June 21, 2020

Scientists Searching the Universe for Signs of Alien Civilizations Now Know Where to Look (Source: USA Today)
For the first time in more than three decades, research scientists have received grant money from NASA to search for intelligent life in outer space. Specifically, the grant will provide funding for a project to search for signs of life via "technosignatures." "Technosignatures relate to 'signatures' of advanced alien technologies similar to, or perhaps more sophisticated than, what we possess," said Avi Loeb, a professor of science at Harvard and one of the grant recipients.

"Such signatures might include industrial pollution of atmospheres, city lights, photovoltaic cells (solar panels), megastructures or swarms of satellites." Researchers believe that although life appears in many forms, the scientific principles remain the same, and the technosignatures on Earth will also be identifiable in some fashion outside the solar system, according to a statement from one of the grant recipients, the Center for Astrophysics, a collaboration between the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and the Harvard College Observatory. (6/21)

Boeing Tried to Amend Artemis Bid After Guidance From NASA Official, Raising Concerns it Received Inside Information (Source: Washington Post)
After a top NASA official improperly contacted a senior Boeing executive about a bid to win a contract potentially worth hundreds of millions of dollars, the company attempted to amend its proposal past the deadline for doing so, according to people with knowledge of the matter. That raised alarm bells inside the space agency, where officials were concerned that Boeing was attempting to take advantage of inside information. Ultimately, the matter was referred to NASA’s inspector general office, and NASA’s leadership last month forced Doug Loverro to resign from his position as the associate administrator of NASA’s human spaceflight directorate. (6/21)

Astronauts Look Ahead to Historic Ocean Landing: "We're Not Nervous" (Source: CNN)
Veteran NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley arrived at the International Space Station aboard SpaceX's Crew Dragon. They speak to CNN Business' Rachel Crane from the ISS about the launch, spacewalks and the journey home. (6/20)

New Origin of Supermassive Black Holes Revealed by Supercomputer Simulation (Source: SciTech Daily)
Computer simulations conducted by astrophysicists at Tohoku University in Japan, have revealed a new theory for the origin of supermassive black holes. In this theory, the precursors of supermassive black holes grow by swallowing up not only interstellar gas, but also smaller stars as well. This helps to explain the large number of supermassive black holes observed today. (6/19)

Scientists Reveal a Lost Eight Billion Light Years of Universe Evolution (Source: Phys.org)
Last year, the Advanced LIGO-VIRGO gravitational-wave detector network recorded data from 35 merging black holes and neutron stars. A great result—but what did they miss? According to Dr. Rory Smith it is likely there are another 2 million gravitational wave events from merging black holes, "a pair of merging black holes every 200 seconds and a pair of merging neutron stars every 15 seconds" that scientists are not picking up.

Binary black hole mergers release huge amounts of energy in the form of gravitational waves and are now routinely being detected by the Advanced LIGO-Virgo detector network. According to co-author, Eric Thrane from OzGrav-Monash, these gravitational waves generated by individual binary mergers "carry information about spacetime and nuclear matter in the most extreme environments in the Universe. Individual observations of gravitational waves trace the evolution of stars, star clusters, and galaxies," he said. (6/18)

China Reveals Details of Next-Gen Crew Spacecraft's 1st Test Flight (Source: Space.com)
A first glimpse inside the prototype of China's next-generation crew-carrying spacecraft has been provided in Beijing following a successful uncrewed test flight in May. The capsule, which has not yet been named, launched on a Long March 5B rocket from Wenchang on May 5, carrying out a first uncrewed test for future deep-space missions. The new two-module spacecraft performed well in orbit, and the crew capsule returned to Earth on May 8, testing a high-speed atmospheric reentry that the spacecraft needs to survive in order to safely bring astronauts home from the moon. (6/19)

“The Ocean Galaxy” –Many of Milky Way’s 4,000 Known Exoplanets May Be Water Worlds (Source: Daily Galaxy)
Lynnae  Quick, of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, decided to explore whether—hypothetically—there are planets similar to Europa and Enceladus in the Milky Way galaxy. And, could they, too, be geologically active enough to shoot plumes through their surfaces that could one day be detected by telescopes. Through a mathematical analysis of several dozen exoplanets, including planets in the nearby TRAPPIST-1 system, Quick and her colleagues learned something significant: More than a quarter of the exoplanets they studied could be ocean worlds, with a majority possibly harboring oceans beneath layers of surface ice, similar to Europa and Enceladus. (6/19)

NASA Prepares to Complete Artemis SLS Rocket Structural Testing (Source: NASA)
NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) Program is concluding its structural qualification test series with one upcoming final test that will push the design for the rocket’s liquid oxygen tank to its limits at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. In the name of science, engineers will try to break a structural test article of the tank--on purpose.

The liquid oxygen tank’s structure is identical to the tank that is part of the SLS core stage, which will provide power to help launch the Artemis missions to the Moon. The tank is enclosed in a cage-like structure that is part of the test stand. Hydraulic systems will apply millions of pounds of force to push, pull and bend the liquid oxygen tank test article to see just how much pressure the tank can take. The forces simulate what the tank is expected to experience during launch and flight. For the test, the tank will be filled with water to simulate the liquid oxygen propellant used for flight, and when the tank ruptures, the water may create a loud sound as it bursts through the tank’s skin. (6/19)

New Juneteenth "Holiday" at SpaceX, Tesla Comes With Big Caveat (Source: The Atlantic)
On Friday, Elon Musk announced that two of his best-known companies, the electric-car manufacturer Tesla and the astronaut-launching rocket business SpaceX, would formally recognize a long-standing American holiday. “Juneteenth is henceforth considered a US holiday at Tesla & SpaceX,” Musk, who is CEO of both, tweeted. The tweet initially was met with praise and enthusiasm. Juneteenth, a celebration of the emancipation of enslaved people in America that falls on the 19th of June each year, has been commemorated in black communities for generations.

But then, nearly an hour later, Musk added a small clarification. “It does require use of a paid-time-off day, which is true of many other holidays,” he said, in response to a Twitter user who had applauded Musk for giving his employees a paid holiday. Ah. So Juneteenth counted as a holiday only if employees used one of their vacation days. In other words, Juneteenth would be just like any other day at the office. When a CEO announces a newly observed holiday at the office, especially with language like “henceforth,” one can fairly assume that he intends that holiday to take the usual form: company-wide, and paid. Musk’s first tweet, thoughtful and well received, now seemed like a misleading and perfunctory gesture. (6/21)