Space Rock Smashes into the Moon at 61,000 Kilometers an Hour (Video)

by N.Morgan

The flash from the impact of the meteorite on the eclipsed Moon, seen as the dot at the top left (indicated by the arrow), as recorded by two of the telescopes operating in the framework of the MIDAS Survey from Sevilla (Spain) on 2019 January 21. Credit: J. M. Madiedo / MIDAS

Observers who were watching January’s total eclipse of the Moon witnessed a rare event, a short-lived flash as a meteorite hit the lunar surface. Spanish astronomers now think the space rock collided with the Moon at 61,000 kilometers an hour, excavating a crater 10 to 15 meters across. Prof. Jose Maria Madiedo of the University of Huelva and Dr. Jose L. Ortiz of the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia publish their results in a new paper in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Total lunar eclipses take place when the Moon moves completely into the shadow of the Earth. The Moon takes on a red color – the result of scattered sunlight refracted through the Earth’s atmosphere – but is much darker than normal. These spectacular events are regularly observed by astronomers and the wider public alike.

The most recent lunar eclipse took place on 21 January 2019, with observers in North and South America and western Europe enjoying the best view. At 0441 GMT, just after the total phase of the eclipse began, a flash was seen on the lunar surface. Widespread reports from amateur astronomers indicated the flash – attributed to a meteorite impact – was bright enough to be seen with the naked eye.

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Madiedo and Ortiz operate the Moon Impacts Detection and Analysis System (MIDAS), using eight telescopes in the south of Spain to monitor the lunar surface. Video footage from MIDAS recorded the moment of impact.

The impact flash lasted 0.28 seconds and is the first ever filmed during a lunar eclipse, despite a number of earlier attempts.

“Something inside of me told me that this time would be the time”, said Madiedo, who was impressed when he observed the event, as it was brighter than most of the events regularly detected by the survey.

Unlike the Earth, the Moon has no atmosphere to protect it and so even small rocks can hit its surface. Since these impacts take place at huge speeds, the rocks are instantaneously vaporized at the impact site, producing an expanding plume of debris whose glow can be detected from our planet as short-duration flashes.

MIDAS telescopes observed the impact flash at multiple wavelengths (different colors of light), improving the analysis of the event. Madiedo and Ortiz conclude that the incoming rock had a mass of 45kg, measured 30 to 60 centimeters across, and hit the surface at 61,000 kilometers an hour. The impact site is close to the crater Lagrange H, near the west-south-west portion of the lunar limb.

The two scientists assess the impact energy as equivalent to 1.5 tonnes of TNT, enough to create a crater up to 15 meters across, or about the size of two double-decker buses side by side. The debris ejected is estimated to have reached a peak temperature of 5400 degrees Celsius, roughly the same as the surface of the Sun.

Madiedo comments: “It would be impossible to reproduce these high-speed collisions in a lab on Earth. Observing flashes is a great way to test our ideas on exactly what happens when a meteorite collides with the Moon.”

The team plan to continue monitoring meteorite impacts on the lunar surface, not least to understand the risk they present to astronauts, set to return to the Moon in the next decade.

Paper: Multiwavelength observations of a bright impact flash during the January 2019 total lunar eclipse”, J. M. Madiedo et al., MNRAS (pdf)

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References:

http://bit.ly/2Jb3BcN

https://scitechdaily.com/space-rock-hits-the-moon-at-61000-kilometers-an-hour/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ir8nPSSLYQ

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InSight Captures Amazing Sunrise and Sunset on Mars (Photos)

by N.Morgan

NASA's InSight lander captured a series of sunrise and sunset images.

NASA's InSight lander used the Instrument Deployment Camera (IDC) on the end of its robotic arm to image this sunset on Mars. This color-corrected version more accurately shows the image as the human eye would see it. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The camera on the spacecraft's robotic arm snapped the photos on April 24 and 25, the 145th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. In local Mars time, the shots were taken starting around 5:30 a.m. and then again starting around 6:30 p.m. As a bonus, a camera under the lander's deck also caught clouds drifting across the Martian sky at sunset.

These images are available as both "raw" and color-corrected versions. It's easier to see some details in the raw versions, but the latter more accurately show the images as the human eye would see them. Much farther from Mars than it is from Earth, the Sun appears only about two-thirds the size that it does when viewed from Earth.



