Lifeboat Foundation

Researchers are using a technology solution called Fluid Lensing to study coral reefs and help better understand reef ecosystems.

Most likely, this is the best-known picture of a flag ever taken: Buzz Aldrin standing next to the first U.S. flag planted on the Moon. For those who knew their world history, it also rang some alarm bells. Only less than a century ago, back on Earth, planting a national flag in another part of the world still amounted to claiming that territory for the fatherland. Did the Stars and Stripes on the moon signify the establishment of an American colony?

When people hear for the first time that I am a lawyer practicing and teaching something called “space law,” the question they ask most frequently, often with a big smile or a twinkle in the eye, is: “So tell me, who owns the moon?”

Of course, claiming new national territories had been very much a European habit, applied to non-European parts of the world. In particular the Portuguese, the Spanish, the Dutch, the French and the English created huge colonial empires. But while their attitude was very Europe-centric, the legal notion that planting a flag was an act of establishing sovereignty quickly stuck and became accepted worldwide as part and parcel of the law of nations.

Up to 79 moons now.

Ten more moons have been confirmed to orbit around Jupiter, bringing the planet’s total known satellite count to 79. That’s the highest number of moons of any planet in the Solar System. And these newly discovered space rocks are giving astronomers insight as to why the Jupiter system looks like it does today.

Astronomers at Carnegie Institution for Science first found these moons in March 2017, along with two others that were already confirmed in June of last year. The team initially found all 12 moons using the Blanco 4-meter telescope in Chile, though finding these objects wasn’t their main goal. Instead, they were searching for incredibly distant small objects — or even planets — that might be lurking in our Solar System beyond Pluto. But as they searched for these fringe space rocks, they decided to take a peek at what might be lurking around Jupiter at the same time. Now, the moons they found have been observed multiple times, and their exact orbits have been submitted for approval from the International Astronomical Union, which officially recognizes celestial bodies.

Continue reading “Astronomers have found a new crop of moons around Jupiter, and one of them is a weirdo” »

Latest News from Space.com, Scientists have discovered 12 previously unknown moons orbiting Jupiter, and one of them is a real oddball.

While hunting for the proposed Planet Nine, a massive planet that some believe could lie beyond Pluto, a team of scientists, led by Scott Sheppard from the Carnegie Institution for Science, found the 12 moons orbiting Jupiter. With this discovery, Jupiter now has a staggering 79 known orbiting moons €” 67 was its previous count, more than any other planet in the solar system.

While scientists have been learning more and more about our solar system and the way things work, many of our Sun’s mechanics still remain a mystery. In advance of the launch of the Parker Solar Probe, which will make contact with the Sun’s outer atmosphere, however, scientists are foreshadowing what the spacecraft might see with new discoveries. In a paper published this week in The Astrophysical Journal, scientists detected structures within the Sun’s corona, thanks to advanced image processing techniques and algorithms.

The question that this group of scientists, led by Craig DeForest from the Southwest Research Institute’s branch in Boulder, Colorado, was trying to answer was in regard to the source of solar wind. “In deep space, the solar wind is turbulent and gusty,” said DeForest in a release. “But how did it get that way? Did it leave the Sun smooth, and become turbulent as it crossed the solar system, or are the gusts telling us about the Sun itself?”

Continue reading “Scientists discover structure within the Sun’s atmosphere” »

What’s the creepiest thing that former astronaut and retired US Navy captain Scott Kelly has ever dealt with in space? According to Kelly, it was a floating orb of sulfuric acid and astronaut pee. He revealed this strange glimpse into life on the ISS in a video produced with Reddit.

In 1610, Galileo redesigned the telescope and discovered Jupiter’s four largest moons. Nearly 400 years later, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope used its powerful optics to look deep into space—enabling scientists to pin down the age of the universe.

Suffice it to say that getting a better look at things produces major scientific advances.

Continue reading “Team creates high-fidelity images of Sun’s atmosphere” »

New research using a decade of data from ESA’s Mars Express has found clear signs of the complex Martian atmosphere acting as a single, interconnected system, with processes occurring at low and mid levels significantly affecting those seen higher up.

Understanding the Martian atmosphere is a key topic in planetary science, from its current status to its past history. Mars’ atmosphere continuously leaks out to space, and is a crucial factor in the planet’s past, present, and future habitability – or lack of it. The planet has lost the majority of its once much denser and wetter atmosphere, causing it to evolve into the dry, arid world we see today.

However, the tenuous atmosphere Mars has retained remains complex, and scientists are working to understand if and how the processes within it are connected over space and time.

Cancer and rodent studies were on the crew’s timeline today to help doctors and scientists improve the health of humans in space and on Earth. The crew also conducted an emergency drill aboard the International Space Station.

Flight Engineer Serena Auñón-Chancellor examined endothelial cells through a microscope for the AngieX Cancer Therapy study. The new cancer research seeks to test a safer, more effective treatment that targets tumor cells and blood vessels. Commander Drew Feustel partnered with astronaut Alexander Gerst and checked on mice being observed for the Rodent Research-7 (RR-7) experiment. RR-7 is exploring how microgravity impacts microbes living inside organisms.

Astronaut Ricky Arnold and Gerst collected and stowed their blood samples for a pair of ongoing human research studies. Arnold went on to work a series of student investigations dubbed NanoRacks Module-9 exploring a variety of topics including botany, biology and physics.

Continue reading “Mid-week Cancer Study and Emergency Drill Fill Station Schedule” »