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Category: space – Page 870

India anti-satellite missile test a ‘terrible thing,’ NASA chief says

India’s anti-satellite missile test created at least 400 pieces of orbital debris, the head of NASA says — placing the International Space Station (ISS) and its astronauts at risk.

NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine said Monday that just 60 pieces of debris were large enough to track. Of those, 24 went above the apogee of the ISS, the point of the space station’s orbit farthest from the Earth.

“That is a terrible, terrible thing to create an event that sends debris at an apogee that goes above the International Space Station,” Bridenstine said in a live-streamed NASA town hall meeting. “That kind of activity is not compatible with the future of human spaceflight.”

Student astronomer spots two new planets with the help of AI

Discovering planets that nobody has ever seen before is even harder than it sounds. Space telescopes from NASA and other scientific bodies have gathered an incredible amount of data that will take astronomers years and years to sift through, and many times there’s just nothing there to be found.

But humans don’t have to do all of the work, and Anne Dattilo, a senior at the University of Texas in Austin enlisted the help of artificial intelligence to study data from NASA’s Kepler space telescope and found not one, but two new exoplanets in the process.

A New Contender for the Theory of Everything

The most popular contender over the past few decades has been string theory, and the related concepts of superstring theory and M-theory, in which particles are considered as tiny units of one-dimensional string. However, a lesser-known theory has also gained traction; loop quantum gravity (LQG), which attempts to solve the quantum gravity problem by focusing on the very fabric of spacetime, rather than the particles themselves.

In “Quantum Space,” the popular-science writer Jim Baggott lays out the basic principles of LQG for science enthusiasts. The book looks at how loop quantum gravity has emerged by following the work of two of its leading proponents, Carlo Rovelli and Lee Smolin, and assesses where the theory is now, and where it might be going.

Although the concepts are — not surprisingly — mind-boggling, Baggott asks deep questions about the nature of the universe, what space is actually composed of, and the existence of time itself. (The book covers a lot of challenging material, however, and some prior reading may help readers find their way.)

NASA released a stunning photo showing two galaxies colliding

The galaxies have never before been captured in such detail.

First discovered in 1784 by William Herschel, NGC 6052 was originally thought to be a singular galaxy that simply had an odd shape.

However, scientists eventually figured out that the “oddly shaped galaxy” 230 million light-years away was, in fact, two galaxies in the process of colliding.

Having previously been observed by the Hubble telescope with an older camera in 2015, NASA recently released a stunning image of the galaxies in even better detail.

Astronaut bed rest study pays participants $19,000 for 89 days

A few days back we talked about a joint NASA and ESA study that was being conducted in Germany looking at long term effects of weightlessness on astronauts and how artificial gravity might help them. More details have surfaced about that study, and it pays very well for doing nothing but laying in bed. The study pays participants $19,000 (16,500 euro) and is known as AGBRESA study 2019.

The Moon Has ‘Moving Water,’ but Don’t Break Out Your Swimsuit

Surprised I haven’t seen more about this:

Tabloids reported over the weekend that a “bombshell” report found moving water on the Moon which could lead to “Moon colonization.” Obviously those headlines are misleading—there are no rivers flowing along the lunar surface. Let’s talk about what really happened.

NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), a probe that has orbited the Moon since 2009, spotted water molecules being absorbed and released from grains of dust on the lunar surface throughout the day, based on the temperature. These results mark the only dataset recording the distribution of water during the lunar day, according to the paper published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

Presidential candidate Andrew Yang talks geo-engineering, asteroid detection, space force and more!

We interviewed Andrew Yang, a Democratic candidate for president of the United States who has made an answer to automation one of the central issues of his campaign. The tech-minded candidate shares his thoughts on drones, geo-engineering, asteroid detection, space force and more!

#AndrewYang #Yang2020 #WhatTheFuture

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