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Category: space – Page 87

Lunar Space Station Module for NASA’s Artemis Campaign to Begin Final Outfitting

NASA continues to mark progress on plans to work with commercial and international partners as part of the Gateway program. The primary structure of HALO (Habitation and Logistics Outpost) arrived at Northrop Grumman’s facility in Gilbert, Arizona, where it will undergo final outfitting and verification testing.

HALO will provide Artemis astronauts with space to live, work, and conduct scientific research. The habitation module will be equipped with essential systems including command and control, data handling, energy storage, power distribution, and thermal regulation.

Following HALO’s arrival on April 1 from Thales Alenia Space in Turin, Italy, where it was assembled, NASA and Northrop Grumman hosted an April 24 event to acknowledge the milestone, and the module’s significance to lunar exploration. The event opened with remarks by representatives from Northrop Grumman and NASA, including NASA’s Acting Associate Administrator for Exploration Systems Development Lori Glaze, Gateway Program Manager Jon Olansen, and NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik. Event attendees, including Senior Advisor to the NASA Administrator Todd Ericson, elected officials, and local industry and academic leaders, viewed HALO and virtual reality demonstrations during a tour of the facilities.

Saturn’s moon Titan could harbor life, but only a tiny amount, study finds

Despite its uniquely rich inventory of organic molecules, Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, may be able to support only a minuscule amount of biomass, if life exists on the moon, according to a study using bioenergetic modeling.

Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, is a strange, alien world. Covered in rivers and lakes of liquid methane, icy boulders and dunes of soot-like “sand,” its topography has long fascinated scientists and invited speculation on whether lifeforms might lurk beneath the moon’s thick, hazy atmosphere.

An international team of researchers co-led by Antonin Affholder at the U of A Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Peter Higgins at Harvard University’s Department of Earth and Planetary sciences set out to develop a realistic scenario of what life on Titan might look like if it does exist, where it is most likely to occur and how much of it might be present.

“I Watched Time Slow Down in Orbit”: This ESA Clock Is Revolutionizing the Science of Space-Time Precision

IN A NUTSHELL 🚀 The ACES mission by the European Space Agency aims to redefine time measurement in space with unmatched precision. ⏱️ ACES will test Einstein’s theories of relativity by measuring how time bends, slows, and stretches under cosmic conditions. 🔬 Using advanced atomic clocks like PHARAO and SHM, ACES will explore fundamental constants

Fifteen new giant radio galaxies discovered with ASKAP

Using the Australian Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder (ASKAP), astronomers have discovered 15 new giant radio galaxies with physical sizes exceeding 3 million light years. The finding was reported in a research paper published April 9 on the arXiv preprint server.

The so-called giant radio galaxies (GRGs) have an overall projected linear length exceeding at least 2.3 million light years. They are rare objects grown usually in low-density environments and display jets and lobes of synchrotron-emitting plasma. GRGs are important for studying the formation and the evolution of radio sources.

ASKAP is a 36-dish radio-interferometer operating at 700 to 1,800 MHz. It uses to achieve extremely high survey speed, making it one of the best instruments in the world for mapping the sky at radio wavelengths. Due to its large field of view, high resolution, and good sensitivity to low-surface brightness structures, ASKAP has been essential in the search for new GRGs.

Super-Earths are common outside the solar system, new study shows

An international team including astronomers from the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA) has announced the discovery of a planet about twice the size of Earth orbiting its star farther out than Saturn is to the sun.

These results are another example of how planetary systems can be different from our solar system.

“We found a ‘super-Earth’—meaning it’s bigger than our home planet but smaller than Neptune—in a place where only planets thousands or hundreds of times more massive than Earth were found before,” said Weicheng Zang, a CfA Fellow. He is the lead author of a paper describing these results in the latest issue of the journal Science.

“We’ll See Gravity Like Never Before”: NASA’s Wild Quantum Gradiometer Will Map Earth’s Invisible Forces From Orbit

IN A NUTSHELL 🌍 NASA collaborates with private and academic sectors to develop the Quantum Gravity Gradiometer Pathfinder, a revolutionary space-based quantum sensor. ❄️ The gradiometer uses ultra-cold rubidium atoms to measure Earth’s gravitational variations with high precision, free from environmental disturbances. 🔬 Quantum sensors in the QGGPf offer 10 times greater sensitivity and are

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