Yes, its quite amusing.
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Yes, its quite amusing.
Now that´s not so amusing but it´s curious:
When Triton Crashed the Party at Neptune
" Neptune's original family of satellites may have been destroyed when its largest moon, Triton, entered the picture. New research suggests that the massive moon may have tossed some of the original satellites into the ice giant, kicked others out of orbit and swallowed up the rest, creating a new family that doesn't look much like those surrounding the other giant planets.
For years, scientists have suspected that Triton wasn't part of Neptune's original collection of moons. The massive moon has a backward orbit, and makes up over 99 percent of all the mass orbiting the planet. Instead, they thought it was a captured object whose orbit was circularized by debris disks created by impacts."
https://www.space.com/38959-when-tri...une-moons.html
https://www.universetoday.com/138017...ed-dwarf-star/
Not much new atm, but this is an interesting post.
I copy the introduction to the above post. I'm coming round to your view that we might write more about the post than providing only the link:
"The search for extra-solar planets has turned up some very interesting discoveries. Aside planets that are more-massive versions of their Solar counterparts (aka. Super-Jupiters and Super-Earths), there have been plenty of planets that straddle the line between classifications. And then there were times when follow-up observations have led to the discovery of multiple planetary systems.
This was certainly the case when it came to K2-18, a red dwarf star system located about 111 light-years from Earth in the constellation Leo. Using the ESO’s High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS), an international team of astronomers was recently examining a previously-discovered exoplanet in this system (K2-18b) when they noted the existence of a second exoplanet.
The study which details their findings – “Characterization of the K2-18 multi-planetary system with HARPS” – is scheduled to be published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics. The research was supported by the Natural Sciences and Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and the Institute for Research on Exoplanets – a consortium of scientists and students from the University of Montreal and McGill University."
Thanks, DW. Yes, I think that at present there aren´t so many discoveries, maybe because of the holiday season.As for the excerpts I publish, I noticed that the opening paragraphs of the articles usually contain a summary of the whole text.
I found this post interesting, although only indirectly related to astronomy. Might interest also our LitNet mathematicians:
Mathematicians Awarded $3 Million for Cracking Century-Old Problem
"Two mathematicians have each earned the (massive but countable) sum of $3 million for a proof that could one day help scientists understand extra dimensions.
Christopher Hacon, a mathematician at the University of Utah, and James McKernan, a physicist at the University of California at San Diego, won this year's Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics for proving a long-standing conjecture about how many types of solutions a polynomial equation can have. Polynomial equations are mainstays of high-school algebra — expressions like x^2+5X+6 = 1 — in which variables are raised to the whole number exponents and added, subtracted and multiplied. The mathematicians showed that even very complicated polynomials have just a finite number of solutions. [Images: The World's Most Beautiful Equations]"
https://www.space.com/38989-2017-bre...s-awarded.html
https://www.space.com/38976-jupiter-...tectonics.html
"The case for plate tectonics on Jupiter's ocean-harboring moon Europa keeps getting stronger.
Scientists had already spotted geological signs that plates within the moon's ice shell may be diving beneath one another toward the moon's buried ocean. Now, a new study suggests that such "subduction" is indeed possible on Europa and shows how the phenomenon might be happening.
The new results should intrigue astrobiologists and anyone else who hopes that Earth isn't the only inhabited world in the solar system. [Photos: Europa, Mysterious Icy Moon of Jupiter]
"If, indeed, there's life in that ocean, subduction offers a way to supply the nutrients it would need," study lead author Brandon Johnson, an assistant professor in the Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences at Brown University in Rhode Island, said in a statement.
Such nutrients include oxidants, electron-stripping substances that are common on Europa's surface and that could help provide an energy source for life, the researchers said. "
https://www.space.com/38982-no-big-b...gy-theory.html
Exploration of the Big Bang theory. I've always thought this was too simple:
"Was the universe created with a Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago, or has it been expanding and contracting for eternity? A new paper, inspired by alternative explanations of the physics of black holes, explores the latter possibility, and rejects a core tenant of the Big Bang hypothesis."
This link provides some more details on Neves Bouncing Theory
"Brazilian physicist Juliano Cesar Silva Neves part of a group of researchers who dare to imagine a different origin. In a study recently published in the journal General Relativity and Gravitation, Neves suggests the elimination of a key aspect of the standard cosmological model: the need for a spacetime singularity known as the Big Bang.
