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Rabu, 31 Juli 2019

Will Private Companies Beat NASA to the Moon? - Space.com

With private companies setting their sights on sending humans to the moon in the near future, it's possible that one could touch down on the lunar surface before NASA astronauts do.

But the resulting "public versus private" space race isn't one that NASA feels overly competitive about. The space agency's plans to reach the moon involve relying on private corporations rather than challenging them.

"The challenges differ for the public and private sector, though they all do come down to money," Wendy Whitman Cobb told Space.com by email. Whitman Cobb, an associate professor at the U.S. Air Force's School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, examines the institutional dynamics of the policymaking behind space exploration. She stressed that her views are her own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Air Force or Department of Defense.

"Technology is not a problem for either sector — the ability to get to the moon has existed since the 1960s," Whitman-Cobb said. "What is different is the will to do it."

A worldwide team

NASA's current lunar push kicked into high gear in December 2017, when President Donald Trump signed a space-policy directive to send humans to the moon and establish a sustainable presence there. Earlier this year, Vice President Mike Pence told NASA to put boots on the moon by 2024, rather than the previous goal of 2028.

NASA's Artemis program aims to reach that goal. (In Greek mythology, Artemis was the twin sister of Apollo and goddess of the moon.) The agency's Orion spacecraft will carry human explorers to the Gateway outpost, a small space station that NASA plans to start building in lunar orbit in the early 2020s. Landers will then carry astronauts from the Gateway to the lunar surface.

The space agency won't be hitting these goals on its own. "We're already partnering with our commercial partners to build these systems, and later on we'll continue to work with our international partners to build up the Gateway," Marshall Smith, director of the human lunar exploration program at NASA's headquarters in Washington, told Space.com by email.

The space agency is currently working with 11 companies on Gateway and its associated systems. In May 2019, NASA awarded a contract to Maxar Technologies to build, launch and demonstrate in space the first major Gateway piece — the Power and Propulsion Element. The space agency also announced then that it had signed contracts with three companies to carry experiments to the moon via small robotic landers (though one of those three recently dropped out).

In June, NASA asked industry to figure out ways to deliver cargo to the Gateway — much like the companies SpaceX and Northrop Grumman make robotic resupply runs to the International Space Station.

In addition to working with private companies, NASA is also cooperating with other countries on the Artemis program. "International partners are a vital part of our lunar plan and will contribute to the goal of creating a sustainable lunar presence by 2028," Smith said.

Private contenders

But private industry isn't solely focused on helping NASA make it to the moon. Companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin have stated their intentions to design their own lunar exploration programs.

Elon Musk's SpaceX is currently working on a 100-passenger vehicle called Starship, which the company envisions carrying people to the moon and Mars. Starship will be lofted off Earth's surface by a huge rocket called Super Heavy. SpaceX already has one Starship-Super Heavy passenger flight planned for 2023. The company hopes to begin commercial operations of the pair as early as 2021, most likely with commercial satellite launches.

Blue Origin, operated by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, is working on a big lander called Blue Moon, which will deliver science instruments, lunar rovers and, eventually, astronauts to the lunar surface.

Bezos sees many potential customers for Blue Moon other than NASA. "People are very excited about this capability to soft-land their cargo, their rovers, their science experiments on the surface of the moon in a precise way," Bezos said at the lander's unveiling in May 2019. "There is no capability to do that today."

Then there's Florida-based company Moon Express, which is working to become the first private enterprise to reach the moon with robotic spacecraft systems. In 2016, it became the first company to receive U.S. government approval to send a robotic spacecraft to the lunar surface.

"Our vision is really to expand Earth's economic and social sphere to include the moon," Alain Berinstain, Moon Express' vice president of global development, said last year at a lunar-science workshop at NASA's Ames Research Center in California. "We see the moon as the Earth's eighth continent to explore and to also mine for resources, like we have with every other continent on Earth."

Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic planned to launch its Peregrine lander to the moon in 2019, but that date has since been since pushed back to 2020 or 2021. "We're really, at Astrobotic, trying to do this the right way, meaning that we're trying to be as technically rigorous as possible," Dan Hendrickson, vice president of business development at Astrobotic, said at a Washington Space Business Roundtable in February. "We're trying to be very upfront with the entire community about our current status."

As with NASA, private industry has sufficient access to the technology to get to the moon, Whitman Cobb said. "They also have to demonstrate that their systems are fundamentally safe and reliable in order to attract paying customers — they are a business, after all," she said.

Private companies also tend to have a leaner leadership structure than NASA's 60-year-old legacy brings with it. "NASA's bureaucracy has stagnated since the 1960s," Whitman Cobb said. That makes it "more difficult for NASA to contract, make changes and adapt to new circumstances."

On the other hand, private companies have demonstrated the ability to move through technology development at a rapid rate, incorporating design and technology changes "almost immediately," she said. That brings its own advantages.

To the moon — without NASA?

For NASA, a return to the moon may bring its own difficulties. After President Trump called for a return to the moon, the space agency developed a goal to arrive by 2028. Not content with a 10-year plan, the administration challenged NASA to get it done by 2024 — within President Trump's second term, should he win re-election. The agency has since ramped up its efforts (and has stressed that one of the 2024 moonwalkers will be a woman — the first to set foot on the lunar surface).

Trump is hardly the first U.S president to call for a return to the moon. In 1989, George H. W. Bush proposed an ambitious exploration plan calling for the construction of an Earth-orbiting space station, crewed lunar exploration and, eventually, crewed missions to Mars. According to NASA's History division, "White House and Congressional reaction to the NASA plan was hostile, primarily due to the cost estimate." Only a few years later, the Clinton Administration's 1996 National Space Policy removed human exploration from the national agenda.

In 2004, George W. Bush made another stab at a lunar program, with plans to put astronauts on the lunar surface as early as 2015 and no later than 2020. That plan was cancelled in 2010 when President Barack Obama decided to send astronauts to a near-Earth asteroid by 2025, to help prepare for eventual crewed journeys to Mars.

The shifting political winds may be the reason that Pence's challenge to return Americans to the moon stressed a 21st-century space race with Russia and China. But the idea of an international space race may have more to do with politics than facts.

"When the idea of a new space race is invoked, it's usually being done in a way to stoke political willingness to devote more money to space," Whitman Cobb said. There is no real evidence that either Russia or China has the ability to go to the moon in the near term, she added.

"On the other hand, if politicians and/or the public begin to be fearful of Russian or Chinese intentions, they might be more willing to spend money on Project Artemis to get Americans back to the moon by 2024," she said.

In the past, NASA may have been able to shift with the changing political landscape, but the addition of private lunar exploration may create a problem for the space agency.

