Space: The Final Frontier

[CaaC (John)+]

Mission to deflect asteroid to save the world from future collisions

The ESA's concept of how its Hera mission would look. Pic: ESA

NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) are teaming up for an ambitious mission to use a spacecraft to deflect an asteroid.

Researchers and engineers from the two agencies and beyond are meeting in Rome next week to discuss the idea, which they want to prove is a viable method of planetary defence.

The so-called Asteroid Impact Deflection Assessment (AIDA) would target the smaller body of the double Didymos asteroids orbiting between the Earth and Mars, with one spacecraft dedicated to knocking it off course and another to survey its remains once it crashes.

The main body of Didymos measures about 780m across, and its smaller one measures about 160m - slightly bigger than the Great Pyramid of Giza.

The smaller body only orbits the main body at a few centimetres per second, making the job of knocking it off course a feasible one.

The smaller Didymos asteroid being hit by NASA craft DART, as envisaged by the ESA. Pic: ESA

NASA is providing the spacecraft for the first part of the job, and it is due to launch in the summer of 2021.

The DART (Double Asteroid Impact Test) craft is scheduled to collide with its target in September 2022, with the moment of impact to be recorded by an Italian-made miniature satellite along for the ride called LICIACube.

A close-up examination of whatever is left of the asteroid will be carried out by an ESA vessel called Hera, which will be able to measure its mass and the shape of the crater.

Hera will also deploy a pair of mini satellites of its own to carry out the very first radar probe of an asteroid, which could gather information about its terrain.

It is hoped that the results obtained by Hera would allow researchers to better model the efficiency of the collision, which could make the asteroid deflection technique a valid option in the event of a real threat.

Hera is not as far into its development as DART, with final design work still to be completed before it is approved at an upcoming ESA council conference in November.

Its launch would then take place on October 2024 and the journey to its destination would take about two years.

Ian Carnelli, manager of the Hera project, said: "DART can perform its mission without Hera - the effect of its impact on the asteroid's orbit will be measurable using Earth ground-based observatories alone.

"But flying the two missions together will greatly magnify their overall knowledge return. Hera will, in fact, gather essential data to turn this one-off experiment into an asteroid deflection technique applicable to other asteroids.

"Hera will also be the first mission to rendezvous with a binary asteroid system, a mysterious class of object believed to make up around 15% of all known asteroids."

Mr Carnelli added that the Hera mission would allow new deep space mini-satellites - which are called CubeSats - to be tested, and provide the ESA with valuable experience of low-gravity operations.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/mission-to-deflect-asteroid-to-save-world-from-future-collisions/ar-AAGJETY?li=BBoPWjQ

[CaaC (John)+]

Team plans colour film of a black hole at galaxy's centre

The team that took the first-ever image of a black hole has announced plans to capture "razor-sharp" full-colour video of the one at the centre of our galaxy.

Satellites would be launched to supplement the existing network of eight telescopes to make this movie.

The researchers say the upgraded network will be able to see the supermassive black hole consuming the material around it.

The team has been awarded the  Breakthrough Award for Physics.

Prof Heino Falcke, of Radboud University in the Netherlands, who proposed the idea of the so-called  Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), told BBC News that the next step was to see a black hole in action.

"Just like planets, a black hole rotates. And because of its incredibly strong gravity, it distorts space and time around it. And so seeing this very weird effect of space itself being rotated is one of the holy grails of astrophysics."

FULL REPORT

[nudge]

India's Chandrayaan-2 mission's Vikram lander (with Pragyaan rover on board) will attempt a soft Moon landing today! If it's successful, India will become the fourth country ever to land on the lunar surface and the first one to land on the south polar region of the Moon.

Will go live here in about three hours: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iqNTeZAq-c

Hope all goes well.

[nudge]

The stream is live now!

[IgnisExcubitor]

Apparently, the lander Vikram has crashed. Shame really. But it was the small part of the mission. The main one is the orbiter. 

 

[nudge]

The landing failed  Contact with the lander lost at about two kilometers to the surface.

