Lifeboat Foundation

Leonard Susskind on P-adic numbers in de Sitter Space.

Read about the importance of International Observe the Moon Night and how you can celebrate it on September 14, 2024!

Beginning in 2010, NASA began International Observe the Moon Night based on two events occurring simultaneously in 2009 during the International Year of Astronomy celebration: “We’re at the Moon!”, which was sponsored by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) teams, and “National Observe the Moon Night”, which was hosted in the United States.

This year’s International Observe the Moon Night is occurring on September 14 with the goal of sharing the incredible science and wonder of the Moon, including its observational and scientific history, why it’s so important to study, and how we’re studying it. For example, evidence has suggested that ancient humans as far back as 20,000 years ago used the Moon as a timekeeping device due to the changing phases of the Moon over the course of a month. Additionally, when observing the Moon with either the naked eye or a telescope, the Moon’s surface exhibits both bright and dark colors, which are the Moon’s lava plains and highlands, respectively.

Continue reading “Celebrate this year’s International Observe the Moon Night on September 14, 2024” »

September’s full Harvest Moon will drift into Earth’s shadow for a partial eclipse on Sept. 17. It is also the second of four consecutive supermoons this year, making our natural satellite look bigger and brighter than usual.

A star’s flyby likely altered the orbits of trans-Neptunian objects beyond Neptune that changes how we view the solar system’s boundaries.

Well, that’s it, actually. The sentence has been signed, the money has been allocated to the executioners. For now, one billion dollars, and then we’ll see how it goes. Since NASA has decided to deorbit the ISS itself, the cost may increase considerably. But this will not surprise anyone, this is the norm in the USA.

Moreover, if political motives are involved, they cost more. If Roscosmos carried out such an operation, most likely, it would cost less, if only because it has everything for it. And NASA has nothing.

A new superhighway network has been identified by researchers, which enables significantly faster travel through the Solar System than was previously feasible. This network can facilitate the transportation of comets and asteroids from Jupiter to Neptune in under a decade and up to 100 astronomical units within a century.

The technology could facilitate swift transportation of spacecraft to the remote regions of our solar system while also aiding in the detection and understanding of nearby objects that pose a threat of colliding with our planet.

In a paper published on November 25, 2020, in the journal Science Advances, researchers have identified a series of interconnected arches forming space manifolds that extend from the asteroid belt to Uranus and beyond, which create a new “celestial autobahn.” These structures operate on a much shorter time scale of several decades, as opposed to the hundreds of thousands or millions of years characteristic of Solar System dynamics.

“The circumgalactic medium plays a huge role in that cycling of that gas,” said Dr. Nikole Nielsen.

What are the exact sizes of galaxies, and are they bigger than they appear in deep space images? This is what a recent study published in Nature Astronomy hopes to address as an international team of researchers investigated the dust cloud that has long been hypothesized to orbit galaxies, indicating that galaxies are bigger than they appear. This study holds the potential to help scientists better understand the formation and evolution of galaxies, along with where the galaxy ends, and open space begins.

For the study, the researchers examined what’s known as the circumgalactic medium (CGM), which is a gas reservoir that extends far beyond a galaxy’s observable boundary, within a star-forming galaxy located 270 million light-years from Earth. Using novel imaging methods with ASTRO 3D, the researchers were able to observe this galaxy’s CGM extends as far out as 100,000 light-years beyond the galaxy’s observable boundary. Additionally, the team reports the physical aspects of the gas cloud, which is comprised of oxygen and hydrogen, changed as the gas cloud extended farther out.

Continue reading “A New Look at Galaxy Boundaries: Discoveries from Deep Imaging of Cosmic Gas” »

Galaxies are much bigger than we originally thought, extending far out into deep space — so far that the Milky Way likely interacts with our closest neighbor, Andromeda.

“In recent years scientists have found that Mars has an annual cycle that is much more dynamic than people expected 10 or 15 years ago,” said Dr. John Clarke.

What happened to all the liquid water on Mars and what can this teach us about Earth-like exoplanets? This is what a recent study published in Science Advances hopes to address as an international team of researchers investigated the atmospheric and atomic processes responsible for Mars losing its water over time. This study holds the potential to help researchers better understand the evolution of Mars, specifically regarding the loss of water, and what implications this holds for Earth-like exoplanets.

For the study, the researchers used a combination of data from NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) and Hubble Space Telescope (HST) spacecraft to measure the ratio of hydrogen and deuterium that escapes from Mars over three Martian years, with each Martian year comprising 687 Earth days. Deuterium is also called “heavy hydrogen” since it is a hydrogen atom with a neutron in its nucleus, making its mass greater than hydrogen.

Continue reading “The Fate of Water on Mars: New Findings from Hubble and MAVEN Missions” »