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NASA's InSight lander used the Instrument Deployment Camera (IDC) on the end of its robotic arm to image this sunset on Mars on April 25, 2019, the 145th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. This was taken around 6:30 p.m. Mars local time. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA's InSight lander used the Instrument Deployment Camera (IDC) on the end of its robotic arm to image this sunset on Mars. This color-corrected version more accurately shows the image as the human eye would see it. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

This is actually the second time InSight has captured these daily events: The camera took practice shots on March 2 and 10. "It's been a tradition for Mars missions to capture sunrises and sunsets," said Justin Maki, InSight science team co-investigator and imaging lead at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "With many of our primary imaging tasks complete, we decided to capture the sunrise and sunset as seen from another world."

The first mission to send back such images was the Viking 1 lander, which captured a sunset on Aug. 21, 1976; Viking 2 captured a sunrise on June 14, 1978. Since then, both sunrises and sunsets have been recorded by the Spirit, Opportunity and Curiosity rovers, among other missions.

NASA's InSight used its Instrument Context Camera (ICC) beneath the lander's deck to image these drifting clouds at sunset. NASA's InSight used its Instrument Context Camera (ICC) beneath the lander's deck to image these drifting clouds at sunset. This series of images was taken on April 25, 2019, the 145th Martian day, or sol, of the mission, starting at around 6:30 p.m. Mars local time. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

JPL manages InSight for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. InSight is part of NASA's Discovery Program, managed by the agency's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Lockheed Martin Space in Denver built the InSight spacecraft, including its cruise stage and lander, and supports spacecraft operations for the mission.

A number of European partners, including France's Centre National d'Études Spatiales (CNES) and the German Aerospace Center (DLR), are supporting the InSight mission.

CNES provided the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) instrument to NASA, with the principal investigator at IPGP (Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris). Significant contributions for SEIS came from IPGP; the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in Germany; the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich) in Switzerland; Imperial

College London and Oxford University in the United Kingdom; and JPL. DLR provided the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP3) instrument, with significant contributions from the Space Research Center (CBK) of the Polish Academy of Sciences and Astronika in Poland. Spain’s Centro de Astrobiología (CAB) supplied the temperature and wind sensors.

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References:

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https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/924/insight-captures-sunrise-and-sunset-on-mars/

https://mars.nasa.gov/insight/

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NASA Was Sold Defective Aluminum for 19 Years (Video)

by N.Morgan

An investigation led by NASA has made the stunning discovery that one of its former metals manufacturers, Sapa Profiles, falsified test results and provided it with faulty aluminum parts for almost 20 years.

Sapa Profiles faked the certifications for its parts from 1996 to 2015, Bloomberg reported Wednesday, for “hundreds of customers” including NASA.

The space agency wasn’t the only client that lost out from this fraudulent activity, but it could be the one that was most damaged by it: NASA used Sapa’s parts in the making of Taurus XL, a rocket that was used in two missions in 2009 and 2011. Both missions failed, causing NASA to lose somewhere around $700 million, Engadget explained.

The company, now called Hydro Extrusion Portland, Inc., has since ended its contract with NASA. Now, it’s prevented from ever entering into a contract with the U.S. government again, in addition to fines of $46 million paid to NASA, the Department of Defense, and others.

NASA’s director of Launch Services, Jim Norman, explained that falsified tests can result in not only property damage and wasted time, money, and resources, but also, in this case, “severely violated” their trust in their suppliers. “NASA relies on the integrity of our industry throughout the supply chain,” he said. 

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News of the satellite failures comes a week after Norsk Hydro ASA, the current parent company of Sapa, agreed to pay $46 million to NASA, the Department of Defense and others to resolve criminal charges and civil claims related to the fraud, which took place from 1996 to 2015.

The company admitted that employees had faked test results related to the metal’s strength and reliability under pressure. Sapa Profiles, now known as Hydro Extrusion Portland Inc., also agreed to plead guilty to one count of mail fraud and is barred from U.S. federal government contracting.

“Corporate and personal greed perpetuated this fraud against the government and other private customers, and this resolution holds these companies accountable for the harm caused by their scheme,” said Brian Benczkowski, the assistant attorney general of the criminal division at the Department of Justice, in an April 23 statement.

A spokesman for Norsk Hydro said the case has been settled. Last week, it said it has invested “significant time and resources to completely overhaul our quality and compliance organizations.”

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References:

https://beforeitsnews.com/v3/space/2019/2516115.html

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-01/nasa-says-aluminum-fraud-caused-700-million-satellite-failures

https://theweek.com/speedreads/838771/nasa-sold-faulty-aluminum-19-years

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Seriously Strange Mars Anomalies That Suggest NASA Has Found the Unthinkable (Video)

By Jeffery Pritchett 

This video shows mysterious anomalies on the planet Mars, which may indicate current or past life or civilization. Some photos reveal what looks like spreading trees, what does NASA say about this? No less a personage than respected author Arthur C. Clarke said that they resemble Earth’s Banyan trees. There is also evidence that some of Mars rover pictures were taken on Earth.

