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Category: space – Page 607

US Space Force to Take Over Military Satellite Communications

The US Space Force announced the transfer of satellite communications billets, funding, and mission responsibility from the Army and Navy.

The United States Space Force, through its chief of operations, announced that the satellite communications billets, funding, and mission responsibility of the US Army and Navy will be transferred to the Space Force.

Space Force Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond made the announcement on Tuesday at the Air Force Association meeting in Washington. The transfer is not yet complete and still needs approval from the Department of Defense.

If it is approved, the transfer is expected to take effect on October 1 2021. A total of 15 global units, with 319 military, and 259 civilian billets from the Army and Navy, will be transferred to the Space Force.

Astronomers Have Discovered a Gigantic Sphere-Shaped Cavity in Space

Astronomers analyzing 3D maps of the shapes and sizes of nearby molecular clouds have discovered a gigantic cavity in space.

The sphere-shaped void, described today in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, spans about 150 parsecs — nearly 500 light years — and is located on the sky among the constellations Perseus and Taurus. The research team, which is based at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, believes the cavity was formed by ancient supernovae that went off some 10 million years ago.

The mysterious cavity is surrounded by the Perseus and Taurus molecular clouds — regions in space where stars form.

A Major Advance in Computing Solves a Complex Math Problem 1 Million Times Faster

Reservoir computing is already one of the most advanced and most powerful types of artificial intelligence that scientists have at their disposal – and now a new study outlines how to make it up to a million times faster on certain tasks.

That’s an exciting development when it comes to tackling the most complex computational challenges, from predicting the way the weather is going to turn, to modeling the flow of fluids through a particular space.

Such problems are what this type of resource-intensive computing was developed to take on; now, the latest innovations are going to make it even more useful. The team behind this new study is calling it the next generation of reservoir computing.

Monster comet falling toward the sun is bigger than a Martian moon

Earlier this year, two astronomers discovered what could be the largest comet ever seen in the solar system while combing through data collected by the Dark Energy Survey. Now, a new study led by the same scientists describes this beefy deep space monster as the “nearly spherical cow of comets.”

The comet is cataloged as Comet C/2014 UN271 but is also known as Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein for its discovery duo, Pedro Bernardinelli and Gary Bernstein, both from the University of Pennsylvania.

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Alien Planets Are Even Less Habitable Than We Thought

It turns out, Mars was always fated for a waterless destiny.

New observations from robotic explorers like NASA’s Perseverance and Curiosity have revealed much about the ancient past of the Red Planet, where liquid water flowed throughout the planet’s surface. It used to have lakes, streams, rivers, and perhaps even a colossal ocean stretching around the horizon of Mars’ northern hemisphere. For decades, scientists have thought the weakening of the Martian magnetic field enabled charged particles from the sun to strip away the atmosphere, literally blowing away the bodies of water.

But a deeper, more primary cause for the move from wetness has come to light: Mars was always too small to retain its surface water forever, according to a new study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Japan Space Agency: Why We’re Exploring the Moons of Mars

Dr. Ryuki Hyodo. Credit: JAXA

At ISAS, researchers watched the progress with particularly keen attention. In just a few years from now, we are about to attempt the same feat of visiting the Martian sphere. But for us, the destination is not the red planet but its two small moons. The Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission is scheduled to launch in the fiscal year of 2024. Largely ignoring the looming presence of Mars, the spacecraft will focus its suite of observing instruments on the moons, Phobos and Deimos. The mission plans to land on Phobos and collect samples to bring back to Earth in 2029. It is these barren moons that scientists believe contain evidence of the early days of the Solar System, and how habitability may have flourished and died on the planet below.

Dr. Ryuki Hyodo is researcher in the division of Solar System Sciences at ISAS, working on simulations of how the moons formed. Hyodo holds one of the institute’s independent ITYF (International Top Young Fellowship) positions; a program designed to support and promote talented researchers from around the world in the early stage of their careers. He explains that the first mystery surrounding Phobos and Deimos is how they came to be there at all. In fact, there are two main competing theories for how the moons formed.

Scientists Intrigued by Strange Blobs on Uranus

Researchers believe that mushy blobs on Uranus are hiding lots of gas.

More specifically, scientists have discovered that “mushballs,” large slushy hailstones made of ammonia and water, might be causing an odd atmospheric phenomenon on Uranus, according to a press release about the research. The mushballs, which are also present on Neptune, might be carrying ammonia into the two planets’ atmosphere and hiding the gas from detection.

The balls might actually be the secret behind why scientists can’t detect ammonia in the atmospheres of Uranus and Neptune — which is odd because it’s abundant with other gasses like methane.

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