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Category: space – Page 325

The experiment is a collaboration between the University of Cambridge and Université Libre de Bruxelles – partner institutions of the European Commission’s Graphene Flagship – along with the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC) in the United Arab Emirates, York University in Canada, and the European Space Agency (ESA).

Regolith is composed of extremely sharp, tiny and sticky grains and, since the Apollo missions, it has been one of the biggest challenges lunar missions have had to overcome. Regolith can cause mechanical and electrostatic damage to equipment and is therefore also hazardous for astronauts. It clogs spacesuits’ joints, obscures visors, erodes spacesuits and protective layers, and is a potential health hazard.

Cambridge researchers have produced special graphene composites that are meant to reduce regolith adhesion. The graphene samples will be monitored via an optical camera, which will record footage throughout the mission. Researchers from Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) will gather information during the mission and suggest adjustments to the path and orientation of the rover. Data and images obtained will be used to study the effects of the moon environment and the regolith abrasive stresses on the samples.

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International Gemini Observatory uncovers surprising evidence of colliding neutron stars after probing aftermath of gamma-ray burst.

While investigating the aftermath of a long gamma-ray burst (GRB), two independent teams of astronomers using a host of telescopes in space and on Earth have uncovered the unexpected hallmarks of a kilonova. This is the colossal explosion triggered by colliding neutron stars. This discovery challenges the prevailing theory that long GRBs exclusively come from supernovae, the end-of-life explosions of massive stars.

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HEXATRACK-Space Express Concept Connecting Lunar &Martian City (Lunar & Mars Glass) and Beyond — SHORT VERSIONHEXATRACK-Space Express Concept, designed and created by Yosuke A. Yamashiki, Kyoto University.
Lunar Glass & Mars Glass, designed and created by Takuya Ono, Kajima Co. Ltd.
Visual Effect and detailed design are generated by Juniya Okamura.
Concept Advisor Naoko Yamazaki, AstronautSIC Human Spaceology Center, GSAIS, Kyoto UniversityVR of Lunar&Mars Glass — created by Natsumi Iwato and Mamiko Hikita, Kyoto University.
VR contents of Lunar&Mars Glass by Shinji Asano, Natsumi Iwato, Mamiko Hikita and Junya Okamura.
Daidaros concept by Takuya Ono.
Terraformed Mars were designed by Fuka Takagi & Yosuke A. Yamashiki.
Exoplanet image were created by Ryusuke Kuroki, Fuka Takagi, Hiroaki Sato, Ayu Shiragashi and Y. A. Yamashiki.
All Music (” Lunar City” “Martian”“Neptune”) are composed and played by Yosuke Alexandre Yamashiki.

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A new analysis of Hubble data has clinched it: There’s too much light in the space around the Solar System.

Not much extra light, to be sure. Just a subtle, ghostly glow, a faint excess that can’t be accounted for in a census of all the light-emitting objects.

All the stars and galaxies surrounding the Solar System – and zodiacal light, aka dust on the Solar System’s plane – none of these can explain what astronomers are now calling “ghost light”.

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And the galaxy from which the GRB came from is also strange. It is young and still forming stars – the opposite of the only other known nearby galaxy that has played host to such an event.

“This event looks unlike anything else we have seen before from a long gamma-ray burst,” said Jillian Rastinejad, from Northwestern University, who led the study. “Its gamma rays resemble those of bursts produced by the collapse of massive stars.

Given that all other confirmed neutron star mergers we have observed have been accompanied by bursts lasting less than two seconds, we had every reason to expect this 50-second GRB was created by the collapse of a massive star. This event represents an exciting paradigm shift for gamma-ray burst astronomy.

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Avi Shporer, Research Scientist, with the MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research via Chris Adami, Paul Davies, AIP Advances, EurekaAlert and University of Portsmouth

“Information,” wrote Arizona State University astrophysicist Paul Davies in an email to The Daily Galaxy, “is a concept that is both abstract and mathematical. It lies at the foundation of both biology and physics.”

Viewing information at the cosmic level, physicist Melvin Vopson at the University of Portsmouth in the UK has estimated in a paper how much information a single elementary particle, like an electron, stores about itself. He then used this calculation to estimate the staggering amount of information contained in the entire observable Universe. Practical experiments can now be used, he suggested, to test and refine these predictions, including research to prove or disprove the hypothesis that information is the fifth state of matter in the universe beyond solid, liquid, gas, and plasma.

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Imagine walking into a room at night, turning out all the lights and closing the shades. Yet an eerie glow comes from the walls, ceiling, and floor. The faint light is barely enough to see your hands before your face, but it persists.

Sounds like a scene out of “Ghost Hunters?” No, for astronomers this is the real deal. But looking for something that’s close to nothing is not easy. Astronomers searched through 200,000 archival images from Hubble Space Telescope and made tens of thousands of measurements on these images to look for any residual background glow in the sky.

Like turning out the lights in a room, they subtracted the light from stars, galaxies, planets and the zodiacal light. Surprisingly, a ghostly, feeble glow was left over. It’s equivalent to the steady light of ten fireflies spread across the entire sky.

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