KREUZADER (Posts tagged space)

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Planetary Society asteroid hunters help find rare type of double asteroid “A global team of astronomers has found a rare type of asteroid, where two equal-mass objects circle each other in a never-ending dance as they hurtle through the solar...

Planetary Society asteroid hunters help find rare type of double asteroid

A global team of astronomers has found a rare type of asteroid, where two equal-mass objects circle each other in a never-ending dance as they hurtle through the solar system.

Many asteroids have moons, or even multiple moons. But this asteroid, known as 2017 YE5, is just the fourth “equal mass” double near-Earth asteroid ever detected, in which both objects have roughly the same mass and size. Each is about 900 meters wide.

The discovery was the combined result from three giant radio telescopes and observations by advanced amateur astronomers at observatories around the world.

Source: planetary.org
space astronomy asteroids planetary defense
“ What is our universe made of? To help find out, ESA launched the Planck satellite from 2009 to 2013 to map, in unprecedented detail, slight temperature differences on the oldest optical surface known – the background sky when our universe first...

What is our universe made of? To help find out, ESA launched the Planck satellite from 2009 to 2013 to map, in unprecedented detail, slight temperature differences on the oldest optical surface known – the background sky when our universe first became transparent to light. Visible in all directions, this cosmic microwave background is a complex tapestry that could only show the hot and cold patterns observed were the universe to be composed of specific types of energy that evolved in specific ways. The final results, reported last week, confirm again that most of our universe is mostly composed of mysterious and unfamiliar dark energy, and that even most of the remaining matter energy is strangely dark. Additionally, the “final” 2018 Planck data impressively peg the age of the universe at about 13.8 billion years and the local   expansion rate – called the Hubble constant – at 67.4 (+/- 0.5) km/sec/Mpc. Oddly, this early-universe determined Hubble constant is slightly lower than that determined by other methods in the late-universe, creating a tension that is causing much discussion and speculation.

Source: apod.nasa.gov
esa planck satellite space cosmology astronomy
Seeing Titan with Infrared Eyes “ These six infrared images of Saturn’s moon Titan represent some of the clearest, most seamless-looking global views of the icy moon’s surface produced so far. The views were created using 13 years of data acquired by...

Seeing Titan with Infrared Eyes

These six infrared images of Saturn’s moon Titan represent some of the clearest, most seamless-looking global views of the icy moon’s surface produced so far. The views were created using 13 years of data acquired by the Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) instrument on board NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. The images are the result of a focused effort to smoothly combine data from the multitude of different observations VIMS made under a wide variety of lighting and viewing conditions over the course of Cassini’s mission.

Source: jpl.nasa.gov
titan cassini space nasa

These are the most accurate natural color images of Pluto (left) and its largest moon, Charon (right), taken by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft as it approached the Pluto system on July 14, 2015. Each is a single color scan from the New Horizons Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera. The images here are not to scale; with a diameter of 1,473 miles, Pluto is about twice the size of Charon (750 miles).

Source: pluto.jhuapl.edu
pluto charon space new horizons
“ Cerealia Facula, also known as the brightest spot on Ceres, is shown in this stunning mosaic close-up view. The high-resolution image data was recorded by the Dawn spacecraft, in a looping orbit, from altitudes as low as 34 kilometers (21 miles)...

Cerealia Facula, also known as the brightest spot on Ceres, is shown in this stunning mosaic close-up view. The high-resolution image data was recorded by the Dawn spacecraft, in a looping orbit, from altitudes as low as 34 kilometers (21 miles) above the dwarf planet’s surface. Cerealia Facula is about 15 kilometers wide, found in the center of 90 kilometer diameter Occator crater. Like the other bright spots (faculae) scattered around Ceres, Cerealia Facula is not ice, but an exposed salty residue with a reflectivity like dirty snow. The residue is thought to be mostly sodium carbonate and ammonium chloride from a slushy brine within or below the dwarf planet’s crust.

Source: apod.nasa.gov
dawn ceres nasa space asteroid
A dozen new moons of Jupiter discovered, including one “oddball” “Twelve new moons orbiting Jupiter have been found—11 “normal” outer moons, and one that they’re calling an “oddball.” This brings Jupiter’s total number of known moons to a whopping...

A dozen new moons of Jupiter discovered, including one “oddball”

Twelve new moons orbiting Jupiter have been found—11 “normal” outer moons, and one that they’re calling an “oddball.”  This brings Jupiter’s total number of known moons to a whopping 79—the most of any planet in our Solar System.

A team led by Carnegie’s Scott S. Sheppard first spotted the moons in the spring of 2017 while they were looking for very distant Solar System objects as part of the hunt for a possible massive planet far beyond Pluto.  

In 2014, this same team found the object with the most-distant known orbit in our Solar System and was the first to realize that an unknown massive planet at the fringes of our Solar System, far beyond Pluto, could explain the similarity of the orbits of several small extremely distant objects. This putative planet is now sometimes popularly called Planet X or Planet Nine.  University of Hawaii’s Dave Tholen and Northern Arizona University’s Chad Trujillo are also part of the planet search team.

“Jupiter just happened to be in the sky near the search fields where we were looking for extremely distant Solar System objects, so we were serendipitously able to look for new moons around Jupiter while at the same time looking for planets at the fringes of our Solar System,” said Sheppard.

Source: carnegiescience.edu
jupiter space astronomy
To make Curiosity (et al.) more curious, NASA and ESA smarten up AI in space ““The development of space-ready hardware is extremely slow,” Woods notes. “Those things are allowed to have one blue screen in 15 years despite high doses of radiation they...

