A Chinese Probe Just Brought Back The First New Samples From The Moon in Decades

 

An unmanned Chinese spacecraft carrying rocks and soil from the Moon returned safely to Earth early Thursday within the first mission in four decades to gather lunar samples, the Xinhua wire service said.

The return module of the guided-missile called Chang'e-5 landed in northern China's Inner Mongolia region, Xinhua said, quoting the China National Space Administration.

Beijing is looking to catch up with the US and Russia after taking decades to match its rivals' achievements and has poured billions into its military-run space program.

The spacecraft, named after a mythical Chinese Moon goddess, landed on the laze on December 1 and commenced its return voyage two days later. While on the Moon it raised the Chinese flag, China's space agency has said.

Scientists hope the samples will help them study the Moon's origins, formation, and volcanic activity on its surface.

With this mission, China became only the third country to own retrieved samples from the Moon, following us and therefore the land within the 1960s and 1970s.

This was the primary such attempt since the Soviet Union's Luna 24 mission in 1976.

The spacecraft's mission was to gather two kilograms (4.5 pounds) of fabric in a neighborhood referred to as Oceanus Procellarum – or "Ocean of Storms" – an enormous, previously unexplored lava plain, in line with the science journal Nature.

Under President Xi Jinping, plans for China's "space dream", as he calls it, are put into overdrive.

China hopes to possess a crewed space platform by 2022 and eventually send humans to the Moon.

Japan Just Revealed The First Image of Ryugu's Asteroid Dust to The World

 

Black sandy dust found during a capsule delivered to Earth by a Japanese guided missile is from the distant asteroid Ryugu, scientists confirmed after opening it on Monday.

The discovery comes per week after the Hayabusa-2 probe dropped off its capsule, which entered the atmosphere in an exceeding streak of sunshine before landing within the desert then being transported to Japan.

The Japanese space agency (JAXA) released an image of a little deposit of sooty material inside the metal box - a primary glimpse at the results of an unprecedented six-year mission for the uncrewed probe.

(JAXA)

The dust was found within the capsule's outer shell, agency officials said, with more substantial samples expected to be found once they open the inner container, a fragile task.

"JAXA has confirmed that samples derived from the asteroid Ryugu are inside the sample container," the agency said.

"We were ready to confirm black, sand-like particles which are believed to be derived from the asteroid Ryugu."

The sample container inside the re-entry capsule was opened on December 14, and that we confirmed black grains thought to be from Ryugu were inside. this can be outside the most chambers, and sure particles attached to the sample catcher entrance. (English release available tomorrow) https://t.co/NAw1R1cjvy pic.twitter.com/5BfXxfH29h

— HAYABUSA2@JAXA (@haya2e_jaxa) December 14, 2020

Hayabusa-2 traveled about 300 million kilometers (200 million miles) from Earth to gather the samples, which scientists hope could help shed light on the origin of life and also the formation of the universe.

The probe collected both surface dust and pristine material from below the surface that was excited by firing an "impactor" into the asteroid.

"We will continue our work to open the sample-catcher within the sample container. Extraction of the sample and analysis of it'll be applied," JAXA said.

Hayabusa2 probe as it landed in Australia. (JAXA/Twitter)

Half of Hayabusa-2's samples are going to be shared between JAXA, US space agency NASA and other international organizations, and also the rest kept for future study as advances are made in analytic technology.

But work isn't over for the probe, which is able to now begin an extended mission targeting two new asteroids.

There's a Human-Made Barrier in Space, Surrounding The Entire Earth

 In 2017, NASA space probes detected a large, human-made 'barrier' surrounding Earth.

And tests have confirmed that it's actually having sway on space weather far beyond our planet's atmosphere.

That means we're not just changing Earth so severely, scientists are calling for an entirely new geological epoch to be named after us - our activities are changing space too.

But the great news is that unlike our influence on the world itself, that humungous bubble we created come in space is truly working in our favor.

Back in 2012, NASA launched two space probes to figure in tandem with one another as they whizzed through Earth's James Alfred Van Allen Belts at speeds of around 3,200 km/h (2,000 mph). 

Our planet is surrounded by two such radiation belts (and a short-lived third one) - the inner belt stretches from around 640 to 9,600 km (400 to six,000 miles) above Earth's surface, while the outer belt occupies an altitude of roughly 13,500 to 58,000 km (8,400 to 36,000 miles).

In 2017, the James Alfred Van Allen Probes detected something strange as they monitored the activity of charged particles caught within Earth's magnetic flux - these dangerous solar discharges were being kept cornered by some reasonably low-frequency barrier.

When researchers investigated, they found that this barrier had been actively pushing the Van Allen Belts faraway from Earth over the past few decades, and now the lower limits of the radiation streams are literally further faraway from us than they were within the 1960s.

So what's changed? 

A certain style of transmission called very low frequency (VLF) radio communications, became way more common now than within the 60s, and also the team at NASA confirmed that they'll influence how and where certain particles in space move about.

In other words, due to VLF, we now have anthropogenic (or human-made) space weather.

"A number of experiments and observations have found out that, under the proper conditions, radio communications signals within the VLF frequency range can, of course, affect the properties of the high-energy radiation environment around the Earth," said one amongst the team, Phil Erickson from the MIT Haystack Observatory in Massachusetts, back in 2017.

Most people won't have much to try and do with VLF signals in our daily life, but they are a mainstay in many engineering, scientific, and military operations.

With frequencies between 3 and 30 kilohertz, they're far too weak to hold audio transmissions, but they're perfect for broadcasting coded messages across long-distances or deep underwater.

One of the foremost common uses of VLF signals is to speak with deep-sea submarines, but because their large wavelengths can diffract around large obstacles like mountain ranges, they're also accustomed achieve transmissions across tricky terrain.

It was never the intention for VLF signals to travel anywhere aside from on Earth, but it seems they have been leaking into the space surrounding our planet, and have lingered long enough to make a large protective bubble.

