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Category: space – Page 529

There’s a Hidden Mathematical ‘Law’ in The Sand Megaripples Found All Over Earth

Universal law always works perfectly well.

Wherever there is sand and an atmosphere, prevailing winds may whip the grains into undulating shapes, pleasing to the eye with their calming repetition.

Certain sand waves, with wavelengths between 30 centimeters (almost 12 inches) and several meters (around 30 feet), are known as megaripples: they’re between ordinary beach ripples and full dunes in size, and we’ve seen them not just on Earth, but even on other planets such as Mars, well known for its all-encompassing dust storms.

Aside from their size, a key characteristic of these middle-ground ripples is the grain size involved – a surface of coarse grains over an interior of much finer material. Yet this mix of grains is never the same, and nor are the winds that blow across the sand to create the ripples in the first place.

Astronomers find evidence of second moon outside of solar system

Over the last thirty years, over 4,000 planets around stars other than the Sun, otherwise known as exoplanets, have been discovered by astronomers but only two exomoons. This is because usually planets are larger and therefore more easily identifiable.

The first exomoon candidate, which the same team of astronomers said was roughly the size of Neptune, was found in 2018 but has yet to be confirmed.

The Earth’s Core Might Be Cooling Much Faster Than We Previously Thought

“Our results could give us a new perspective on the evolution of the Earth’s dynamics,” said Motohiko Murakami, a corresponding author of the study explained in a press statement. “They suggest that Earth, like the other rocky planets Mercury and Mars, is cooling and becoming inactive much faster than expected.”

The Earth will cool down at an increasingly fast pace

The scientists discovered that bridgmanite was roughly 1.5 times better at conducting heat than previously estimated. This means that heat must transfer more easily from the core to the mantle than had been previously believed. This faster transfer equals a higher cooling rate, meaning the Earth’s core will cool down faster than once thought. What’s more, as it cools bridgmanite turns into a mineral called post-perovskite, which conducts heat at an even faster rate. So the inner Earth could start to cool at an increasingly accelerated rate once bridgmanite starts forming into post-perovskite, a crystal structure following the formula ABX₃.

Astronomers Create Largest Ever 3D Map of the Cosmos

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:

The project is called the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) and it’s run by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s Department of Energy.

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15 Things You Should Know About Voyager 1, Mankind’s First Interstellar Spaceship

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.

Rogue planets: How wandering bodies in interstellar space ended up on their own

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?

1,000-light-year wide bubble surrounding Earth is source of all nearby, young stars

“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.