Take a long and hard look at this images and explore the details. These structures are not “rock formations,” something is going on on Mars. There are tunnels, buildings, and artifacts on Mars. This researcher has unearthed this remarkable evidence from thousands of images released by NASA.

The artifacts don’t appear to conform to the terrain, in the sense that they shouldn’t exist, but they do. We could be looking at the remnants of a long-lost Martian civilization.

More with Video: https://goo.gl/LMLiQx

Hubble View Of A Nitrogen-Rich Nebula

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows a planetary nebula named NGC 6153, located about 4,000 light-years away in the southern constellation of Scorpius (The Scorpion).

The faint blue haze across the frame shows what remains of a star like the sun after it has depleted most of its fuel.

When this happens, the outer layers of the star are ejected, and get excited and ionized by the energetic ultraviolet light emitted by the bright hot core of the star, forming the nebula.

NGC 6153 is a planetary nebula that is elliptical in shape, with an extremely rich network of loops and filaments, shown clearly in this Hubble image.

However, this is not what makes this planetary nebula so interesting for astronomers.

Measurements show that NGC 6153 contains large amounts of neon, argon, oxygen, carbon and chlorine — up to three times more than can be found in the solar system.

The nebula contains a whopping five times more nitrogen than our sun!

Although it may be that the star developed higher levels of these elements as it grew and evolved, it is more likely that the star originally formed from a cloud of material that already contained a lot more of these elements.

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'Bashful' Black Hole in Neighboring Galaxy Revealed

Thanks to the extraordinary sensitivity of the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA), astronomers have detected what they believe is the long-sought radio emission coming from a supermassive black hole at the center of one of our closest neighboring galaxies.

Evidence for the black hole’s existence previously came only from studies of stellar motions in the galaxy and from X-ray observations.

The galaxy, called Messier 32 (M32), is a satellite of the Andromeda Galaxy, our own Milky Way’s giant neighbor. Unlike the Milky Way and Andromeda, which are star-forming spiral galaxies, M32 is an elliptical galaxy, with little star formation. About 2.5 million light-years from Earth, M32 is much smaller than either the Milky Way or Andromeda.

The galaxy M32 is a small satellite of the larger, spiral Andromeda Galaxy (M31), as shown in this Hubble Space Telescope image. The inset is a combined radio/optical/X-ray image of M32. The diffuse purple is the visible starlight of M32.

The central white object in the inset is the center of M32, where there is both radio and X-ray emission. Red shows radio-emitting objects, including a pair of presumed planetary nebulae (left center), and the green is an object strongly emitting X-rays.

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Evidence Of First Generation Stars In The Universe

Astronomers have long theorized the existence of a first generation of stars — known as Population III stars — that were born out of the primordial material from the Big Bang . All the heavier chemical elements — such as oxygen, nitrogen, carbon and iron, which are essential to life — were forged in the bellies of stars.

This means that the first stars must have formed out of the only elements to exist prior to stars: hydrogen, helium and trace amounts of lithium.

This artist’s impression shows CR7 a very distant galaxy discovered using ESO’s Very Large Telescope. It is by far the brightest galaxy yet found in the early Universe and there is strong evidence that examples of the first generation of stars lurk within it.

These massive, brilliant, and previously purely theoretical objects were the creators of the first heavy elements in history — the elements necessary to forge the stars around us today, the planets that orbit them, and life as we know it.

This newly found galaxy is three times brighter than the brightest distant galaxy known up to now.

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The 'Eye Of Medusa' - Unknown Extreme Star Formation Discovered

NOEMA (Northern Extended Millimeter Array), the most powerful millimeter radio telescope of the Northern Hemisphere, has unveiled its first astronomical image: a unique and spectacular view of a previously unknown region of extreme star formation in the ‘Medusa merger’ – a luminous collision of two galaxies at more than 100 million light years from Earth.

The multi-wavelength image shows the ‘Eye of Medusa’ (orange) located directly below the black hole at the center of NGC 4149 (white and green).

The observations, conducted by IRAM using the new NOEMA observatory in the French Alps, reveal a giant region (about 500 light years across) of recently formed massive stars at the center of the ‘Eye of Medusa’, the central gas-rich region of the Medusa merger. The stars are still wrapped in their dusty birth clouds and completely hidden from view in visible light.

