The first cells might have used temperature to divide
Tuesday, 07 September 2021 08:37
Write a comment
A simple mechanism could underlie the growth and self-replication of protocells-putative ancestors of modern living cells-suggests a study publishing September 3 in Biophysical Journal. Protocells are vesicles bounded by a membrane bilayer and are potentially similar to the first unicellular common ancestor (FUCA). On the basis of relatively simple mathematical principles, the proposed model sug ESA Open Day invites people with disabilities – plus virtual event for all
Tuesday, 07 September 2021 08:05 Write a comment
The tenth annual ESA Open Day is confirmed for the weekend of 2-3 October. A combination of in-person and virtual events, this is your chance to meet Europe’s astronauts and space experts and see spacecraft, hardware and test equipment in close-up. On Saturday people with disabilities will have a special chance to tour ESA’s ESTEC technical centre in the Netherlands, while the following day’s virtual event will be open to all.
DoD to extend intelligence agency program that helps track wildfires
Monday, 06 September 2021 17:06 Write a comment
The Pentagon announced Sept. 3 it plans to extend a pilot program that provides imagery from satellites, drones, ground sensors and cameras to help track and combat wildfires.
House budget reconciliation package funds NASA infrastructure but not lunar lander work
Monday, 06 September 2021 16:17 Write a comment
The House Science Committee will mark up its portion of a multitrillion-dollar spending bill this week that includes several billion dollars for NASA infrastructure but nothing for lunar lander development.
Science, student payloads fly aboard NASA's scientific balloons during fall campaign
Monday, 06 September 2021 10:54 Write a comment
NASA's Scientific Balloon Program's 2021 fall campaign is now underway in Fort Sumner, New Mexico, launching the first three of eight missions in August.
The missions planned for this campaign include an annual student experiment, three missions from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and technology demonstrations for NASA's Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility.
The campaign window opened in mid-August and will run through mid-October.
"After a successful spring campaign, we hope to continue that success into our fall campaign," said Debbie Fairbrother, Scientific Balloon Program Office chief at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. "These flights continue to not only be important to our university and NASA partners, but to the next generation who get a hands-on experience building and flying their experiments aboard a real science platform.
Modular device for extra-terrestrial experiments
Monday, 06 September 2021 10:53 Write a comment
Researchers at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) have developed a modular, self-contained device to cultivate microorganisms, which could enable scientists to carry out biological experiments in outer space.
In a study published in Acta Astronautica, the team showed how the device can be used to activate and track the growth of a bacterium called Sporosarcina pasteurii over several days, with minimal human involvement.
Understanding how such microbes behave in extreme environments could provide valuable insights for human space missions such as "Gaganyaan," India's first crewed spacecraft, set for launch in 2022. In recent years, scientists have been increasingly exploring the use of lab-on-chip platform that combine many analyses into a single integrated chip for such experiments. But there are additional challenges to designing such platforms for outer space, when compared to the lab.
"It has to be completely self-contained," points out Koushik Viswanathan, Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and a senior author of the study. "Besides, you can't simply expect the same operating conditions as you would in a normal laboratory setting … and you can't have something that guzzles 500W, for example.
German government, industry back North Sea spaceport plan
Monday, 06 September 2021 10:47 Write a comment
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.
Explore further
© 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Icarus can fly high and save on wax too
Monday, 06 September 2021 10:45 Write a comment
"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.
Buttes on Mars may serve as radiation shelters
Monday, 06 September 2021 10:27 Write a comment
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.
China’s Chang’e-5 orbiter is heading back to the moon
Monday, 06 September 2021 10:08 Write a comment
The Chang’e-5 orbiter module which facilitated China’s complex lunar sample return last year is on its way to the moon following deep space tests.
Astronaut geology bound for the Moon
Monday, 06 September 2021 09:43 Write a comment
Finding and collecting the best lunar samples will be a major task for the next astronauts on the Moon. ESA’s Pangaea training campaign launches today to equip astronauts with a geologist’s eye on the Moon – humanity’s next space destination to help us understand more about our Solar System.
Firefly Alpha failure blamed on premature engine shutdown
Sunday, 05 September 2021 23:31 Write a comment
Firefly Aerospace said Sept. 5 its first Alpha rocket failed when one of its first-stage engines shut down seconds after liftoff.
Space Force delays selection of weather satellites
Sunday, 05 September 2021 10:22 Write a comment
The EWS program office extended the competition to spring 2022, said Col. Brian Denaro, program executive officer for space development at the Space Systems Command
Artillerymen must be ready to operate in space degraded, denied environments
Sunday, 05 September 2021 07:34 Write a comment
The U.S. Space Command provides capability to warfighters, including those in precision fires; leaders involved in fires should also be prepared - and prepare soldiers - to operate without that space capability in case the environment is denied or degraded, the Spacecom commander said.
Spacecom provides, among other things, position navigation and timing, satellite communications, intellig Humanoid robots catch the eye of humans when interacting
Sunday, 05 September 2021 07:34 Write a comment
Gaze is an extremely powerful and important signal during human-human communication and interaction, conveying intentions and informing about other's decisions. What happens when a robot and a human interact looking at each other? Researchers at IIT-Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (Italian Institute of Technology) investigated whether a humanoid robot's gaze influences the way people reason in a