KREUZADER (Posts tagged space)

Where the Solar system meets the solar neighbourhood: patterns in the distribution of radiants of observed hyperbolic minor bodies“Around the same time our ancestors left Africa, a dim red dwarf star came to within 0.8 light-years of our Sun, marking... — Where the Solar system meets the solar neighbourhood: patterns in the distribution of radiants of observed hyperbolic minor bodies
Around the same time our ancestors left Africa, a dim red dwarf star came to within 0.8 light-years of our Sun, marking the closest known flyby of a star to our Solar System. New research suggests Scholz’s Star, as it’s known, left traces of this interstellar encounter by perturbing some comets in the outer Oort Cloud.
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Scholz’s Star, this research suggested, just grazed the outer reaches of the Oort Cloud, that remote bubble of debris that marks the outermost limits of the Sun’s dominant gravitational influence. The red dwarf has been drifting ever since, and it’s now about 20 light-years away. The University of Rochester researchers who conducted the 2015 study said it was unlikely that Scholz’s Star, with a mass around 9 percent of the Sun, and it’s brown dwarf, at about 6 percent the Sun’s mass, were able to disturb or jostle any of the objects in the Oort Cloud to a significant degree.
But new research published this week in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society suggests this interpretation was wrong, and that Scholz’s Star did in fact influence the trajectories of some Oort Cloud objects. In the study, astronomer brothers Carlos de la Fuente Marcos and Raúl de la Fuente Marcos from Complutense University of Madrid, along with Sverre J. Aarseth from the University of Cambridge, identified the movements of dozens of known Oort Cloud objects as having been influenced by this ancient encounter.

Source: Gizmodo

astronomy space

Mission to an Interstellar Asteroid“ A sky map showing the probability that a future interstellar asteroid will approach the Solar System on a trajectory parallel to that direction. The darker colors indicate a higher probability. The axes denote... — Mission to an Interstellar Asteroid
A sky map showing the probability that a future interstellar asteroid will approach the Solar System on a trajectory parallel to that direction. The darker colors indicate a higher probability. The axes denote degrees from a heliocentric point of view and the ecliptic is plotted in black. The sky positions of the constellations Serpens and Lepus, which are close in proximity to the Solar apex and anti-apex respectively, are plotted for context. The black circle indicates the sky location that ‘Oumuamua entered our Solar System, consistent with the prediction that the majority of these objects will approach with velocities parallel to the galactic apex.

Source: centauri-dreams.org

'oumuamua oumuamua asteroid astronomy space

Government Scientists Have A Plan For Blowing Up Asteroids With A Nuke“The Hypervelocity Asteroid Mitigation Mission for Emergency Response (HAMMER) spacecraft — a collaboration between the National Nuclear Security Administration, NASA, and two... — Government Scientists Have A Plan For Blowing Up Asteroids With A Nuke
The Hypervelocity Asteroid Mitigation Mission for Emergency Response (HAMMER) spacecraft — a collaboration between the National Nuclear Security Administration, NASA, and two Energy Department weapons labs — would either steer its 8.8-ton bulk (called an “impactor”) into a small asteroid, or carry a nuclear device to deflect a big one.
“If the asteroid is small enough, and we detect it early enough, we can do it with the impactor,” physicist David Dearborn of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory told BuzzFeed News. “The impactor is not as flexible as the nuclear option when we really want to change the speed of the body in a hurry.”
Just because these plans now exist does not mean the spacecraft will ever get built. NASA scientists declined to give a cost estimate for a mission, citing the sensitivity of pricing information, but for comparison, NASA’s more complex OSIRIS-REx mission, now on its way to Bennu, cost $800 million.

Source: BuzzFeed

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humanoidhistory

High above Earth, the Agena target vehicle gets closer and closer to the Gemini 8 space capsule, March 16, 1966. (NASA/ASU)

Source: humanoidhistory

nasa space

“The Twin Study propelled NASA into the genomics era of space travel. It was a ground-breaking study comparing what happened to astronaut Scott Kelly, in space, to his identical twin brother, Mark, who remained on Earth. The perfect nature versus... — The Twin Study propelled NASA into the genomics era of space travel. It was a ground-breaking study comparing what happened to astronaut Scott Kelly, in space, to his identical twin brother, Mark, who remained on Earth. The perfect nature versus nurture study was born.
The Twins Study brought ten research teams from around the country together to accomplish one goal: discover what happens to the human body after spending one year in space. NASA has a grasp on what happens to the body after the standard-duration six-month missions aboard the International Space Station, but Scott Kelly’s one-year mission is a stepping stone to a three-year mission to Mars.
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Another interesting finding concerned what some call the “space gene”, which was alluded to in 2017. Researchers now know that 93% of Scott’s genes returned to normal after landing. However, the remaining 7% point to possible longer term changes in genes related to his immune system, DNA repair, bone formation networks, hypoxia, and hypercapnia.

Source: nasa.gov

nasa space

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In this composite image, derived from data collected by the Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) instrument aboard NASA’s Juno mission to Jupiter, shows the central cyclone at the planet’s north pole and the eight cyclones that encircle it. JIRAM collects data in infrared, and the colors in this composite represent radiant heat: the yellow (thinner) clouds are about 9 degrees Fahrenheit (-13° Celsius) in brightness temperature and the dark red (thickest) are around -181 degrees Fahrenheit (-118.33° Celsius).

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This computer-generated image shows the structure of the cyclonic pattern observed over Jupiter’s south pole. Like in the North, Jupiter’s south pole also contains a central cyclone, but it is surrounded by five cyclones with diameters ranging from 3,500 to 4,300 miles (5,600 to 7,000 kilometers) in diameter. Almost all the polar cyclones (at both poles), are so densely packed that their spiral arms come in contact with adjacent cyclones. However, as tightly spaced as the cyclones are, they have remained distinct, with individual morphologies over the seven months of observations detailed in the paper.

Source: jpl.nasa.gov

jupiter juno space nasa

For hundreds of years, this gaseous giant planet appeared shrouded in colorful bands of clouds extending from dusk to dawn, referred to as zones and belts.
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The bands were thought to be an expression of Jovian weather, related to winds blowing eastward and westward at different speeds. This animation illustrates a recent discovery by Juno that demonstrates these east-west flows, also known as jet-streams penetrate deep into the planet’s atmosphere, to a depth of about 1,900 miles (3,000 kilometers). Due to Jupiter’s rapid rotation (Jupiter’s day is about 10 hours), these flows extend into the interior parallel to Jupiter’s axis of rotation, in the form of nested cylinders. Below this layer the flows decay, possibly slowed by Jupiter’s strong magnetic field.

jupiter nasa space juno