admin, Author at Space History

The Spitzer telescope took a truly chilling picture

The ominous image of the Snail nebula taken by the Spitzer Space Telescope clearly shows the infrared radiation of the Snail nebula (NGC 7293). This nebula is well studied, although it is located at a great distance from our planet. It is 700 light-years away, it is located in the constellation Aquarius.

It is enveloped in a gas-dust shroud, its diameter is two light-years. The white dwarf located in the center of the nebula is an excellent example of a planetary nebula – what a Sun-type star will turn into at the final stages of evolution.

The surface of Mars was scanned 200 meters deep

Under the placed station located on the surface of Mars is about three meters of sandy regolith. Then, as a result of scanning, there is 20 meters of breccia formed as a result of meteorite falls. A layer of Amazonian basalts, followed by sedimentary rocks. And the last thing they were able to scan was a layer of Amazonian and Hesperian basalts. There is a version of the scientists’ version that sedimentary rocks lie below 175 meters.

Based on the data obtained, the researchers have built an assumption that the uppermost volcanic rocks (basalts) were formed about 1.7 billion years ago. The deepest — 3.6 billion years ago.
All these scanned layers are separated by sedimentary rocks. Most likely, these layers were formed when the climate on Mars changed — it became drier and colder.

A research group is being recruited to study UFOs, NASA announced

NASA has organized the recruitment of an independent group of researchers to study unidentified aerial phenomena, or UAP. Presented an updated term, which is now used to refer to UFOs.

NASA makes a statement that the study will take place in test mode and will take about 9 months. NASA stressed that so far there is no evidence of an extraterrestrial origin of the UAP.

What is in the center of the Earth? How do we know that

Since it is not yet possible to directly penetrate very deep into the bowels of the Earth, some indirect methods are used to study the contents of the Earth’s interior.

The study of volcanic eruptions, emissions of incandescent gases and molten rock to the surface indicates that it is very hot inside the Earth.

During earthquakes, waves arise, they create a kind of X-ray image of the inner parts of the Earth. What does it look like? When an earthquake occurs, different types of vibrations propagate in all directions passing through the rocks. Such waves are called seismic. Waves travel through different materials at different speeds. The direction of the waves changes when they go from one type of rock to another. When studying seismic waves with the help of very sensitive instruments, they create an assumption about what is inside the Earth.
What do we know presumably?
Today: the upper layer, a kara with a thickness of up to 48 km, consisting of solid rocks. Further at a depth of up to 2880 km is the Earth’s mantle, which also consists of hard rocks. The inner part of the Earth — the core consists of an outer liquid part (molten iron and nickel), inside which there is an inner solid metal core with a diameter of about 2560 km.

The first crime in space is illegal surveillance

Astronaut Ann McClain is suspected of spying on his ex-wife from the ISS.

McLane’s ex-wife, Samar Worden, found out that someone had looked at her bank account details by simply entering her own username and password. Summer Warden asked the representatives of the bank to determine the location of the computer from which someone logged into her account. It turned out that it was a NASA computer.

Worden reported to NASA and the Federal Trade Commission that she suspected McClain of illegal surveillance. McClain replied that she logged into the account to make sure that her ex-wife had enough money to provide for her son.

If the accusations against McClain are confirmed, her case will be the first crime in history committed from outer space. She will be judged according to American laws, since the laws of their countries apply to the ISS crew members.

An unusual layer of metals was found in the gas shell of Jupiter

In astronomy, metals are elements heavier than hydrogen and helium. Researchers have built a number of theoretical models describing the structure of Jupiter’s gas envelope.

It turned out that in the direction of the center of the planet, the metal content increases dramatically. A gas giant like Jupiter can acquire metals in two ways during its formation: accretion of either small fragments (at an early stage) or larger bodies — planetesimals, also called “planet embryos”.

In the case of Jupiter, the unusual concentration of metals in the gas shell is explained by the second scenario, since any planet, becoming large enough, begins to repel small objects from itself.

What is happening in the center of the active galaxy 3C 75?

The two bright sources in the center are two supermassive black holes that orbit around a common center of mass and give energy to a powerful radio source 3C 75.

These supermassive black holes are separated by only 25 thousand years. They are immersed in a cloud of gas heated to several million degrees and emitting X-rays. Moreover, jets of relativistic particles escape from black holes. Black holes are the cores of two merging galaxies from the Abell 400 galaxy cluster, 300 million years distant from us.

These two supermassive black holes are bound by gravitational forces into a binary system. One of the signs of this is the observed type of jets, most likely due to the general movement of black holes through the hot gas of the cluster at a speed of 1200 km/s. Such spectacular mergers are quite common in densely populated clusters of galaxies in the distant universe.

If the universe moves according to certain laws, who established these laws?

The laws are not in the universe, but in the minds of people. Any law is just an explanation. Moreover, one of the possible explanations of the world. The laws of the world are the rails along which humanity moves through the frightening world. And these rails are laid by the person himself. He is weak, small, and weak compared to the surrounding world. He is afraid of the abyss, of getting lost in this world. And, of course, he paves the way for himself, noting the recurring moments of his existence. He formulates them in the form of laws that he attributes to the world. Without these guidelines, he will be like an animal that relies largely on instincts.

Every being in the world adapts to existence in it in his own way. Some with the help of force, others with the ability to fly or swim, to hear sensitively or to smell well. A person has “chosen” an adaptation for himself with the help of consciousness. He can do anything else worse. So consciousness sets him milestones, supports, gives him confidence, even called him in something

The James Webb Telescope collided with a micrometeorite between May 23 and May 25

NASA experts confirmed the information about the impact with an object the size of a grain of sand, saying that this will not affect the scientific program in any way. The telescope is still operating at a level exceeding all requirements, despite the resulting defect in the data. The analysis of the situation and all kinds of measurements continue.

The engineers were prepared for such events, and the mirror is designed so that it can withstand such cases. Moreover, JWST can adjust mirror segments to reduce the impact of impacts, compensating for distortion.

“Since the launch of the telescope, we have had 4 impacts with micrometeorites, for which we were ready. But the latter case exceeds the indicators, nevertheless, this impact will not affect the work of JWST and its scientific program in any way,” says the engineer of the Goddard Center, Cesari Taddeu.

Observations of 67 ancient quasars allowed astronomers to determine the end time of the reionization process

Observations of 67 ancient quasars allowed astronomers to determine the end time of the process of reionization of neutral intergalactic hydrogen gas formed as a result of the Big Bang.

It turned out that it lasted about 200 million longer than previously thought, and ended 1.1 billion years after the origin of the universe!

From its beginning to its current state, the universe has gone through various phases. During the first 380 thousand years after the Big Bang, it was filled with hot and dense ionized plasma. At the end of this period, the universe cooled down enough that protons and electrons began to combine into neutral hydrogen atoms. For the most part, there were no visible light sources in these “dark ages”.

After another 100 million years, the first stars and galaxies began to form, whose ultraviolet radiation subsequently ionized the gas filling the universe again. This era is known as the “cosmic dawn”. Today, all the hydrogen distributed between the galaxies is completely ionized, however, when this process was completed, a widely discussed topic in recent years.