[nudge]

7 minutes ago, IgnisExcubitor said:

Apparently, the lander Vikram has crashed. Shame really. But it was the small part of the mission. The main one is the orbiter. 

 

Absolutely, the orbiter will provide you with a year's worth of data. The lander would have only lasted roughly two weeks. It's a pity that the landing wasn't successful and it would have been a nice milestone to achieve but space is hard and ISRO have been doing a great job; this is by no means a small feat. 

[IgnisExcubitor]

The orbiter will be up there for a year documenting important things. 

Still mighty proud of the effort. 

EDIT Just posted at the same time with you @nudge. The orbiter does a lot of work. 

Well, now on to the Sun. 

Edited September 6, 2019 by IgnisExcubitor

[CaaC (John)+]

Sept. 6, 2019

Hubble Spots a Swarm of Stars

This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows a dwarf galaxy named UGC 685. Such galaxies are small and contain just a tiny fraction of the number of stars in a galaxy like the Milky Way. Dwarf galaxies often show a hazy structure, an ill-defined shape, and an appearance somewhat akin to a swarm or cloud of stars — and UGC 685 is no exception to this. Classified as an SAm galaxy — a type of unbarred spiral galaxy — it is located about 15 million light-years from Earth.

These data were gathered under Hubble’s LEGUS (Legacy ExtraGalactic UV Survey) program, the sharpest and most comprehensive ultraviolet survey of star-forming galaxies in the nearby universe. 

LEGUS is imaging 50 spiral and dwarf galaxies in our cosmic neighborhood in multiple colors using Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3. The survey is picking apart the structures of these galaxies and resolving their constituent stars, clusters, groups and other stellar associations. Star formation plays a huge role in shaping its host galaxy. By exploring these targets in detail via both new observations and archival Hubble data, LEGUS will shed light on how stars form and cluster together, how these clusters evolve, how a star’s formation affects its surroundings, and how stars explode at the end of their lives.

Text credit: ESA (European Space Agency)
Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA; the LEGUS team, B. Tully, D. Calzetti; Acknowledgment: Judy Schmidt (Geckzilla)

Last Updated: Sept. 6, 2019

Editor: Rob Garner

[CaaC (John)+]

China’s biggest telescope detects 100 mysterious signals from three billion light-years away

China’s largest telescope has been picking up more than 100 mysterious signals coming from a source around three billion light-years away from Earth.

These strange signals are known as Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) – pulses of radio waves coming from unknown cosmos in space.

Officials say that the telescope, situated in Guizhou, has detected over 100 FRBs and the source is designated FRB121102 – three billion light-years away.

FULL REPORT

[CaaC (John)+]

Star was hurled across our Milky Way galaxy by new, unseen kind of black hole

Illustration of a planet being consumed by a black hole. As the planet approaches the collapsed star, tidal forces rip it to pieces, because of the much greater gravitational pull on the side of the planet nearest to the black hole.

A star which was hurled across our galaxy at enormous speed was probably ejected from its birth galaxy by a sort of black hole never before seen in our galaxy.

Researchers from the Keck telescope believe that the star, PG 1610+062 was hurled across the galaxy by a mid-mass black hole (MMBH).

Keck Observatory data revealed that PG1610+062 is actually a surprisingly young, massive star that’s ten times more massive, ejected from the Galactic disk almost at the escape velocity from the Milky Way.

Researchers now believe there is only one likely culprit - a mid-mass black hole.

Such objects have been predicted to exist in young stellar clusters in the spiral arms of the Milky Way, but none has been detected yet.

'Now, PG1610+062 may provide evidence that MMBHs could indeed exist in our galaxy. says lead author Andreas Irrgang of the Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany.

The race is on to actually find them.’

The team needed spectral data of the star, but its distance and position in the sky made W. M. Keck Observatory’s Echellette Spectrograph and Imager (ESI) the only tool for the job.