In raising this possibility, Neves challenges the idea that time had a beginning and reintroduces the possibility that the current expansion was preceded by contraction. "I believe the Big Bang never happened," the physician said, who Works as a researcher at the University of Campinas's Mathematics, Statistics & Scientific Computation Institute (IMECC-UNICAMP) in Sao Paulo State, Brazil.
For Neves, the fast spacetime expansion stage does not exclude the possibility of a prior contraction phase. Moreover, the switch from contraction to expansion may not have destroyed all traces of the preceding phase.
The article, which reflects the work developed under the Thematic Project "Physics and geometry of spacetime," considers the solutions to the general relativity equations that describe the geometry of the cosmos and then proposes the introduction of a "scale factor" that makes the rate at which the Universe is expanding depend not only on time but also on cosmological scale.
"In order to measure the rate at which the Universe is expanding with the standard cosmology, the model in which there's a Big Bang, a mathematical function is used that depends only on cosmological time," said Neves, who elaborated the idea with Alberto Vazques Saa, a Full Professor at IMECC-UNICAMP and also the supervisor for Neves' postdoctoral project, funded by the Sao Paulo Research Foundation -- FAPESP.
With the scale factor, Big Bang itself, or cosmologic singularity, ceases to be a necessary condition for the cosmos to begin universal expansion. A concept from mathematics that expresses indefiniteness, singularity was used by cosmologists to characterize the "primordial cosmologic singularity" that happened 13.8 billion years ago, when all the matter and energy from the Universe were compressed into an initial state of infinite density and temperature, where the traditional laws of physics no longer apply.
The Big Bang Theory has its origins in the late 1920s when US astronomer Edwin Hubble discovered that almost all galaxies are moving away from each other at ever-faster velocities.
From the 1940s onward, scientists guided by Einstein's theory of general relativity constructed a detailed model of the evolution of the Universe since the Big Bang. Such model could lead to three possible outcomes: the infinite expansion of the Universe at ever-higher velocities; the stagnation of the Universe expansion in a permanent basis; or an inverted process of retraction caused by the gravitational attraction exerted by the mass of the Universe, what is known as Big Crunch.
"Eliminating the singularity or Big Bang brings back the bouncing Universe on to the theoretical stage of cosmology. The absence of a singularity at the start of spacetime opens up the possibility that vestiges of a previous contraction phase may have withstood the phase change and may still be with us in the ongoing expansion of the Universe," Neves said.
Neves conceptualizes that "bouncing cosmology" is rooted in the hypothesis that Big Crunch would give way to an eternal succession of universes, creating extreme conditions of density and temperature in order to instigate a new inversion in the process, giving way to expansion in another bounce.
Vestiges of contraction
Black holes are the starting point of Neves' investigations about "Bouncing Universe." "Who knows, there may be remains of black holes in the ongoing expansion that date from the prior contraction phase and passed intact through the bottleneck of the bounce," he said.
Consisted of the imploded core remaining after a giant star explodes, black holes are a kind of cosmic object whose core contracted to form a singularity, a point with infinite density and the strongest gravitational attraction known to exist. Nothing escapes from it, not even light.
According to Neves, a black hole is not defined by singularity, but rather by an event horizon, a membrane that indicates the point of no return from which nothing escapes the inexorable destiny of being swallowed up and destroyed by the singularity.
"Outside the event horizon of a regular black hole, there are no major changes, but inside it, the changes are deep-seated. There's a different spacetime that avoids the formation of a singularity."
The scale factor formulated by Neves and Saa was inspired by US physicist James Bardeen. In 1968, Berdeen used a mathematical trick to modify the solution to the general relativity equations that describe black holes.
The trick consisted of thinking of the mass of a black hole not as a constant, as had previously been the case, but as a function that depends on the distance to the center of the black hole. With this change, a different black hole, termed a regular black hole, emerged from the solution to the equations. "Regular black holes are permitted, since they don't violate general relativity. The concept isn't new and has frequently been revisited in recent decades," said Neves.
Since the insertion of a mathematical trick into the general relativity equations could prevent the formation of singularities in regular black holes, Neves considered creating a similar artifice to eliminate the singularity in a regular bounce.
In modern science, a theory is worthless if cannot be verified, however beautiful and inspiring it may be. How do you test the hypothesis of a Big Bang that did not start with a singularity?
