Category: NASA

Coordinated by the International Asteroid Warning Network and the NASA Planetary Defense Coordination Office, the exercises confirmed that the detection of an asteroid and the establishment of its characteristics by the international community takes place promptly. This makes it possible to identify and assess the danger that these objects pose when approaching the Earth.

Last year, NASA and ESA astronomers teamed up for a similar exercise, during which an asteroid collision scenario with Earth was simulated. They found that with modern technology, humanity would be defenseless in the face of an asteroid collision with Earth if an asteroid is detected six months before the collision.

Nevertheless, planetary defense technology is developing rapidly, and missions such as DART, which aims to change the trajectory of an asteroid, as well as demonstrate technology for a hypothetical deviation of a celestial body from a collision with our planet, will be very much in demand in the future.

The telescope tracked the asteroid 6841 Tenzing from the main belt. There were no special tasks for the observatory, therefore, the sources do not publish any data. The main task of the telescope was precisely tracking the object. The bottom line is that, in general, “James Webb” was created to observe very remote objects. The telescope should allow astronomers to look as far into the vastness of the universe and as far back in time as no other instrument has allowed.

But the design of “James Webb” is such that it allows him to monitor objects that are very close by cosmic standards. This is exactly what the telescope team tested by tracking the asteroid.

On the far side of the moon, it is planned to place an array of radio telescopes designed to study the early Universe.

FARSIDE will operate in the range from 10 to 40 MHz, which will allow it to observe the “dark ages” — the era when our Universe was only 15-80 million years old. At that time, it was filled with a “hot soup” consisting of electrons and protons. As the universe expanded and cooled, they began to combine into hydrogen atoms, which eventually made it possible for the first stars to light up.

Another task of FARSIDE is to search for coronal ejections and flares on nearby stars. The radio telescope will also look for signs of magnetic fields in exoplanets in their habitable zones. If a planet is similar to Earth and has a strong magnetic field, then life can potentially develop there.

The FARSIDE development team works closely with Blue Origin. According to the engineers, the array of radio telescopes will be delivered to the moon using the Blue Moon lander developed by the company. Recently, Blue Origin confirmed its interest in the project.

The elliptical galaxy NGC 541 is depicted in the upper right part of the image. Such objects have a spherical or ellipsoid shape and are characterized by the complete absence of any traces of spiral structures. Usually they do not have reserves of dust and gas that allow them to form new luminaries, so they are mostly inhabited by old stars.

The blue structure at the bottom of the image is an irregular galaxy with a flash of formation, known by the designation “Minkowski Object”. The galaxy is extremely young. Its age is only 7.5 million years old and it is inhabited by newly formed luminaries, as indicated by its characteristic color.

Research to create a distributed radio observatory on the surface of the Moon has begun on a grant basis under the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts program. Representatives of the company note that the construction of such an observatory on the Moon will qualitatively improve the observation capabilities compared to similar installations on Earth. The construction of the lunar observatory is supposed to be on the far side of the Moon, the distributed building will be inscribed in a square with a side of 20 kilometers.

The sensitivity available to such an observatory will make it possible to discern the processes of formation of the first stars.

“Not only will we be able to engage in unique astrophysics, but we will also be able to explore the bowels of the Moon, develop detailed space weather forecasts, detect magnetic fields associated with potentially habitable planets around nearby stars, and even detect lightning and storms on Neptune,” said a representative of Lunar Resources Inc.

Startup Lonestar intends to become a pioneer in the field of telecommunications in space, and the first test of the lunar data center is scheduled for next year.

Lone star plans to create a network of secure servers in lava tubes and transfer the most important information about humanity there in case a global catastrophe happens on Earth.

The Boeing CST-100 Starliner manned spacecraft without a crew on board docked with the ISS for the first time. During the previous flight in 2019, the ship failed to reach the station due to incorrect operation of the engines. Starliner will spend four days at the station.

The Boeing CST-100 Starliner is a new American manned spacecraft. Like SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, the Starliner was developed by order of NASA and is designed to transport astronauts to the station without the use of Russian “Unions”. It can accommodate seven crew members. The ship is built according to a partially reusable scheme.

If the Starliner returns safely to Earth, and the problem with the engines can be quickly fixed, then the ship can fly for the first time with people on board already this year — a preliminary test flight with astronauts is scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2022.

NASA experts have reported on the possibility of contacting an alien intelligence. Scientists were united in the Beacon in the Galaxy project. We are talking about employees of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and experts from leading universities in China, the Netherlands and Britain.

It turned out that a letter was written for the aliens, including various information. This includes data from the human body, information about exactly where our planet is located.

The aliens will either arrive on Earth, or simply send a reply message to people. In addition, some scientists admit that aliens will want to attack earthlings.

Experts have found out that already this Sunday evening a giant asteroid will approach the Earth.

Experts have found out that an asteroid 500 meters in size is capable of causing serious damage if it collides with the planet. Scientists consider the cosmic body to be “potentially dangerous” because it will sweep at a distance of 5.6 million kilometers. This is considered a relatively small distance for space. Astronomers have calculated that the speed of the asteroid when passing by the Earth will be 29 thousand kilometers per hour.

To date, 25 thousand such bodies are listed in the register. If asteroids change the trajectory of their movement even a little, it can turn into a serious catastrophe for the Earth.

Space agency specialists use the Unreal Engine 5 engine from Epic Games to create a virtual reality environment that will help prepare astronauts for life on the Red Planet.

Novice astronauts will be able to simulate various aspects of life on Mars, starting with the construction of a home base, performing its maintenance and ending with riding an all-terrain vehicle with detailed scientific research.

You can design your own scenarios for working on a virtual planet using the NASA XOSS MarsXR Editor.

NASA offers a prize fund of $70,000 to the participant who performs the best actions in five categories:

“Setting up a camp”, that is, the construction of an initial base;
“Scientific research” — everything related to the study of the surface of Mars;
“Maintenance”, including work with automated robots;
“Research”, that is, the creation of tools for movement;
“Blow Our Minds” is something unique and extraordinary.

All successful applications will be added to the Mars XR simulation, which, although still at an early stage, already has 400 square kilometers of Mars terrain programmed with realistic weather conditions, gravity, as well as day and night shifts.