In the northern hemisphere, only the combination of Keck Observatory and ESI gave us what we needed. The collecting area of Keck allowed us to gather enough photons for our object and ESI has exactly the right resolution, which is high enough to resolve all the spectral features.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/techandscience/star-was-hurled-across-our-milky-way-galaxy-by-new-unseen-kind-of-black-hole/ar-AAH64BU?li=BBoPWjQ

[CaaC (John)+]

Water found on 'mind-blowing' planet around a distant star

Astronomers have discovered water in the atmosphere of a planet orbiting within the habitable zone of a distant star.

The finding makes the world - which is called K2-18b - a plausible candidate in the search for alien life.

Within 10 years, new space telescopes might be able to determine whether K2-18b's atmosphere contains gases that could be produced by living organisms.

Details are have been published in the scientific journal  Nature Astronomy.

The lead scientist, Prof Giovanna Tinetti of University College London (UCL) described the discovery as "mind-blowing".

"This is the first time that we have detected water on a planet in the habitable zone around a star where the temperature is potentially compatible with the presence of life," she said.

The team looked through the planets discovered by the Hubble Space Telescope between 2016 and 2017. The researchers determined some of the chemicals in their atmosphere by studying the changes to the starlight as the planets orbited their suns. The light filtered through the planets' atmospheres was subtly altered by the composition of the atmosphere.

Only K2-18b revealed the molecular signature of water, which is a vital ingredient for life on Earth. Computer modelling of the data suggested that up to 50% of its atmosphere could be water.

The new planet is just over twice the size of Earth and has a temperature cool enough to have liquid water, between zero and 40C.

Dr Angelos Tsiaras, a member of the UCL team, said that finding water in the atmosphere of a potentially habitable exoplanet was "incredibly exciting".

He said: "It brings us closer to answering the fundamental question: Is the Earth unique?"

K2-18b may be able to support life. But we have no way to tell at the moment.

What is an exoplanet?

• Planets beyond our Solar System are called exoplanets
• The first exoplanet was discovered in 1992, orbiting a pulsar (a neutron star that emits electromagnetic radiation)
• More than 4,000 have been detected to date using several techniques
• Many of these worlds are large planets believed to resemble Jupiter or Neptune
• Many giant planets have been found orbiting very close to their stars

It is 111 light-years away which is around 650 million million miles, too far to send a probe. So the only option is to wait for the next generation of space telescopes to be launched in the 2020s and look for gasses in K2-18b's atmosphere that could only be produced by living organisms, according to UCL's Dr Ingo Waldmann.

"This is one of the biggest questions in science and we have always wondered if we are alone in the Universe. Within the next 10 years, we will know whether there are chemicals that are due to life in those atmospheres."

Long haul

One difficulty with this approach, though, is that astronomers can't agree on which gases would constitute evidence of life. That might be more of a longer haul.

It is likely to require a survey of the chemical composition of, perhaps, hundreds of worlds and an understanding of how they are created and evolve, according to Prof Tinetti.

"The Earth really stands out in our own Solar System. It has oxygen, water and ozone. But if we find all that around a planet around a distant star we have to be cautious about saying that it supports life," she said.

"This is why we need to understand not just a handful of planets in the galaxy but hundreds of them. And what we hope is that the habitable planets will stand out, that we will see a big difference between the planets that are habitable and the ones that are not."

Dr Beth Biller at Edinburgh University's Institute of Astronomy said she believed that evidence of life on a planet around a distant star would eventually be discovered.

"That would be a paradigm shift for all of humanity," she told BBC News.

"It's not going to be ET phoning home, necessarily - more likely microbes or some other simple life. Even so (when it happens) it's going to be huge".

The prospective launch of Nasa's much delayed James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) in 2021, and the European Space Agency's Ariel mission seven years later will enable astronomers to study in detail the atmospheres of the varied worlds that have been detected so far.

Water has been detected on other planets but they have been either too big or too hot to support life. Cooler smaller planets are much harder to detect. The team at UCL was able to do this by developing algorithms capable of teasing out the chemical composition of the atmospheres of potentially habitable worlds

K2-18b was discovered in 2015 and is one of the hundreds of super-Earths - planets with a mass between Earth and Neptune - found by Nasa's Kepler spacecraft. Nasa's Tess mission is expected to detect hundreds more in coming years.

