Notices by Fraser Cain (fraser@m.universetoday.com)

Nine years ago, Blue Origin revealed the plans for their New Glenn rocket, a heavy-lift vehicle with a reusable first stage that would compete with SpaceX for orbital flights. Since that time, SpaceX has launched hundreds of rockets, while Blue Origin has been working mostly in secret on New Glenn. This week, the company rolled out the first prototype first-stage booster to the launch pad. If all goes well, we could see a late November test.

https://www.linkedin.com/company/blue-origin/posts?lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Ad_flagship3_detail_base%3BKIYtJMi4TM24hZFC1kUiwA%3D%3D

Last year, an intriguing theory was put forward: black holes could be causing dark energy. As more black holes formed in the Universe, the stronger the pressure from dark energy. Now, a survey from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) is strengthening the case for this theory. The first year's data from the survey show that the density of dark energy increases over time in a way that seems to correlate with the number and mass of black holes.

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1062904

The raw materials for life were likely delivered to the early Earth through a bombardment of asteroids and comets. One example is zinc, which seems to have arrived from across the Solar System—half from beyond the orbit of Jupiter. It appears that the planetesimals that remained far from the Sun and retained their volatile elements were responsible for most of the key chemicals for life delivered to Earth. Those too close to the Sun were stripped of these chemicals.

https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/how-did-the-building-blocks-of-life-arrive-on-earth

There are several 3D printers on board the International Space Station, which have been used to print a variety of plastic parts and tools. Now, the newly installed ESA Metal 3D Printer has fashioned a part out of medical-grade stainless steel using lasers. The printer will ultimately complete four different parts with varying shapes to test how microgravity printing compares to Earth-based prints. They'll be returned to Earth for testing.

https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2024/09/First_metal_part_3D_printed_in_space

There are large deposits of ice in the Moon's permanently shadowed craters. The challenge is harvesting it for a future lunar base. Solar-powered rovers can't operate in the permanent darkness of the craters. Engineers have developed a design for an ice-mining rover powered by americium-241, which has a half-life of 432 years. This could give the rover enough electricity to operate for decades, heating the ice and trapping water vapor and other volatiles as they escape.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0094576524005459?dgcid=rss_sd_all

The Earth is located inside a 1,000 light-year void called the Local Bubble, which was created by a series of supernovae over the eons. Deposits of iron-60 in deep-sea crust samples tell us that one happened about 5 million years ago, and then another went off 2 million years ago. In a new study, researchers calculate that cosmic radiation levels increased by up to a factor of 30 for about 100,000 years after the explosion, increasing mutation rates in organisms.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.12307

Researchers have adapted a computer algorithm that mimics the growth of slime mold to help predict the large-scale structure of the Universe: the cosmic web. As the Universe expands, gravity concentrates galaxies into large clusters, pulling more and more material in over time and opening up vast empty spaces called voids. This is similar to the way slime mold extends to search for concentrations of nutrients. Decaying organic material or gas and dust, it's all the same.

https://newsroom.nmsu.edu/news/nmsu-astronomy-research-uses-slime-mold-to-model-galaxies/s/136ea12b-091a-4240-9de2-389026ef37f3

The Earth has only a single Moon. You might know it as "The Moon." But every now and then, a small asteroid gets too close to Earth and dances with our planet's gravity for a few months or years. Now, astronomers have detected an 11-meter asteroid, designated 2024 PT5, that came within 567,000 km of Earth and will shortly trace a horseshoe path around our planet. It will become a temporary satellite from September 29th until November 25th before it leaves again.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2515-5172/ad781f

Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will remain on board the International Space Station until February, returning to Earth on a SpaceX Crew Dragon. NASA announced its decision over the weekend, citing concerns about the safety of the Boeing Starliner capsule due to helium leaks and thruster issues. The astronauts will officially join the Expedition 71/72 crew and return home with the rest of the Crew-9 mission in February 2025.

https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-decides-to-bring-starliner-spacecraft-back-to-earth-without-crew/

The Hubble Space Telescope is in low-Earth orbit and has been repaired multiple times. But spacecraft sent to the Sun-Earth L2 Lagrange Point are beyond the reach of service, whether by robots or astronauts. A new paper proposes trajectories that servicing spacecraft could fly to rendezvous with L2 missions to bring them fresh parts and more propellant to extend their missions indefinitely. They specifically proposed flights to repair Gaia and JWST.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0094576524004715?dgcid=rss_sd_all