When the James Alfred Van Allen Probes compared the situation of the VLF bubble to the bounds of Earth's radiation belts, they found what initially gave the impression of a remarkable coincidence - "The outward extent of the VLF bubble corresponds almost exactly to the inner fringe of the Van Allen radiation belts," said NASA.

But once they realized that VLF signals can actually influence the movement of the charged particles within these radiation belts, they realized that our unintentional human-made barrier has been progressively pushing them back.

One of the team, Dan Baker, from the University of Colorado's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, stated this because of the "impenetrable barrier".

While our protective VLF bubble is maybe the simplest influence we humans have made on the space surrounding our planet, it's on no account the sole one - we've been making our mark on space since the 19th century, and particularly over the past 50 years, when nuclear explosions were all the fad.

"These explosions created artificial radiation belts near Earth that resulted in major damages to many satellites," the NASA team explained.

"Other anthropogenic impacts on the space environment include chemical release experiments, high-frequency wave heating of the ionosphere and therefore the interaction of VLF waves with the radiation belts."

Astronomer Carl Sagan once wanted to search out unequivocal indications of life on Earth from up in space - seems, there are a bunch of them if you recognize where to appear.

Astronomers Just Found Cosmic 'Superhighways' For Fast Travel Through The Solar System

 Invisible structures generated by gravitational interactions within the scheme have created a "space superhighway" network, astronomers have discovered.

These channels enable the fast travel of objects through space and will be harnessed for our own space exploration purposes, moreover because of the study of comets and asteroids.

By applying analyses to both observational and simulation data, a team of researchers led by Nataša Todorović of Belgrade Astronomical Observatory in Serbia observed that these superhighways encompass a series of connected arches inside these invisible structures, called space manifolds - and every planet generates its own manifolds, together creating what the researchers have called "a true celestial autobahn".

This network can transport objects from Jupiter to Neptune in an exceedingly matter of decades, instead of them for much longer timescales, on the order of many thousands to voluminous years, normally found within the scheme.

Finding hidden structures in space is not easy, but watching the way things move around can provide helpful clues. specifically, comets and asteroids.

There are several groups of rocky bodies at different distances from the Sun. There's the Jupiter-family comets (JFCs), those with orbits of but 20 years, that do not go farther than Jupiter's orbital paths.

Centaurs are icy chunks of rocks that hang around between Jupiter and Neptune. and also the trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) are those within the far reaches of the scheme, with orbits larger than that of Neptune.

To model the pathways connecting these zones, as TNOs transition through the Centaur category and find yourself as JFCs, timescales can range from 10,000 to a billion years. But a recent paper identified an orbital gateway connected to Jupiter that seems much quicker, governing the paths of JFCs and Centaurs.

Although that paper didn't mention Lagrange points, it's known that these regions of relative gravitational stability, created by the interaction between two orbiting bodies (in this case, Jupiter and therefore the Sun), can generate manifolds. So Todorović and her team set about investigating.

They employed a tool called the fast Lyapunov indicator (FLI), usually wont to detect chaos. Since chaos within the scheme is linked to the existence of stable and unstable manifolds, on short timescales, the FLI can capture traces of manifolds, both stable and unstable, of the dynamical model it's applied to.

"Here," the researchers wrote in their paper, "we use the FLI to detect the presence and global structure of space manifolds, and capture instabilities that act on orbital time scales; that's, we use this sensitive and well-established numerical tool to more generally define regions of fast transport within the scheme."

They collected numerical data on numerous orbits within the system and computed how these orbits fit with known manifolds, modeling the perturbations generated by seven major planets, from Venus to Neptune.

And they found that the foremost prominent arches, at increasing heliocentric distances, were linked with Jupiter; and most strongly with its Lagrange point manifolds. All Jovian close encounters, modeled using test particles, visited the vicinity of Jupiter's first and second Lagrange points.

A few dozen roughly particles were then flung into the earth on a collision course; but an enormous number more, around 2,000, became uncoupled from their orbits around the Sun to enter hyperbolic escape orbits. On average, these particles reached Uranus and Neptune 38 and 46 years later, respectively, with the fastest reaching Neptune in under a decade.

The majority - around 70 percent - reached a distance of 100 astronomical units (Pluto's average orbital distance is 39.5 astronomical units) in but a century.

Jupiter's huge influence isn't a large surprise. Jupiter is, except for the Sun, the foremost massive object within the scheme. But the identical structures would be generated by all the planets, on timescales commensurate with their orbital periods, the researchers found.

This new understanding could help us better understand how comets and asteroids move around the inner scheme and their potential threat to Earth. And, of course, there's the aforementioned benefit to future scheme exploration missions.

But we might have to urge a stronger fix on how these gateways work, to avoid those collision courses; and it won't be easy.

"More detailed quantitative studies of the discovered phase-space structures … could provide deeper insight into the transport between the 2 belts of minor bodies and also the planet region," the researchers wrote in their paper.

"Combining observations, theory, and simulation will improve our current understanding of this short-term mechanism functioning on the TNO, Centaur, comet, and asteroid populations and merge this information with the normal picture of the long-term chaotic diffusion through orbital resonances; a formidable task for the big range of energies considered."

One of The Blackest Planets in The Galaxy Is Headed For a Fiery Death

 WASP-12b is one in every of the more interesting exoplanets we all know of. Orbiting a plant disease star a bit bigger than the Sun 1,410 light-years away, the ultra-black planet is what's called a "hot Jupiter" - a superior planet exoplanet with similar mass and size to Jupiter, but so near the star that it's scorching hot.

WASP-12b has never exactly been within the most secure position. With an orbital period of just over each day, the Jovian planet exoplanet is so near its star that a continuing stream of fabric is being siphoned removed from its atmosphere.

But its death won't necessarily be by slow stellar slurping. Careful observations have found it is also on a noticeably decaying orbit. And, consistent with new research, that orbit is decaying a touch faster than we initially thought.

Rather than the three.25 million years initially estimated, WASP-12b will meet its fiery end in mere 2.9 million years.