"If private companies get to the moon first, it will likely cause an existential crisis for NASA," Whitman Cobb said.

"If private companies can do it, what do we need NASA for?" she added. "In other words, it will only matter who gets there first if NASA fails to get there."

Follow Nola on Facebook and on Twitter at @NolaTRedd. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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https://www.space.com/nasa-private-companies-moon-race.html

2019-07-31 14:00:00Z
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NASA agrees to work with SpaceX on orbital refueling technology - Ars Technica

Enlarge / NASA concept for an in-space propellant depot.
NASA

On Tuesday afternoon, NASA announced 19 new partnerships with 10 U.S. companies to help bring more cutting edge technologies closer to production use in spaceflight. There were a lot of useful engineering ideas here, such as precision landing systems and robotic plant farms, but perhaps the most intriguing one involved the rocket company SpaceX and two of NASA's field centers—the Glenn Research Center in Ohio and the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama.

"SpaceX will work with Glenn and Marshall to advance technology needed to transfer propellant in orbit, an important step in the development of the company’s Starship space vehicle," the NASA news release states. This is a significant announcement for reasons both technical and political.

For its part, SpaceX welcomed the opportunity to help advance NASA's Artemis Program, which NASA hopes will send humans to the Moon by 2024 (and, later on, to Mars). “We believe SpaceX’s fleet of advanced rockets and spacecraft, including Falcon Heavy and Starship, are integral to accelerating NASA’s lunar and Mars plans," a company spokesperson told Ars.

Technical

One of SpaceX's principal engineers behind the Starship project, Paul Wooster, has identified orbital refueling as one most difficult technology challenges the company will have to overcome in order to realize its Mars ambitions.

Under some scenarios by which the company aims to send humans to Mars, a Super Heavy rocket would launch a Mars-bound Starship to low-Earth orbit. At that point, the spacecraft would need to top its fuel tanks back up in order to get its payload all the way to the red planet. It's estimated that five Starship launches' worth of fuel (as payload) would be required to refuel a single Mars-bound Starship in low-Earth orbit, and this would involve the transfer of hundreds of tons of methane and liquid oxygen.

Such refueling technology would also be useful for others besides NASA. "I’ve got a stack of studies that go from the floor to the ceiling that list the critical technologies needed for humans to become long-term explorers in deep space, and in-space refueling is always on the list," said Bobby Braun, a former chief technologist at NASA who is now Dean of the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder. "It's the key for sustainability."

The new partnership recognizes SpaceX's maturity as a leading space transportation company, Braun said. And Glenn and Marshall are the right centers for SpaceX to partner with, even if there simultaneously exists a strong rivalry between SpaceX's low-cost rockets and Marshall's lead development of NASA's Space Launch System rocket.

In-space refueling of Starship is a significant challenge for SpaceX.

SpaceX
How does one safely transfer cryo-propellants in space?

SpaceX
SpaceX has to develop the technology to produce propellant on the surface of Mars, and refuel rockets there.

SpaceX
And then launch them back to Earth, of course.

SpaceX

NASA has previously done considerable work studying the handling, transfer of, and storage of rocket fuels such as liquid oxygen, hydrogen, and methane in space—they are difficult to work with, and susceptible to boil off in the space environment (hydrogen atoms can even migrate directly through metal fuel tanks). Under the new Space Act Agreement, NASA's Space Technology program will fund the time the agency's people spend working on these problems, and any agency test facilities used. In effect, teams from the company and agency will work together to solve the problem, each paying for its own part of the effort.

"The civil servants at Marshall and at Glenn are very talented in this area," Braun said. "The people at SpaceX clearly know their system, both the capabilities and the needs of the Starship architecture. The fact that they’re all going to get together in the same room, and work on the same problem, that’s tremendous."

Political

Braun served as chief technologist in 2010, back when the Obama administration created NASA's Space Technology program to foster just this kind of innovation in America's private space industry. It was a contentious time in space policy, as the White House was pushing for more funding for new space companies—and new space ideas such as fuel-storage depots—while Congress wanted to keep NASA in the rocket-building business.

Eventually, Congress got the upper hand, putting NASA on track to build the large SLS rocket at a development cost of more than $2 billion a year. The rocket program mostly benefited the Alabama space center, and was championed by Alabama state senator Richard Shelby. The potential of in-space fuel storage and transfer threatened the SLS rocket because it would allow NASA to do some exploration missions with smaller and cheaper rockets. As one source explained at the time, "Senator Shelby called NASA and said if he hears one more word about propellant depots he’s going to cancel the Space Technology program."

The line from other NASA officials was that as a technology, propellant depots were not ready for prime time. In 2011, former NASA administrator Mike Griffin and the current executive secretary of the National Space Council Scott Pace—both SLS advocates—wrote a withering criticism of the technology for Space News.

"Fuel depots as an element of a near-term space architecture are an example of magical thinking at its best, a wasteful distraction supported by the kinds of poorly vetted assumptions that can cause a concept to appear deceptively attractive," Griffin and Pace wrote. Ironically, their chosen heavy lift rocket for use in NASA's "near-term" architecture, the SLS rocket, remains badly behind schedule and over budget. It is unlikely to fly meaningful exploration missions for at least three or four more years and is holding up the Trump administration's Artemis plan.

Some engineers at NASA still wanted to solve the fuel storage and transfer issue in 2011, and put together a $400 million depot development plan. This would have included an in-space demonstration of the technology. They argued that both orbital refueling and large rockets were vital for a sustainable exploration plan. However, Congress never adequately funded the effort, and it fizzled into a series of lesser ground tests.

A consultant to NASA at the time, Charles Miller, was among those performing studies to show that the use of propellant depots could significantly lower exploration costs for NASA. On Tuesday, he praised the Trump administration and NASA chief Jim Bridenstine for putting the Space Technology program to good use.

"Administrator Bridenstine is clearly executing on President’s Trump’s guidance to increase commercial public-private-partnerships at NASA," Miller, now chief executive of UbiquitiLink, told Ars. "The game-changing technology that NASA has discovered is capitalism. This program proves NASA leadership has figured out the future is reusability mixed with commercial public-private-partnerships."