To make Curiosity (et al.) more curious, NASA and ESA smarten up AI in space

“The development of space-ready hardware is extremely slow,” Woods notes. “Those things are allowed to have one blue screen in 15 years despite high doses of radiation they need to withstand. So working with different modalities and making more advanced AI systems are all great ideas, but at what computational cost? When will we be able to actually fly those things?”

[…]

“And there is no other way,” says Arora of the current state for space AI. “The farther we go into our solar system, the less feasible teleoperation will become. We can’t deal with it without autonomy.”

Source: Ars Technica
robots space artificial intelligence nasa esa
“This image, based on observations made with South Africa’s MeerKAT radio telescope, shows the clearest view yet of the central regions of our galaxy. At the distance of the galactic centre (located within the white area near image centre), this 2...

This image, based on observations made with South Africa’s MeerKAT radio telescope, shows the clearest view yet of the central regions of our galaxy. At the distance of the galactic centre (located within the white area near image centre), this 2 degree by 1 degree panorama corresponds to an area of approximately 1,000 light-years by 500 light-years.

The colour scheme chosen here to display the signals represents the brightness of the radio waves recorded by the telescope (ranging from red for faint emission to orange to yellow to white for the brightest areas). This image shows a wealth of never before seen features, as well as a clearer view of previously known supernova remnants, star-forming regions, and radio filaments.

Source: ska.ac.za
radio astronomy space astronomy
A star set to explode “ This ethereal object, known officially as [SBW2007] 1 but sometimes nicknamed SBW1, is a nebula with a giant star at its centre. The star was originally twenty times more massive than our Sun, and is now encased in a swirling...

A star set to explode

This ethereal object, known officially as [SBW2007] 1 but sometimes nicknamed SBW1, is a nebula with a giant star at its centre. The star was originally twenty times more massive than our Sun, and is now encased in a swirling ring of purple gas, the remains of the distant era when it cast off its outer layers via violent pulsations and winds.

But the star is not just any star; scientists say that it is destined to go supernova! 26 years ago, another star with striking similarities went supernova — SN 1987A. Early Hubble images of SN 1987A show eerie similarities to SBW1. Both stars had identical rings of the same size and age, which were travelling at similar speeds; both were located in similar HII regions; and they had the same brightness. In this way SBW1 is a snapshot of SN1987a’s appearance before it exploded, and unsurprisingly, astronomers love studying them together.

At a distance of more than 20 000 light-years it will be safe to watch when the supernova goes off. If we are very lucky it may happen in our own lifetimes…

Source: spacetelescope.org
astronomy space
“ What created the strange spiral structure on the upper left? No one is sure, although it is likely related to a star in a binary star system entering the planetary nebula phase, when its outer atmosphere is ejected. The huge spiral spans about a...

What created the strange spiral structure on the upper left?   No one is sure, although it is likely related to a star in a binary star system entering the planetary nebula phase, when its outer atmosphere is ejected. The huge spiral spans about a third of a light year across and, winding four or five complete turns, has a regularity that is without precedent.   Given the expansion rate of the spiral gas, a new layer must appear about every 800 years, a close match to the time it takes for the two stars to orbit each other. The star system that created it is most commonly known as LL Pegasi, but also AFGL 3068.  The unusual structure itself has been cataloged as IRAS 23166+1655. The featured image was taken in near-infrared light by the Hubble Space Telescope. Why the spiral glows is itself a mystery, with a leading hypothesis being illumination by light reflected from nearby stars.

Source: apod.nasa.gov
astronomy space
First Confirmed Image of Newborn Planet Caught with ESO’s VLT “ SPHERE, a planet-hunting instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope, has captured the first confirmed image of a planet caught in the act of forming in the dusty disc surrounding a young...

First Confirmed Image of Newborn Planet Caught with ESO’s VLT

SPHERE, a planet-hunting instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope, has captured the first confirmed image of a planet caught in the act of forming in the dusty disc surrounding a young star. The young planet is carving a path through the primordial disc of gas and dust around the very young star PDS 70. The data suggest that the planet’s atmosphere is cloudy.

Source: spaceexp
space astronomy
Dawn’s Latest Orbit Reveals Dramatic New Views of Occator Crater “NASA’s Dawn spacecraft reached its lowest-ever and final orbit around dwarf planet Ceres on June 6 and has been returning thousands of stunning images and other data. The flight team...

Dawn’s Latest Orbit Reveals Dramatic New Views of Occator Crater

NASA’s Dawn spacecraft reached its lowest-ever and final orbit around dwarf planet Ceres on June 6 and has been returning thousands of stunning images and other data.

The flight team maneuvered the spacecraft into an orbit that dives 22 miles (35 kilometers) above the surface of Ceres and viewed Occator Crater, site of the famous bright deposits, and other intriguing regions. In more than three years of orbiting Ceres, Dawn’s lowest altitude before this month was 240 miles (385 kilometers), so the data from this current orbit bring the dwarf planet into much sharper focus.

These low orbits have revealed unprecedented details of the relationships between bright and dark materials in the region of Vinalia Faculae. Dawn’s visible and infrared mapping spectrometer had previously found the bright deposits to be made of sodium carbonate, a material commonly found in evaporite deposits on Earth. Last week Dawn fired its ion engine, possibly for the final time, to fly nearer Cerealia Facula, the large deposit of sodium carbonate in the center of Occator Crater.

Source: jpl.nasa.gov
dawn ceres space asteroid nasa