The research was funded by the European Research Council and the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council, which is part of the UK Research and Innovation agency (UKRI).

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-49648746

[CaaC (John)+]

Has another interstellar visitor been found?

An amateur astronomer has discovered a comet that could come from outside our Solar System.

If so, it would be the second interstellar object after the elongated body known as 'Oumuamua was identified in 2017.

The Minor Planet Center (MPC) at Harvard University has issued a formal announcement of the discovery.

The body appears to have a "hyperbolic" orbit, which would appear to indicate its origin in another planetary system.

A hyperbolic orbit is an eccentric one, where the shape deviates substantially from that of a perfect circle.

A perfect circle has an eccentricity of 0. The elliptical orbits of many planets, asteroids and comets have eccentricities between 0 and 1.

The newly discovered object - initially given the designation gb00234, but now known as Comet C/2019 Q4 (Borisov) - has an eccentricity of 3.2, based on current observations.

It was noticed by the amateur stargazer Gennady Borisov on 30 August at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory in Bakhchysarai. At the time, it was about three astronomical units (about 450 million km) from the Sun.

Bizarre shape of interstellar asteroid

'Space cigar' had a violent history

Oumuamua, discovered on 19 October 2017, was initially classified as a comet, based on its hyperbolic trajectory. But further observations detected no sign of a coma - the fuzzy envelope around the nucleus of a comet. C/2019 Q4 (Borisov), on the other hand, is clearly an active comet, with a visible coma and tail.

Unlike the small, faint 'Oumuamua, the new object seems to be very large - around 20km wide - and bright.

In addition, 'Oumuamua was also spotted after its closest approach to the Sun (perihelion), so it wasn't visible long enough for astronomers to answer the many questions they had. C/2019 Q4 (Borisov), meanwhile, is still approaching our Solar System and shouldn't reach perihelion until 10 December.

The Minor Planet Center announcement called on astronomers to make follow-up observations. According to the MPC, "absent an unexpected fading or disintegration, [C/2019 Q4] should be observable for at least a year".

This would give observers an exciting opportunity to characterise the properties of an object that could have originated around a distant star.

Astrophysicist Karl Battams, from the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington DC, tweeted: "Unlike 'Oumuamua, whose asteroid-or-comet nature still gets debated, this one is definitely a comet.

"If it is unequivocally interstellar, it'll be fascinating to see how its composition (spectral properties) compares to the variety we see in comets from our own Solar System."

Astrophysicist Simon Porter, from the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in San Antonio, Texas, who has been tracking the object, added on Twitter: "With such a bright coma, we should be able to get beautiful spectra of Q4 and hopefully measure isotopic ratios."

Isotopes are different forms of the same chemical element. He added that these ratios could be different from those of "domestic" comets.

NASA REPORT

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-49676757

 

[CaaC (John)+]

Asteroid twice the size of the Shard to pass by Earth

© Other Two asteroids are to pass Earth in a day, says Nasa. File pic

An asteroid double the size of the Shard will pass by Earth on Saturday night, NASA scientists have said.

The space rock, known as Asteroid 2000 QW7, is set to fly by around three million miles from Earth at 14,361mph, according to the US space agency's jet propulsion laboratory.

The asteroid is approximately between 300 and 600 metres wide, according to NASA data, but it poses no danger.

In comparison, the Shard, the tallest building in the UK, stands at 309.7 metres high.

The 2000 QW7 will be the second of two relatively medium-sized asteroids to pass Earth in a day.

© Getty The asteroid is twice the size of the Shard.

The other asteroid, 2010 CO1, is somewhat smaller, being between 120 and 260 metres, and was due to pass Earth early Saturday morning.

"These asteroids have been well observed - one since 2000 and the other since 2010 - and their orbits are very well known," said Lindley Johnson, planetary defence officer at NASA.