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https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/07/nasa-agrees-to-work-with-spacex-on-orbital-refueling-technology/

2019-07-31 11:55:00Z
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This Bizarre Ancient Sea Monster Looked Like the Millennium Falcon - Live Science

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This Bizarre Ancient Sea Monster Looked Like the Millennium Falcon Live Science

A long time ago, in a galaxy not at all far away, a carnivore with an uncanny resemblance to the Millennium Falcon from "Star Wars" scuttled through the seas.

https://www.livescience.com/66067-millennium-falcon-cambrian-predator.html

2019-07-31 11:21:00Z
CBMiSmh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmxpdmVzY2llbmNlLmNvbS82NjA2Ny1taWxsZW5uaXVtLWZhbGNvbi1jYW1icmlhbi1wcmVkYXRvci5odG1s0gFKaHR0cHM6Ly9hbXAubGl2ZXNjaWVuY2UuY29tLzY2MDY3LW1pbGxlbm5pdW0tZmFsY29uLWNhbWJyaWFuLXByZWRhdG9yLmh0bWw

Roy Exum: Tonight! The Black Moon - The Chattanoogan

As a rule I am leery of any hocus-pocus that comes my way. When I was a teenager some of my crowd would go down to the Chickamauga National Battlefield to taunt a ghost known as “Green Eyes” and I would never go. I knew I’d be a lot better off not “stirring up any haints” and, while I’ll probably never know if that is true, I can say with certainty staying on my side of any ghosts has served me well. I won’t dare wake up a sleeping dog on purpose either. I knew a boy who got ‘good and bit’ one time when he was such a fool and I do have an aversion to dog bites.

By the time I got to be a senior in high school some long-legged girl told me “Green Eyes” was just a silly girl’s way of getting a boy off into the darkness to kiss. I didn’t bat an eye admitting I ain’t a good kisser when I’m scared and left it be. Yet I’ve always had a “weather eye” and I wouldn’t be right if I didn’t share that this is the night of The Black Moon.

* * *

FROM TIMEANDDATE.COM: “Some years have 13 Full Moons, which makes at least one of them a Blue Moon, as it doesn't quite fit in with the traditional Full Moon naming system. However, this is not the only definition of a Blue Moon … (PAY ATTENTION) … About every 19 years, there is no Full Moon in February. This is one of several definitions of the term Black Moon. The other definitions refer to a New Moon which does not fit in with the equinoxes or solstices, similar to a Blue Moon.”

* * *

You know you have heard from your elders, “Such-and-so will only happen once in a blue moon.” That’s because a Blue Moon comes around only once in every 29 months. But it is only once in every 19 years that the month of February will have no new moon.

AGAIN, FROM TIMEANDDATE.COM:

* -- There is no single accepted definition of a Black Moon. The term has been commonly used to refer to any of the following phenomena associated with the New Moon:

* -- Second New Moon in the same month: These Black Moons are the most common ones, and they occur about once every 29 months. Because of time zone differences, the month they happen in can vary, like the Black Moon in July 2019 (US) or August 2019 (UK).

* -- Third New Moon in a season of four New Moons: These Black Moons are a little rarer, and occur about once every 33 months. We divide a year into four seasons - spring, summer, fall (autumn), and winter. Usually, each season has three months and three New Moons. When a season has four New Moons, the third New Moon is called a Black Moon. This is the exact counterpart to the original definition of a Blue Moon, except that Blue Moons are Full Moons.

* -- No New Moon in February: About once every 19 years, there is no New Moon in February. This can only happen in February, as this is the only month which is shorter than a lunar month (lunation). When this occurs, both January and March have two New Moons, instead of just one, which is the norm. The next Black Moon by this definition will occur in 2033, while the last one was in 2014. Because of time zone differences, these Black Moons may not happen all over the world. For instance, there is a Black Moon in the most western parts of the US in February 2022, but not in Europe or Australia.

* -- No Full Moon in February: About once every 19 years, February does not have a Full Moon. Instead, there are two Full Moons in January and March, also known as a double Blue Moon. The next Black Moon by this definition will occur in 2037, while the last one was in 2018. Because of time zone differences, these Black Moons may not happen all over the world.

* * *

Now here’s where the goodie gets good. “Black Moons hold special significance to people who practice certain forms of Pagan religions and who believe certain actions become more potent when performed on the night of a Black Moon.”

Wanna’ make a baby? At exactly 11:11 p.m. tonight the sun, the moon, and planet Earth will be in perfect alignment. Again, the key word is “potent.”

* * *

"God said, 'Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate day from night; they shall serve as signs for the set times - the days and the years; and they shall serve as lights in the expanse of the sky to shine upon the earth.' And it was so. God made the two great lights, the greater light to dominate the day and the lesser light to dominate the night, and the stars." – Genesis 1:14-16

These two great lights are the sun, and the moon, respectively. The word for 'set times' here is moedim (appointed times) which is the very word that Yahweh chooses to use to describe His festivals. One more passage that speaks of these two lights is found in Psalms 104:19: "He made the moon to mark the seasons; the sun knows when to set."

* * *

WICCAN: THE SOLITARY BLACK MOON RITUAL

(From the website, sacredwicca.com, by Rowan Morgana, 2010)

On the night of the Dark Moon, as late as you can possibly stay awake, stand outside and breathe in the blackness of the night. It is Hecate’s night, the Crone Goddess has covered you in her blanket and given you the time to consider all those things in your life that you no longer need. You are safe within the womb of the Dark Goddess.

Consider that which you wish to banish from your life. Take your time, allow Hecate to guide your thoughts.

When you are ready, and you feel that you know exactly what must be banished turn widdershins to the East. Feel Hecate cleanse your mind of all unhealthy thoughts.

Turn widdershins to the North, feel Hecate cleanse your body of all unhealthy energies.

Turn widdershins to the West, feel Hecate cleanse your emotions of all that is causing you pain.

Turn widdershins to the South, feel Hecate cleanse your Spirit of all that is hindering your spiritual growth.

Breathe in the darkness of the night, breathe in the regenerative power of the Dark Goddess Hecate. Know that you are cleansed and purified, ready to begin mental, physical, emotional and spiritual growth with the coming of the New Moon.

It is done. So mote it be.

* * *

LILITH, THE QUEEN OF THE BLACK MOON?

Ancient Demon, Dark Deity, or Sensual Goddess? (From the website, Ancient-origins.org)

In some sources she's described as a demon, in others she is an icon who became one of the darkest deities of the pagans. Lilith is one of the oldest known female spirits of the world. Her roots come from the famous Epic of Gilgamesh, but she was also described in the Bible and the Talmud.

In Jewish tradition, she is the most notorious demon, but in some other sources she appears as the first woman created on Earth. According to a legend, God formed Lilith as the first woman. He did it in the same way as he created Adam. The only difference was that in place of pure dust, he also used filth and residue. Traditionally Lilith means ''the night'', and she is related to attributes connected with the spiritual aspects of sensuality and freedom, but also terror.