"By looking for traces of the events in a contraction phase that may have remained in the ongoing expansion phase. What traces? The candidates include remnants of black holes from a previous phase of universal contraction that may have survived the bounce," Neves said.
Story Source:
Materials provided by Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo. Original written by Peter Moon. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Journal Reference:
J. C. S. Neves. Bouncing cosmology inspired by regular black holes. General Relativity and Gravitation, 2017; 49 (9) DOI: 10.1007/s10714-017-2288-6
Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo. "Possible vestiges of a universe previous to the Big Bang." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 27 November 2017. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/11/171127105935.htm>.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/release...1127105935.htm
Exeptionally I copied the whole article. The article itself is not available.
I've never really considered the Big Bang Theory, it seems so abstract, a bit like the religious debates over how many angels can fit onto a pin-head!
I'm more comfortable with the theory of multiple big bangs, because it remains abstract and so doesn't need to be proved or disproved.
https://www.space.com/39008-bizarre-...atter-sea.html
"Two enormous galaxies seen merging in the distant universe have astronomers rethinking the leading theory of how galaxies form.
When the universe was in its infancy, the very first galaxies were tiny "dwarf galaxies" that clumped together to form the larger galaxies seen today. Known as hierarchical formation, this theory suggests that galaxies form in a step-by-step process as smaller galaxies are pulled together by their mutual gravitational attraction.
But now, the recent discovery of two distant galaxies that are abnormally huge has led astronomers to rethink that theory because it suggests that those dwarf galaxies assembled into large galaxies a lot faster than previously thought."
http://earthsky.org/space/star-seaso...nce-brightness
"Consider the sky at the opposite time of year. In June, July and August, the evening sky seen from the entire Earth is facing toward the center of the Milky Way galaxy. The galaxy is about 100,000 light-years across, and its center is some 25,000 to 28,000 light-years away. We don’t see into the exact center of the Milky Way, because it’s obscured by galactic dust. But during those Northern Hemisphere summer months (Southern Hemisphere winter months), as we peer edgewise into the galaxy’s disk, we’re gazing across some 75,000 light-years of star-packed space (the distance between us and the center, plus the distance beyond the center to the other side of the galaxy)."
There is more but if interested visit the link above!
EarthSky is one of my all-time favourite websites to visit. This is about the oldest citizen project: http://earthsky.org/earth/audubons-c...-december-14th
Audubon Society’s Christmas Bird Count is one of the longest-running citizen science projects in existence. Here’s how to participate (go to website above)
Interesting links, DW, specially the last one that comments on the brightness of the stars:
"As seen during Northern Hemisphere winter (or Southern Hemisphere summer), the stars seem brighter. Why? It’s partly because – on December, January and February evenings – the part of Earth you’re standing on is facing into the spiral arm of the galaxy to which our sun belongs."
http://earthsky.org/space/star-seaso...nce-brightness
About Big Bang. Until a short time ago I didn´t know what it was about. But I am also inclined to think that the origin of the universe was different. Big Bang somehow doesn´t fit whit what one knows about celestial bodies up to now.
Personally, I do not believe the big brains are real close yet. One reason for this is that we have not been at it with advanced technology for long enough. Our sample space is too small, to put it in statistical terms. During most of human existence, there might be a strong chance that a shift from contraction to expansion would not even have been noted by big brains, who were busy rubbing sticks together. I take it that now we would note such an occurrence. I am not smart enough to note subtle changes, but there are those about who are. Our sample space is too narrow, though. We have not been at it long enough. Imagine what we might see and figure out after a million years of steady scientific observation, when our sample space was not so small anymore nor statistically so likely to be devoid of big events.
One keeps hearing that the Webb telescope will transform astronomy again, as the Hubble did in its working life. I hope this is true and that I am still on top of the ground to receive the news.
The International Space Station can be read about here, and there is much information on it: I didn't know i was so big!
http://www.astronomytoday.com/exploration/iss.html
On November 2, 2010, the ISS marked its 10th anniversary of continuous human occupation. The ISS team includes the United States, Canada, Japan, Russia, Brazil, and the 11 ESA nations, and the space station has been visited by 202 individuals. Four times bigger than Mir, the ISS is about the size of a football field. The ISS weighs 390,908 kg, or 861,8704 pounds and is larger than a five-bedroom house. Construction on the ISS was essentially completed in 2011. The ISS orbits at 402 kilometers above sea level with a 51.6� inclination, allowing easy crew and supply accessibility and coverage of 85% of Earth. People on Earth can see the ISS pass overhead as a bright point of light, looking similar to an airplane.