"Both of these asteroids are passing at about 14 lunar distances from the Earth, or about 3.5 million miles away, but small asteroids pass by Earth this close all the time."

The asteroids are being carefully tracked by space experts, with the bigger one expected to pass Earth at around 12.54am on Sunday morning.

NASA has been aware of the asteroid since 2000 and is confident that it is not a threat.

The asteroid will continue to orbit the sun and is next expected to pass Earth on October 2038.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/asteroid-twice-the-size-of-the-shard-to-pass-by-earth/ar-AAHhLXE?MSCC=1568456986&ocid=chromentp

[CaaC (John)+]

 Sept. 13, 2019

This image, taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, focuses on an object named UGC 695, which is located 30 million light-years away within the constellation Cetus (the Sea Monster), also known as the Whale. A bounty of diverse background galaxies is also visible in this image.

UGC 695 is a low-surface-brightness (LSB) galaxy. These galaxies are so faint that their brightness is less than the background brightness of Earth’s atmosphere, which makes them tricky to observe. This low brightness is the result of the relatively small number of stars within them — most of the normal, or “baryonic,” matter in these galaxies exists in the form of huge clouds of gas and dust. The stars are also distributed over a relatively large area.

LSB galaxies, like dwarf galaxies, have a high fraction of dark matter relative to the number of stars they contain. Astronomers still debate about how LSB galaxies formed in the first place.

Text credit: ESA (European Space Agency)
Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, D. Calzetti

Last Updated: Sept. 13, 2019

Editor: Rob Garner

[Vegan Kel]

That's really bad CGI

[CaaC (John)+]

First measurements of 'interstellar comet'

Astronomers are gathering measurements on a presumed interstellar comet, providing clues about its chemical composition.

The object, C/2019 Q4 (Borisov), is only the second interstellar object ever identified, after 'Oumuamua, which was spotted in 2017.

Telescopes across the world are being trained on the object.

Early results suggest its make-up might not differ that much from comets in our cosmic neighbourhood.

One expert told the BBC that the object was about to become one of the most famous comets in history.

The team used the Osiris instrument at the 10.4m Gran Telescopio Canarias in La Palma, Spain, to obtain visible spectra - measurements of sunlight reflected by Borisov.

By studying these spectra, scientists can draw conclusions about its chemical composition, including how it might differ from comets that were "born" around the Sun.

"The spectrum is the red side of the comet's total spectrum, so the only thing we can see in the spectrum is the slope," said Miquel Serra Ricart, from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) in Tenerife.

"This inclination is similar to Solar System comets."

Astronomer Julia de León, also from the IAC, said this indicated that Borisov's "composition must be similar" to comets in our neighbourhood.

FULL REPORT

[CaaC (John)+]

Euclid space telescope to study 'dark Universe' makes progress

Europe's space mission to uncover the secrets of the "dark Universe" has reached a key milestone.

The test model of the Euclid telescope has just emerged from a chamber where it was subjected to the kind of conditions experienced in orbit.

It was a critical moment for engineers because the successful trial confirms the observatory's design is on track.

Euclid, due for launch in 2022, will map the cosmos for clues to the nature of dark matter and dark energy.

These phenomena appear to control the shape and expansion of the Universe but virtually nothing is known about them.

The €800m venture, led by the European Space Agency (Esa), will be one of a group of new experiments to come online in the next few years.

Scientists are hopeful these next-generation technologies will provide the insights that have so far eluded them.

• Powerful X-ray telescope launches to map cosmos
• Gravitational waves: So many new toys to unwrap
• Gaia clocks speedy cosmic expansion

FULL REPORT

[CaaC (John)+]

Planet Venus may have been habitable for billions of years, says Nasa

© Nasa Venus may have been warm and wet for billions of years, long enough for life to become established

The planet Venus may have been habitable for billions of years, Nasa scientists have calculated.

New computer models of the climate history of the second planet from the Sun, show that until around 700 million years ago temperatures ranged from 68F (20C) to 122F (50C), cool enough for liquid water.