Lilith’s name comes from the Sumerian word ''lilitu'', which meant a wind spirit or a female demon. Lilith was mentioned in the Tablet XII of the Epic of Gilgamesh, a famous poem of ancient Mesopotamia dated back to not later than c. 2100 BC. The tablet was added to the original text much later, c. 600 BC, in its later Assyrian and Akkadian translations. She appears in a magical story, where she represents the branches of a tree.

She is described with other demons, but researchers still argue if she was a demon or a dark goddess. At the same time, she appeared in early Jewish sources, so it is difficult to find out who mentioned her first. However, it is obvious that from the beginning of her existence in the texts she was related to Sumerian witchcraft.

In the Babylonian Talmud, Lilith was described as a dark spirit with an uncontrollable and dangerous sexuality. She is said to have fertilized herself with male sperm to create demons. She is believed to be the mother of hundreds of demons.

Lilith appears in the Bible, in the Book of Isaiah 34:14, which describes the desolation of Eden. From the beginning, she is considered as a devilish spirit, unclean, and dangerous. The Genesis Rabbah describes her as the first wife of Adam. According to the book, God created her and Adam at the same time. Lilith was very strong, independent, and wanted to be equal with Adam. She did not accept being less important than him and refused to lie beneath Adam for copulation. The marriage did not work and they never found happiness.

As Robert Graves and Raphael Patai wrote in the book ‘The Hebrew Myths’:

''Adam complained to God: 'I have been deserted by my help meet' God at once sent the angels Senoy, Sansenoy and Semangelof to fetch Lilith back. They found her beside the Red Sea, a region abounding in lascivious demons, to whom she bore lilim at the rate of more than one hundred a day. 'Return to Adam without delay,' the angels said, `or we will drown you!'

Lilith asked: `How can I return to Adam and live like an honest housewife, after my stay beside the Red Sea?? 'It will be death to refuse!' they answered. `How can I die,' Lilith asked again, `when God has ordered me to take charge of all newborn children: boys up to the eighth day of life, that of circumcision; girls up to the twentieth day. None the less, if ever I see your three names or likenesses displayed in an amulet above a newborn child, I promise to spare it.' To this they agreed; but God punished Lilith by making one hundred of her demon children perish daily; and if she could not destroy a human infant, because of the angelic amulet, she would spitefully turn against her own.''

Due to the misunderstandings and disappointments related to Lilith, God decided to create a second wife for Adam– Eve.

- - -

Nowadays, Lilith has become a symbol of freedom for many feminist groups. Due to the rising level of education, women started to understand that they could be independent, so they began looking for symbols of feminine power. She also started to be worshiped by some followers of the pagan Wicca religion, which was created in the 1950s.

This appeal was enhanced by artists, who took her on as a muse. She started to be a popular motif in art and literature around the Renaissance period, when Michelangelo portrayed her as a half woman, half serpent being. He presented her around the Tree of Knowledge, and increased the importance of her legend. With time, Lilith became more attractive for the imaginations of male artists like Dante Gabriel Rosetti, who created her image as the most beautiful female being of the world. The author of ''The Chronicles of Narnia'', C.S. Lewis, was inspired by the legend about Lilith in the creation of the White Witch. She was beautiful, but dangerous and cruel.

* * *

Whatever! Just know that tonight, at 11:11 p.m., you might want to buy a lottery ticket.

royexum@aol.com

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https://www.chattanoogan.com/2019/7/31/393872/Roy-Exum-Tonight-The-Black-Moon.aspx

2019-07-31 03:39:19Z
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Selasa, 30 Juli 2019

TESS hits the trifecta: Nearby bright star has 3 interesting planets - Ars Technica

Image of the TESS satellite with the Earth in the background. — Enlarge
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

Thanks to the massive trove of exoplanets discovered by the Kepler mission, we now have a good idea of what kinds of planets are out there, where they orbit, and how common the different types are. What we lack is a good sense of what that implies in terms of the conditions on the planets themselves. Kepler can tell us how big a planet is, but it doesn't know what the planet is made of. And planets in the "habitable zone" could be subjected to anything from a blazing hell to a frozen rock.

The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (or TESS) was launched with the intention of helping us figure out what exoplanets are actually like. TESS is designed to identify planets orbiting bright stars relatively close to Earth, conditions that should allow follow-up observations to figure out their compositions and potentially those of their atmospheres.

Right now, there's a conference happening that's dedicated to describing some of the first discoveries made using TESS. Those discoveries include a three-planet system that seems perfectly positioned to test all of our exoplanet characterization techniques.

What are we looking at?

Both Kepler and TESS identify planets using what's called the transit method. This works for systems in which the planets orbit in a plane that takes them between their host star and Earth. As this occurs, the planet blocks a small fraction of the starlight that we see from Earth (or nearby orbits). If these dips in light occur with regularity, they're diagnostic of something orbiting the star.

This tells us something about the planet. The frequency of the dips in the star's light tells us how long an orbit takes, which tells us how far the planet is from its host star. That, combined with the brightness of the host star, tells us how much incoming light the planet receives, which will influence its temperature. (The range of distances at which temperatures are consistent with liquid water is called the habitable zone.) And we can use that, along with how much light is being blocked, to figure out how big the planet is.

Enlarge / Details of the TESS hardware.
NASA GSFC

But this leaves a lot of important questions unanswered.

Take a planet that appears to be larger than Earth. It could be rocky, like Earth, placing it in the super-Earth category. But it could also have a dense core surrounded by a thick, gaseous atmosphere, making it a mini-Neptune. Or it could be water-dominated, making for a water- or ice-giant, depending on where it orbits.

That last issue isn't as clear as it seems, either. The temperature of a planet depends in part on its distance from its host star (as well as that star's brightness). Some of that light will be reflected by the planet's surface and any clouds present in its atmosphere. And a fraction of the energy that's absorbed by the planet will be trapped in the atmosphere by greenhouse gasses (including, yes, carbon dioxide).

So the planet's composition and its atmosphere's contents play huge roles in influencing its temperature. At a given distance from a star, it's often possible for these factors to make the difference between a frozen body and one that's hot enough to boil off its oceans.

So, to really understand other planets and their potential to support life, we have to understand what they're made of and what their atmosphere looks like. And, while TESS itself doesn't answer those questions, it's designed to find planets where other instruments could.

Finding things to look at

Fortunately, there are ways of figuring these things out. For example, knowing the size of a planet and its mass tells us its density, which in turn lets us make inferences about its composition. One option is to figure out how much a planet tugs on its host star as it moves about in its orbit. This tugging creates small Doppler shifts in the light coming from the star. This shift allows us to figure out the force the planet is exerting on the star, and thus its mass.

Alternately, if planets' orbits are packed tightly enough, they exert gravitational influences on each other: they speed up or slow down each other's orbits. These transit-timing variations can be registered over time and plugged into models that will provide plausible estimates for the planets' mass.

The transit method also has the potential to give us a sense of what's in the planet's atmosphere. As it passes in front of its host star, a small percentage of the starlight will be absorbed by the gasses in its atmosphere, creating a signature that can reveal the identity of those gasses. While this tiny signal is swamped by the noise in a single transit, observing multiple transits can eventually overcome this limitation.

All of this, however, requires a fair bit of light to start with, which means a bright, relatively nearby star. And we'd need to image multiple orbits, which means the planet in question needs to be orbiting relatively close to its host star.

These are precisely the things TESS is designed to pick up.

The new system

The new three-planet system is called TOI-270, and it's about 75 light years from Earth. The star at the center of the system is a red dwarf, a bit less than half the size of the Sun. Despite its small size, it's brighter than most of the nearby stars we know hosts planets. And—critically—it's stable. That means that variations in the star's light are minimal, and they're less likely to get in the way of trying to pick up subtle changes caused by its orbiting planets.

The three planets have orbital periods of 3.4 days, 5.7 days, and 11.4 days. The ratio among these periods can be expressed as ratios of integers, a feature that's called "orbital resonance."

These resonances tend to stabilize the orbits, keeping the planets' interactions from ejecting one of them from the system or send one diving into the star. Based on the size of the planets, the trio consists of a super Earth as the innermost planet, while the two outer planets are somewhat larger, falling into the class termed sub-Neptunes.

Right now, we only have enough observations of the TOI-270 system to confirm the existence of the three planets. Orbital simulations, however, suggest that a wide range of orbital eccentricities would be stable in the system, so it will take extended observations to figure out the precise details of the orbits.

But, since the longest orbit is under 12 days, that's not so onerous. Once the orbits are figured out, the planets are close enough together to cause transit-timing variations, providing us one avenue toward getting the masses of the planets. They're also large enough and close to the star to drag it around a bit while they orbit, creating Doppler shifts that would allow an independent measurement of the mass.

Significant atmospheres

The outer two planets, which are expected to have significant atmospheres, are prime candidates for studies of their composition. The authors estimate that the James Webb Space Telescope will eventually have a view of the system for over half the year, and it should be able to pick out the atmospheric signals for both planets.

What are we likely to find? All three planets are extremely hot, with only the outermost planet potentially being able to support some liquid water. However, it's also at the edge of boiling off any water into the atmosphere; the authors suggest temperate conditions are more likely on any moons it has. The interactions among the three planets also mean that each is likely to be tidally locked to the host star, which can result in a frigid far side of the planet and a baking star-facing side.

But even if habitability isn't an issue here, the system is definitely worth a careful look. When we have the sort of telescope hardware that will let us detect atmospheres, we'll want to test it out on something where it's likely to work and where we can troubleshoot the inevitable problems that will occur with the analysis. There will also be a learning process with the giant telescopes and James Webb that will be necessary for this work. That makes TOI-270 an important discovery, since it provides the perfect test conditions for exoplanet characterization.

Nature Astronomy, 2019. DOI: 10.1038/s41550-019-0845-5 (About DOIs).

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2019-07-30 10:45:00Z
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Two meteor showers converge Monday night for a sparkling show - New York Daily News

Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in most European countries. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to the EU market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.

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2019-07-30 03:13:00Z
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Double meteor shower happening tonight - WKRN News 2

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Double meteor shower happening tonight WKRN News 2
Double meteor shower tonight: July 2019 brings Delta Aquariids and alpha Capricornids; then Perseids meteor shower to light up the night sky in August CBS News
Watch Two Meteor Showers Peak Tonight Lifehacker
Perseids 2019: When is the spectacular meteor shower this year? When will Perseids peak? Express.co.uk
Dueling meteor showers will light up the skies Monday night WJW FOX 8 News Cleveland
View full coverage on Google News

https://www.wkrn.com/weather/double-meteor-shower-happening-tonight/

2019-07-30 02:05:00Z
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Senin, 29 Juli 2019

Making an Exact, Working Replica of the Apollo 11 Moon Camera - PetaPixel

Four years ago, I set what seemed like an impossible goal: to make a functional Apollo 11 camera by the 50th anniversary of the moon landing. It was a crazy idea, especially with how inexperienced I was with nearly every process that would be required to do so.

I would need to build a workshop and learn how to operate machines that can precisely remove metal as easily as they can imprecisely remove your arm. I would need to learn how to 3D model parts, create accurate technical drawings, repair and reassemble rare camera bodies and intricate lenses that have very little documentation. It would take many thousands of hours of research, practice and learning, and it wouldn’t be cheap.

So, why do it?

The answer is quick for any photographer or space nut: It’s a MOON camera! But for the perplexed majority, the answer went a bit like this: some people like to resurrect classic cars, I wanted to resurrect a classic camera, and the camera we sent to and left on the lunar surface on Apollo 11 is one of the most important photographic tools ever made, capturing a historic milestone for our species.

The images we brought back were iconic. They changed culture, inspired generations of inventors, scientists, and entrepreneurs to do great things.

I could write a book all the nerdy details that went into the making this thing (we’re currently working on a documentary) but for the sake of this article, here are the highlights.

Finding Accurate Reference Material

First, it’s slightly surprising how little information there is on the moon cameras and how many inaccuracies there are in what little comes up in a simple search, starting with what one actually looks like.

We left most them on the moon to save weight for moon rocks, returning only with the exposed 70mm film. Auction photos of “the only camera to come back from the moon” show it with an early shuttle-era film magazine, the wrong lens, all while another camera that came back on Apollo 14 is sitting at the Smithsonian with less contested documentation. The camera also subtly evolved over the seven Apollo missions. Where do you start?

Luckily, I had access to the most critical resource—one of the few, early Hasselblad Electric Data Cameras made for NASA in 1968—that I could carefully measure and examine. As it turns out, it takes a moon camera to make a moon camera.

Next, I had to locate high-resolution press photos of Neil and Buzz training, which showed the first iteration of the camera that flew with them to the lunar surface. The Smithsonian had a lot of material, including great photos of the film magazine they brought back.

Collecting original repair manuals and notes from Hasselblad technicians was also critical in understanding the fundamentals of how the cameras functioned, down to the purpose of every screw.

The Réseau Plate

The defining feature of the lunar surface camera was the Réseau plate, a thin sheet of glass with a grid of crosshairs that pressed against the film plane. When you took a photo of, say, a crater on the lunar surface, these little crosshairs would show up in the image to help scientists measure the scale and distance of that particular lunar geography. We call that process photogrammetry, and it’s much like how Face ID measures the craters on my face to unlock my iPhone.