Other observatories have previously mapped the Medusa merger but none had detected the existence of this region of high-density gas in the ‘Eye’ until now. The new discovery has not only proven its existence, but also has implications for our understanding of the origins of the Universe and will influence future investigative techniques.

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A Look into the Deep Interiors of Stars and Planets

The matter that makes up distant planets and even-more-distant stars exists under extreme pressure and temperature conditions. This matter includes members of a family of seven elements called the noble gases, some of which–such as helium and neon–are household names.

Alexander Goncharov, Stewart McWilliams, and the rest of the team’s work on noble gases could help solve the mystery of why Saturn emits more heat from its interior than would be expected. In Jupiter and Saturn, helium would be insulating near the surface and turn metal-like at depths close to both planet’s cores, where it is also predicted to be dissolved in hydrogen.

 But neon behaved differently in the laboratory conditions mimicking the two gas giants. In Saturn, it would remain an insulator even at the core. As such, an ocean-like envelope of undissolved neon could collect deep within the planet and prevent the erosion of Saturn’s core compared to its neighbor, Jupiter.

New work from a team of scientists led by Carnegie’s Alexander Goncharov used laboratory techniques to mimic stellar and planetary conditions, and observe how noble gases behave under these conditions, in order to better understand the atmospheric and internal chemistry of these celestial objects. Their work is published the week of June 15 by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The team used a diamond-anvil cell to bring the noble gases helium, neon, argon, and xenon to more than 100,000 times the pressure of Earth’s atmosphere (15-52 gigapascals), and used a laser to heat them to temperatures ranging up to 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit (about 28,000 degrees Kelvin).

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What’s In This ‘Dark’ Globular Star Cluster? 

While conducting studies using the ESO’s Very Large Telescope in Chile, a team of astronomers recently discovered an unusual, overstuffed type of globular star clusters in orbit around the giant elliptical galaxy Centaurus A (NGC 5128) that may be packed with dark matter.

The Observatory refers to these objects as a new class of “dark” globular star clusters, and many are brighter and more massive than the approximately 150 clusters currently orbiting the Milky Way. The clusters may contain a tremendous amount of dark matter, as mentioned above, or they may have a massive black hole hidden in their midst, according to Space.com.

“Globular clusters and their constituent stars are keys to understanding the formation and evolution of galaxies,” explained lead author Matt Taylor, a Ph. D. student at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile whose work has been published by The Astrophysical Journal.

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Earth’s Moon: A Perfect Artificial Construction Too Good To Be True 

We’ve seen recent theories that the moon isn’t real, but an artificially created by left over space debris from Earth.

This theory is proven incorrect in light of the current theory of gravity, indicating that a large object collects all loose material, leaving none for the formation of another large body.

So far, none of the theories are particularly compelling due to the lack of evidence that neither Earth nor the Moon appear to have been physically altered by a close encounter that occurred in the distant past.

No debris in space indicate a collision in the past yet it seems that the Earth and Moon were developed during the same period.

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Researchers Find Brightest Galaxy In The Known Universe 

NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer has found the brightest galaxy in the known universe.

This galaxy, fondly named WISE J224607.57-052635.0, emits over 300 trillion times more light than our sun.

This new discovery is part of a category of celestial objects termed “extremely luminous infrared galaxies”, or ELIRGs.

The main source of the galaxy’s energy output is a supermassive black hole at its center. When a large black hole pulls in surrounding matter, the gravity and friction of the matter orbiting the edge of the event horizon superheats the material, causing it to release energy in the form of light. This kind of black hole, which compresses the matter around it into a luminous disk, is called a quasar.

Although quasars are not rare, the example at the center of WISE J224607.57-052635.0 is unique because of its age relative to the mass of its black hole.

Although the images we see of this quasar and its galaxy are over 12.5 billion years old, it was already sustaining a gravitational pull of billions of times the mass of our sun, even when the universe was only about one tenth of its now 13.8 billion year age.

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NASA’s UFO Video Files That Should Not Exist

This video is some of NASA’s best UFO video files. We uncovered more UFO evidence and compiled some intriguing NASA UFO videos into this short UFO video film.

These epic NASA UFO video sightings are only the beginning of what’s yet to come.

With live ISS streams and access to NASA’s growing archive, there are many more new UFO space discoveries waiting to be uncovered.

Video http://bit.ly/1AnaHlU



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Does Non-Water-Based Life Exist? 

Much of the search for extraterrestrial life on Mars and in other parts of the universe has thus far centered around the hunt for water – mostly because all life as we know it needs water to live. But what if we’re ignoring other types of life?