According to current models of planet formation, technically hot Jupiters shouldn't exist. A Jovian planet can't form that near a star because the gravity, radiation, and intense stellar winds should keep the gas from clumping together. But they are doing exist - several hundred are identified within the exoplanet data.

However they form, hot Jupiters that are particularly near their star are a number of the foremost studied exoplanets out there. this can be because they will tell us lots about the tidal interactions between a planet and a star.

WASP-12b is among the closest hot Jupiters to its star. And it has been a superb example for studying tidal interactions.

It was discovered in 2008, which implies astronomers are able to collect a comparatively long-term dataset; and its short orbit means we are able to observe plenty of transits. That's when the exoplanet passes between us and therefore the star, causing the latter's light to ever slightly dim.

It was in 2017 that astronomers noticed something strange about WASP-12b's transits. They were occurring just a fraction of a second off once they should are, supported previous measurements of the orbital period.

That slight timing variation could are the results of the exoplanet's orbit changing direction, so a team of astronomers led by Samuel Yee of Princeton University decided to closely examine not just the transits, but the occultations when the exoplanet passes behind the star. If WASP-12b was changing direction, the occultations should be slightly delayed.

A transit causes a faint dimming of the star's light; an occultation causes an excellent fainter dimming. this is often because the exoplanet, reflecting the star's heat and light-weight, adds to the system's overall brightness when it is not behind the star.

WASP-12b is extremely dark, optically; it absorbs 94 percent of all light that shines on that, making it blacker than asphalt.

Astronomers believe that this can be because the exoplanet is so hot; at 2,600 degrees Celsius (4,700 degrees Fahrenheit) on its dayside, hydrogen molecules are diminished into atomic hydrogen, causing its atmosphere to behave more sort of a low-mass star. But because it is so hot, it glows in infrared.

Yee's team used the Spitzer Space Telescope to do to look at occultations. Although they observed the star, WASP 12, for 16 orbital periods, they only managed to seek out four faint occultations within the data. it absolutely was enough, though.

These occultations may be matched to transits… and therefore the researchers found that the occultations were occurring more quickly - in keeping with an orbital decay of 29 milliseconds p.a.. At that rate, the planet's lifespan was, the astronomers calculated, around 3.25 million years.

Now, a brand new team of researchers led by Jake Turner of the university has a probe for signs of orbital decay during a different dataset - observations taken by NASA's planet-hunting telescope TESS, specifically designed to watch transits and occultations.

TESS studied the region of the sky that included WASP-12 from 24 December 2019 to twenty January 2020. during this data, the team found 21 transits. The occultations were too shallow to be detected individually, but the team was able to model them to search out a best-fit for the TESS data.

These transit and occultation times were combined with the sooner data for timing analysis. And Turner and his team were ready to confirm that WASP-12b's orbit is indeed decaying. But it's doing so a touch faster than we thought - at a rate of 32.53 milliseconds per annum, for a complete lifespan of two.9 million years.

That looks like an extended time, but on cosmic timescales, it's practically an eyeblink. And it's dramatically shortened the exoplanet's lifespan from the estimated 10 million years it might deem the world to die from atmospheric stripping.

But, although it doesn't have long to measure, studying WASP-12b has the potential to show us lots. And while it is the only exoplanet that we've got robust evidence of orbital decay, there are other hot Jupiter exoplanets that are expected to exhibit similar rates of orbital decay.

"Hence, additional data could reveal whether [these exoplanets] indeed exhibit hitherto undetected tidal decay or whether the theoretical predictions must be improved," Turner and his team wrote.

"Timing observations of additional systems are warranted because they assist us to understand the formation, evolution, and supreme fate of hot Jupiters."

Our Sun Has Entered a New Cycle, And It Could Be One of The Strongest Ever Recorded

The Sun may be in for a very busy time. According to new predictions, the next maximum in its activity cycles could be one of the strongest we've seen.

This is in direct contradiction to the official solar weather forecast from NASA and the NOAA, but if it bears out, it could confirm a theory about solar activity cycles that scientists have been working on for years.

"Scientists have struggled to predict both the length and the strength of sunspot cycles because we lack a fundamental understanding of the mechanism that drives the cycle," said solar physicist Scott McIntosh of the US National Center for Atmospheric Research.

"If our forecast proves correct, we will have evidence that our framework for understanding the Sun's internal magnetic machine is on the right path."

The Sun's activity levels are actually quite variable, and its activity cycles are bound up with its magnetic field.

Every 11 years, the Sun's poles swap places; south becomes north and north becomes south. It's not clear what drives these cycles, but we do know that the poles switch when the magnetic field is at its weakest.

Because the Sun's magnetic field controls its activity - sunspots (temporary regions of strong magnetic fields), solar flares, and coronal mass ejections (produced by magnetic field lines snapping and reconnecting) - this stage of the cycle manifests as a period of very minimal activity. It's called the solar minimum.

Once the poles have switched, the magnetic field strengthens, and solar activity rises to a solar maximum before subsiding for the next polar switch.

Generally, we track solar minima by keeping a careful eye on solar activity and working out after the fact that one has occurred. By this metric, the most recent solar minimum took place in December 2019. We're now in the 25th solar cycle since record-keeping began, headed into a solar maximum.

According to NASA and the NOAA, this is expected to be a quiet maximum, with a sunspot peak of around 115 sunspots in July 2025. This is pretty similar to Solar Cycle 24, which had a sunspot peak of 114.

But McIntosh and his colleagues believe differently. In 2014, he and his colleagues published a paper describing their observations of the Sun on a 22-year cycle.

This has long been considered the full solar cycle when the poles return to their starting positions, but McIntosh noticed something interesting. Over the course of about 20 years or so, flickers of extreme ultraviolet light called coronal bright points seem to move from the poles towards the equator, meeting in the middle.

The movement of these bright points across the mid-latitudes seems to coincide with sunspot activity.

(Scott McIntosh/NCAR)

These bright points, McIntosh believes, are linked with bands of magnetic fields that wrap around the Sun, propagating from the poles to the equator every 11 years or so.

