Space

Liftoff occurred at 11:20 p.m. ET on Nov. 27.

Astronomers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and elsewhere report the discovery of 63 new giant radio galaxies as part of the Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty cm survey (FIRST). The findings are detailed in a paper published Nov. 15 on the pre-print server arXiv.

In their jiggles and shakes, red giant stars encode a record of the magnetic fields near their cores.

Researchers have detected one of the most powerful cosmic rays ever seen slamming into Earth — but they have no idea what caused it or where it came from. The extremely energetic particle, which has been named after a Japanese goddess, arrived from the direction of a void in the universe where almost nothing is known to exist, according to new research.

Cosmic rays are highly energetic particles, mainly consisting of protons or helium nuclei, that are constantly raining through every square inch of the universe (including our bodies). But a small subsection of cosmic rays, which hit Earth roughly once per square mile every year, are accelerated to even greater energy levels by some of the universe's most intense phenomena.

These extra-energetic particles, known as "ultra-high-energy cosmic rays," have at least one exa-electron volt (EeV), or 1 quintillion (1 followed by 18 zeros) electron volts, of energy, which is around a million times more energetic than the fastest particles from human-made particle accelerators.

On May 21, 2021, researchers detected one of these supercharged cosmic rays with the Telescope Array project — a detector made of individual substations covering more than 270 square miles (700 square kilometers) in Utah. This particular particle had a whopping 244 EeV of energy, which makes it the most energetic cosmic ray since the "Oh My God" (OMG) particle in 1991 — the most powerful cosmic ray ever detected, which had an energy of 320 EeV and traveled at more than 99.9% the speed of light.

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/9736819

https://nitter.net/esa/status/1727760438887162020#m

The start time of today's #Ariane6 core stage engine firing has been brought forward by 30 minutes. Coverage now starts at 20:40 CET (19:40 GMT, 16:40 local) esawebtv.esa.int

Engine ignition in your timezone: https://dateful.com/convert/utc?t=20&d=2023-11-23

Looks like they will also be live on YouTube.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/8579838

"The company, formally known as Venturi Astrolab Inc., announced Nov. 21 that it signed the customers to fly payloads on Mission 1, a flight of the company’s Flexible Logistics and Exploration (FLEX) rover slated for as soon as mid-2026. Astrolab announced a contract with SpaceX in March to launch FLEX on that mission on a Starship commercial lander."

Astrolab disclosed the names of five of the eight customers. All are relatively early-stage startups developing technologies associated with long-term lunar development. The companies did not disclose the individual values of each contract.

Argo Space Corp., one of the customers of Mission 1, plans to fly a demonstration payload on the rover to test technology to extract low concentrations of water from lunar regolith. Astroport Space Technologies will send a payload to test how to sort lunar regolith to obtain grains best suited for producing lunar bricks as construction materials. Avalon Space will contribute an unspecified series of “science, exploration and sustainable development” experiments.

Interstellar Lab will fly two small pods carrying plants that the rover will deploy on the lunar surface to see how the plants grow in the lunar environment. LifeShip will send a capsule carrying a DNA seed bank and data archive as part of that company’s effort to establish a seed bank on the lunar surface as an “off-world backup.”

Timestamps:

• 00:00 - Pad Cam
• 00:39 - Pad Cam [Slow Mo]
• 01:50 - Pad Cam Tight
• 02:05 - Pad Cam Tight [Slow Mo]
• 02:22 - North Remote
• 02:49 - North Remote [Slow Mo]
• 03:16 - Jetty Remote Wide
• 03:50 - Jetty Remote Tight
• 04:05 - Jetty Remote Tight [Slow Mo]
• 04:46 - Planetary Society Cam
• 05:25 - Tim and MaryLiz BTS
• 06:17 - Rotor Visual BTS
• 07:04 - Drone Tracker
• 08:26 - Nick BTS
• 09:11 - Nick Tracker
• 11:51 - Nick Tracker [Slow Mo]
• 13:02 - Ryan Tracker
• 14:26 - Ryan Tracker [Slow Mo]
• 16:56 - John Tracker
• 20:25 - John Tracker [Slow Mo]

For nearly a quarter century, the International Space Station (ISS) has continuously hosted astronauts and science experiments as an enduring and beloved bastion of humanity in low-Earth orbit. Yet despite its successes, the space station’s days are numbered.

In the coming months, NASA will be evaluating commercial proposals for vehicles capable of “decommissioning” the ISS—that is, of safely dropping it into Earth’s atmosphere to burn up. The agency has said it expects to pay nearly $1 billion for this service to avoid relying on multiple Russian vehicles. The brutal ending is scheduled for early next decade but is already proving a delicate matter for aerospace engineering and international diplomacy.

Article: https://www.universetoday.com/164332/nasa-tests-a-prototype-europa-lander/

Astrophysicists say they have found an answer to why spiral galaxies like our own Milky Way are largely missing from a part of our local universe called the Supergalactic Plane.

The Supergalactic Plane is an enormous, flattened structure extending nearly a billion light years across in which our own Milky Way galaxy is embedded.

While the Plane is teeming with bright elliptical galaxies, bright disk galaxies with spiral arms are conspicuously scarce.

Astronomers using James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) data have discovered a massive chain of at least 20 closely packed galaxies from the early universe, and it could reveal insight into how the most massive structures in the cosmos form.

This megastructure — nicknamed the "Cosmic Vine" in a study published Nov. 8 to the preprint database arXiv — swoops through space in a bow shape, estimated to stretch more than 13 million light-years long and about 650,000 light-years wide. (For comparison, our Milky Way galaxy is about 100,000 light-years wide.) Astronomers detected the vast tendril of gas and galaxies while studying JWST observations of an area called the Extended Groth Strip, located between the constellations Ursa Major and Boötes.

T-7 hours until the second launch of Starship!

Launch thread has been posted over on c/SpaceX: https://sh.itjust.works/post/9381398

I will be posting updates there. Come and join us in that thread!