute to solving the cosmic muon puzzle

Cosmic rays are high-energy particles from outer space that strike Earth’s atmosphere, generating showers of secondary particles, such as muons, that can reach the planet’s surface. In recent years, ground-based experiments have detected more cosmic muons than current theoretical models predict, a discrepancy known as the muon puzzle.

Underground experiments offer good conditions for the detection of cosmic muons, because the rock or soil above the experiments absorbs the other shower components. They could therefore help to solve the muon puzzle. One example is ALICE at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

Designed to study the products of heavy-ion collisions, ALICE is also well-suited for detecting cosmic muons thanks to its location in a cavern 52 meters underground, shielded by 28 meters of overburden rock and an additional 1 meter of magnet yoke.

Trillion dollars’ worth of platinum waiting to be mined on the moon

Craters on the moon could hold over a trillion dollars’ worth of platinum and other precious metals deposited there by asteroids. That means lunar prospecting may be more economically viable than travelling to asteroids individually to mine them – but the legality of doing this on the moon remains unclear.

Jayanth Chennamangalam, an independent researcher in Vancouver, Canada, and his colleagues looked at whether there may be commercial quantities of platinum group metals (platinum, palladium, rhodium, ruthenium, iridium and osmium) that were left behind by asteroids hitting the lunar surface.

Image: NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio

Mining craters on the moon could be more practical than extracting precious metals from asteroids, but it might also introduce new legal difficulties.

By James Woodford

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AI breakthrough unlocks hidden patterns in the universe’s structure

A new AI-powered method is changing how scientists measure the universe. Developed by researchers at the Flatiron Institute and their partners, this technique offers a far more accurate way to determine the cosmos’ key properties.

The approach, known as Simulation-Based Inference of Galaxies (SimBIG), pulls hidden clues from galaxy patterns. It goes beyond older techniques by uncovering information that was previously out of reach.

Using AI, the team cut uncertainty in critical parameters—like how clumpy matter is in the universe—to less than half. These results match closely with other cosmic measurements, including the light from the universe’s earliest moments.

Why We’re Trying To Colonize Space

This docu-series covers all three of Earth’s next landing options – Asteroids, the Moon and Mars. The programmes explore the scientific reasons for and against each celestial body’s case to be the next that humans might colonise. They explore the technical and logistical problems and benefits of each – EG temperature at night and day, ability or inability to harness solar power and more.

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Watch the best history documentaries, with 50% off your first 3 months, on History Hit: https://historyhit.com/subscribe Using the code SPARK

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Twin spacecraft mission reveals there might be a ‘hot’ side of the moon

The moon’s nearside (that is, the side facing Earth) is dark-colored and dominated by ancient lava flows, whereas the farside is more rugged—and NASA researchers now suggest it’s due to a wonky lunar interior. Using data from twin spacecraft named Ebb and Flow, they found a 2–3% difference in the moon mantle’s ability to deform on each side. They say this data could be explained by the nearest hemisphere’s insides being up to 170°C hotter than the farside.

The detection of differences between the moon’s interior in the near and far hemispheres is reported in Nature this week.

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