That fascinating possibility is examined by the authors of a study published in a recent edition of the journal Astrobiology, who according to Space.com examine whether a liquid other than good old-fashioned H2O could support life in a place such as Saturn’s icy moon Titan.

Titan, they explained, is rich in the hydrocarbon methane, which would keep water-based RNA and DNA molecules from carrying a genetic blueprint. Other molecules would have to step up and fill this role. The study proposes ethers, a type of molecule not used in any Earth-based genetics, could support alien life.

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War In Space Is Probably Coming 

The United States has taken a number of actions in preparation for a war probably come in the immense space. Is there any possibility of the war in space?

The US express their apparent stance in opposing the satellite testing in the context of other nations is attempting their own space stations.

The head of U.S. Air Force Space Command (AFSPC) said in an interview with Reuters that the US is in need of advanced technologies, better approaches for equipment and bandwidth and closer binds with allies.

This is because of the US having confrontation in space with China, Russia and other countries.

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Building A Supermassive Black Hole 

This month at the Science Club Nashville, we were privy to Dr. Jillian Bellovary, a Bridge Postdoctoral Fellow at Vanderbilt University’s Physics & Astronomy Department.

She started us off nicely with an easy-to-grasp introduction into black holes, then segued into the meat of her presentation: using cosmological simulations to study how galaxies and supermassive black holes form over cosmic time.

In her far more professional terms:

“I use the SPH+Nbody code Gasoline to study how massive black holes form and grow in a cosmological context. 

I am interested in seed formation, triggers of black hole growth, wandering black holes, intermediate mass black holes, the co-evolution of black holes and their host galaxies, searching for massive black holes in dwarf galaxies, and making predictions for gravitational wave detectors, because maybe some day there will be some.”

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Why Do Galaxies Die? 

Our galaxy is relatively young, and it is still producing stars. Other galaxies have long since stopped doing so, becoming what is known as quiescent, or passive and gas-poor. Now, research published Thursday in the journal Nature explains why this phenomenon happens.

In their paper, experts from the University of Cambridge and the Royal Observatory Edinburgh Institute for Astronomy explain that although the “primary mechanism responsible for quenching star formation in galaxies and transforming them into quiescent and passive systems” is unclear, and in many cases, the cause is linked to something known as “strangulation.”

Strangulation, Science explains, occurs when gas no longer falls into the galaxy, cutting off the supply of materials required in order to form new stars. The authors reached this conclusion after comparing nearly 4,000 star-forming galaxies alongside more than 22,000 that are quiescent.

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How Close Are We To Finding Aliens? 

Some people think aliens are a conspiracy theory or an impossibility, but statistically it’s possible that extra-terrestrial life forms (ETs) could exist in our galactic neighborhood.

Aliens probably don’t look like the classic little green men, but something could be out there. What form does our search take? Here’s an overview, with help from our friend Wolf Gordon Clifton, who is currently completing a certificate program in Astrobiology at the University of Washington and is the creator of the exhibit Beyond Human: Animals, Aliens and Artificial Intelligence.

In the 1960s, astronomer Francis Drake took a pragmatic approach to the search for extra-terrestrial life. He tried to find signals broadcast by alien civilizations using radio telescopes. Furthermore, he created the Drake Equation, a formula used to calculate the number of potential civilizations in our galaxy.

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If Mars Once Had life, What Happened To It? 

After studying the red planet for decades, scientists admit that there is a great possibility that an impact of a asteroid or comet altered the faith of the Red Planet, compared to Earth, Mars is full of impact craters but that isn’t that strange since Mars has a very uncomfortable position in our solar System, right next to the Asteroid belt. due to this, Mars is constantly being bombarded by asteroids, unlike Earth Mars does not have a bigger moon to shield it against incoming asteroids.

Looking back in history we know that the Earth has been impacted in the past by large space rock and some of those impacts have possibly changed the history of our planet. One of the best examples we know of, is the Chicxulub impact crater located in the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico (see image above) which some scientists believe to have been the number one reason for the extinction of the Dinosaurs.

So if this happened here on Earth, would something similar be possible on Mars? On the red planet we find a very interesting impact crater located in the Lyot region, and it is approx. 125 miles in diameter. The area of this impact crater tells us just how powerful the impact was and it could have been one of the main causes why Mars today is just a “desert”.

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Dramatic Clips: The Mystery Bright Spots On Ceres 

NASA’s Dawn spacecraft flew by the dwarf planet Ceres. Located between Mars and Jupiter,  Ceres is the largest object in the asteroid belt.

Dawn took some stunning pictures.  Then ZLD honed in on NASA’s footage to make some dramatic gifs:

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