Because they have opposite polarity, when they meet in the middle, they cancel each other out - what the researchers call a "terminator". These terminator events mark the end of a solar magnetic cycle, and the start of the next.

But they don't always take exactly the same amount of time. Sometimes these bands slow down as they reach mid-latitudes, which means that the length of time between terminator events varies. And the team noticed that there's a correlation between the length of time between terminators and the intensity of the following solar maximum.

"When we look back over the 270-year long observational record of terminator events, we see that the longer the time between terminators, the weaker the next cycle," said astronomer Bob Leamon of the University of Maryland Baltimore County.

"And, conversely, the shorter the time between terminators, the stronger the next solar cycle is."

The longest cycle on record based on the time between terminators is Solar Cycle 4, which lasted over 15 years. It was followed by the famous Dalton minimum - a peak of just 82 sunspots in Solar Cycle 5, which lasted nearly 14 years, and 81 sunspots in Solar Cycle 6.

But shorter solar cycles - those that are less than 11 years - are followed by maxima with peaks well above 200 sunspots.

Solar Cycle 23, according to McIntosh's team's metric, was pretty long. It lasted nearly 13 years. And Solar Cycle 24 was much quieter than the cycles that preceded it. But it was also really short, coming in under the 10-year mark. If the team's analyses are in point, we should be in for a lot of sunspots by the mid-2020s.

There's only one way to find out - we have to wait and see. But McIntosh and his team are confident in their interpretation of the Sun's activity. And, if they're right, that will give us a whole new toolset for understanding how the Sun works.

"Once you identify the terminators in the historical records, the pattern becomes obvious," McIntosh said.

"A weak Sunspot Cycle 25, as the community is predicting, would be a complete departure from everything that the data has shown us up to this point."

Lose Yourself in These Gloriously Detailed New Images of The Magellanic Clouds

 

Astronomers are using the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) in Chile as a form of the baby monitor, keeping their eye on a neighborhood of nearby space absolutely packed with star nurseries.

The Large and little Magellanic Clouds are the sole two dwarf galaxies visible from Earth with the unaided eye, and fortunately enough, they're also home to a number of the foremost active star-forming regions in our Local Group of galaxies.

It's not the primary time we've tried to peek in and see what these newborns are up to, but it's the foremost penetrating look yet.

The Survey of the Magellanic Stellar History (SMASH) took 50 nights of observation to map in high detail a part 2,400 times greater than the face of the total Moon. The results are breathtaking.

Images of the foremost complex regions within the Magellanic Clouds have now provided roughly 4 billion measurements of 360 million objects, which researchers hope to show into a 'home movie' for this celestial family – one that potentially goes back 13 billion years.

"These satellite galaxies are studied for many years, but SMASH is being employed to map their structure over their full, enormous extent and help solve the mystery of their formation," explains astronomer David Nidever from Montana State University.

Deepest, widest view of the Large Magellanic Cloud from SMASH. (CTIO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/SMASH/Nideve

As gas within these clouds collapses, new stars still are rapidly born, and data from SMASH suggest this flurry of activity was initially triggered by a collision between the massive and little Magellanic galaxies way back.

Now, the 2 still orbit one another. in the future far, far within the future, astronomers think both are swallowed by our own Milky Way.

Deepest, widest view of the Small Magellanic Cloud from SMASH. (CTIO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/SMASH/Nidever)

While the Magellanic Clouds are obtainable and rather small, mapping them intimately still requires deep and efficient imaging. The DECam – a large camera built for observing countless galaxies with the goal of understanding how dark energy pushes them apart – may be a perfect tool for also keeping an in-depth eye on these young stellar neighbors.

Using data obtained from DECam at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, astronomers have probed right to the center of the Magellanic Clouds, where many of the nurseries are found.

"Besides producing amazing images, these data allow us to appear in to the past and reconstruct how the Magellanic Clouds formed their stars over time," says astronomer Knut Olsen from us National Science Foundation.

"With these 'movies' of star formation, we will try and understand how and why these galaxies evolved."

There's 400,000 Pounds Of Trash On The Moon

  The Moon’s surface is strewn with many man-made items, from spacecraft to bags of urine to colossal plaques. Most are spacecraft, quite 70 vehicles altogether dispersed over the lunar surface.

What do the subsequent items have in common?

5 American flags

12 pairs of shoes

96 bags of urine, feces, and vomit

A photograph of Apollo 16 astronaut Charles Duke’s family

If you guessed that these are all among the things on the moon, then you're correct. In total, the moon has over 400,000 pounds of artificial material, and that we humans constantly boost that pile. Humans crash probes into the moon—a tedious method for bringing unmanned missions to an in-depth. And these crashes often leave behind lots of trash.

But is that this trash a controversy, or simply the price of doing space travel?

Weighing in is Jerry Linenger, a former NASA astronaut. He was the only real American on board the Russian orbiter Mir, which survived the worst fire in space exploration history. He’s also the author of “Off the earth.”

In addition to the things mentions above, here’s a rough list of stuff on the moon, in line with The Atlantic.

More than 70 spacecraft, including rovers, modules, and crashed orbiters

TV cameras

Film magazines

Numerous Hasselblad cameras and accessories

Several improvised javelins

Various hammers, tongs, rakes, and shovels

Backpacks

Insulating blankets

Utility towels

Used wet wipes

Personal hygiene kits

Empty packages of space food

A feather from Baggin, the Air Force Academy’s mascot falcon, accustomed conduct Apollo 15’s famous “hammer-feather drop” experiment

A small aluminum sculpture, a tribute to the American and Soviet “fallen astronauts” who died within the space race — left by the crew of Apollo 15

A patch from the never-launched Apollo 1 mission, which ended prematurely when flames engulfed the module during a 1967 work out, killing three U.S. astronauts

A small silicon disk bearing goodwill messages from 73 world leaders, and left on the moon by the crew of Apollo 11

A silver pin, left by Apollo 12 astronaut Alan Bean

A medal honoring Soviet cosmonauts Vladimir Komarov and astronaut

A cast golden offering left by the crew of Apollo 11

How Would You React If We Discovered Alien Life?

