The giant planet gets pummeled on a fairly regular basis.
Brazilian observer José Luis Pereira captured a bright flash on the solar system’s largest planet Monday night (Sept. 13), memorializing the fiery death of a space rock high in the Jovian atmosphere.
“No bunker in Greenland is going to save you.”
Roland Emmerich’s ‘Moonfall’ will bring the Moon crashing down to Earth early next year. But could that actually happen in real life? And if so, could we survive?
Space needs a burdensome and expensive deep clean, and Woz’s Privateer apparently wants to take care of the mess.
Japanese astronaut Aki Hoshide of JAXA and French astronaut Thomas Pesquet of ESA installed the mount for a solar array outside of the International Space Station during the first spacewalk to not include an American or Russian crew member.
The results provide a blueprint for finding such systems in the universe’s quieter, emptier regions.
By definition, dwarf galaxies are small and dim, with just a fraction of the stars found in the Milky Way and other galaxies. There are, however, giants among the dwarfs: Ultra-diffuse galaxies, or UDGs, are dwarf systems that contain relatively few stars but are scattered over vast regions. Because they are so diffuse, these systems are difficult to detect, though most have been found tucked within clusters of larger, brighter galaxies.
Now astronomers from MIT.
NASA’s latest Hubble Space Telescope image share spies a stunning globular cluster, NGC 6,717 in what looks like a frozen fireworks show.
Magnetic fields in space are sometimes called the last piece in the puzzle of star formation. They are much harder to measure than the masses or motions of star-forming clouds, and their strength is still uncertain. If they are strong, they can deflect or even oppose gas flowing into a young stellar core as it collapses under the influence of gravity. If they are moderate in strength, however, they act more flexibly and guide the flow, but don’t prevent it.
Early measurements of field strengths in molecular clouds were based on radiation from molecules whose energy levels are sensitive to magnetic field strengths. Those data suggested the fields were of moderate strength, but those conclusions were tentative. More recent observations with stronger signals measured the polarized radiation from dust grains aligned with the magnetic field. These observations obtain the field strength from the changes in field direction across the cloud map.
CfA.
“The agency continues to monitor the rise of COVID cases in the Kennedy area, which combined with other factors such as weather and first-time operations, is impacting our schedule of operations,” NASA spokesperson Kathryn Hambleton told Ars. “Moving step by step, we are progressing toward launch while keeping our team as safe as possible.”
However, the SLS has already been delayed for years and surpassed budget expectations by billions of dollars. So while the pandemic has certainly thrown another wrench into the works, it’s not like things were progressing smoothly before the coronavirus struck. Regardless, Hambleton says that NASA should offer a revised schedule soon.
“As always, we will fly only when we are ready,” she told Ars Technica.
Cumrun Vafa is a theoretical physicist at Harvard. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
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CORRECTIONS:
- I’m currently hiring folks to help me with editing and image overlays so there may be some errors in overlays (as in this episode) as we build up a team. I ask for your patience.
- At 1 hour 27 minute mark, we overlay an image of Brian Greene. We meant to overlay an image of Michael Green, an early pioneer of string theory: https://bit.ly/michael-green-physicist.
- The image overlay of the heliocentric model is incorrect.
Continue reading “Cumrun Vafa: String Theory | Lex Fridman Podcast #204” »
The UK Space Agency tweeted: “We are monitoring its re-entry together with @DefenceHQ, and there is no expectation the re-entry will cause any damage. Due to the varying input data, natural forces and associated observation error, there are always high levels of uncertainty when performing re-entry predictions on any satellite”.
“Today, a Starlink-1855 satellite re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere. There is a chance it will re-enter over the UK, and you might be able to spot the satellite as it burns up. Starlink has a fantastic track record or orchestrating safe and reliable re-entries. We do not expect the return of the satellite to cause any damage. Still the UK Space Agency and the Ministry of Defence continually monitor and assess the re-entries of satellite and debris and any risk to British territories through our joined Space Surveillance and Tracking capabilities”.
