Lifeboat Foundation

A youthful planet has been exhibiting unpredictable alterations in its atmosphere during each revolution around its parent star.

A young planet, situated approximately 32 light-years from Earth, has been exhibiting dynamic changes in its atmosphere during each revolution around its parent star. The Hubble Space Telescope made this fascinating discovery as it observed the planet orbiting AU Microscopii (AU Mic), a remarkably active red dwarf star.

During one of Hubble’s initial observations, it was noted that the planet appeared to be retaining its atmosphere steadily. However, there was a twist to this finding. Approximately a year and a half later, Hubble’s follow-up observations brought to… More.

Continue reading “Hubble Sees Evaporating Planet Getting the Hiccups” »

The test is part of NASA and ESA’s future plans for controlling robots on the Moon’s surface from the lunar Gateway station.

NASA astronaut Frank Rubio recently controlled a small team of robots on Earth while flying aboard the International Space Station (ISS), a blog post from the European Space Agency (ESA) reveals.

The test was carried out in order to demonstrate and investigate the capacity for using remote-controlled robots for future lunar exploration.

This tightly bound pair of stars lies roughly 1,470 light-years away in the direction of the Vela Constellation.

The James Webb Space Telescope has offered an unprecedented glimpse into the depths of space, showcasing the two young stars in the midst of active formation.

Engineers and technicians at Cape Canaveral are preparing the Psyche spacecraft for liftoff, which is slated for October 5.

With less than 100 days remaining before its October 5 launch, NASA’s Psyche spacecraft is undergoing final preparations at Cape Canaveral, Florida. Teams of engineers and technicians are working diligently, essentially around the clock, to ensure the orbiter is ready to journey 2.5 billion miles (4 billion kilometers) to a metal-rich asteroid that may tell us more about planetary cores and how planets form.

The mission team recently completed a comprehensive test campaign of the flight software and installed it on the spacecraft, clearing the hurdle that kept Psyche from making its original 2022 launch date.

Giant waves have been found swirling in the plasma at the boundary of Jupiter’s magnetosphere, scientists have found.

Data from Juno suggests the Jupiter probe regularly dips through these waves, invisible to the naked eye, as it orbits the giant planet. The discovery helps astronomers understand how mass and energy is transferred from the solar wind to the Jovian planetary environment.

Continue reading “Giant Swirling Plasma Waves Detected at The Edge of Jupiter’s Magnetosphere” »

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has captured a captivating view of two actively forming young stars, known as Herbig-Haro 46/47.

Powders of samples were weighed into precleaned Savillex beakers and dissolved with mixtures of 22 M HF and 14 M HNO₃ acids in a 2:1 volume ratio. The modern OIBs and four reference materials (that is, BHVO-2, BCR-2, AGV-2 and BIR-1) were digested on a hot plate at 120 °C for four days. Note that all chondrite and Archaean ultramafic/mafic rock samples were digested in Parr bomb vessels at 220 °C for three days to ensure full dissolution of refractory phases. Dissolution of the dried samples in 5–10 ml 6 M HCl at 120 °C and evaporation was carried out several times to decompose the fluorides formed from HF digestion until clear solutions were obtained. An aliquot of each sample was taken and spiked with a prepared ⁴⁷ Ti–⁴⁹ Ti double spike to determine in advance the Ti concentration using an iCAP RQ inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer at the Centre for Star and Planet Formation (StarPlan) at the University of Copenhagen. Afterwards, aliquots containing 6 µg Ti were taken and mixed with a ⁴⁷ Ti–⁴⁹ Ti double spike as described previously in ref. ³⁴. The dried mixtures were dissolved with 6 M HCl at 120 °C overnight to ensure sample–spike equilibration.

Titanium was separated from matrix elements following a three-step purification protocol using AG1x8 (200–400 meshes) and DGA resins^34,68, that is, first to separate Fe with 6 M HCl elution on AG1x8 columns, second to remove most of the major and trace elements through 12 M HNO₃ elution and to collect Ti with Milli-Q H₂O on DGA columns and third to purify Ti from the remaining matrix elements with 4 M HF cleaning on AG1x8 columns. An extra DGA pass can be carried out to remove trace amounts of Ca and Cr in the final Ti cuts. To destroy the resin particles and organics from column chemistry, the Ti cuts were treated with 14 M HNO₃ at 120 °C before storage in 0.5 M HNO₃ + 0.01 M HF acids.

Titanium isotopic compositions of the purified samples were measured using the ThermoFisher Scientific Neoma Multicollector ICP-MS. Sample solutions with 500–800 ppb Ti dissolved in 0.5 M HNO₃ + 0.01 M HF were introduced into the multicollector inductively coupled plasma source mass spectrometer by means of an APEX HF desolvating nebulizer from Elemental Scientific and a sapphire injector was used instead of the quartz-made injector to reduce the production of silicon fluorides from the use of HF solvent. An actively cooled membrane desolvation component was attached after the APEX to suppress oxide formation and to stabilize the signals, and N₂ gas at a flow rate of a few ml min⁻¹ was added to improve the sensitivity. Such a setting typically provides an intensity of around 15 V on ⁴⁸ Ti⁺ at an uptake rate of about 50 μl min⁻¹ for a 600-ppb Ti solution under a medium mass-resolution mode.

Scientists at the University of Arizona are counting down the days until a space probe carrying samples from an asteroid is back on Earth. FOX 10’s Steve Nielsen has more on the OSIRIS-REx mission, and why the samples are so important for researchers.

Of the 250 grams of samples, NASA officials will keep 75% of the samples in storage for future generations, whom might discover ways to test the rocks in ways we can’t even comprehend.

The secrets the samples hold could be endless.

Aditya L1 is India’s first space-based mission to study the Sun, which is scheduled to be launched in 2023. The spacecraft is named after Aditya, the Hindu god of the Sun. Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) aims to place Aditya L1 in a halo orbit around the Sun-Earth L1 Lagrange point, which is about 1.5 million kilometres from Earth.

The mission’s primary objective is to study the Sun’s corona, which is the corona is a very hot and dynamic region. Aditya L1 will carry a number of instruments to study the corona, including a coronagraph, a spectrometer, and an imager.