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Category: space – Page 373

New minerals discovered in massive meteorite may reveal clues to asteroid formation

A team of researchers has discovered at least two new minerals that have never before been seen on Earth in a 15 tonne meteorite found in Somalia — the ninth largest meteorite ever found.

“Whenever you find a new mineral, it means that the actual geological conditions, the chemistry of the rock, was different than what’s been found before,” says Chris Herd, a professor in the Department of Earth & Atmospheric Sciences and curator of the University of Alberta’s Meteorite Collection. “That’s what makes this exciting: In this particular meteorite you have two officially described minerals that are new to science.”

The two minerals found came from a single 70 gram slice that was sent to the U of A for classification, and there already appears to be a potential third mineral under consideration. If researchers were to obtain more samples from the massive meteorite, there’s a chance that even more might be found, Herd notes.

Water From The Sun Has Been Found on The Moon

A new analysis of dust retrieved from the Moon suggests that water bound up in the lunar surface could originate with the Sun.

More specifically, it could be the result of bombardment of hydrogen ions from the solar wind, slamming into the lunar surface, interacting with mineral oxides, and bonding with the dislodged oxygen. The result is water that could be hiding in the lunar regolith in significant quantities at mid and high latitudes.

This has implications for our understanding of the provenance and distribution of water on the Moon – and may even be relevant to our understanding of the origins of water on Earth.

Chinese astronomers detect over 100 new open clusters

By analyzing the data from ESA’s Gaia satellite, astronomers from the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory (SHAO) in China have detected 101 new open clusters in the Milky Way galaxy. The discovery was presented in a paper published December 21 on the arXiv pre-print repository.

Open clusters (OCs), formed from the same giant molecular cloud, are groups of stars loosely gravitationally bound to each other. So far, more than 1,000 of them have been discovered in the Milky Way, and scientists are still looking for more, hoping to find a variety of these stellar groupings. Studying them in detail could be crucial for improving our understanding of the formation and evolution of our galaxy.

Now, a team of led by SHAO’s Qin Songmei reports the finding of 101 new OCs in the solar neighborhood. The discovery is a result of utilizing clustering algorithms pyUPMASK and HDSBSCAN on the data from Gaia’s Data Release 3 (DR3).

Hubble spots a peculiar galaxy with long, twisting space tentacles

At some point in its history, ESO 415–19 had a close encounter with another galaxy, and it’s never been the same since. The gravity from that passing galaxy drew parts of ESO 415–19 outward into long, curving streams of stars and dust — and then the other galaxy moved on, leaving ESO 415–19 with its arms still stretching out into space.

Astronomers call these bizarrely long arms tidal streams, and they’re what earned ESO 415–19 its coveted place in the Arp Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies, a catalog of 338 of the weirdest galaxies in the known universe.

Researchers could observe the middle corona of the sun in a world first

Thanks to a novel technique, scientists are now a step closer to solving a key mystery about the origins of solar wind.

Researchers have discovered web-like plasma structures in the Sun’s middle corona, according to a recent study published in Nature Astronomy.

The results bring us closer to solving a fundamental mystery about solar wind’s origins and its connections with other solar system bodies.

NASA engineer teaches AI to be ‘GPS-like’ to guide astronauts over the lunar surface

An AI system is being developed to lead explorers around the lunar surface.

Without instruments like the GPS we have on Earth, scientists have been attempting for years to figure out how to travel over the lunar surface.

Landmarks like trees or buildings on Earth can serve as fuzzy but useful distance measures-features that are non-existent on the Moon.

NASA/Reese Patillo.

Since the Moon’s atmosphere is significantly thinner than Earth’s, it is challenging to determine the size and distance of distant landmarks when looking at the horizon.

Continue reading “NASA engineer teaches AI to be ‘GPS-like’ to guide astronauts over the lunar surface” | >

Scientists detect a rare circular polarization in active repeating fast radio bursts

Till now, only one repeating fast radio burst — FRB20201124A, has been reported with circular polarization.

The latest research by scientists at the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC) has identified circular polarization in active repeating fast radio bursts (FRBs). The results were based on precise observations of the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST).

FRBs hold the distinction of emitting the most luminous radio flashes in the universe, with the energy released in one such incident rivaling the Sun’s output “over a whole day or even a month to a year,” according to phy.org.

Naeblys/iStock.

The study findings, led by Prof. Li Di, were published in Science Bulletin.

US startup wants to inject sulfur into the atmosphere to cool down the Earth

In theory, it could mitigate the effects of global warming; but experts are wary.

Make Sunsets, a California-based startup, released weather balloons that carried sulfur particles into the stratosphere which possibly burst there, releasing the chemical, MIT Technology Review.

Da-kuk/iStock.

Founded by Luke Iseman, previous director of hardware at Y Combinator, the attempts by the startup fall into the controversial area of solar geoengineering where particles are released into the atmosphere with an aim to reflect sunlight back into space to ease global warming. The field has largely been a thought experiment with no real consensus if the technology can help us fight climate change.

Top 10 NFTs that You Should Look out for in 2023

In this article, we review the top 10 NFTs and why they make for great investments this year.

Non-Fungible Tokens, or NFTs for short, have been the buzzword for the year 2022. And, rightly so because even though it might seem like it is a new tech on the block, you will be shocked to know that there are more than 11 million NFTs out there. Each represents a unique (and, not to forget, valuable) piece of art which could be an image, video content, music, or anything else. And, yet, the industry is still in its infancy stage. We bring to you the only guide you will ever need to understand the uprising of the NFT market and what is all the attraction about. We have also shared some of our favorite NFTs to check out if you want to get active in space. This article features the top 10 NFTs that you should look out for in 2023.

Silks.