Copernical Team
A plan to power a lunar colony solely through solar energy without energy storage
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NASA and several other national space agencies have recently revived their lunar colonization programs. One of the key factors that needs to be solved is how to power such a colony. Can uninterrupted solar power feasibly be realized without energy storage? On Earth, providing 100% of electricity demand 100% of the time solely from renewables, but without energy storage, is unfeasible.
This Earth-bound mindset has been challenged recently by a paradigm shift developed by Ben-Gurion University's Prof. Jeffrey Gordon, which he was invited to present to NASA in late August. His idea was published earlier this year in Renewable Energy.
On the moon, solar is the sole available renewable resource. The overriding challenge is to completely supply the main energy consumer: factories that need to continuously (24/7, 365 days a year) produce thousands of tons of oxygen (O2) per year from the lunar soil, for rocket propellant, orbiting satellite refueling and human sustenance. A large part of the challenge derives from any location on the moon on average spending half of the lunar rotational period of 29.5 days in the dark.
Give climate some MAGIC
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There are times when we could all do with a bit of magic in our lives. And, with the Global Climate Observing System announcement of ‘terrestrial water storage’ as a completely new Essential Climate Variable, the world of climate research and climate crisis response would certainly benefit from a satellite mission called MAGIC.
China launches 3rd and final space station component
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China launches third and final module for Tiangong space station: state TV
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China launched the final module of its Tiangong space station on Monday, state media said, the latest step in Beijing's ambitious space programme.
The module named Mengtian, or "dreaming of heavens," was "launched on a Long March 5B rocket from the Wenchang launch centre" on China's tropical island Hainan, state broadcaster CCTV reported.
Amateur photographers and space enthusiasts watch Halloween Crack for Halloween
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Halloween Crack for Halloween SatixFy completes business combination with Endurance Acquisition Corp
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SatixFy Communications Ltd. has completed its previously-announced business combination with Endurance Acquisition Corp. ("Endurance") following the approval of the business combination by Endurance's stockholders on October 25, 2022 and satisfaction of customary closing conditions.
In addition, on October 24, 2022, Endurance and SatixFy entered into a previously disclosed OTC Prepaid Forw Magma on Mars likely
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Since 2018, when the NASA InSight Mission deployed the SEIS seismometer on the surface of Mars, seismologists and geophysicists at ETH Zurich have been listening to the seismic pings of more than 1,300 marsquakes.
Again and again, the researchers registered smaller and larger Mars quakes. A detailed analysis of the quakes' location and spectral character brought a surprise. With epicentres Traces of ancient ocean discovered on Mars
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A recently released set of topography maps provides new evidence for an ancient northern ocean on Mars. The maps offer the strongest case yet that the planet once experienced sea-level rise consistent with an extended warm and wet climate, not the harsh, frozen landscape that exists today.
"What immediately comes to mind as one the most significant points here is that the existence of an o Scientists utilize lunar soils to sustainably supply oxygen and fuels on moon in an unmanned manner
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Building up the lunar settlement is the ultimate aim of lunar exploitation since human's first step on the moon. Yet, limited fuel and oxygen supplies restrict human survival on the moon. Combining photovoltaic and electrocatalysis, the artificial production of hydrocarbon fuels along with oxygen using carbon dioxide and water as the feedstocks has been demonstrably feasible on the earth and kno Spectral evolution of a dark asteroid surface after ten years of space weathering
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When asteroid 596 Scheila collided with an object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter in December 2010, a fresh layer of material was exposed on the asteroid surface . An international research team observed the spectrum from the asteroid approximately ten years later, to see how space weathering affects the surface over a genuine timescale. Within the uncertainty of the observations,