The junk-on-junk collision created even more space junk, not to mention a headache for the scientists working on the ESA’s clean up mission.
Category: space – Page 251
O.o!!
Ever since Voyager 2 flew past Neptune in 1989, the giant dark smudges that appear in the distant planet’s atmosphere have presented a strange puzzle.
Now, for the first time, we have observed one with Earth-based instruments in unprecedented resolution, helping scientists figure out why those patches appear so dark and why they are so different from spots on other planets.
“Since the first discovery of a dark spot, I’ve always wondered what these short-lived and elusive dark features are,” says astronomer Patrick Irwin of the University of Oxford in the UK.
Disavowal, though, is not only about waste. The disavowal of dark truths is arguably a theme of modernity itself. Modern practices around death are revealing in this regard: In many traditional societies, a corpse is kept in the family space until its burial; in most modern societies, the dead body is carted off immediately. Embalming is common to halt (and hide) the process of decay. It is precisely this approach that Lee’s mushroom burial suit is critiquing.
From a fungal vantage point, this system is indeed psychotic. Mycoremediation may not be the systemic intervention that was hoped for, but as an expression of one’s personal concern for our toxified landscape, it is far from insignificant. Rather, it is a tangible way for people without much institutional power to engage in the ongoing fight against environmental damage, to try to contain the disasters seeping around us. As a domestic intervention, mycoremediation is modest but culturally meaningful — a method of repair and reconnection.
The power of fungi comes from the proximity they have with dark truths: the abject, the mess we need to face, mortality, vitality, kinship. In other contexts, this proximity elicits wariness, but in our current crisis, it holds the possibility of a healing power — a pharmacological power. Fungi can take on the mess and the junk, break it down and transform and incorporate it rather than ignore it.
By probing the Universe on atomic scales and smaller, we can reveal the entirety of the Standard Model, and with it, the quantum Universe.
India began exploring the Moon’s surface with a rover on Thursday, a day after it became the first nation to land a craft near the largely unexplored lunar south pole.
Pragyan— Wisdom in Sanskrit—rolled out of the lander hours after the latest milestone in India’s ambitious but cut-price space program sparked huge celebrations across the country.
“Rover ramped down the lander and India took a walk on the moon!” the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Thursday.
The first images from India’s Chandrayaan-3 mission taken after the probe’s historic moon touchdown reveal a pockmarked surface near the lunar south pole.
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) shared the images on X, formerly Twitter, on Wednesday (Aug. 23), about four hours after the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft completed its smooth descent.
Earth Over The Next Billion Years
Posted in evolution, media & arts, space
Our lifespans might feel like a long time by human standards, but to the Earth it’s the blink of an eye. Even the entirety of human history represents a tiny slither of the vast chronology for our planet. We often think about geological time when looking back into the past, but today we look ahead. What might happen on our planet in the next billion years?
Written and presented by Prof David Kipping, edited by Jorge Casas.
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::Music::
Music licensed by SoundStripe.com (SS)[shorturl.at/ptBHI], Artlist.io, via Creative Commons (CC) Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), or with permission from the artist.
► 00:00 Hill — All Flesh Is as the Grass [https://open.spotify.com/track/1WuMK4qy9tUSGMINoEClxL?si=5635838259b34fa4]
► 03:56 Hill — The Great Alchemist [https://open.spotify.com/track/3PAx36jIsKiQMT9CQsRk4G?si=035fc819505445a1]
► 07:50 Outside the Sky — Trillions.
► 11:41 Hill — We Are Unceasing Beings [https://open.spotify.com/track/3TnhawPMycRrPuTnKzNGNN?si=bddf4e61177d48c4]
► 14:57 Indive — Halo Drive.
::Chapters::
New images from the James Webb Space Telescope have revealed intricate details of a dying star’s final stages, NASA said Monday. The Ring Nebula images, featuring a glowing halo and vibrant colors, also led to a surprising discovery, one astronomer said.
Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument provided the clearest view yet of the faint molecular halo, the space agency said. It captured up to 10 concentric “arcs” in the halo, which scientists believe formed about every 280 years as the central star shed its outer layers.
Roger Wesson, a research associate at Cardiff University who reviewed the Webb telescope’s observations, called the discovery of the arcs a “surprising revelation.”
India is preparing for its second attempted moon landing, a historic moment for the world’s most populous country.
Chandrayaan-3, which means “mooncraft” in Sanskrit, is scheduled to put down its Vikram lander shortly after 6pm (1230 GMT) near the little-explored lunar south pole in what would be a world first for any space programme.
The Ring Nebula reveals intricate structures symbolizing a dying star’s final phases.
The James Webb Space Telescope has released new detailed images of the iconic Ring Nebula in never-before-seen detail. This planetary nebula’s intricate structure and composition can be seen in the new compelling images obtained by Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI).
The Ring Nebula was discovered in 1,779 by astronomers Antoine Darquier de Pellepoix and Charles Messier. It is one of the most prominent and luminous objects in our night skies, approximately 2,500 light-years from Earth.