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Category: space – Page 456

Its aim is to help us understand the past and future of the universe.

You may have heard of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s Department of Energy. We reported on the project all the way back in 2016 when the team of scientists launched 5,000 small robots into space to help develop the first map of the universe beyond earth.

Then, in 2017, we reported how the project had created a 3D map of our galaxy’s space dust. The map was successful at plotting each individual dust that exists in our galaxy in order to clear up the deep space view and measure the accelerating expansion rate of the universe.

Now, DESI has revealed that it has finally created the largest and most detailed map of the universe ever. As impressive as this achievement is, DESI notes that it’s only 10% done with its five-year mission.

Full Story:

Continue reading “Astronomers Create Largest Ever 3D Map of the Cosmos” | >

There a spacecraft so far away in space it has become the first humanmade object to reach interstellar space. It is traveling out there among the stars, far from Earth, far from home. Voyager 1 is set to never return to our star system, let alone Earth. Its mission; to explore the most distant reaches of space.

September 5, 2020, marked 43 since NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft launched from Cape Canaveral. In 2012, the probe became the first object to enter an uncharted, never-before-seen region of space; interstellar space. More precisely, on August 25, 2012, at 122 astronomical units, the probe left the so-called heliopause, and so became the first to reach interstellar space.

Although it has made history and has nothing left to prove, the 722 kg robotic probe is still operational today, continuing its extended mission of locating and studying the limits of the solar system, including the Kuiper belt and beyond, as well as exploring immediate interstellar space, until one day, it runs out of fuel and waves back to Earth, one more time.

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“Don’t look up” — where Earth is threatened by a “planet killer” asteroid.

This movie hits its target.

In the recent Netflix film “Don’t Look Up”, the Earth is threatened by a “planet killer” asteroid. Here’s how Earth would probably resond to these threats in reality.

Continue reading “Netflix’s best apocalypse movie reveals the truth about planet-killing asteroids” | >

We now know of almost 5,000 planets outside the Solar System. If you were to picture what it would be like on one of these distant worlds, or exoplanets, your mental image would probably include a parent star—or more than one, especially if you’re a Star Wars fan.

But scientists have recently discovered that more than we thought are floating through space all by themselves—unlit by a friendly stellar companion. These are icy “free-floating planets,” or FFPs. But how did they end up all on their own and what can they tell us about how such planets form?

Finding more and more exoplanets to study has, as we might have expected, widened our understanding of what a planet is. In particular, the line between planets and “brown dwarfs”— that can’t fuse hydrogen like other —has become increasingly blurred. What dictates whether an object is a planet or a brown dwarf has long been the subject of debate—is it a question of mass? Do objects cease to be planets if they are undergoing nuclear fusion? Or is the way in which the object was formed most important?

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“This is really an origin story; for the first time we can explain how all nearby star formation began,” says astronomer and data visualization expert Catherine Zucker who completed the work during a fellowship at the CfA.

The paper’s central figure, a 3D spacetime animation, reveals that all young stars and star-forming regions — within 500 light years of Earth — sit on the surface of a giant bubble known as the Local Bubble. While astronomers have known of its existence for decades, scientists can now see and understand the Local Bubble’s beginnings and its impact on the gas around it.

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India is one of only a handful of nations that have sent probes to the moon and Mars. But the most impressive part of its space program is its cost-effectiveness. Unlike other government space organizations, India’s agency is extremely efficient, with the lowest cost-per-kilogram in the industry. Now India is throwing open its doors to private companies and raising its stellar ambitions.

#India #Space #BloombergQuicktake.
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Continue reading “India Is Doing Space Travel, on a Budget” | >

The sun was once surrounded by rings of gas and dust similar to those orbiting Saturn, a new study published in the journal Nature Astronomy reveals.

These rings played a vital role in the formation of our solar system and in the size and habitability of Earth.

The early sun’s dust and gas rings may have stopped our planet from becoming a “super-Earth,” according to the Rice University astrophysicists behind the new paper. “In the solar system, something happened to prevent the Earth from growing to become a much larger type of terrestrial planet called a super-Earth,” Rice University astrophysicist André Izidoro, said in a press statement.

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