Carnival of Space #532

Welcome one and all to the Carnival of Space #532! We live in exciting times, don’t we? Our discoveries are so widespread now and we can learn such incredible things, I think it’s the greatest time to be alive! We are right on the verge of traveling into the vast universe beyond our home in a significant way and even if you must stay here, you can learn about amazing things happening everywhere. The bloggers below share just a fraction of what’s happening. I encourage you to read what they are reporting!

CQ Science – Post 1: Impact Events
Jagrier | CosmoQuest

Several of the mapping tasks here at CQ include marking the size and position of impact craters. Why is this so important, and how does so much science come out of these measurements? We’ll answer these questions in a series of posts about impact craters, starting…

CQ Science – Post 2: Impact Energetics
Jagrier | CosmoQuest

It turns out that “rocks running into other rocks” is a pretty complicated process. The most important aspect of the process is how much energy is involved. The two factors in finding the energy of an impact are (1) how much mass is in the impactor, and (2) how fast it is moving. The bigger and faster the object, the more energy is involved in the collision. This is no different from cars on a highway – faster moving cars, or bigger cars, will do more damage when they hit another car than those that are slower moving, or smaller. That’s because…

CQ Science – Post 3: Craters from Tiny to Huge
Jagrier | CosmoQuest

Impact craters come in all sizes, because impactors come in all sizes. At the smallest size are microscopic particles of dust. They may be tiny, but as noted in the last post, they are traveling very fast, and so they impact with plenty of energy. On a world like the Earth, little bits of dust like this never make it to the surface, because…

Nope, our Temporary Moon Isn’t Space Junk, it’s an Asteroid
Matt Williams | Universe Today

In April of 2016, astronomers became aware of a distant object that appeared to be orbiting the Sun, but was also passing close enough to Earth that it could be periodically viewed using the most powerful telescopes. Since then, there has been…

More Evidence Presented in Defense of Planet 9
Matt Williams | Universe Today

In January of 2016, astronomers Mike Brown and Konstantin Batygin published the first evidence that there might be another planet in our Solar System. Known as “Planet 9” (“Planet X” to those who reject the controversial 2006 Resolution by the IAU), this hypothetical body was believed to orbit at an extreme distance from…

Flowing Water on Mars Likely Cold and Frosty, Says New Study
Matt Williams | Universe Today

Thanks to decades of exploration using robotic orbiter missions, landers and rovers, scientists are certain that billions of years ago, liquid water flowed on the surface of Mars. Beyond that, many questions have remained, which include whether or not the waterflow was intermittent or regular. In other words, was Mars truly a “warm and wet” environment billions of years ago, or was it more along the lines of “cold and icy”?

Astronomers Find the Missing Normal Matter in the Universe, Still Looking for Dark Matter, Though
Matt Williams | Universe Today

For decades, the predominant cosmological model used by scientists has been based on the theory that in addition to baryonic matter – aka. “normal” or “luminous” matter, which we can see – the Universe also contains a substantial amount of invisible mass. This “Dark Matter” accounts for roughly…

Elon Musk Answered Questions on Reddit Space Yesterday About the Spacex BFR
Brian Wang | Next Big Future

Here are Elon Musk’s answers to questions.

* Elon on space radiation – Ambient radiation damage is not significant for our transit times. Just need a solar storm shelter, which is a small part of the ship.
Buzz Aldrin is 87.
* Our goal is get you there [to Mars] and ensure the basic infrastructure for propellant production and survival is in place. A rough analogy is that we are trying to build the equivalent of the transcontinental railway. A vast amount of industry will need to be…

Directed Energy Propulsion has Made a Lot of Experimental Progress
Brian Wang | Next Big Future

Philip Lubin, University of California, Santa Barbara, Directed Energy for Interstellar Study

Starting at 26 minutes of this video.

They are making progress with laser locking over kilometer distances.
They are making 2 gram starchip prototypes.
they are looking at making ultrathin starchips that would be a meter across but very lightweight.

Lubin’s designs would enable wafersats to reach 25% of lightspeed and a 100 ton spaceship to reach 1000 kilometers per second.

Beaming Laser Power to Ion Drive is 300-400 Times More Thrust Than Just Laser Photonic Sail
Brian Wang | Next Big Future

A 100 meter to 150 meter solar array that is attuned to the lithium ion will be about 70% efficient.

JPL is working on the gridded lithium ion arrays to achieve 60,000 ISP.

There is work on 60 meter deployable solar arrays.

This system will achieve a speed of about 260 kilometers per second (almost 0.01% of light speed) and enable the fast 10-12 year mission to 500 AU gravitational lens and manned missions to Jupiter in 1 year travel time.

LIGO Detects Gravitational Waves from Two Neutron Stars Colliding
Nina Mortera | The Evolving Planet

On Monday, scientists announced that they had observed and heard the collision of a pair of dead stars. This provides them with their first glimpse of the violent process from which gold and silver in the universe are made.

Called a kilonova, the collision shook the galaxy in which it occurred 130 million light-years from Earth, in the southern constellation of Hydra, and resulted in fireworks across the universe. On August 17, the collision set off sensors both in space and on Earth and also produced a loud chirp in antennas which have been designed to study ripples in the cosmic fabric. The event made astronomers…

Young Star Provides Insight on How Planets Form
Nina Mortera | The Evolving Planet

High powered telescopes observing a distant young hot star, called V1247 Orionis, provided scientists with interesting clues to answer one of astronomy’s biggest question of how planets form.

The Atacama Large Millitre Array (ALMA) telescope in Chile has been monitoring the star, which is found in the background of Orion’s Belt. It is surrounded by a large disc of gas and dust, similar to other young, hot stars in space. Scientists have long believed these discs to be…

Didn’t I tell you it was interesting? Look for more next week when Brian Wang hosts Carnival of Space #533 over on Next Big Future!