Lifeboat Foundation

Centaurs are minor planets believed to have originated in the Kuiper Belt in the outer solar system. They sometimes have comet-like features such as tails and comae—clouds of dust particles and gas—even though they orbit in a region between Jupiter and Neptune where it is too cold for water to readily sublimate, or transition, directly from a solid to a gas.

Only 18 active Centaurs have been discovered since 1927, and much about them is still poorly understood. Discovering activity on Centaurs is also observationally challenging because they are faint, telescope time-intensive and because they are rare.

A team of astronomers, led by doctoral student and Presidential Fellow Colin Chandler in Northern Arizona University’s Astronomy and Planetary Science PhD program, earlier this year announced their discovery of activity emanating from Centaur 2014 OG392, a planetary object first found in 2014. They published their findings in a paper in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, “Cometary Activity Discovered on a Distant Centaur: A Nonaqueous Sublimation Mechanism.” Chandler is the lead author, working with four NAU co-authors: graduate student Jay Kueny, associate professor Chad Trujillo, professor David Trilling and Ph.D. student William Oldroyd.

The Raspberry Pi 400 comes with 4GB RAM, a faster Raspberry Pi 4 and a built-in heatsink to keep it cool.

The Z boson is a neutral particle that mediates the weak force.

Circa 2016 o,.o.

An international group of physicists has observed Z-boson production with two associated photons with later Z decay to electrons, muons or neutrinos at the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in CERN.

Observation of this extremely rare physics process, predicted theoretically in 1960s, further validates the Standard Model ℠, according to ATLAS experiment contributor Dimitrii Krasnopevtsev.

Continue reading “Scientists observe Z-boson production with two associated photons” »

A meteorite that originated on Mars billions of years ago reveals details of ancient impact events on the red planet. Certain minerals from the Martian crust in the meteorite are oxidized, suggesting the presence of water during the impact that created the meteorite. The finding helps to fill some gaps in knowledge about the role of water in planet formation.

There’s a longstanding question in planetary science about the origin of water on Earth, Mars and other large bodies such as the moon. One hypothesis says that it came from asteroids and comets post-formation. But some planetary researchers think that water might just be one of many substances that occur naturally during the formation of planets. A new analysis of an ancient Martian meteorite adds support for this second hypothesis.

Several years ago, a pair of dark meteorites were discovered in the Sahara Desert. They were dubbed NWA 7034 and NWA 7533, where NWA stands for North West Africa and the number is the order in which meteorites are officially approved by the Meteoritical Society, an international planetary science organization. Analysis showed these meteorites are new types of Martian meteorites and are mixtures of different rock fragments.

Circa 2009.

A 270-kilometre optical fiber has been transformed into the world’s longest laser, a feat its inventors believe will lead to a radical new outlook on information transmission and secure communications.

Engineering academics at Aston University, UK, are leading research into ultralong fiber lasers, to create a platform capable of delivering ‘next generation’ information transmission, including telecommunications and broadband.

Continue reading “World’s longest laser -- 270 km long -- created” »

The McDonald Laser Ranging Station, near Fort Davis, Texas, USA, uses a laser to measure the distance between the Earth and the Moon to an accuracy of 1 cm (0.39 inches). It bounces a laser off reflective targets left on the lunar surface by three US Apollo missions and two Soviet Lunokhod missions. The distance between the centres of the Earth and the Moon is 385,000 km (239,000 miles), and the laser ranging has shown that the Moon is receding from the Earth at a rate of 3.8 cm (1.5 inches) per year. This is one of the most accurate distance measurements ever made.

India has decided to fly the three Rafale fighter jets from France directly to India, which are scheduled to arrive on November 4, according to Indian government sources. The Indian Air Force will now have eight of the 36 Rafale jets in operation.

But there’s some bad news: Proxima Centauri tends to bombard any planets in its vicinity with a ferocious amount of X rays — Proxima b receives about 400 times the amount as Earth receives from its Sun.

That leads to the question: “Is there an atmosphere that protects the planet from these deadly rays?” asked co-author Christophe Lovis, a researcher who worked on ESPRESSO, in the statement. Lovis hopes that the next generation of spectrographs — ESPRESSO’s successor, “RISTRETTO,” is already in the works — could help us find the answer.

For us to get a closer look at Proxima b however, Proxima Centauri is “only” 4.2 light-years from the Sun — meaning it would still take several thousand years to get there using today’s propulsion technology.