  Experts weigh in on what the detection of other life forms might mean to humanity.

or quite a century, from George Melies’ a visit to the Moon to Stephen Spielberg’s E.T. and shut Encounters to the present summer’s blockbuster sequel to July 4, mass media, and also the general public, have pondered what's going to happen if we ever came into contact with extraterrestrial life forms. Carl Sagan’s book Contact, and Jodie Foster’s movie of the identical name, explores one possible scenario within which an exploration for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) scientist (played by Foster) discovers a sign repeating a sequence of prime numbers originating from star system Vega, the 5th brightest star visible from Earth. whether or not Contact’s version of an alien encounter is more likely than that presented in Spielberg’s E.T., the probabilities are worth pondering.

=And yet experts believe that the percentages of receiving a radio transmission composed of prime numbers or encountering intelligent extraterrestrial life within the near future are “astronomical.” even with Hillary Clinton’s promise that if elected President, she would open up the “X-files” (Area 51).

But the chances are also increasing because of continuing advances in technology and money. At a news conference held in April in big apple City, Russian billionaire and Breakthrough Prize co-founder Yuri Milner, together with a famed physicist, announced Breakthrough Starshot, a 20-year voyage to the Alpha Centauri star system. Should the existence of planets within the binary star system be confirmed, Starshot could provide us with the simplest measurements of an exoplanet atmosphere we could ever hope to urge this century. Milner will spend $100 million dollars to fund the project. Facebook’s founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, is on the project’s board of directors.

The goal of NASA’s Kepler Mission was to search out terrestrial planets within the habitable zone of stars both near and much where liquid water and possibly life might exist. To date, Kepler has confirmed the existence of two,337 exoplanets, including 1,284 new planets announced as of this writing. in a very handout issued by NASA, chief scientist Ellen Stofan, said, “This announcement quite doubles the number of confirmed planets from Kepler. this offers us hope that somewhere out there, around a star very like ours, we will eventually discover another Earth.”

But what would happen if we discovered life beyond Earth?

Christof Koch, president, and chief scientific officer of the Allen Institute for neuroscience, believe most people are excited to be told that there's intelligent life out there. “For some ‘contact” would be a wish come true and fill us with awe. except for others, it might raise concerns. One can’t assume that alien cultures are by definition benevolent,” Koch says. “If we glance at the history of our world, lesser civilizations were often destroyed by more advanced ones. Would the identical happen to us if we encountered a complicated alien civilization?” Hawking has warned against sending messages out into space for this very reason.

Koch has devoted his life to defining what consciousness is whether or not it's the net, robots, animals, etc. Since it's doubtful that our first contact is going to be with humans from another planet it's important for us to know what consciousness is so we are able to better understand what we do discover as we explore space. “The first discovery would probably be bacteria which could excite some scientists but not the final public. Another scenario may well be a radio wave whose origin would be questioned. Was it a deliberate signal sent to us or is it random noise that will be explained scientifically? I'm not holding my breath for a sign that has prime numbers,” Koch says.

Mary A. Voytek is that the senior scientist and head of NASA’s Astrobiology Program who started Nexus for Exoplanet System Science to go looking for all times on exoplanets. She notes that NASA scientists are currently staring at the foremost extreme conditions on Earth to raised understand what conditions can support life throughout the universe.  “If we will determine what makes a habitable planet on Earth it'll help guide us to seem for conditions within the universe,” she says. Voytek notes that NASA acknowledges that the invention of life has significance beyond science: “In order to totally understand the societal implications, we must discuss with the experts-scholars in sociology and therefore the humanities likewise as theologians.”

“When I give lectures about my work, most people are excited about the likelihood of the invention of extraterrestrial life,” Voytek says. “This is nothing new… the traditional Greek atomists within the fourth century B.C. wrote about it. there's a quote by Democritus that I favor to cite. ‘To consider the planet because the only populated world in infinite space is as absurd on assert that in a whole field sown with millet just one grain will grow.’”

Douglas Vakoch, president of Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence (METI) has devoted much of his career with SETI to exploring what would happen on first contact and the way we could even initiate it through interstellar messages. He says the bulk of individuals believe that intelligent life is widespread within the cosmos.e agrees that a discovery of something sort of a radio emission would end in arguments, in addition to a fading lack of interest thanks to time. “It could take decades or maybe many years for us to urge a response from a symbol we transfer. For those that are accustomed to instant communication, this may be frustrating,” Vakoch says.

Others think we’ll have a more dramatic experience. Susan Schneider, a professor of philosophy and scientific discipline at the University of Connecticut and a fellow of the middle for Theological Inquiry, believes that if we do find intelligent life, it'll possibly be within the sort of super-intelligent computer science. “For some people, this could be hard to simply accept. Discovering a civilization that's now not biological would be scary for us,” But Schneider is optimistic that almost all people will find the invention of benevolent intelligent life exciting. “People are excited by the unknown. and therefore the discovery of a brand new civilization may need many potential benefits. Perhaps a complicated civilization will share their knowledge with us,” Schneider says. The Catholic Church has come a protracted way since the times of Galileo. Pope Francis made headlines when he said he would baptize Martians. Many were surprised at the Pope’s remarks, but the Vatican has been positive about aliens for several years. Father Jose Gabriel Funes, a priest and an astronomer, views aliens as brothers and said the Church has no problem with the concept of intelligent life within the cosmos. Jesuit Brother Guy Consolmagno is that the first clergyman to win the Carl Sagan Medal and also the current president of the Vatican Observatory Foundation. in an exceedingly 2014 article within the Christian Post, Consolmagno said “the general public won't be too surprised when life on other planets is eventually discovered and can react in much the identical way it did when news broke within the ’90s that there are other planets orbiting distant stars.”

