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Tuesday has arrived and, with it, also comes the “summary” that the Canaltech it does this every week, with the main scientific news of the last few days – in space versus astronomy and the space industry. We had a major launch on the International Space Station this week, but the news wasn’t just marked by this NASA success with SpaceX, you see?
Below, stay up to date on everything that matters most, taking little time to stay well informed.
The asteroid passed very close and was not detected until 15 hours later
A small asteroid has “scraped” the Earth in the last week, remaining only 400 km from the surface. This altitude is even lower than most satellites around the planet, to get an idea of how close the asteroid has passed.
The object wasn’t detected until 15 hours after it passed, but even if it hit Earth it wouldn’t cause any problems. After all, with an approximate diameter of between 5 and 10 meters, the object would have been burned at an altitude of 50 km above the ground. In other words: it would explode like a meteor and, at most, leave some meteorites along the way.
If you want to know more about this story, click here.
SpaceX launches Crew-1 mission for NASA
Another historic moment and much celebrated by both NASA and SpaceX: together they launched their second manned mission, the first truly operational. This is crew-1, which takes four astronauts to the International Space Station, who have already arrived there and join the members of Expedition 64.
Canaltech has the live launch covered and you can see how it happened if you click here.
New Curiosity selfie on Mars
The Curiosity rover has already taken several beautiful selfies on the Red Planet, and has just produced one more, this time in an area that pays homage to a paleontologist. The site is named after Mary Anning, chosen as a tribute to the scientist who discovered the first fossil of an ichthyosaur, but was ignored due to its gender and class. The rover has been in the region since July, where it collected and analyzed soil samples.
Find out more about what Curiosity does by clicking here.
Dust storms on Mars expel water from there
A new study shows how massive Mars dust storms can play a significant role in the water loss process on the Red Planet, helping to transform it into this arid world we see today.
To do this, the researchers used data from NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft, specifically from a very intense dust storm recorded in 2018. They observed that as the dust swirled at lower altitudes, a large amount of water was ejected into space. . .
Understanding the team study and its conclusions; click here.
Attending the birth of a magnetar
Magnetars are some of the most energetic objects in the universe, with magnetic fields one quadrillion times more powerful than those of the Earth, and they also have a gravitational attraction one billion times stronger than that of our planet. And it may now be that science can better study how these “titans” are formed, as researchers believe they have witnessed the “birth” of a magnetar for the first time.
Are you curious about the magnetars and the possible discovery? Check out the news where we explain more!
Arecibo Observatory in danger
In August, the famous Arecibo Observatory suffered an accident when a cable broke, threatening its structure. Now the place is even more in danger as another cable has also been broken. The cable broke and fell onto the reflector plate, causing further damage to the equipment and putting other nearby cables at risk.
There hasn’t been an official announcement about the cause of the accident yet, but experts suspect the cable ended up breaking due to the extra load that all cables have been supporting to support the structure since August, when the first cable fell. All of them had been monitored since August, and the team had already detected broken wires in the cable that had broken in November.
Find out more about this sad story by clicking here.
Universal heating?
By analyzing the thermal history of the universe, specifically the temperature of gases in the cosmos, the researchers concluded that their average temperature has increased more than tenfold over the past 10 billion years. Today the temperature reaches 2 million Kelvin. For the researchers, the process that creates galaxies also contributes to this warming.
They used a method that made it possible to estimate the temperature of gases farther from Earth, so more in the past. Then, these data were compared with those of the gases closest to our planet, more currently. Therefore, they confirmed that the universe is warming over time due to the gravitational collapse that occurred in the cosmic structure, and it is entirely possible that this warming will continue.
Seem confused? Click here to understand this story better!
Bad news for the search for life on the moon in Europe
Jupiter’s moon Europa hosts a liquid ocean beneath its icy crust, where there are high expectations for the search for some kind of microbial life. This moon ejects jets of water from the cracks in its surface, and it has always been suspected that the ejected water came from an underground ocean of this type. In other words: sending there a probe capable of analyzing these waters (as will happen with NASA’s Europa Clipper) would give us data on the ocean below.
But there may be bad news on the horizon: A new study points out that the source of the eruptions is closer to the surface than previously thought, not from the ocean. At least some of these eruptions appear to originate from pockets of water trapped in the ice sheet itself.
Understand better why this can be a bucket of cold water; click here.
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