November 26, 2020

Dark Matter, Unexplained (Source: Vox)
The beautiful challenge of stargazing is keeping this all in mind: Every small thing we see in the night sky is immense, but what’s even more immense is the unseen, the unknown. Though physicists have been trying to figure out what dark matter is for decades, the detectors they built to find it have gone silent year after year. It makes some wonder: Have they been chasing a ghost? Dark matter might not be real. Instead, there could be something more deeply flawed in physicists’ understanding of gravity that would explain it away. Still, the search, fueled by faith in scientific observations, continues, despite the possibility that dark matter may never be found. (11/25)

For the First Time, Scientists Detect the Ghostly Signal That Reveals the Engine of the Universe (Source: NBC)
Scientists reported that they’ve made the first detection of almost-ethereal particles called neutrinos that can be traced to carbon-nitrogen-oxygen fusion, known as the CNO cycle, inside the sun. It’s a landmark finding that confirms theoretical predictions from the 1930s, and it’s being hailed as one of the greatest discoveries in physics of the new millenium. The scientists used the ultrasensitive Borexino detector at the INFN’s Gran Sasso particle physics laboratory in central Italy – the largest underground research center in the world, deep beneath the Apennine Mountains, about 65 miles northeast of Rome.

The detection caps off decades of study of the sun’s neutrinos by the Borexino project, and reveals for the first time the main nuclear reaction that most stars use to fuse hydrogen into helium. “It’s really a breakthrough for solar and stellar physics,” said Gioacchino Ranucci of the Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN), one of the researchers on the project since it began in 1990. (11/25)

Intelligent Life Really Can't Exist Anywhere Else (Source: Popular Mechanics)
In newly published research from Oxford University's Future of Humanity Institute, scientists study the likelihood of key times for evolution of life on Earth and conclude that it would be virtually impossible for that life to evolve the same way somewhere else. Life has come a very long way in a very short time on Earth, relatively speaking—and scientists say that represents even more improbable luck for intelligent life that is rare to begin with.

For decades, scientists and even philosophers have chased many explanations for the Fermi paradox. How, in an infinitely big universe, can we be the only intelligent life we’ve ever encountered? Even on Earth itself, they wonder, how are we the only species that ever has evolved advanced intelligence? There are countless naturally occurring, but extremely lucky ways in which Earth is special, sheltered, protected, and encouraged to have evolved life. (11/24)

Amateur Astronomer Alberto Caballero Finds Possible Source of Wow! Signal (Source: Phys.org)
Amateur astronomer Alberto Caballero has found a small amount of evidence for a source of the notorious Wow! signal. Back in 1977, astronomers working with the Big Ear Radio Telescope recorded a unique signal from somewhere in space. It was so strong and unusual that one of the workers on the team, Jerry Ehman, famously scrawled the word Wow! on the printout. Despite years of work and many man hours, no one has ever been able to trace the source of the signal or explain the strong, unique signal, which lasted for all of 72 seconds.

In this new effort, Caballero reasoned that if the source was some other life form, it would likely be living on an exoplanet—and if that were the case, it would stand to reason that such a life form might be living on a planet similar to Earth—one circling its own sun-like star. Pursuing this logic, Caballero began searching the publicly available Gaia database for just such a star. The Gaia database has been assembled by a team working at the Gaia observatory run by the European Space Agency. Launched back in 2013, the project has worked steadily on assembling the best map of the night sky ever created.

To date, the ESA team has mapped approximately 1.3 billion stars. In studying his search results, Caballero found what appears to fit the bill—a star (2MASS 19281982-2640123) that is very nearly a mirror image of the sun—and is located in the part of the sky where the Wow! signal originated. (11/24)

Earth Had a Minimoon for Nearly Three Years Before it Drifted Away (Source: New Scientist)
Earlier this year, astronomers found a minimoon orbiting Earth. It has now drifted away, but we should soon be able to detect more of these miniature companions. When astronomers at the Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona spotted a dim object called 2020 CD3 hurtling across the sky in February, they couldn’t be sure if it was a minimoon or an artificial object like a rocket booster.