Hasselblad, the Swedish manufacturer responsible for first miniaturizing this technology for NASA, had spent so much time and effort building a separate factory to produce moon cameras, they decided to make a few available for government projects and aerial photography in the early 1970’s. They were sold privately as “Metrik Kameras,” and because they shot 70mm film, they called them “MK-70.”

I was able to find an old government MK-70 in complete disrepair—with missing parts, chipping paint, non-functional motors coated in crystalized battery acid—and salvage what would have been extremely difficult to manufacture. Combined with a new body housing from another broken Hasselblad from 1965, a beater suddenly had a second chance at life as a moon camera. One that may have preceded it on the same production line.

Modifying the Lens

The hardest part of the entire process was modifying the 60mm lens that came with the MK-70. The moon lens had a beautiful, matte black finish with rings that clicked crisply as you pushed friendly little levers with your bulky space gloves.

My lens? Modern shiny black finish, no levers, and the aperture ring didn’t click:

Damn. If we’re going for hyper-accuracy, we need clicking!

That meant a whole new aperture ring needed to be made, with engraved aperture numbers accurately spaced and internal gearing to make it *click* when you moved it. If any one gear, number, or bearing were off by more than half a degree, the aperture setting would be inaccurate, and the part would be junk.

After four weeks of reverse-engineering other lenses and realizing my math teacher in high school was totally right about Pi, I was able to model the new part, and have three blanks made by a very generous local manufacturer; three chances to screw up the laser engraving, the five-hour manual machining process, and the bead blasted anodize finish.

Thankfully, I only screwed up two.

Those friendly little levers were relatively easy to 3D print and cast out of metal after that, and the entire modification process was non-destructive, which means I can reverse the changes in the future if I need to.

Locating “Space Lube”

A funny thing happens when you put common lens grease in a vacuum. It boils off and solidifies, becoming more like a glue after hazing your optics. In fact, keeping any complex moving part slippery in space is still a real challenge today, so of course there’s a wonderful document from NASA that focuses solely on space lube.

It was from this study that I was able to locate the kind of lubricant they used on the real space-faring cameras in the 1960’s.

Remaining Tasks

You know what’s crazy? Any part of this camera could be swapped on the real thing and it would both fit and function as it would on the surface of the moon. There’s still a long way to go, however, to make it the most accurate representation of what’s still sitting in the lunar dust in the Sea of Tranquility.

Most notably, there’s a detachable polarizing filter that needs to be manufactured from scratch, a feature I believe to be unique to Apollo 11. Amazingly, my lens still has the hole for where it was attached.

The internal motor that drives the camera was also unique, using redundant switches to improve reliability, and an extra capacitor that reduced noise. Theoretically, the cameras should even sound the same after this modification.

And of course, the entire body has to be painted silver and labels applied. Hasselblad used a high-heat aluminum paint, the same you’d find on grills and car engines, for protection as the camera moved across the 400°F delta between light and shadow.

People Smarter than Me

Finally, as with any large undertaking, I had a ton of outside help on this project.

David Fred, who made satellite parts before teaching me what a water jet and a CNC mill could do to metal, was instrumental throughout the entire build process. The curator at the Smithsonian, the world’s leading expert on space cameras, found the very specific Apollo 11 serial numbers. Hasselblad let me handle some of their original cameras, Brennan Letkeman taught me the basics of 3D modeling, and every episode of Adam Savage’s “One-Day Builds” instilled a deep love for making that pushed me to believe this project was even possible.

This camera was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and a journey that continues as more parts come in. But it was a worthwhile endeavor for the sake of the camera’s legacy, and in the spirit of doing things not because they’re easy, but because they’re hard.

About the author: Cole Rise is a photographer, pilot, and space camera maker currently based in Asheville, North Carolina. You can find his photographic work on his website and Instagram. You can learn more about his space camera work and forthcoming documentary here.

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2019-07-29 15:41:00Z
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Planet-hunting satellite TESS finds 'missing link' exoplanets - CNN

TESS, which stands for Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, began science operations in space in July 2018. TESS focused on the southern skies for the first year and will turn to the Northern Hemisphere for an ambitious observation campaign over the next year.

A study published Monday in the journal Nature Astronomy highlights three new planets found by TESS that are ideal for follow-up observations campaigns during the search for habitable planets.

And the new star system may harbor planets within the habitable zone, in which the temperature on a planet's surface is just right to support liquid water and potentially life.

The newly discovered exoplanets are some of the smallest and closest ever found. The three worlds, which include a rocky super-Earth and two sub-Neptunes, orbit a star just 73 light-years from Earth. Sub-Neptunes are smaller than the icy gas giant in our solar system. These two are about half the size of Neptune.

NASA's TESS mission spots Earth-size exoplanet

The star is an older M-dwarf called TOI-270, meaning it's the 270th TESS object of interest identified.

All three planets are similar in size, which is very different from our own solar system filled with extremes.

TESS has discovered three new worlds that are among the smallest

The two intermediate sub-Neptunes aren't much larger than the rocky planets in our solar system. They are like missing links in the understanding of planetary formation because they exist between small rocky planets and large gas giants.

"TOI-270 will soon allow us to study this 'missing link' between rocky Earth-like planets and gas-dominant mini-Neptunes, because here all of these types formed in the same system," said study author Maximilian Günther, Torres Postdoctoral Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

NASA mission finds new planet, most promising stars to support life

The rocky super-Earth is planet b, which closely orbits its star every three days. The sub-Neptunes, planets c and d, complete orbits of the star every five and 11 days, respectively.

Normally, this kind of star would be active, sending out flares and enduring solar storms. But this older star is quiet, the astronomers said, and provides its planets with a steady brightness. It's only about half as hot as our zone

This allowed astronomers to learn more about the planets. It's also encouraging because a quiet star means that if there are other planets in this system that are within the habitable zone, they could support life. Planet d is 10 million kilometers from the star. The habitable zone around the star could begin at 15 million kilometers, the researchers said.

Planet d intrigued the researchers because the top of its atmosphere appeared to be temperate and possibly support life, but further study revealed that the rest of the atmosphere is probably very thick and dense, trapping heat to the point where the planet's surface would be too hot to support life.

NASA's planet-hunter TESS makes first discoveries

"TOI-270 is a true Disneyland for exoplanet science, and one of the prime systems TESS was set out to discover," Günther said. "It is an exceptional laboratory for not one, but many reasons -- it really ticks all the boxes."

This discovery rounds out the first successful year of observations by TESS.