In the 1980s, Nasa’s Pioneer Venus mission found hints that the planet once had a shallow ocean, but because it receives far more sunlight than Earth, scientists believed it had quickly evaporated before life could become established.

Video: Venus's Asymmetrical Cloud Tops May Explain Mysterious 'Super Rotation' (Amaze Lab)

With no water left on the surface, carbon dioxide rose in the atmosphere, triggering a runaway greenhouse effect that created current conditions.

Today Venus has a crushing carbon dioxide atmosphere 90 times as thick as Earth’s and temperatures at the surface reach 864 degrees Fahrenheit (462C), making life impossible.

But new computer modelling by Nasa Goddard Institute for Space Science suggests that the ocean may have lasted for two to three billion years.

Not only does it suggest that life could have once evolved on Venus, but it opens up new possibilities about where aliens may exist outside of our Solar System.

“Our hypothesis is that Venus may have had a stable climate for billions of years,” said lead researcher Dr Michael Way.

 

“It is possible that the near-global resurfacing event is responsible for its transformation from an Earth-like climate to the hellish hot-house we see today.

“Our models show that there is a real possibility that Venus could have been habitable and radically different from the Venus we see today. 

“This opens up all kinds of implications for exoplanets found in what is called the ‘Venus Zone’, which may, in fact, host liquid water and temperate climates.”

At around 4.2 billion years ago, soon after its formation, Venus would have completed a period of rapid cooling and its atmosphere would have been dominated by carbon-dioxide. 

© Nasa Today the surface of Venus is too hot for life

If the planet evolved in an Earth-like way over the next 3 billion years, the carbon dioxide would have been drawn down by rocks and locked into the surface.

By around 715 million years ago, the atmosphere would have been dominated by nitrogen with trace amounts of carbon dioxide and methane – similar to the Earth’s today – and these conditions could have remained stable up until present times.

However, Dr Way believes that intense volcanic activity around 700 million years ago transformed Venus. One possibility is that large amounts of magma bubbled up, releasing carbon dioxide from molten rocks into the atmosphere. 

The magma solidified before reaching the surface and this created a barrier that meant that the gas could not be reabsorbed, causing runaway global warming.  

© Nasa Images taken by Nasa's Pioneer mission hinted that Venus once had an ocean

Most researchers believe that Venus is beyond the inner boundary of our Solar System’s habitable zone and is too close to the Sun to support liquid water. But the new study suggests that this might not be the case.

“Venus currently has almost twice the solar radiation that we have at Earth. However, in all the scenarios we have modelled, we have found that Venus could still support surface temperatures amenable for liquid water,” said Dr Way.

The research was presented at the European Planetary Science Congress.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/techandscience/planet-venus-may-have-been-habitable-for-billions-of-years-says-nasa/ar-AAHFBoq?ocid=chromentp

 

[CaaC (John)+]

Edit: Whoops, cock-up, will try again - deleted    

 

Edited September 27, 2019 by CaaC (John)

[CaaC (John)+]

Astronomers find huge world that 'should not exist' and could change our understanding of how planets form

VIDEO

Astronomers have spotted a huge planet that they thought would not be able to exist.

The vast world – a Jupiter-like exoplanet that is 30 light-years away – could force us to re-write our understanding of how planets form, scientists say.

It orbits around a star, known as GJ 3512, which is a red dwarf only a tenth as big our own Sun. Astronomers did not expect that such a small star would be able to serve as home to such a vast planet.

"Around such stars, there should only be planets the size of the Earth or somewhat more massive Super-Earths," said Christoph Mordasini, professor at the University of Bern and member of the National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) PlanetS. "GJ 3512b, however, is a giant planet with a mass about half as big as the one of Jupiter, and thus at least one order of magnitude more massive than the planets predicted by theoretical models for such small stars."

The Spanish-led team who first spotted the planet wrote in the journal Science that the newly confirmed planet did not form the usual, gradual way, where a solid core of merging particles takes shape before a gas buildup. Instead, in a surprise to scientists, the planet seems to have arisen straight from gas.