A similar view is held by Orthodox Jews. In an e-mail to me, Rabbi Ben Tzion Krasnianski, director of Chabad of the Upperside of Manhattan, wrote, “Jews believe other life forms. The universe is populated with an infinite amount of them. they're not physical, however, rather they're angels who are spiritually conscious beings that are beyond anything we could imagine. The Talmud says one angel’s mind is that the equivalent of a 3rd of the world’s population’s intelligence combined. For us, it’s no surprise that we aren't alone within the larger universe.”

Vakoch said people must detain mind that we are only at the start of exploration. “We have just started looking. it's only been some hundred years that we’ve been a technologically advanced society. That’s a really touch of your time in our universe.”

On Monday You'll Be Able to See The Full Moon Pass Through Earth's Shadow

 Skywatchers admiring November's phase of the moon also will get to determine another treat: a penumbral eclipse, when the Moon passes through Earth's outer shadow, on Monday, November 30, in line with NASA.

The Moon is at its fullest for less than a flash — on Monday, that happens at 4:30 am EST (9:30 UTC) — but the Moon will appear full for 3 days: from Saturday night through Tuesday morning (November 28 to December 1).  

Meanwhile, sky gazers have to remember thrice to catch the penumbral eclipse: It starts before the total moon at 2:32 am EST (7:32 UTC); reaches its maximum at 4:42 am EST (9:42 UTC) when 83 percent of the Moon are covered with Earth's faint shadow; and ends at 6:53 a.m. EST (11:53 UTC) Monday morning, consistent with timeanddate.com. 

Penumbral eclipses are different from total or partial eclipses. During a complete eclipse, Earth passes directly between the sun and moon, blocking the sun's light from reaching our natural satellite.

In contrast, during an eclipse, the Moon passes through a part of Earth's inner dark shadow, referred to as the umbra.

Finally, in an exceedingly penumbral eclipse, the Moon passes through a part of Earth's outer, fainter penumbral shadow, consistent with Space.com, a Live Science sister site. 

Unless you are a seasoned skywatcher, it should be challenging to determine November's penumbral eclipse, which is able to be visible in North America (as long as there aren't cloudy skies), because the penumbral shadow will appear as a dim veil.

"The dimming of the moon during this eclipse will probably not be noticeable without instrumentation, except for spacecraft at the moon like the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), the reduction in alternative energy are going to be noticeable," NASA wrote in an exceeding statement.

November's phase of the moon, known to several because the beaver moon, comes late within the month this year because October had two full moons; the second moon, years, was the primary time in 76 years that a phase of the moon was visible across the US on Halloween.

Other names for November's full-of-the-moon include the cold moon, frost moon, winter moon, oak moon, moon before Yule, and child moon.

The full moon will be celebrated during Kartik Purnima (a Hindu, Sikh, and Jain cultural festival, celebrated differently by each culture), Karthika Deepam (a festival of lights observed by some Hindus), Tazaungdaing Festival Moon (observed by Buddhists in Myanmar, formerly Burma), and Ill Poya (celebrated in Sri Lanka), NASA reported. 

The beaver moon is that the last phase of the moon before the solstice, the shortest day of sunlight within the hemisphere, which falls on December 21 this year.

Other celestial sightings to appear in late November and early December include "Jupiter and Saturn, [which] will appear to gradually shift closer to every other, appearing nearer than the apparent diameter of the Moon from December 17 to 25," NASA reported.

"They will appear at their closest, about one-fifth the diameter of the Moon, on December 21, 2020."

People with backyard telescopes should be able to see Jupiter's four bright moons: Ganymede, Callisto, Europa, and Io, and even Saturn's brightly illuminated rings and Titan, its largest moon.

"Seeing Jupiter and Saturn so near one another should appear spectacular by telescope and with the optic," NASA said.

To people who miss November's moon, they'll always decide to see the last full phase of the moon of 2020, which can illumine the night sky at 10:28 pm EST on December 29 (3:28 UTC on December 30).

China Is Planning To Visit Mars By 2020 And Beat Nasa To Set Up The First Manned Moon Base

 

China has finally announced that it plans to visit Mars by 2020, along with being one of the first nations to walk on the “far side” of the moon. In an unusual video discussion with the BBC, Wu Weiren, a high-ranking official in the China National Space Administration (CNSA) who worked as chief of China’s moon and Mars missions, publicized that China is presently working on a certain Mars probe exploration mission. Wu said “We will orbit Mars, land and deploy a rover — all in one mission. We could have started our Mars mission earlier but finally the country has given its approval.”

What’s even more interesting is that, China also aims to effectively colonize the moon by establishing a manned base. Wu explained “Our short-term goal is to orbit the moon, land on the moon and take samples back from the moon. Our long-term goal is to explore, land, and settle. We want a manned lunar landing to stay for longer periods and establish a research base. It’s quite challenging to land there, but according to research there might be water or ice because of the lack of sunlight, so we’d very much like to check that out.”

Seems like the movie “The Martian” has made quite an impression on China. Contrary to what you are thinking, Wu also said that China is very much hopeful to cooperate with space agencies from other countries such as NASA in the US – much like in film The Martian, where China’s space agency presents its Taiyang Shen space rocket booster to direct rescue supplies to NASA astronaut Mark Watney, who is trapped on Mars with decreasing resources.

In this whole situation China is not the bad guy neither is the US but US Congress has already passed a spending bill in 2011 particularly restricting NASA from working in China, due to a high risk of spying.

Wu said “We would like to co-operate with the US, especially for space and moon exploration. We have urged the US many times to get rid of restrictions so scientists from both countries can work together on future exploration.”

According to Reuters, a senior Chinese space official Xu Dazhe, the chief of the China National Space Administration, said at a press conference on 22 April that The Martian film displays that the US would not be adverse to working with China.

Xu said “When I saw the US film The Martian, which envisages China-US cooperation on a Mars rescue mission under emergency circumstances, it shows that our U.S. counterparts very much hope to co-operate with us.”

“However, it’s very regrettable that, for reasons everyone is aware of, there are currently some impediments to cooperation. I believe that on this matter, China is more and more open, and I hope our American friends can take note.”