The new instruments are already transforming astronomy. The sample space, as you call it, is still limited but broadening fastly IMO.Quote:
Originally Posted by desiresjab
Just google the Brazilian part in the program:Quote:
Originally Posted by Dreamwoven
"Brazil joined the ISS as a partner of the United States and this included a contract with NASA to supply hardware to the Space Station.[6] In return, NASA would provide Brazil with access to NASA ISS facilities on-orbit, as well as a flight opportunity for one Brazilian astronaut during the course of the ISS programme. However, due to cost issues, the subcontractor Embraer was unable to provide the promised ExPrESS pallet, and Brazil left the programme in 2007.[7] Regardless, the first Brazilian astronaut, Marcos Pontes, was sent to ISS in April 2006 for Expedition 13.[34] This was Brazil's first space traveler and he returned to Earth safely.[34] Marcos trained on the Space Shuttle and Soyuz, but ended up going up with the Russians, although he did work at the U.S. Johnson Space Center after returning to Earth."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politi..._Space_Station
Marcos Pontes gave several interviews at the time as Brazil´s only space traveler.
https://astronomynow.com/2016/07/20/...teroid-impact/
Around 3.8 billion years ago, an asteroid more than 150 miles across, roughly equal to the length of New Jersey, slammed into the Moon and created the Imbrium Basin — the right eye of the fabled Man in the Moon. This new size estimate, published in the journal Nature, suggests an Imbrium impactor that was two times larger in diameter and 10 times more massive than previous estimates.
“We show that Imbrium was likely formed by an absolutely enormous object, large enough to be classified as a protoplanet,” said Pete Schultz, professor of Earth, environmental and planetary sciences at Brown University. “This is the first estimate for the Imbrium impactor’s size that is based largely on the geological features we see on the Moon.”
Interesting post. Now we are adding lost giants to dwarf planets.
"“The Moon still holds clues that can affect our interpretation of the entire solar system,” he said. “Its scarred face can tell us quite a lot about what was happening in our neighbourhood 3.8 billion years ago.”
Good News! Worms Make Babies in ‘Martian’ Soil
"Worms can not only survive in faux Martian soil — they can start a new generation. That’s the conclusion from biologist Wieger Wamelink who recently discovered two baby worms in his simulated Mars soil experiment.
http://www.astronomy.com/news/2017/12/worms-on-mars
https://astronomynow.com/2016/07/20/...teroid-impact/
"Around 3.8 billion years ago, an asteroid more than 150 miles across, roughly equal to the length of New Jersey, slammed into the Moon and created the Imbrium Basin — the right eye of the fabled Man in the Moon. This new size estimate, published in the journal Nature, suggests an Imbrium impactor that was two times larger in diameter and 10 times more massive than previous estimates."
“We show that Imbrium was likely formed by an absolutely enormous object, large enough to be classified as a protoplanet,” said Pete Schultz, professor of Earth, environmental and planetary sciences at Brown University. “This is the first estimate for the Imbrium impactor’s size that is based largely on the geological features we see on the Moon.”
More about https://www.universetoday.com/138054...t-a-spaceship/.
"On October 19th, 2017, the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System-1 (Pan-STARRS-1) in Hawaii announced the first-ever detection of an interstellar asteroid, named 1I/2017 U1 (aka. ‘Oumuamua). Based on subsequent measurements of its shape (highly elongated and thin), there was some speculation that it might actually be an interstellar spacecraft (the name “Rama” ring a bell?).
For this reason, there are those who would like to study this object before it heads back out into interstellar space. While groups like Project Lyra propose sending a mission to rendezvous with it, Breakthrough Initiatives (BI) also announced its plans to study the object using Breakthrough Listen. As part of its mission to search for extra-terrestrial communications, this project will use the Greenbank Radio Telescope to listen to ‘Oumuamua for signs of radio transmissions."
I don't believe this myself, but it makes for a good fill-in post!
https://www.space.com/39032-nasa-ali...ouncement.html
There will be an announcement on Thursday 14 December about alien planets that have been discovered by Kepler:
"NASA is about to announce some more big alien-planet news.