"The pace and productivity of TESS in its first year of operations has far exceeded our most optimistic hopes for the mission," said George Ricker of MIT, TESS's principal investigator. "In addition to finding a diverse set of exoplanets, TESS has discovered a treasure trove of astrophysical phenomena, including thousands of violently variable stellar objects."

The objects that TESS finds can also be followed up for observation by future space telescopes, like the James Webb Space Telescope launching in the 2020s.

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2019-07-29 15:10:00Z
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Japan once again shoots a bullet at an asteroid… and the video is amazing. - SYFY WIRE

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) spacecraft Hayabusa2 has once again successfully collected samples of the asteroid Ryugu!

On July 10, the washing-machine-sized spacecraft began its agonizingly slow descent to the asteroid’s surface. At 40 centimeters per second, it could have been outrun by a mosquito (though, to be fair, a mosquito wouldn't last long in the depths of space). Then, an hour after midnight UTC on July 11, it made contact with the surface.

More Bad Astronomy

It then fired a 5-gram bullet made of the element tantalum into the asteroid at over a thousand kilometers per hour. The impact blasted material off the surface, where it was collected into a horn on the spacecraft. This debris was then packed away, stored for a later return to Earth planned in late 2020.

Everything about this is amazing, but first let me show you the video of the event! It’s a time-lapse, starting when Hayabusa2 was about 8.5 meters above Ryugu's surface and ending some eight minutes later when it was 150 meters away. The moment it shoots the bullet is pretty obvious, Watch:

Video of Hayabusa2 fires a second bullet at the asteroid Ryugu

That. Is. So. Cool.

The first touchdown was done in late February 2019, and the procedure here was very similar (you can read about it in the article I wrote then, which explains how this was done, why the bullet was made of tantalum, and more). But there's a big difference between the two, and it has to do with what happened in between the events.

There are lots of mission goals for Hayabusa2, including getting samples of rocks from the surface. But an important one is to get samples from below the surface, away from radiation from the Sun, cosmic rays, and micrometeorite impacts. To get this subsurface sample, Hayabusa2 switched weapons from a gun to a cannon: In April it shot a 2-kilogram copper projectile into the surface at a speed of over 7,000 kph into Ryugu! This blasted a crater over 10 meters across, digging up material from below the surface to be collected.

In May it approached the surface again to drop a target marker, a shiny object filled with small plastic grains to absorb the impact and prevent repeated bouncing on the surface. Hayabusa2 uses LIDAR to measure its distance from the surface, but sideways motion is more difficult to measure. The target marker acts as a benchmark so that it can more easily see its motion as it approaches. The marker was dropped 20 or so meters away from the impact crater, in a location that had been observed carefully after the impact to make sure it was safe to touch down there. Jagged rocks and an uneven surface are significant dangers to the spacecraft, and the mission controllers wanted to make absolutely sure they could make the second touchdown with minimal risk.

And that's why the second touchdown was done. The first was successful, but the second was important for two reasons. One is that it could collect samples from a different spot than the first touchdown; you want to make sure your samples are representative of the surface. If you collect only one it's possible that just by chance you picked a weird spot, and the material, while interesting, may not be good to use to extrapolate to the asteroid as a whole.

The second reason is that they had confirmed subsurface debris from the impact had settled in the candidate landing spot, so collecting from that site would mean getting that important material.

Since the touchdown was successful, we can hope that some of that precious cargo is now on board the spacecraft. Later this year, Hayabusa2 will complete its mission at Ryugu. It'll fire up its low-impulse ion engines and set course for Earth. A year later it will fly past our fair planet and release the sample return container, which will then ram through Earth's atmosphere, slowing enough that parachutes can be deployed to slow it further. It will land in the Australian desert to be picked up and returned to Japan where the samples can then be examined in detail.

This is all pretty amazing. Ryugu is a rubble pile asteroid a mere 900 meters across, and was roughly 200 million kilometers from Earth during the second touchdown. This is not like dropping by the local supermarket; this was a highly planned and detailed mission that has been executed incredibly well.

In fact, if you want more technical details on the second touchdown I recommend reading JAXA's Hayabusa2 blog, as well as a great article over at The Planetary Society website. That will help you appreciate just how great an achievement this mission is.

And there's still a lot more to do! Stay tuned for more information about Hayabusa2, Ryugu, and humanity's attempts — successful attempts, I'll add — to better understand asteroids, the building blocks of the solar system.

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2019-07-29 13:00:00Z
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Bringing Pieces of Mars to Earth in 2031: How NASA and Europe Plan to Do It - Space.com

Pristine samples of the Red Planet will come down to Earth a little over a decade from now, if everything goes according to plan.

NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) are working together on a highly anticipated Mars sample-return mission, which advocates say is the logical next step in our study of the Red Planet and its life-hosting potential.

"We need to bring [Martian] materials back and bring them into our laboratories," Brian Muirhead, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said during a presentation with NASA's Future In-Space Operations (FISO) working group last month.

Scientists in labs around the world will be able to analyze such samples much more precisely, and in many more ways, than a rover could do by itself on the Red Planet, helping us "to understand the history of Mars from a biological point of view," added Muirhead, who leads NASA's Mars sample-return campaign.

Researchers could even find signs of life in these Mars rocks, which are scheduled to return to Earth in 2031.

The NASA-ESA plan is not yet official, Muirhead stressed, and details are still being worked out. But here's a rundown of the concept, as it's currently conceived.

A sample-snagging rover

The campaign begins next July, with the launch of NASA's car-size Mars 2020 rover. The six-wheeled robot is scheduled to touch down in February 2021 inside the 30-mile-wide (50 kilometers) Jezero Crater, which hosted a river delta in the ancient past.

Mars 2020 (which will soon get a catchier moniker, via a student naming competition) will characterize Jezero's geology, hunt for signs of ancient life, demonstrate various technologies that could enable future human exploration of the Red Planet and perform a variety of other work, including the collection and caching of samples.

The rover carries 43 tubes for this purpose, five of which will be "references" that help researchers understand the environment the other tubes have been through, Muirhead said. So Mars 2020 could snag a maximum of 38 samples. Ideally, the rover will drop some of these in an accessible spot and keep others on its body, he added.

The next big step comes in 2026, with the launch of NASA's Sample Retrieval Lander (SRL) mission. SRL will include a stationary lander, the ESA-provided Sample Fetch Rover (SFR) and a rocket called the Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV), which will be no more than 10 feet (3 meters) tall, Muirhead said.

The mission will touch down near the Mars 2020 landing site, and then SFR will hit the red dirt. This little robot will be smaller than NASA's golf-cart-size Spirit and Opportunity rovers, and it will leverage technology developed for ESA's life-hunting ExoMars rover, which is scheduled to launch toward the Red Planet next summer, just a week after Mars 2020 does.