As some people might think, this is not a race because overall, this all is going to be a huge step in human history regardless of who goes first.

Black Holes Could Be ‘Back Doors’ To Another Universe, Say Physicists

 

A physical object, such as a person or a spacecraft, could theoretically make it through a 

wormhole in the center of a black hole, and perhaps even access another universe on the 

other side, physicists have suggested. In what appears to be the logical extension of the 

Interstellar plot in which astronauts try to chase another universe after the catastrophic 

effects of climate change destroy Earth - physicists have modeled what would happen to a 

chair, a scientist and a vehicle spatial, if each ended up in the spherical wormhole of a 

black hole.

"What we did was to reconsider a fundamental question about the relationship between 

gravity and the underlying structure of space-time. In practical terms, we dropped a 

hypothesis that takes general relativity into consideration, but there is no reason a 

priori to support it in the extensions of this theory. ”said one of the members, Diego 

Rubiera-Garcia of the University of Lisbon in Portugal.

So, let's take a step back and analyze some basics. According to Einstein's theory of 

general relativity, there is a singularity at the center of a black hole - the point where 

the forces of gravity are at their maximum intensity, and time and space actually end. If 

an object approaches the event horizon, it would be crushed in one direction and stretched 

in another, thanks to the extreme gravity forces of the tide that play inside a black hole. If the object remains

 intact long enough to reach the center of a black hole, it will be infinitely long and thin: in practice, it has been 

spaghettified beyond recognition. Physicists have been playing for years with the hypothesis of a singularity in 

the center of a black hole, because until we can actually prove that it exists, there may be many possibilities that 

still work - in theory.

Earlier this year, physicists from the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom argued 

that there is no reason why a singularity should necessarily be inside a black hole. They 

suggest that in a universe with five or more dimensions - which for us is not out of the 

question - a "nude" may exist individually, which is not delimited by a horizon of events.

Of course, that would mean big and huge things for our current understanding of how the 

laws of physics govern our Universe, because basically it needs Einstein's theory of general

relativity to be wrong.

"If naked singularities exist, general relativity will fail," said one of the teams, Saran 

Tunyasuvunakool, in January. "And if general relativity fails, it would turn everything upside down, because it

 would no longer have any predictive power - it could no longer be considered an autonomous theory to explain

 the Universe."

Even making mistakes Einstein is not to be excluded. Stephen Hawking has fought for decades 

with how general relativity seems to collide with quantum mechanics in black holes, a problem

known as the information paradox.

Assuming that the clauses of general relativity are not fixed in the stone, the new study 

of the Rubiera-Garcia team argues that if you remove the singularity from a black hole, 

what you get in the center is a finite-sized wormhole instead.

So, they understood what could happen if various objects - a chair, a scientist and a 

spacecraft - managed to overcome the event horizon and in the wormhole. These objects are 

called "observers".

They modeled these observers as an aggregation of points connected by physical or chemical 

interactions that hold everything together while the object travels along a geodesic line. 

A geodesic line is simply the path in space-time that follows an object in free fall.

"Each particle of the observer follows a geodesic line determined by the gravitational 

field," says Rubiera-Garcia. "Each geodesist feels a slightly different gravitational 

force, but interactions between body components may still support the body."

By publishing in the journal Classical and Quantum Gravity, the researchers demonstrate 

this by showing how the time spent by a ray of light on a circular journey between two 

parts of the body has always ended.

This means that finite forces, no matter how strong, could compensate for the impact of the 

gravitational field near and inside the wormhole on a physical body that passes through it.

"Therefore, different parts of the body will still establish physical or chemical interactions 

and, consequently, cause and effect will still apply to the wormhole throat," they explain.

So while general relativity theory predicts that an object approaching a black hole will be 

crushed in one direction and stretched in another infinitely, if we assume that the center 

of a black hole is a wormhole with a finite ray , the object can only be crushed as much as 

the size of the wormhole.

This means that according to the Rubiera-Garcia hypothesis, an object could survive a 

journey through a wormhole and make it on the other side - and potentially in another 

universe - technically intact, but it would be crushed to the size of the finished wormhole.

 At least it's not completely destroyed, right?

"For a theoretical physicist, the suffering of observers is admissible 

(one could even consider it part of an experimenter's work), but their total destruction is 

not," Rubiera-Garcia and his team cite a piece of opinion.

Until we find out how to actually see a black hole, all of this will remain well and truly 

in the realm of pure hypotheses. But we are beginning to see how black holes might not be 

the horrible deadly traps that we erase the existence we thought they were.

At a conference in August 2015 Hawking said of his solution to the information paradox: 

“The message of this lesson is that black holes are not as black as they are painted. They 

are not eternal prisons as they were once thought. If you feel like you're in a black hole, 

don't give up. There is a way out. "

That’s No Moon. It’s an Alien Observatory Made to Keep an Eye on Us!

 

Sure, stating that the moon is artificial may sound crazy, but why does it sound like a bell

when hit?

Previous expeditions to the moon have reported a significant amount of information, but our 

planet's natural satellite still remains largely a mystery to researchers. The first man 

ever hit by NASA to head the Lunar Exploration Commission, dr. Jastrow, called the Moon "the

Rosetta stone of the planets.

Many UFOlogists are convinced that the Moon, which everyone believes to be a natural 

satellite, was in fact built by a more advanced civilization as a study base in which to 

document the behavior of our species.

Others believe that aliens are not as interested in our society as they do not understand 

intra-racial violence, so the Moon acts as a simple watchtower that would let them know if 

humanity would ever try to leave Earth and travel in space. . theorists claim that his body 

is covered by a rocky layer, which could measure more than 3 miles from the surface, sitting

on top of a shell made of extremely durable chemical components, which could even withstand 

a large-scale impact such as with an asteroid or a comet without taking much damage.

A NASA researcher named Robin Brett once declared: "It seems easier to explain the 

non-existence of the Moon than its existence."

Here are some strange facts that make us believe that the Moon was actually built from 

scratch.