The agency will hold a news conference Thursday (Dec. 14) at 1 p.m. EST (1800 GMT) to reveal a new discovery made by its prolific Kepler space telescope, which has been searching the heavens for alien worlds since 2009. Space.com will air the briefing live, courtesy of NASA.
"The discovery was made by researchers using machine learning from Google," NASA officials wrote in a media advisory. "Machine learning is an approach to artificial intelligence, and demonstrates new ways of analyzing Kepler data." [7 Ways to Discovery Alien Planets]
http://www.astronomytoday.com/astronomy/earthmoon.html
"The Earth is unique amongst the terrestrial planets in having a large satellite, the Moon, which, relative to the Earth, has the largest mass of any satellite-parent system. Numerous lines of evidence indicate that the Moon was derived from the Earth as the result of a singular impact event soon after the initial formation of the Earth. As a result, the subsequent evolution of the Earth and the emergence and development of life has been strongly influenced by the presence of the Moon.
This article will highlight and explain the key areas in which the Moon has both directly and indirectly influenced the emergence and evolution of life on the Earth, a process that has culminated in the development of an intelligent, technologically advanced species."
Tides
Perhaps the most obvious manifestation of the influence of the Moon on the Earth are the ocean tides, particularly the spring tides where the gravitational pull of the Sun and Moon combine to give the greatest effect. The regular rise and fall of sea level creates an unique environment in the Solar System, where life is exposed to both immersion in water and exposure to air in the space of a few hours. This interface between two distinct ecological niches is thought by many to be crucial in evolutionary terms.
I believe that the most startling feature of Oumuamua is its elongated shape. But I don´t know if there is much to discover there. it looks more like a joke of the universe.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dreamwoven
http://earthsky.org/space/juno-probe...great-red-spot
Juno has been probing the Great Red Spot on Jupiter, by diving into it and then emerging out of it:
"Data collected by NASA’s Juno spacecraft during its first pass over Jupiter’s Great Red Spot in July 2017 indicate that this iconic feature penetrates well below the clouds. The findings were announced Monday (December 11, 2017) at the annual American Geophysical Union meeting in New Orleans.
To date, NASA’s Juno spacecraft, launched in 2011, has completed eight science passes over Jupiter. Juno’s ninth pass will be on December 16. During these flybys, Juno is probing beneath the obscuring cloud cover of Jupiter and studying its auroras to learn more about the planet’s origins, structure, atmosphere and magnetosphere. Scott Bolton is Juno’s principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. Bolton said in a statement:
One of the most basic questions about Jupiter’s Great Red Spot is: how deep are the roots? Juno data indicate that the solar system’s most famous storm is almost one-and-a-half Earths wide, and has roots that penetrate about 200 miles (300 kilometers) into the planet’s atmosphere."
https://www.space.com/39066-jupiter-...pacecraft.html
Jupiter's red spot is 50 times deeper than the Earth's oceans, and it is warmer the lower down in the spot that the probe goes.
"One of the most basic questions about Jupiter's Great Red Spot is, how deep are the roots?" Juno principal investigator Scott Bolton, of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, said in a statement. Bolton and his team presented Juno's results at the American Geophysical Union meeting in New Orleans yesterday (Dec. 11).
"Juno data indicate that the solar system's most famous storm is almost one-and-a-half Earths wide, and has roots that penetrate about 200 miles [300 kilometers] into the planet's atmosphere," Bolton said. [Jupiter's Great Red Spot: An Iconic Monster Storm in Pictures]"
https://www.universetoday.com/120982...abitable-zone/
"Red dwarf stars have become a major focal point for exoplanet studies lately, and for good reason. For starters, M-type (red dwarf) stars are the most common type in our Universe, accounting for 75% of stars in the Milky Way alone. In addition, in the past decade, numerous terrestrial (i.e rocky) exoplanets have been discovered orbiting red dwarf stars, and within their circumstellar habitable zones (“Goldilocks Zones”) to boot.
This has naturally prompted several studies to determine whether or not rocky planets can retain their atmospheres. The latest study comes from NASA, using data obtained by the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) orbiter. Having studied Mars’ atmosphere for years to determine how and when it was stripped away, the MAVEN mission is well-suited when it comes to measuring the potential habitability of other planets."
concluding:
"In conclusion, the researchers determined that orbiting at the edge of the habitable zone of a quiet M-type star (instead of our Sun) could shorten the habitable period for a Mars-like planet by a factor of about 5 to 20. For a more active M-type star, the habitable period could be cut by as much as 1,000 times. In addition, solar storm activity around a red dwarf, which is thousands of times more intense than with our Sun, would also be very limiting.
