Carnival of Space #616

Mars 2020 Live Webcam at JPL in Pasadena, CA

How cool is that? I learned from our Carnival members that you can now watch the Mars 2020 being built! We’re going again on August 15th for the third or 4th time because we can and it’s been awesome to see the clean room at JPL go from totally quiet to progressively seeing the Rover being built! Remember to add your name to the chip(s) being placed on the Rover.

Black Hole Simulation Solves a Mystery About Their Accretion Disks
Matt Williams | Universe Today

Black holes are one of the most awesome and mysterious forces in the Universe. Originally predicted by Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity, these points in spacetime are formed when massive stars undergo gravitational collapse at the end of their lives. Despite decades of study and observation, there is still much we don’t know about this phenomenon.

For example, scientists are still largely in the dark about how the matter that falls into orbit around a black hole and is gradually fed onto it (accretion disks) behave. Thanks to a recent study, where an international team of researchers conducted the most detailed simulations of a black hole to date, a number of theoretical predictions regarding accretion disks have finally been…

You Can Use a Live Webcam to Watch NASA Build the Mars 2020 Rover
Evan Gough | Universe Today

NASA’s next mission to the surface of Mars is called the 2020 rover (in case you didn’t know already.) It’s planned launch date is July 17th, 2020, and it should land at Jezero Crater on Mars on February 18th 2021. The rover is still under construction at the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, California.

Now you can nerd out on this fantastic bundle of technological capability and science-doing machinery with a live…

The Japanese Asteroid-hunter Had Another Photo Opportunity When it Dropped a Target Marker on Asteroid Ryugu
Matt Williams | Universe Today

The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency‘s (JAXA) has made some impressive feats in recent years. Roughly one year ago, and following in the footsteps of its predecessor, their Hayabusa2 spacecraft successfully rendezvoused with a Near-Earth Asteroid (NEA) – 162173 Ryugu. Since then, it has been collecting samples from the surface in the hopes of learning more about the formation and evolution of the Solar System.

Just a few months after the spacecraft created an artificial crater with an anti-tank warhead, the spacecraft has once again descended close to the asteroid to drop another target marker. This maker, a reflective sphere that contains the names of people who’ve supported the mission, will provide a visual guide as the spacecraft attempts to…

Don’t Worry About Asteroid 2006QV89. There’s Only a 1 in 7000 Chance It’ll Hit the Earth in September
Evan Gough | Universe Today

Whenever scientists announce an upcoming close encounter with an asteroid, certain corners of the internet light up like the synaptic rush that accompanies a meth binge, with panicky headlines shouted straight from the brain stem. But never mind that. We’re not that corner of the internet. We’re sober, yo!

The fact of the matter is, there aren’t any more near-Earth asteroids than there used to be. We’re just getting good at…

Daily Space 6/10/2019: The ISS is Open for Business!
Susie Murph | CosmoQuest

When Pence announced NASA is going back to the moon, a whole [bunch?] of us wondered exactly how that would get paid for… especially when they promised there would be no cuts to science.

Well, now we know – On Friday, NASA went to the NASDAQ stock exchange to say the ISS is open for business.

In a reversal of decades old policies, NASA has announced that it will begin allowing commercial companies to pay to use the ISS, and even astronauts in their marketing, manufacturing, and other money making endeavors. From filming commercials, to doing product placement, the sky is not the limit in NASA’s newest money making plans. They have limited purchasable crew time to…

Daily Space 6/12/2019: Dragon C113 Returned to Earth
Susie Murph | CosmoQuest

Dragon C113 returned to Earth on June 4th after 4 weeks docked at the ISS. This was the second flight for this particular capsule, and the 6th time a Dragon Cargo has been reused. It’s also the last newly manufactured Dragon 1.

Dragon 1 is used for cargo, Dragon 2 will be used for…

Daily Space News 6/13/2019: Vera Rubin, Salt on Europa, Dwarf Planets, Exoplanets, etc
Susie Murph | CosmoQuest

Today, Chairwoman Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) and Congresswoman Jenniffer González-Colón (R-PR) introduced H.R. 3196, the “Vera Rubin Survey Telescope Designation Act.” H.R. 3196 would designate the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), a National Science Foundation and Department of Energy funded telescope that is currently under construction on a mountaintop site in northern Chile, as the “Vera Rubin Survey Telescope.”

Small yet mighty! The Carnival of Space #616 is complete. We turn it over to Susie Murph next week at Universe Today!