A longstanding mystery in astronomy is the growth of supermassive black holes early in the Universe. Within a few hundred million years of the Big Bang, some black holes were already approaching a billion solar masses. The problem is that hydrogen heats up as it collects, pushing away new material that could be added to a star, limiting its mass. Researchers think that early dark matter could have kept hydrogen from cooling, allowing more to collect into a small region.

https://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/dark-matter-helped-make-supermassive-black-holes-in-the-early-universe

Last week, NASA shut down the NEOWISE mission, after it had spent 10 years scanning the Solar System for potentially hazardous asteroids. Before this role, it was WISE, making infrared observations of the Universe, finding nearby brown dwarfs and dust-obscured galaxies across the Universe. NASA decided to end the mission because its declining altitude was already impacting its science operations. It'll burn up in the atmosphere in late 2024.

https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-mission-concludes-after-years-of-successful-asteroid-detections/

A Japanese satellite has just completed its analysis of a large piece of space debris, photographing it from every angle. Built by Astroscale, the spacecraft has been studying an H-IIA upper-stage rocket that launched a climate satellite in 2009. It came within 50 meters of the space debris and then maneuvered around to examine it. This is just a prototype, but a future mission will attempt to grapple and de-orbit space debris, providing a "mission termination service."

https://global.jaxa.jp/press/2024/07/20240730-1_e.html

NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory just completed its 25th year of observations, and to celebrate, they've released 25 never-before-seen images of various celestial objects. X-rays are a sign of extremely hot and energetic places in the Universe, so these images show regions around active black holes, giant clouds of hot gas, and extreme magnetic fields. Enjoy them while you can, as NASA is still planning on shutting down the mission to save budget.

https://chandra.harvard.edu/press/24_releases/press_072224.html/

NASA has awarded a Phase III NIAC grant to a proposal investigating growing structures off-planet using fungal mycelial composites - mushrooms. Since this is phase III, the team has already completed two phases of testing: growing structures on different food substrates and using inflatables for phase II. For phase three, they'll test the technique on an orbiting space station to see if mushrooms can grow into usable shapes in weightlessness.

https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/stmd/niac/mycotecture-off-planet-en-route-to-the-moon-and-mars/

As part of the Artemis missions, NASA is building the Lunar Gateway in an orbit that provides easier access to the Moon. Construction begins in 2028 with Artemis IV, and elements will be added to the station in the following missions. NASA has released a new 3D animation of the Lunar Gateway, which shows what the finished Gateway will look like, including additional modules provided by partner nations. There's even an Orion and lunar landers docked to carry astronauts.

https://www.nasa.gov/missions/artemis/gateway/gateway-up-close-in-stunning-detail/

From our vantage point on Earth, we can only see one hemisphere of the Sun, but there are enough spacecraft positioned around the Solar System that we can monitor the entire star. In mid-May, a large sunspot region unleashed the most powerful solar storm in decades toward the Earth. As the Sun rotated out of view, ESA's Solar Orbiter continued to watch the sunspot region as it released an even more powerful flare away from us.

https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Solar_Orbiter/Can_t_stop_won_t_stop_Solar_Orbiter_shows_the_Sun_raging_on

You might be surprised to hear this, but planet Earth contains a technological civilization. That's according to the Odysseus lunar lander that touched down on the Moon in February. The lander was equipped with an instrument called ROLSES, which examined the radio emissions of Earth as if it were an exoplanet. It was able to examine the Earth for 90 minutes, providing a glimpse of what Earth might look like from 30 light-years away.

https://www.colorado.edu/today/2024/06/10/new-experiment-scientists-record-earths-radio-waves-moon

Earth's climate has changed many times over its long history, thanks to everything from volcanic eruptions to carbon dioxide levels. However, a new paper suggests that the Earth's location in the Milky Way might also affect its climate and habitability. About two million years ago, the solar system passed through an interstellar cloud so dense that it might have interfered with the Sun's solar wind, exposing the planet to more radiation and depleting the ozone.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-024-02279-8

While JWST gives astronomers insight into the earliest times in the Universe, it also finds a surprising number of supernovae. The telescope finds exploding stars almost everywhere, discovering ten times as many supernovae in the early Universe than previously known. The discoveries were made as part of the JADES survey characterizing distant galaxies. They've found plenty of supernovae by comparing galaxies seen a year apart, looking for stars appearing or disappearing.

https://webbtelescope.org/contents/news-releases/2024/news-2024-122.html