Lead author Juan Carlos Morales of the Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia said the planet may be almost as big as its star. A year there is about 200 days.

"It was very exciting finding this planet because it was completely unexpected," Morales wrote in an email. The results indicate "a new population of massive planets may also exist around low-mass stars."

Morales and his team maintain that gravitational instability in a young star's disk of gas and dust could, in some cases, result in the quick formation of huge gas planets — even when the star is minuscule. This new world is "an extraordinary candidate" for this process, said Hubert Klahr of Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany, part of the research team. "This find prompts us to review our models."

Related: Blackhole captured ripping apart a nearby star

The star is so faint it almost didn't make it into the group's survey. Scientists needed more small stars for sampling and so added a few at the last minute.

"We were lucky to do so because otherwise, we would have never made this discovery," Ignasi Ribas, director of the Catalonia space studies institute, said in a statement.

Morales and his colleagues continue to search for a second planet orbiting this dwarf star. There may have been a third planet that was ejected from the system long ago, they noted.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/techandscience/astronomers-find-huge-world-that-should-not-exist-and-could-change-our-understanding-of-how-planets-form/ar-AAHVLZf?ocid=chromentp

[Vegan Kel]

Any actual photos in this thread? They all seem to be CGI. I can't think why that might be.

This thread should be merged with the sci-fi thread as that is exactly what it is.

'Experts say'... 'scientists say...' kinell at least sheep need shepherds and sheepdogs to keep them in line

Edited September 28, 2019 by Vegan Kel

[CaaC (John)+]

Chandrayaan-2: India Moon probe made 'hard landing', says Nasa

India's Moon rover, which lost contact moments before it was to touch down on the lunar surface earlier this month, had a "hard landing", Nasa has said.

New pictures from a Nasa spacecraft show the targeted landing site of the Vikram rover, but its precise location "has yet to be determined".

The images were taken at dusk and were not able to locate the lander.

India would have been the fourth nation to make a soft landing on the Moon.

Chandrayaan-2 was due to touch down at the lunar South Pole on 7 September, over a month after it first took off.

It approached the Moon as normal until an error occurred about 2.1km (1.3 miles) from the surface, Indian space officials said.

On Friday, Nasa tweeted the images of the targeted landing site of the Indian module.

Nasa said the targeted site was located about 600km (370 miles) from the South Pole in a "relatively ancient terrain".

"[The agency's] Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) passed over the landing site on 17 September and acquired a set of high-resolution images of the area; so far the team has not been able to locate or image the lander," the space agency said in a statement.

"It was dusk when the landing area was imaged and thus large shadows covered much of the terrain; it is possible that the Vikram lander is hiding in a shadow. The lighting will be favourable when LRO passes over the site in October and once again attempts to locate and image the lander."

India's first Moon mission - Chandrayaan-1 in 2008 - carried out the first and most detailed search for water on the lunar surface using radars.

What was this mission all about?

Chandrayaan-2 (Moon vehicle 2) was the most complex mission ever attempted by India's space agency, Isro. "It is the beginning of a historical journey," Isro chief K Sivan said after launch in July.

The lander (named Vikram, after the founder of Isro) carried within its belly a 27kg Moon rover with instruments to analyse the lunar soil.

India's grand ambitions in the second Moon mission

The rover (called Pragyan - wisdom in Sanskrit) had the capacity to travel 500m from the lander in its 14-day life span and would have sent data and images back to Earth for analysis.

The mission would have focused on the lunar surface, searching for water and minerals and measuring moonquakes, among other things.

Why would it have been significant?

A soft landing on another planetary body - a feat achieved by just three other countries so far - would have been a huge technological achievement for Isro and India's space ambitions writes science writer Pallava Bagla.

He adds that it would also have paved the way for future Indian missions to land on Mars, and opened up the possibility of India sending astronauts into space.

For the first time in India's space history, the interplanetary expedition was led by two women - project director Muthaya Vanitha and mission director Ritu Karidhal.