The SFR will carry no science instruments, Muirhead said. Its lone job, as its name indicates, will be to get the samples dropped by Mars 2020 back to the lander, where they will be placed into the basketball-size Orbiting Sample container, or OS. (The sample-return campaign is complex, so it's even heavier on the acronyms than most space missions are.) If Mars 2020 does indeed hold on to some of its collected samples, this bigger rover could roll over to the lander as well.

"We've had to design the lander to accommodate both of these rovers coming and delivering tubes to us," Muirhead said.

Launching off the Martian surface

An overview of the planned NASA-ESA Mars sample-return campaign.

All of this will take time. The SRL surface mission is expected to last about eight months, with five months devoted to fetching, Muirhead said. Meanwhile, the MAV will be sitting there, waiting for its moment.

"It's got to survive the surface environment — mostly [low] temperature, but dust also," Muirhead said. "And then it's got to launch and deliver into Mars orbit. So, it's a challenging environment for rocket propulsion."

Spacecraft have launched from the surface of Earth's moon before — the Apollo missions did this multiple times — but no vehicle has ever left the much more massive Mars after landing there. So the MAV will make exploration history.

The MAV's specs have yet to be firmed up, Muirhead said. The sample-return team is looking at two options: a two-stage solid-propellant version, and a single-stage rocket that employs hybrid propulsion technology. A decision on the design should come by the end of the year, Muirhead said.

After taking the OS on board, the MAV will launch off the solar-powered lander and deploy the OS container into Mars orbit, at least 190 miles (300 km) above the planet's surface. It will be plucked out of the void by the third big piece of this grand plan: ESA's Earth Return Orbiter (ERO).

Bringing it all back home

Like the SRL mission, ERO is scheduled to launch in 2026. ESA recently invited European companies to submit proposals to build the spacecraft.

"The mission is becoming a reality, and we are proud to give European industry the chance to join the challenge," ESA's Orson Sutherland, study manager for ERO, said in a statement.

The ERO will use electric propulsion and feature multistage detachable modules, leveraging technologies developed for the recently launched BepiColombo mission to Mercury, ESA officials said.

The European orbiter will install the newly captured OS inside a sterile containment system and then sterilize the joints of that system, likely using heat, Muirhead said. Such protocols will ensure that no Mars material leaks out during entry to Earth's atmosphere, potentially contaminating our planet.

The containment system will be placed inside a special entry vehicle, which will deploy from the ERO when the spacecraft nears Earth. The entry vehicle will barrel through our planet's atmosphere and slam into a playa, or dry lake bed, in Utah.

The team has designed the entry vehicle to operate without parachutes, relying instead on completely passive technologies. This strategy takes one big potential failure point out of play, Muirhead said.

The entry vehicle will experience impact forces of about 1,000 Gs if it hits the playa dirt, and perhaps 3,000 Gs if it's unlucky enough to slam into a rock, Muirhead said. (The acceleration at Earth's surface due to our planet's gravity is 1 G.)

"We're designing to both of those [scenarios]," he added.

The targeted landing date is 2031. Mars and Earth align favorably for interplanetary launches just once every 26 months. So, if the SRL and ERO aren't ready in 2026, the next opportunity would come in 2028, with a 2033 sample return to Earth.

"But beyond that, we really lose opportunities to do MSR [Mars sample return]," Muirhead said. "This is really a good opportunity, and we're working very hard to make this opportunity pay off."

Waiting for approval

Again, the campaign outlined above is just a concept at the moment. Though the 2020 federal budget request allocates some money to NASA for MSR development, the project is not officially on NASA's books yet, or those of ESA.

So we don't know how much all of this would cost. Muirhead said the team is treating the campaign as cost-constrained with a hard cap, though it's unclear what that cap will be.

MSR will be tough to pull off, requiring "multiple missions that will be more challenging and more advanced than any robotic missions before," ESA officials said in a different statement.

But the team thinks it's up to the challenge.

"The campaign and the design studies that we've been conducting with ESA are proceeding extremely well," Muirhead said. "We are prepared to proceed with this partnership to implement the objectives, pending approval from our respective funding agencies."

Mike Wall's book about the search for alien life, "Out There" (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), is out now. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.

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2019-07-29 11:00:00Z
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Tonight is Lancaster County's best chance to see two 'dueling' meteor showers - LancasterOnline

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https://lancasteronline.com/news/local/tonight-is-lancaster-county-s-best-chance-to-see-two/article_7e2eb4a4-b095-11e9-8b18-cf76337a7d2c.html

2019-07-29 09:00:00Z
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Dazzling Meteor Shower 'Delta Aquariids 2019' Is Officially Active Right Now! - Mashable India

An annual meteor shower is making way to the night sky with a stunning show that could shoot up to 20 flamings per hour. The dazzling Delta Aquariids 2019 meteor shower will be at its nominal peak tonight, July 29, and can be best potted in the Southern Hemisphere, in all its glory.

What is essentially a display of space dust and bits of debris bursting from a comet (or comets) in our orbital path, the Delta Aquariids meteor shower will fly close to the Sun shedding particles that hit our atmosphere, around 60 miles above Earth. The meteor will zoom across the skies during which it will vapourize into shooting stars, leaving a trail of blazing light behind.

If at all you miss the celestial show tonight, you have until mid-August to catch the Delta Aquariid as the long, rambling meteor shower is officially active from July 12 to August 23 each year. The first week of August offers an excellent premise of dark skies with the upcoming new moon on July 31 - August 1. There will be just the perfect setting of a gorgeous waning crescent in the predawn hours of late July.

Although, the Delta Aquariids shower will be best seen from the Southern Hemisphere, people living in the mid-northern latitudes can also catch a sight if the moon is out of the way. This shower is known to produce 10 to 20 meteors per hour at broad maximum. If you get lucky, you may also find a few Perseids in the scene as the shower overlaps with the famous Perseids meteor shower. Unfortunately, this year, the Perseids meteor shower is rising to its peak on bright moonlit sky on August 11, 12, and 13.

Just like most meteor showers, the best viewing hours to observe the Delta Aquariids are after midnight and before dawn for all times zones around the world.

Meteor showers happen when our planet crosses the orbital path of a comet. When a comet inches close to the Sun, it warms up and sheds and scatters bits and pieces into that comet’s orbital stream. This comet debris then slams into the Earth’s atmosphere at about 150,000 kilometers per hour, vapourize and blaze down as shooting stars.

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https://in.mashable.com/science/5257/dazzling-meteor-shower-delta-aquariids-2019-is-officially-active-right-now

2019-07-29 08:10:00Z
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