Lifeboat Foundation

Seems like there was water on Mars, for those that subscribe or want to, you can read the whole article.

A large formation near the equator of Mars is now thought to be made of water ice, which could indicate that the Martian climate went through huge temperature swings in the past.

By Leah Crane

Continue reading “Mysterious patch on Mars appears to be enormous lump of ice” »

On the largest cosmic scales, galaxies line up along filaments, with great clusters forming at their intersection. Here’s how it took shape.

Astronomers analyzing 13 years of data from NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have found an unexpected and as yet unexplained feature outside of our galaxy.

“It is a completely serendipitous discovery,” said Alexander Kashlinsky, a cosmologist at the University of Maryland and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, who presented the research at the 243rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society in New Orleans. “We found a much stronger signal, and in a different part of the sky, than the one we were looking for.”

Intriguingly, the gamma-ray signal is found in a similar direction and with a nearly identical magnitude as another unexplained feature, one produced by some of the most energetic cosmic particles ever detected.

The US wants to build a long-term human outpost on the moon by around 2030. Here is all the tech that will be needed, from a space station in lunar orbit to a way to avoid ‘space hay fever’

A study using Sloan Digital Sky Survey data reveals that the Universe may be younger than estimated, challenging conventional cosmological models by analyzing satellite galaxy motions around massive groups.

In standard cosmological models, the formation of cosmological structures begins with the emergence of small structures, which subsequently undergo hierarchical merging, leading to the formation of larger systems. As the Universe ages, massive galaxy groups and clusters, being the largest systems, tend to increase in mass and reach a more dynamically relaxed state.

The motions of satellite galaxies around these groups and clusters provide valuable insights into their assembly status. The observations of such motion offer crucial clues about the age of the Universe.

In standard cosmological models, the formation of cosmological structures begins with the emergence of small structures, which subsequently undergo hierarchical merging, leading to the formation of larger systems. As the universe ages, massive galaxy groups and clusters, being the largest systems, tend to increase in mass and reach a more dynamically relaxed state.

The motions of satellite galaxies around these groups and clusters provide valuable insights into their assembly status. The observations of such motion offer crucial clues about the age of the universe.

By using public data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), a research team led by Prof. Guo Qi from the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC) analyzed the kinematics of satellite pairs around massive galaxy groups. The team’s findings suggest that the universe may be younger than predicted by the LCDM model with Planck cosmological parameters.

The ring of galaxies, appropriately called the “Big Ring,” has a circumference of nearly 4 billion light-years.

“We need to be prepared for and reduce risks in space for those living now on the International Space Station and for those who might live there in the future,” said Dr. Kali Kniel. “It is important to better understand how bacterial pathogens react to microgravity in order to develop appropriate mitigation strategies.”

As human spaceflight has advanced, so has the food that astronauts eat during their respective missions. This has evolved from dehydrated food during the Apollo missions to regular food that astronauts can get shipped from Earth. But an astronaut’s diet expanded thanks to a 2020 study published in Frontiers in Plant Science that evaluated space-grown lettuce in the International Space Station (ISS) with promising results. While that study exhibited “negative results” for human pathogens, a recent study published in Scientific Reports has demonstrated that human pathogens could infect space-grown lettuce, specifically leafy green vegetables, that could lead to food safety concerns during spaceflight from the microgravity conditions where the plants are grown.

For the study, the researchers simulated microgravity conditions by rotating plants at 2 rotations per minute (RPM), 4 RPM, and unrotated and with and without S. enterica Typhimurium, which is a known salmonella bacterium, and later with Bacillus subtilis strain UD1022. The team analyzed changes in how much each bacteria invaded the plant’s pores, which function as the primary mechanism during photosynthesis for discharging oxygen and taking in carbon dioxide.

Continue reading “Space-Grown Lettuce Faces Food Safety Concerns on the ISS” »

Led by researchers from Université de Montréal’s Trottier Institute for Research on Exoplanets (iREx), a team of astronomers has harnessed the power of the revolutionary James Webb Space Webb Telescope (JWST) to study the “hot Saturn” exoplanet HAT-P-18 b.

Their findings, published last month in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, paint a complete picture of the HAT-P-18 b’s atmosphere while exploring the great challenge of distinguishing its atmospheric signals from the activity of its star.

HAT-P-18 b is located over 500 light-years away with a mass similar to Saturn’s but a size closer to that the larger planet Jupiter. As a result, the exoplanet has a “puffed-up” atmosphere that is especially ideal for analysis.