Lifeboat Foundation

An international scientific group with outstanding Valencian participation has managed to measure for the first time oscillations in the brightness of a neutron star – magnetar – during its most violent moments. In just a tenth of a second, the magnetar released energy equivalent to that produced by the Sun in 100,000 years. The observation has been carried out automatically, without human intervention, thanks to the Artificial Intelligence of a system developed at the Image Processing Laboratory (IPL) of the University of Valencia.

Among the neutron stars, objects that can contain half a million times the mass of the Earth in a diameter of about twenty kilometers, stands out a small group with the most intense magnetic field known: magnetars. These objects, of which only thirty are known, suffer violent eruptions that are still little known due to their unexpected nature and their duration of barely tenths of a second. Detecting them is a challenge for science and technology.

Continue reading “‘A True Cosmic Monster!’ Violent High-Frequency Oscillations Captured in Gigantic Eruption of a Neutron Star” »

After a successful launch of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope Dec. 25, and completion of two mid-course correction maneuvers, the Webb team has analyzed its initial trajectory and determined the observatory should have enough propellant to allow support of science operations in orbit for significantly more than a 10-year science lifetime. (The minimum baseline for the mission is five years.)

Just two weeks after launching from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft has opened its “eye” and returned its first images from space—a major operational milestone for the spacecraft and DART team.

After the violent vibrations of launch and the extreme temperature shift to minus 80 degrees C in space, scientists and engineers at the mission operations center at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, held their breath in anticipation. Because components of the spacecraft’s telescopic instrument are sensitive to movements as small as 5 millionths of a meter, even a tiny shift of something in the instrument could be very serious.

On Tuesday, Dec. 7, the spacecraft popped open the circular door covering the aperture of its DRACO telescopic camera and, to everyone’s glee, streamed back the first image of its surrounding environment. Taken about 2 million miles (11 light seconds) from Earth—very close, astronomically speaking —the image shows about a dozen stars, crystal-clear and sharp against the black backdrop of space, near where the constellations Perseus, Aries and Taurus intersect.

China’s growing military prowess dominated global headlines in 2021. Beijing’s fast-paced developments — be it the innovation in hypersonic technology, indigenous aircraft, or naval power — took the world by surprise and sent the alarm bells ringing in the West.

The EurAsian Times takes a look at five big developments in China’s weapons research and development.

Chinese Manned Space Agency (CMSA) is in the process of constructing a space station, called Tiangong, in the low Earth orbit (LEO). This construction gained a major milestone in May this year when Beijing launched Tianhe, the first module of the orbiting space station.

In a tenth of a second.

We’ve just taken another step toward comprehending enormous magnetar explosions.

For the first time, a group of international researchers was able to measure oscillations in the brightness of a magnetar during its most violent moments.

Continue reading “A Neutron Star Unleashed an Energy Equivalent to That Created by the Sun in 100,000 Years” »

Thanks to Ariane 5 rocket launching Webb on the right path.

After nearly 30 years of planning and thorough work, NASA finally got to launch its $10 billion next-generation space observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), on Christmas day. JWST is now headed on a long six-month trip until it can begin its science mission and start to conduct routine science operations.

Now, it turns out that JWST might be traveling and collecting data for much longer than initially expected. JWST was forecast to be operational for 5 to 10 years, but NASA’s latest analysis revealed that the observatory should have enough fuel to “allow support of science operations in orbit for significantly more than a 10-year science lifetime.”

Nebula [ neb-yuh-luh ]: star-forming cloud of gas and dust. Noun, plural neb·u·lae [neb-yuh-lee,-lahy]

These four nebulae are known for their breathtaking beauty: the Eagle Nebula (which contains the Pillars of Creation), the Omega Nebula, the Trifid Nebula, and the Lagoon Nebula. In the 1950s, a team of astronomers made rough distance measurements to some of the stars in these nebulae and were able to infer the existence of the Sagittarius Arm. Their work provided some of the first evidence of our galaxy’s spiral structure. In a new study, astronomers have shown that these nebulae are part of a substructure within the arm that is angled differently from the rest of the arm.

Webb, and Psychean editorial note by Adriano V. Autino.

We just attended the launch of the James Webb Telescope, headed to the Earth-Sun Lagrange point 2 (L2), at 1.5 kilometers from Earth. A very ambitious project, aimed to place a human eye in a location where it will be easier to investigate the origin and the meaningful life events of the universe, of our solar system and our mother planet. What raised some thoughts in my mind is one of the characteristics of this beautiful sample of human ingenuity and hunger for knowledge: the JWST mirror has been plated with gold, due to elements properties like a high reflection of infrared light and extreme un-reactivity. My aim is not to discuss this choice from the scientific point of view. It makes me rather think about the value of precious metals, that’s not only their beauty, nor the use we make of them to realize precious jewels.

While I was in space just with my mind, it was easy to go some more million kilometers further away, reaching to the 16 Psyche Asteroid. Psyche – an M-type asteroid, fragment of a proto-planet broken up during the birth of the solar system — dwells somewhere in the middle of the Asteroid Belt, between Mars and Jupiter. The distance from Earth ranges from 252 million to 645 million kilometers.

Continue reading “Webb, and Psyche” »

China has taken a giant leap forward in one of its most ambitious space programs. It has advanced its future lunar base plan by eight years.

China and Russia presented a detailed plan for a joint lunar base called the International Lunar Research Station, in June 2021, challenging a similar plan by the US.

On December 27, Chinese space officials revealed a revised completion date for the unmanned lunar base. It aims to set up the facility by around 2027, previously scheduled for 2035.