It is also a matter of national pride - the satellite's lift-off in July was broadcast live on TV and Isro's official social media accounts.

The mission has also made global headlines because it's so cheap - the budget for Avengers: Endgame, for instance, was more than double at an estimated $356m. But this isn't the first time Isro has been hailed for its thrift. Its 2014 Mars mission cost $74m, a tenth of the budget for the American Maven orbiter.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-49848638

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Elon Musk unveils spacecraft he says can go to Mars and return to Earth

© 2019 Getty Images BOCA CHICA, TX - SEPTEMBER 28: Space enthusiasts look at a prototype of SpaceX's Starship spacecraft at the company's Texas launch facility on September 28, 2019, in Boca Chica near Brownsville, Texas. The Starship spacecraft is a massive vehicle meant to take people to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. (Photo by Loren Elliott/Getty Images)

Elon Musk has unveiled a SpaceX spacecraft designed to carry a crew and cargo to the moon, Mars or anywhere else in the solar system and land back on Earth perpendicularly.

In a live-streamed speech from SpaceX’s launch facility near the southern tip of Texas, Mr Musk said the space venture’s Starship is expected to take off for the first time in about one or two months and reach 65,000 feet before landing back on Earth.

© Provided by The Press Association Elon Musk and the planet Mars (Brian Lawless/Nasa/PA)

He said it is essential for the viability of space travel to be able to reuse spacecraft and that it is important to take steps to extend consciousness beyond our planet.

A crowd watched as Mr Musk spoke from a stage in front of the large spacecraft, which has a reflective, metal exterior.

Mr Musk said Saturday marked the 11th anniversary of a SpaceX rocket reaching orbit for the first time.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/news/elon-musk-unveils-spacecraft-he-says-can-go-to-mars-and-return-to-earth/ar-AAI0VMj?li=BBoPWjQ

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Scientists spot gas on ‘alien’ comet from another galaxy in world first

A visitor to our solar system became the subject of headlines around the world in 2017 after the cigar-shaped rock now named `Oumuamua flew past our sun.

Now a second visitor has arrived - named Borisov after the amateur astronomer who spotted it.

It’s believed not to come from our solar system, but from another, unknown one - and scientists have detected gas molecules on it.

The find will make it easier to understand such future visitors - and even how our solar system compares with others in our galaxy.

"For the first time we are able to accurately measure what an interstellar visitor is made of, and compare it with our own Solar System", said Professor Alan Fitzsimmons of the Astrophysics Research Centre, Queen's University Belfast.

Comet Borisov was discovered by Crimean amateur astronomer Gennadiy Borisov in August.

Observations over the following 12 days showed that it was not orbiting the Sun, but was just passing through the Solar system on its own path through our galaxy.

By 24 September it had been renamed 2I/Borisov, the second interstellar object ever discovered in our Solar System by astronomers.

Researchers used the William Hersch Telescope (WHT) to detect the faint light of the comet - and the gas contained within.

The gas detected was cyanogen, made of a carbon atom and a nitrogen atom bonded together. It is a toxic gas if inhaled, but it is relatively common in comets.

The team concluded that the most remarkable thing about the comet is that it appears ordinary in terms of the gas and dust it is emitting.

It looks like it was born 4.6 billion years ago with the other comets in our Solar system, yet has come from an - as yet - unidentified star system.

Unlike the first such object discovered two years ago, 1I/'Oumuamua, this object appeared as a faint comet, with a surrounding atmosphere of dust particles, and a short tail.

Alan Fitzsimmons of Queen’s University Belfast said, ‘Our first attempt was on Friday 13 September, but we were unlucky and were thwarted by the brightness of the sky so close to the Sun. But the next attempt was successful.’

‘A spectrum allows us to detect individual types of gas by their spectral fingerprints. We received the data at midday and by 5 pm that evening we knew we had successfully detected gas for the first time.’

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/scientists-spot-gas-on-alien-comet-from-another-galaxy-in-world-first/ar-AAI4ui9?MSCC=1569924383&ocid=chromentp