Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Category: space

It was once thought that when an aging star engulfed a planet it would be a dramatic swelling and devouring event akin to a predator eating its prey. New observations, however, tell a very different story.

Data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) reveals that the planet’s orbit didn’t terminate with a sudden engulfment. Instead, the planet spiraled slowly inward over time until it met its fiery end.

The scientists behind this surprising update are from NSF’s NOIRLab, and they worked with data collected by Webb’s powerful mid-and near-infrared instruments.

Read more | >

For the first time on a global scale, 20 years of observations on Mars have been condensed into a single study led by Francisco Brasil and Pedro Machado, both researchers from the Faculty of Sciences at the University of Lisbon (CIÊNCIAS ULisboa). This study, an extensive and comprehensive analysis of the red planet’s atmospheric waves, has just been published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets.

Atmospheric waves are “wave-shaped disturbances that travel through the planet’s atmosphere, much like waves moving across the surface of water,” explains the study “Atmospheric Gravity Waves in Mars’ Lower Atmosphere: Nadir Observations From OMEGA/Mars Express Data.”

The researchers focused on this energy, which has a significant impact on the planet’s climate. The data, collected by the Observatoire pour la Minéralogie, l’Eau, les Glaces et l’Activité (OMEGA) from the European Mars Express space mission, served as the foundation for this ambitious analysis.

Read more | >

Learn more about the science videos you’ve been watching with Brilliant! First 30 days are free and 20% off the annual premium subscription when you use our link ➜ https://brilliant.org/sabine.

Correction: When I say that there are 2/3 of galaxies that spin one direction and 1/3 the other, that should have been 3/5 one way and 2/5 the other. Or, to put it into percentages, it’s 60% vs 40% (not 67% vs 33%). Sorry about that uneasy

A new study has found that the universe might be spinning. What does that even mean? Let’s have a look.

Paper: https://academic.oup.com/mnras/articl… video comes with a quiz which you can take here: https://quizwithit.com/start_thequiz/.… 🤓 Check out my new quiz app ➜ http://quizwithit.com/ 💌 Support me on Donorbox ➜ https://donorbox.org/swtg 📝 Transcripts and written news on Substack ➜ https://sciencewtg.substack.com/ 👉 Transcript with links to references on Patreon ➜ / sabine 📩 Free weekly science newsletter ➜ https://sabinehossenfelder.com/newsle… 👂 Audio only podcast ➜ https://open.spotify.com/show/0MkNfXl… 🔗 Join this channel to get access to perks ➜ / @sabinehossenfelder 🖼️ On instagram ➜ / sciencewtg #science #sciencenews #physics #astronomy.

This video comes with a quiz which you can take here: https://quizwithit.com/start_thequiz/.…

🤓 Check out my new quiz app ➜ http://quizwithit.com/

Continue reading “The Entire Universe Seems to Spin, New Data Reveal” | >

A new model has been developed to simulate interstellar activity within our solar system and the nearby Alpha Centauri system. Interstellar material has been found within our solar system, but scientists are still working to determine its origin and how it arrived here. A recent study from Wes

Read more | >

TAMPA, Fla. — British in-orbit manufacturing venture Space Forge has appointed technology veteran Atul Kumar to set up a semiconductor business in the United States, aiming to bolster domestic chip production as efforts to reduce reliance on foreign suppliers gather pace.

Kumar, a materials scientist with more than two decades of experience in the sector, is tasked with developing manufacturing operations under Space Forge’s U.S. subsidiary to support the terrestrial and in-space growth of semiconductor substrates, the company announced April 10.

The move comes as the U.S. ramps up efforts to reduce its dependence on chips from abroad, driven by supply chain disruptions, national security concerns and mounting trade tensions — particularly with China.

Read more | >

COLORADO SPRINGS – Military space leaders continue looking for ways to inject commercial technologies into their architectures. For strategic communications and positioning, navigation and timing, though, true commercial alternatives may not exist.

That was one takeaway from an April 8 press briefing with Space Systems Command (SSC) officials.

“We will continue to leverage more and more commercial wherever possible,” said Charlotte Gerhart, deputy director of SSC’s Military Communications and Positioning, Navigation & Timing Directorate. “That doesn’t mean everything that commercial has fits every single need.”

Read more | >

COLORADO SPRINGS — The head of the U.S. Space Force sought to clear up confusion about the Trump administration’s ambitious missile defense initiative known as Golden Dome, emphasizing that it represents a complex network of systems rather than a single procurement program.

“It’s not a system. There’s not going to be a ‘Golden Dome delivered,’” Gen. Chance Saltzman, chief of space operations, said April 9 at a news conference during the Space Symposium. “It’s a system of systems that has to work together. And so there won’t be a single contract vehicle. There will be multiple programs that are brought to bear to solve that mission against the threats.”

The Golden Dome initiative, established through a White House executive order, aims to create a comprehensive shield protecting the United States against an array of missile threats, including ballistic, hypersonic and advanced cruise missiles.

Read more | >

Astronomers have discovered that the Small Magellanic Cloud, a nearby dwarf galaxy, is being torn apart by the gravitational pull of its larger neighbor, the Large Magellanic Cloud.

By tracking thousands of massive stars, researchers found that the galaxy lacks rotational motion and shows signs of disruption, which could dramatically shift our understanding of how galaxies interact and evolve. This discovery offers a rare real-time look into the cosmic tug-of-war that may have shaped galaxies in the early universe.

Gravitational Tug-of-War Between Galaxies.

Read more | >