In 1969, the United States built a module for the sole purpose of crashing it on the moon 

to study side effects. The estimated power it had accumulated on impact was said to be one 

thousand kilograms of TNT. After the controlled incident, the experts observed the waves 

generated by the shock and were stunned. The moon made a sound similar to that of a gigantic

bell and the echo continued for more than half an hour. Ken Johnson, the man who oversaw the

photo and information, stated that the Moon also vibrated or "faltered" symmetrically, 

"almost as if it had gigantic hydraulic shock absorbers inside."

Alexander Shcerbakov and Mikhail Vasin published an article in the 70s, entitled "Is the 

moon the creation of alien intelligence?" In the article, they ask some very legitimate 

questions and expose known facts that defy any logical explanation. The surface of the Moon,

the only part that could be studied, contains minerals and is mainly made up of unusually 

hard matter.

It has also been discovered that specimens recovered from the Moon contain forged metal 

material, which could not have formed there or arrived on its own. Scientists have 

discovered highly transformed parts of uranium that science has never been able to obtain 

through natural processes. They also found traces of radioactive metals normally used to 

produce large-scale plutonium. This is all clear evidence that the Moon is not as inactive 

as we are led to believe.

It is known that our moon does not have a hard core like other planets or natural satellites

do and the mass is concentrated in a number of points, many of which are located at a very 

shallow depth.

Another well-known fact is that the Moon is more than 4 and a half billion years old, making

it nearly a million years older than our planet. It is unlike any other satellite known 

throughout the universe. Unlike any other natural satellite, the moon describes a perfect 

round orbit around the planet it is surrounding. No matter where you look, one side of the 

moon will always be invisible.

Titanium, a very rare and expensive metal on Earth, used for the development of advanced 

technologies (space or submarine shuttles), is found in large and concentrated quantities 

within the rocks on the moon. Harold Urey, a Nobel Prize-winning chemist, is still very 

confused by this fact.

Strange facts like the ones you just read keep piling up every day, while modern science 

can't explain them. Not only is the amount of information about the moon very low, but the 

percentage of people who have access to it is kept under control.

10 Warning Signs The Universe Sends When You’re On The Wrong Path

 

Many people believe that things "just happen" to them, but as we connect more closely to our

 intuition, we are shown that everything that happens to us is of our own creation.

We may not be fully aware of what we are creating moment by moment, but fortunately the 

universe provides us with many signs to let us know when we are on the right path and 

(more importantly) when we are on the wrong path. This article will focus on the warning 

signs of the universe.



In general, the warning signs of the universe come in the form of unwanted circumstances 

and events.

These signs indicate that your energy is directed (or currently blocked) in a low 

vibrational frequency. Your thoughts, feelings and actions are focused negatively, and this 

is creating unwanted circumstances.


On the contrary, when thoughts, feelings and actions move at high vibratory frequency, life 

will align perfectly. You will have excellent timing and good luck all day long. That's why 

it's so important to increase your vibration by consciously choosing positive thoughts.

Although we have the ability to resonate at a high vibrational frequency, it is difficult 

for us to remain elevated all the time.

This is because our souls are stuck here on Earth in a physical dimension that is much 

denser and slower than the higher ethereal dimensions. The simple composition of our planet 

and bodies is made up of much lower vibrational energy than that of our souls.

As a result, we will occasionally run into unwanted circumstances, but that's okay. As long 

as we pay attention to these warning signs (without allowing our egos to solve them!) We can

quickly get back on track.

As you move through the day, it is a good idea to take note of the warning signs of the 

universe. Here are some examples of signs to keep in mind: 30187

Many people believe that things "happen" to them, but when we connect more closely to our 

intuition, we are shown that everything that happens to us is of our own creation.

We may not be fully aware of what we are creating moment by moment, but fortunately the 

universe provides us with many signs to let us know when we are on the right path and 

(more importantly) when we are on the wrong path. This article will focus on the warning 

signs of the universe.

In general, the warning signs of the universe come in the form of unwanted circumstances 

and events.

These signs indicate that your energy is directed (or currently blocked) in a low 

vibrational frequency. Your thoughts, feelings and actions are focused negatively, and this 

is creating unwanted circumstances.

On the contrary, when thoughts, feelings and actions move at high vibratory frequency, life 

will align perfectly. You will have excellent timing and good luck all day long. That's why 

it's so important to increase your vibration by consciously choosing positive thoughts.



Although we have the ability to resonate at a high vibrational frequency, it is difficult 

for us to remain elevated all the time.



This is because our souls are stuck here on Earth in a physical dimension that is much 

denser and slower than the higher ethereal dimensions. The simple composition of our planet 

and bodies is made up of much lower vibrational energy than that of our souls.



As a result, we will occasionally run into unwanted circumstances, but that's okay. As long 

as we pay attention to these warning signs (without allowing our egos to solve them!) We can

quickly get back on track.

As you move through the day, it is a good idea to take note of the warning signs of the 

universe. Here are some examples of signs to consider:

WARNING SIGNS FROM THE UNIVERSE

Stubbing your toe
Getting stuck in traffic
Receiving dirty looks or snide remarks from others
Getting injured
Unexpected expenses or bills in the mail
Uneasy gut feelings
Arguments with your loved ones
Getting sick
Headaches
Losing or breaking your possessions
Unpleasant odors, sounds or tastes

Each of these signs indicates that you need to center yourself and adjust the frequency. 

When you come across one of these warning signs, please stop! Don't keep working on that 

task, or having that conversation, or obsessing over that thought you were just having 

because it's not taking you where you want to be.



Instead, take a deep breath, step away from the situation or even take a minute to meditate 

if you are able. If you catch these warning signs quickly and respond immediately, the mere 

act of centering yourself will stop the negative momentum.



As a final note, try not to obsess over a warning sign. Talking about it, thinking about it 

and repeating it your mind is a surefire way to lower the vibrational frequency. Take it 

for what it is, a simple "stop sign", and move on from it. Please take care of your 

vibration: pay attention only to the thoughts, feelings and actions that resonate with the 

natural frequency of your soul.