Copernical Team
Unique CU Boulder, NSO collaboration allows journey into varied solar physics research paths
A new group of graduate students and postdocs are hard at work this fall with full freedom to explore a variety of solar and space physics research paths because of a unique fellowship program started by the University of Colorado Boulder at the time of the relocation of the National Science Foundation's National Solar Observatory to campus.
The George Ellery Hale Fellowships, created by t Observatory to unravel universe's mysteries
Deep beneath a hill in the rural Kaiping area of Jiangmen, China's largest underground laboratory, the Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO), is on the verge of completing a decade-long construction project that promises to shed light on some of the universe's most enduring mysteries.
Our expedition to this clandestine scientific haven began with a 15-minute journey in a dimly l Amateur Astronomers Help Discover Cosmic Crash
Astronomers found what looks like a glowing cloud of dust from a massive planetary pile-up-and NASA volunteers helped make the discovery! A recent paper in Nature describes how an international group of professional and amateur astronomers teamed up to measure the heat glow of two ice giant planets colliding and see the resultant dust cloud moving in front of the parent star several years later. How Rocks Say Don't Touch: Sols 4032-4034
Earth planning date: Friday, December 8, 2023: As we climb through the terrain, which is beautiful to look at with its steep topography, we are on the lookout for all the differences in the rocks. As a geologist, I marvel at the diversity, and I can spend quite some time just looking around, discovering the different things that there are to see. Have a look at this workspace mosaic, which is th Lost tomato found aboard International Space Station after eight months
Members of an International Space Station crew said astronaut Frank Rubio has now been cleared of allegations he ate one of the first tomatos harvested in space.
NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli said during a live streamed event celebrating the 25th anniversary of the station that the remains of the tiny tomato had been found eight months after being misplaced by Rubio.
"Our good frien Maritime Launch secures additional funding for Canada's first commercial spaceport
Maritime Launch Services Inc. (NEO: MAXQ, OTCQB: MAXQF), a key player in the development of Canada's first commercial spaceport, recently announced a significant financial milestone. The company has successfully closed a non-brokered private placement of unsecured convertible debentures, amassing gross proceeds of $2,282,000. This funding, secured on December 8, 2023, marks a crucial step in adv The longstanding mystery of Mars' moons—and the mission that could solve it
The two small moons of Mars, Phobos (about 22km in diameter) and Deimos (about 13km in diameter), have been puzzling scientists for decades, with their origin remaining a matter of debate. Some have proposed that they may be made up of residual debris produced from a planet or large asteroid smashing into the surface of Mars (#TeamImpact).
An opposing hypothesis (#TeamCapture), however, suggests the moons are asteroids that were captured by Mars's gravitational pull and were trapped in orbit.
To solve the mystery, we'll need material from the moons' surfaces for analytical analyses on Earth. Luckily, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (Jaxa) will launch a mission, named "Martian Moon eXploration" (MMX), to Phobos and Deimos in September 2024. The mission will be carried by a newly designed rocket, the H-3, which is still under development.
The spacecraft is expected to reach Martian orbit in 2025, after which it will orbit Phobos and finally collect material from its surface before returning to Earth by 2029.
This will make it the next in a series of recent missions bringing material from space back to Earth, following on from Jaxa's successful mission to asteroid Ryugu (Hayabusa2), as well as Nasa's Osiris-Rex mission to asteroid Bennu and the Chinese Space Agency's Chang'e 5 mission to the Moon.
Was going to space a good idea?
In 1963, six years after the first satellite was launched, editors from the Encyclopedia Britannica posed a question to five eminent thinkers of the day: "Has man's conquest of space increased or diminished his stature?" The respondents were philosopher Hannah Arendt, writer Aldous Huxley, theologian Paul Tillich, nuclear scientist Harrison Brown and historian Herbert J. Muller.
Sixty years later, as the rush to space accelerates, what can we learn from these 20th-century luminaries writing at the dawn of the space age?
The state of space 60 years on
Much has happened since. Spacecraft have landed on planets, moons, comets, and asteroids across the solar system. The two Voyager deep space probes, launched in 1977, are in interstellar space.
A handful of people are living in two Earth-orbiting space stations. Humans are getting ready to return to the moon after more than 50 years, this time to establish a permanent base and mine the deep ice lakes at the south pole.
There were only 57 satellites in Earth orbit in 1963. Now there are around 10,000, with tens of thousands more planned.
SETI: How we're searching for alien life at previously unexplored frequencies
Is there life beyond Earth? The question has turned out to be one of the hardest to answer in science. Despite the seemingly boundless expanse of the universe, which implies there's potential for abundant life, the vast distances between stars render the search akin to locating a needle in a cosmic haystack.
The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) constitutes a branch of astronomy dedicated to finding extraterrestrial life by searching for unusual signals, dubbed technosignatures. The identification of a technosignature wouldn't just signify the existence of life, but specifically point to the presence of intelligent life using advanced technology.
That said, 60 years of searches have so far come up short. But now my colleagues and I have started investigating a previously unexplored range of frequencies.
SETI makes the assumption that extraterrestrial civilizations might rely on technology in a similar way to people on Earth, such as using cell phones, satellites or radar.
Since a significant portion of such technology generates signals that are prominently detectable in radio frequencies, focusing on these wavelengths serves as a logical starting point in the quest for potential extraterrestrial intelligence.
Europa clipper could help discover if Jupiter's moon is habitable
Since 1979, when the Voyager probes flew past Jupiter and its system of moons, scientists have speculated about the possibility of life within Europa. Based on planetary modeling, Europa is believed to be differentiated between a rocky and metallic core, an icy crust and mantle, and a liquid-water ocean that could be 100 to 200 km (62 to 124 mi) deep. Scientists theorize that this ocean is maintained by tidal flexing, where interaction with Jupiter's powerful gravitational field leads to geological activity in Europa's core and hydrothermal vents at the core-mantle boundary.
Investigating the potential habitability of Europa is the main purpose of NASA's Europa Clipper mission, which will launch on October 10th, 2024, and arrive around Jupiter in April 2030. However, this presents a challenge for astrobiologists since the habitability of Europa is dependent on many interrelated parameters that require collaborative investigation.