Copernical Team
Astronomers nail down the origins of rare loner dwarf galaxies
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By definition, dwarf galaxies are small and dim, with just a fraction of the stars found in the Milky Way and other galaxies. There are, however, giants among the dwarfs: Ultra-diffuse galaxies, or UDGs, are dwarf systems that contain relatively few stars but are scattered over vast regions. Because they are so diffuse, these systems are difficult to detect, though most have been found tucked wi Hubble discovers hydrogen-burning white dwarfs enjoying slow aging
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Could dying stars hold the secret to looking younger? New evidence from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope suggests that white dwarf stars could continue to burn hydrogen in the final stages of their lives, causing them to appear more youthful than they actually are. This discovery could have consequences for how astronomers measure the ages of star clusters, which contain the oldest known stars in t Astronomers explain origin of elusive ultradiffuse galaxies
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As their name suggests, ultradiffuse galaxies, or UDGs, are dwarf galaxies whose stars are spread out over a vast region, resulting in extremely low surface brightness, making them very difficult to detect. Several questions about UDGs remain unanswered: How did these dwarfs end up so extended? Are their dark matter halos - the halos of invisible matter surrounding the galaxies - special? NASA confirms Perseverance Mars rover got its first piece of rock
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NASA confirmed Monday that its Perseverance Mars rover succeeded in collecting its first rock sample for scientists to pore over when a future mission eventually brings it back to Earth.
"I've got it!" the space agency tweeted, alongside a photograph of a rock core slightly thicker than a pencil inside a sample tube.
The sample was collected on September 1, but NASA was initially unsure Protective equipment against radiation to be tested on Nauka Module on ISS in 2023
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New equipment that will help protect people from radiation during interplanetary flights will be tested on the Russian Nauka multipurpose laboratory module at the International Space Station, the head of the nuclear planetology department at the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Igor Mitrofanov, said.
"We are wrapping up the construction of a design and developme NASA begins air taxi flight testing with Joby
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NASA began flight testing Monday with Joby Aviation's all-electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft as part of the agency's Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) National Campaign. This testing runs through Friday, Sept.10, at Joby's Electric Flight Base located near Big Sur, California. This is the first time NASA will test an eVTOL aircraft as part of the campaign. In the future, eVTOL airc NASA's Perseverance rover collects first rock sample
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NASA's Perseverance rover has completed the collection of the first sample of Martian rock, a core from Jezero Crater slightly thicker than a pencil. Mission controllers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California received data that confirmed the historic milestone.
The core is now enclosed in an airtight titanium sample tube, making it available for retrieval in the f Buttes on Mars may serve as radiation shelters
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Mars has a "bad reputation" for its high exposure to radiation and it has neither a magnetic field nor a thick atmosphere to shelter its surface from high energy particles from outer space.
In a study published in Geophysical Research Letters, Guo Jingnan from University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and international collaborators, analyzed the data from the Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD) on the Curiosity rover, and proposed a possible way to mitigate radiation on Mars.
The Curiosity rover launched in November, 2011 and landed on Mars in August, 2012. It was dedicated to searching for the elements of life on Mars. In September, 2016, Curiosity parked close to a butte and detected a reduction in radiation dose, and when Curiosity traversed far from the butte, the dose came back to normal. The researchers attributed this change in radiation dose to topographical variations.
They then plotted the panoramic sky visibility map of RAD for further investigation. They found that about 20% of the sky was blocked when Curiosity rover was near the butte, and the number was less than 10% before getting close to the butte, which suggested that surrounded buttes did shield a portion of radiation.
Icarus can fly high and save on wax too
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"Don't fly too close to the sun," said Daedalus to Icarus. Flying too high would melt the wax in his wings, while going too low would cause the sea's moisture to create drag.
Commercial flight crews do not usually appear in Greek mythology, but they have to work with the occupational hazard of aviation radiation exposure. Aviation guidelines aim to mitigate the effects of radiation, mainly caused by galactic cosmic rays and solar energetic particles, or SEP. The fluxes in the former are stable and predictable: dose rates are no higher than 10 µSv/h at the normal flight altitude of 12 km.
But in the case of SEP, does the frequency of detected solar flares justify the costs of countermeasures? Current mitigation procedures instruct planes to lower altitude or change or cancel flight paths altogether, significantly raising expenses.
German government, industry back North Sea spaceport plan
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The German government said Monday it supports plans for a North Sea spaceport that would be used to launch small satellites into space from Europe.
Economy Minister Peter Altmaier said the government would act as an "anchor customer" for the floating launch site off the German coast.
"We want to strengthen the national space program," he said at an event marking the signing of cooperation agreements between the German Offshore Spaceport Alliance and four European rocket manufacturers—two from Germany, one from the Netherlands and one from Britain.
Siegfried Russwurm, head of the Germany industry association BDI, said a spaceport in the North Sea would make it easier to launch satellites into polar and sun-synchronous orbits.
There are more than 20 spaceports around the world already, but European space companies currently rely mostly on launches from Russia's site in Kazakhstan, French Guiana in South America and from the United States.
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