However, the study is based on how an exo-Mars would fair around and M-type star, which kind of stacks the odds against habitability in advance. When different planets are considered, which possess mitigating factors Mars does not, things become a bit more promising. For instance, a planet that is more geologically active than Mars would be able to replenish its atmosphere at a greater rate.
Other factors include increase mass, which would allow for the planet to hold onto more of its atmosphere, and the presence of a magnetic field to shield it from stellar wind."
https://astronomynow.com/2017/12/06/...planet-hunter/
The Echelle SPectrograph for Rocky Exoplanet and Stable Spectroscopic Observations (ESPRESSO) has successfully made its first observations. Installed on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile, ESPRESSO will search for exoplanets with unprecedented precision by looking at the minuscule changes in the light of their host stars. For the first time ever, an instrument will be able to sum up the light from all four VLT telescopes and achieve the light collecting power of a 16-metre telescope.
ESPRESSO has achieved first light on ESO’s Very Large Telescope at the Paranal Observatory in northern Chile. This new, third-generation echelle spectrograph is the successor to ESO’s hugely successful HARPS instrument at the La Silla Observatory. HARPS can attain a precision of around one metre per second in velocity measurements, whereas ESPRESSO aims to achieve a precision of just a few centimetres per second, due to advances in technology and its placement on a much bigger telescope.
The lead scientist for ESPRESSO, Francesco Pepe from the University of Geneva in Switzerland, explains its significance: “This success is the result of the work of many people over 10 years. ESPRESSO isn’t just the evolution of our previous instruments like HARPS, but it will be transformational, with its higher resolution and higher precision. And unlike earlier instruments it can exploit the VLT’s full collecting power — it can be used with all four of the VLT Unit Telescopes at the same time to simulate a 16-metre telescope. ESPRESSO will be unsurpassed for at least a decade — now I am just impatient to find our first rocky planet!”
Interesting naming Juno the spacecraft that confronted Jupiter. Reminds one of mythological timesQuote:
Originally Posted by Dreamwoven
The Great Red Spot is impressive, but I got the impression that more sophisticated instruments are needed to get at the bottom of it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dreamwoven
If I understood that rightly, Red Dwarfs have become an important object in the study of the atmosphere of exo-planets.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dreamwoven
They also need to dive deeper into the Red Spot. Another couple of dives are planned i believe.
I guess red dwarf stars are important, especially as there are so many of them in the Milky Way, and quite a few that look promising for life in planets that have a decent looking habitable zone. But the real test will come when the new telescopes have been launched and also become operable.
I think this telescope with its coffee name is going to reveal a lot. But it is meant for rocky planets.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dreamwoven
I thought that interesting:
Weightlessness and Its Effect on Astronauts
"The sensation of weightlessness, or zero gravity, happens when the effects of gravity are not felt. Technically speaking, gravity does exist everywhere in the universe because it is defined as the force that attracts two bodies to each other. But astronauts in space usually do not feel its effects."
https://www.space.com/23017-weightlessness.html
Today I got the Society for Popular astronomy notes that I get sent regularly. But this time there is nothing in the news that we have not already covered. We await news from a wide range of sources.
https://www.space.com/39104-saturn-m...ast-photo.html
Information on the moon of Saturn, Rhea. It seems to have a microscopic atmosphere of oxygen.
"Rhea has an oxygen atmosphere that is about 5 trillion times less dense than Earth's atmosphere. Some scientists propose that the oxygen atmosphere is caused by the icy surface getting exposure to radiation from Saturn's magnetosphere, according to the statement."
"Rhea is the second largest moon in orbit around Saturn, at about 949 miles (1,527 kilometers) across, and was one of the four moons spotted in 1672 by astronomer Giovanni Cassini. Initially named "Saturn V," the moon was later renamed in 1847 to Rhea, the goddess wife of Cronos in Greek mythology. Cronos, in Roman mythology, was known as Saturn."
Clearly, NASA don't release all their information at once.
Yes, there are even secret programs:
Secret Pentagon Program Spent Millions To Research UFOs
"A secret Pentagon program existed for at least three years and spent more than $20 million in research on UFOs, according to multiple media reports published Saturday."
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-...-research-ufos