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Space

SPACE: Is Dark Matter Really A Bunch of Tiny Black Holes?

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black hole - pixabay

The universe might be full of tiny, ancient black holes. And researchers might be able to prove it. These mini black holes from the beginning of time, or primordial black holes (PBHs), were first dreamed up decades ago. Researchers proposed them as an explanation for dark matter, an unseen substance that exerts a gravitational pull throughout space. Most explanations for dark matter involve hypothetical particles with special properties that help them evade detection. But some researchers think swarms of little black holes moving like clouds through space offer a cleaner explanation. Now, a new study explains where these PBHs might … Read more

Is There Life on Mars in Subglacial Lakes?

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Mars - Pixabay

Venus may harbour life some 50km above its surface, we learned a couple of weeks ago. Now a new paper, published in Nature Astronomy, reveals that the best place for life on Mars might be more than a kilometre below its surface, where an entire network of subglacial lakes has been discovered. Mars was not always so cold and dry as it is now. There are abundant signs that water flowed across its surface in the distant past, but today you’d struggle to find even any crevices that you could call moist. There is nevertheless plenty of water on Mars … Read more

What’s An EmDrive? And Could It Take Us to the Stars?

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The “EmDrive” claims to make the impossible possible: a method of pushing spacecraft around without the need for — well, pushing. No propulsion. No exhaust. Just plug it in, fire it up and you can cruise to the destination of your dreams.  But the EmDrive doesn’t just violate our fundamental understanding of the universe; the experiments that claim to measure an effect haven’t been replicated. When it comes to the EmDrive, keep dreaming.  It goes by various names — the EmDrive, the Q-Drive, the RF Resonant Cavity, the Impossible Drive — but all the incarnations of the device claim to … Read more

Solar Power Stations in Space?

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solar power station in space - NASA

It sounds like science fiction: giant solar power stations floating in space that beam down enormous amounts of energy to Earth. And for a long time, the concept – first developed by the Russian scientist, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, in the 1920s – was mainly an inspiration for writers. A century later, however, scientists are making huge strides in turning the concept into reality. The European Space Agency has realised the potential of these efforts and is now looking to fund such projects, predicting that the first industrial resource we will get from space is “beamed power”. Climate change is the greatest … Read more

SPACE: What If There Was a Second Planet in Earth’s Orbit?

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double earth - pixabay

Earth is the only planet traveling within its nearly circular orbit around the sun. But what if Earth shared its orbit with another planet? One of the most unusual ways in which two planets might “co-orbit,” or share the same zone around their star, are so-called horseshoe orbits. Instead of both worlds moving in a circle around a star, each would move along the edge of their own somewhat horseshoe-shaped track, with these crescents facing each other like two halves of a broken ring. “I think horseshoe orbits are among the most exciting configurations for other Earths,” astrophysicist Sean Raymond … Read more

SPACE: Bizarre Planet Might Have Vaporized Rock for “Air”

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Red Planet - pixabay

Scientists think they have identified a lava world so dramatic that it might boast a thin regional atmosphere of vaporized rock where it is closest to its star. That exoplanet is called K2-141b and was originally discovered in 2017. The world is about half again as big as Earth but orbits so close to its star, which is one class smaller than our own, that it completes several loops each Earth-day with the same surface permanently facing the star. Now, scientists predict those factors mean that two-thirds of the surface of K2-141b is permanently sunlit — so much so that … Read more

STEVE Is Back, And Weirder Than Ever

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Steve streaks

The mysterious, aurora-like phenomenon called STEVE just got a little weirder. If you don’t know STEVE (short for Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement) by name, you may know it from photos. Unlike the infamous Southern and Northern Lights, which blanket the sky in ethereal green swirls near Earth’s magnetic poles, STEVE appears as a purplish-white ribbon of light that slashes diagonally toward the horizon, stretching hundreds of miles through the atmosphere. It can appear closer to the equator than a typical aurora, and is often accompanied by a “picket fence” of jagged green points dancing beside it. Nobody knows what … Read more

SPACE: Did Mars Steal Our Second Moon?

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asteroid - pixabay

An asteroid trailing after Mars could actually be the stolen twin of our moon. The asteroid in question, called (101429) 1998 VF31, is part of a group of trojan asteroids sharing the orbit of Mars. Trojans are celestial bodies that fall into gravitationally balanced regions of space in the vicinity of other planets, located 60 degrees in front of and behind the planet. Most of the trojan asteroids we know about share Jupiter’s orbit, but other planets have them too, including Mars and Earth too. Full Story From Live Science

SPACE: Voyager 2 Says hello

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Voyager 2

There’s never been a radio silence quite like this one. After long months with no way of making contact with Voyager 2, NASA has finally reestablished communications with the record-setting interstellar spacecraft. The breakdown in communications – lasting since March, almost eight months and a whole pandemic ago – wasn’t due to some rogue malfunction, nor any run-in with interstellar space weirdness (although there’s that too). In this instance, it was more a case of routine maintenance. And yet, when you’re one of the farthest-flying spacecraft in history – leaving Earth and even the entire solar system behind you – … Read more

NASA Heads Back to mars

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Mars - NASA

NASA’s newest Mars car will touch down on the Red Planet less than 100 days from now. The life-hunting Mars 2020 Perseverance rover, which launched on July 30, is scheduled to land inside the 28-mile-wide (45 kilometers) Jezero Crater on the afternoon of Feb. 18, 2021 — just 97 days from Friday (Nov. 13). The home stretch will be busy for the car-size robot’s handlers. “While we call the six-and-a-half-month trip from Earth to Mars ‘cruise, I assure you there is not much croquet going on at the lido deck,” mission project manager John McNamee, of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory … Read more