More lakes discovered under Martian ice. Could these liquid water pools be inhabited by life?
But would such cold places be habitable?
Category: space – Page 708
The far side of the Moon
The far side of the Moon is the hemisphere of the Moon that always faces away from Earth. The far side’s terrain is rugged with a multitude of impact craters and relatively few flat lunar maria compared to the near side. It has one of the largest craters in the Solar System, the South Pole–Aitken basin.
Source: earth sky, NASA Music: Epic Hybrid Trailer by Infraction / We Will Win.
A Physicist Has Come Up With Math That Makes ‘Paradox-Free’ Time Travel Plausible
No one has yet managed to travel through time – at least to our knowledge – but the question of whether or not such a feat would be theoretically possible continues to fascinate scientists.
As movies such as The Terminator, Donnie Darko, Back to the Future and many others show, moving around in time creates a lot of problems for the fundamental rules of the Universe: if you go back in time and stop your parents from meeting, for instance, how can you possibly exist in order to go back in time in the first place?
It’s a monumental head-scratcher known as the ‘grandfather paradox’, but now a physics student Germain Tobar, from the University of Queensland in Australia, says he has worked out how to “square the numbers” to make time travel viable without the paradoxes.
HyImpulse hybrid rocket motor roars to life for the first time
HyImpulse completed the first hot-fire test of the company’s 16,800-pounds-force hybrid rocket motor on Sept. 15. Credit: HyImpulse.
VALLETTA, Malta — Launch startup HyImpulse successfully tested its 16,800-pounds-force hybrid rocket motor this month at German space agency DLR’s Lampoldshausen facility.
Headquartered in Neuenstadt am Kocher, Germany, HyImpulse is developing its three-stage SL1 launch vehicle designed to carry payloads of up to 500 kilogram to Sun-synchronous orbit. The light-lift launch vehicle will be powered by twelve 16,800-pounds-force hybrid rocket motors — eight on its first stage, and four on its second stage — plus four smaller but otherwise identical engines powering its third stage.
The HyImpulse-developed hybrid rocket motor is powered by a paraffin-based fuel and liquid oxygen. The motor is designed to make use of simpler hardware than a liquid-fueled system while offering greater safety than strictly solid-fueled motors.
Bezos’ Blue Origin to break record with 7th reusable New Shepard rocket
According to Blue Origin, the launch is now set for Friday, Sept. 25 at 10 a.m. central time. You can watch the launch live here.
Boeing to Face Independent Ethics Probe Over Lunar Lander Bid
According to a press release, the New Shepard will fly 12 commercial payloads to space and back, including a demonstration of a lunar landing sensor that will test technologies for future missions to the Moon in support of NASA’s Artemis program.
More Leak Checks as Crew Spends Weekend in Russian Segment
The Expedition 63 crew will stay in the Russian segment’s Zvezda service module during a cabin air leak test this weekend.
As part of ongoing work to isolate the source of a slight increase above the standard cabin air leak rate, the Expedition 63 crew will once again spend the weekend inside the station’s Russian segment. All the space station hatches will be closed this weekend so mission controllers can again monitor the air pressure in each module with the goal of localizing the source of the increased rate. The test presents no safety concern for the crew. Commander Chris Cassidy and his crewmates Ivan Vagner and Anatoly Ivanishin will stay in the Zvezda service module from Friday night into Monday morning.
The crew will spend Friday gathering items for the weekend isolation before closing hatches throughout the station at the conclusion of their crew work day.