Over the following few months, Grigori Fedorets at Queen’s University Belfast in the UK and his colleagues used a series of telescopes around the world to take more measurements of the object and figure out what it was. They found that it had a diameter of about 1.2 metres. Based on its colour and brightness, it was probably made of silicate rock, like many rocks in the asteroid belt. The researchers also traced back its orbit in an effort to find out where it might have come from before it was caught in Earth’s orbit about 2.7 years earlier. (11/23)

Teamwork Advances Quiet Supersonic Technology (Source: NASA)
Two NASA centers on opposite sides of the country are finding new ways to work together to support the agency’s mission to develop quiet supersonic technology, in spite of thousands of miles of distance and a global pandemic. Using their available labs, Kennedy Space Center in Florida is building tools in collaboration with Armstrong Flight Research Center in California, which NASA will use in support of the X-59 Quiet SuperSonic Technology X-plane, or QueSST.

A project under NASA’s Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate called SCHAMROQ, which stands for Schlieren, Airborne Measurements, and Range Operations for QueSST, is preparing the tools and test techniques to execute these tests at Armstrong. When a reduced capacity to develop these tools materialized during the COVID-19 pandemic, Armstrong turned to Kennedy to provide a helping hand, and to help ensure the project’s progress.

These tools include the Shock Sensing Probe, a device that will evaluate the characteristics of the X-59's shockwaves while in flight, a schlieren photography technique to visualize the X-59's shockwaves as they distort light through a camera, and a navigation software that will allow pilots to fly accurately during X-59 tests. (11/24)

Space Force: Ahead of Its Time or Dreadfully Premature? (Source: Cato Institute)
Outer space is a strategically important and increasingly crowded place. A growing number of countries depend on unfettered access to outer space to run their economies and protect their security interests. Modern militaries also rely on space‐​based sensors and communications to function effectively on the battlefield, provide early warning of nuclear attack, and keep tabs on potential adversaries in peacetime.

The growing strategic importance of outer space encouraged the United States to establish its first new military branch since 1947: the U.S. Space Force. The Space Force, which will celebrate its first birthday in December, will be heavily laden with advanced technology, but will it have the right organizational characteristics and firm foundation of strategic thinking to take advantage of its capabilities? Is the Space Force ahead of its time, or is its creation as an independent service dreadfully premature?

In a forthcoming Cato Institute policy analysis, Robert Farley argues that the Space Force lacks both a clearly defined organizational culture and a clear strategic purpose, which will hamstring the newly created service. Please join us for a virtual policy forum with the report’s author and two leading space policy experts to discuss the report and debate its findings. (11/25)

Audit Report Blasts Spaceport America's Former Director (Source: Las Cruces Sun-News)
Spaceport America's former director, Dan Hicks, is described as an incompetent and bullying boss who intercepted staff email, manipulated procurement rules and backdated authorization requests for travel using taxpayer funds, among other allegations, in a scathing 362-page forensic audit report by New Mexico State Auditor Brian Colón. The audit concludes that Hicks may have violated criminal and administrative statutes over the years he served as the spaceport's CEO. (11/24)

Why Blue Origin is Slower Than SpaceX (Source: YouTube)
One reason Blue Origin is moving slowly is because it is obsessed with things exactly right. But is it perfection at the cost of rapid progress? But Elon Musk says if things are not failing, you're not innovating enough. Click here to view the video. (11/19)

Artemis I Launch Preparations Are Stacking Up (Source: NASA)
NASA has stacked the first piece of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket on the mobile launcher in preparation for the Artemis I launch next year. At NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, engineers lowered the first of 10 segments into place Nov. 21 for the twin solid rocket boosters that will power the first flight of the agency’s new deep space rocket. Artemis I will be an uncrewed flight to test the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft as an integrated system ahead of crewed flights to the Moon with the Artemis program. (11/24)