Astronomy ● by Astronomy

The man's return to the moon.

pad278 — 2018-05-17 03:03:25 UTC

On July 21, 1969, at 2:50 am local time (0:56 GMT), a human being - in this case, Armstrong - stepped on the moon for the first time. The news shook the world. Five other American expeditions arrived there until December 1972, when Eugene Cernan closed the cycle of landings, that is, landings on the surface of the Moon. After him no man returned to Earth's natural satellite in more than 45 years.

Many conspiracy theories were then created to support the notion that landings never happened and that the images that were broadcast were nothing more than montages made in television studios. But the motives, in fact, are others: money, scientific relevance, and, of course, political issues.

But almost half a century later, the United States government has announced that it intends to return to the satellite soon. And that this may just be a first stop on a journey to the conquest of Mars.
On Monday, President Donald Trump passed Space Policy Directive 1, a presidential order authorizing NASA to send manned missions to the moon again.
It is expected that the directive, which was signed without prior consultation of the Senate, will only take effect when the president remains two years in the White House. But given the deadlines for approving budgets, many experts fear it will not be effective - unless Trump is re-elected in 2020.

NASA already has a plan to turn Mars into a habitable planet.

pad278 — 2018-05-18 01:03:27 UTC

Scientists at NASA, the United States space agency, say Mars could be habitable if something was artificially created that the Earth already has: a protective magnetic field.

This shield is essential to avoid the impact of radiation and powerful solar winds.
According to researchers from NASA's Planetary Science Division (PSD), it is possible to generate a similar field around the Red Planet.

The proposal was presented recently in a workshop of the Visions for Planetary Science 2050 workshop, held by the agency.

Keep an eye on the past

Today, Mars is a planet dominated by extremes.

The lack of atmosphere causes, for example, the temperature to reach 20øC during the day and -80øC overnight.

But the Red Planet was very different in the past: data from NASA's Maven missions and Mars Express from the European space agency suggest that it had a natural magnetic field.

This protection disappeared about 4.2 billion years ago and, as a result, the Martian atmosphere gradually disappeared over the next 500 years.
What the researchers propose, then, is to retrieve it using cutting-edge technology to restore the planet Mars from the past, with its atmosphere, higher temperatures and part of its ancient oceans.

Magnetic field

"In the future, it's quite possible that it can generate a 1 to 2 Tesla magnetic field against the solar wind," said Jim Green of NASA's planetary science division.

Green and his colleagues propose the installation of a magnetic dipole, in the form of a satellite, so that it accompanies the planet in its orbit, protecting it.

A dipole is a specific element that produces a dipolar magnetic field (two opposing magnetic poles).

The scientist claims that miniature artificial magnetospheres have already been created to protect spacecraft.

APOLLO 11- The moon arrives.

pad278 — 2018-05-18 01:06:50 UTC

In 1969, on July 16, Apollo 11 was launched at 9:32 am at launch base 39, at Cape Kennedy. This spacecraft carried the lunar module Eagle (Eagle). At 17:17 GMT, on July 20, 1969, the NASA base received the first contact of the two astronauts who first stepped on the moon: Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin. Armstrong was the author of the first footprint on the lunar surface. The small gesture of stepping on the Moon represented, according to the astronaut himself, a great "step for humanity". The total undertaking for this to happen was around 136 billion pains and mobilized around 400,000 people.

The most distant and massive hole.

pad278 — 2018-05-18 01:20:53 UTC

Astronomers have discovered the most distant and massive black hole ever known to science.

It is 13 billion light years away - so far it is seen by us in the same way as it was 690 million years after the Big Bang.

With a mass 800 million times greater than that of the Sun, this black hole was able to reach a surprising size shortly after the origin of the Universe.

The finding was described in the scientific publication Nature. According to scientists, this early relic of the Universe is concerned with devouring materials in the center of a galaxy - thus being characterized as a "quasar," or "near-starry object," as they are called celestial bodies with an energetic nucleus that emit much radiation and light.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHwCykUaCqE