Lifeboat Foundation

Russia and China have unveiled plans for a joint lunar space station, with the Russian space agency Roscosmos saying it has signed an agreement with China’s National Space Administration (CNSA) to develop a “complex of experimental research facilities created on the surface and/or in the orbit of the moon”.

The CNSA, for its part, said the project was “open to all interested countries and international partners” in what experts said would be China’s biggest international space cooperation project to date.

During Parker Solar Probe’s seventh swing by the Sun, culminating in its closest solar approach, or perihelion, on January 172021, celestial geometry posed a special opportunity. The configuration of this particular orbit placed Parker Solar Probe on the same side of the Sun as Earth — meaning that Earth-bound observatories could observe the Sun and its outpouring of solar wind from the same perspective as Parker’s. This comes on the heels of a similar observation campaign in the winter of 2020.

“Along with the global science community, the Parker Solar Probe team can’t wait to see this new data,” said Nour Raouafi, the Parker Solar Probe project scientist from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. “Combining it with contributions from observatories around the globe will help us to put Parker observations in a broader context and build a complete picture of the phenomena observed in the solar atmosphere.”

Continue reading “Celestial Geometry Posed a Special Opportunity During Parker Solar Probe’s 7th Solar Encounter” »

Different methods of searching for and finding distant exoplanets give different information about the planets found.

The transit method — where an exoplanets passed in front of its sun and dims the bright sunlight ever so slightly — gives astronomers not only a detection but also its radius or size.

The radial velocity method — where an exoplanet’s gravity causes its host star to “wobble” in a way that can be measured — provides different information about mass and orbit.

Scientists have discovered the most distant radio blast ever known.

The blast came from a quasar that is so far away that its light took 13 billion years to arrive at Earth.

Continue reading “Scientists detect radio blast coming from further away in space than ever before” »

Astronomers have detected the best place and time to live in the Milky Way, in a recent study published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.

More than six billion years ago, the outskirts of the Milky Way were the safest places for the development of possible life forms, sheltered from the most violent explosions in the universe, that is, the gamma-ray bursts and supernovae.

Also read: Astronomers discover new exoplanet instrumental in hunt for traces of life beyond solar system.

Free conference covering the upcoming MOON ELEVATOR project: 9–11 March. Bringing together government, military, private industry, academia and others, this three day event is sure to be an eye opener on where we are and where we are going in the coming 5–10 years. Don’t miss out! Get your tickets free today.

- Gravitational Elevators (Lunar Space Elevator Infrastructure)

- Centripetal Elevators (Space Elevators from Earth).

Continue reading “Elevators, Space Edition” »

NASA’s Artemis program has teamed up with Japan’s Aerospace Exploration Agency to create the next generation lunar vehicle — an ‘RV for the moon’.

Pinning plasma within a set of magnetic fields offers physicists a new way to study clean energy, space weather and the inner workings of stars.

Nearly a half-century after the last Apollo astronaut stepped foot on the moon, NASA is working to send its first woman to the lunar surface. Bill Whitaker reports.