Exodus of civilization into space - Selenic Strategy - UN Ideology in the XXI Century? Part 18.1.2

 

Humanity Space Expansion logo.

August 19, 2021

Author: Sergey Lvovich MOROZOV, Candidate of Medical Sciences, sergey.morozov@asgardia.space

(Supplement to the article of the same title Part 18.1.)

The colonization of Mars and other objects in the solar system will begin with the colonization of the moon. The wealth and power of civilization will grow by the Moon.

Colonization of the Moon. Stationary ring homeostatic ark (HA)

Ice ages of the Earth: epochs, eras, periods - past and future

According to modern science, we are living in another interglacial period.

Glaciers flow from the feeding zone to the melting zone. Only the ocean is able to stop a glacier like Greenland (3.4 kilometers thick) or Antarctic (4.7 kilometers).

There are two polar glaciers on the planet. And the northern one is two and a half times larger than the southern one. The interglacials, in one of which we live today, last from 10 to 30 thousand years.

Modern mankind has made good use of the last thaw, having managed to create a civilization. However, most of the history of our species, not to mention ancient ancestors, falls on the era of glacier dominance.

There is a version that the transformation of a monkey into a man was largely facilitated by climate changes, which were caused by the Pleistocene glaciation that began 2.5 million years ago. The climate became dry, the forests were replaced by savannas, and the ancestors of man had to go to collective hunting.

The modern climatic optimum is over. Already in the last century, Europe was not so warm as in the previous optimum of the X-XIII centuries, when grapes grew in Scotland and Labrador, and the now almost lifeless coast of Greenland was green with juicy grasses.

Greenland will no longer be a Green Country. But the cold of the XIV-XVII centuries, the "Little Ice Age", in the future will seem to us sheer nonsense. The modern interglacial period, which began 12 thousand years ago, is also coming to an end.

Currently, human activities that contribute to an increase in the greenhouse effect and an increase in global temperature are so far successfully opposing the cosmic forces responsible for the advances of glaciers (Milankovitch space cycles).

But the outcome of this unequal struggle is predetermined. The winter is coming. The ice age is not over. He's ahead. The earth will become a lifeless desert, covered with many kilometers of ice and snow from pole to pole (almost like winter in Antarctica today).

Part of the civilization will survive and continue to live comfortably under the surface of the Earth. The other part will leave the Earth and will be no less comfortable in Space on stationary GCs on the Moon, Mars, satellites of Jupiter, Saturn and in outer space on mobile GCs. The conditions will be approximately the same everywhere.

We cannot change anything in the laws of nature, which are predetermined and do not depend on us in any way. But we will be able to prepare well for the Exodus into space today on Earth, subordinating to the solution of this task all the activities of civilization in a targeted way, possibly with the participation of the UN.

Humanity, as a species, will be able to continue to exist only if it pre-possesses and makes habitable and comfortable objects in space, the first of which is the Moon.

There is no alternative to the absolutely forced Exodus of civilization into the Universe. Figuratively speaking, the lack of understanding of this truth does not save anyone from the Exodus.

The entire life of civilization on Earth will have to submit to this task - the preparation of its massive planned Exodus into the Universe.

This task of colonizing space is an age-old trend, calculated for the rest of the life of mankind as a Darwinian species.

(https://www.mirf.ru/science/lednikovye-periody-v-istorii-zemli/)

Image above: This is how the mobile spaceships of the future with artificial gravity and a full cycle of autonomous self-reproduction - mobile homeostatic arks (GC) - will look roughly. (Futuristic spaceship).

WORLD TIME is a space calendar

The updated calendar of Asgardia has been officially adopted. Cap 16,0003 / Dec 18, 2019

Dr. Igor Ashurbeyli - Head of the Space State of Asgardia

UNIVERSAL SEMIPOSITIONAL CALENDAR OF ASGARDIA

- The traditional version of the calendar, presented on the site of the space calendar of the state of Asgardia.

https://asgardia.space/en/calendar

Sergei L Morozov. Asgardia’s calendar and its role in space industrialisation strategy . ROOM, Space Journal of Asgardia, Autumn #3(21) 2019, pp. 66-72.

TABLE-CALENDAR OF ASGARDIA FOR 0003/2019

Asgardia report card for 0003/2019

Related links:

Brochure (Asgardia brochure 11.2019 optimized.pdf) 

https://asgardia.space/files/Asgardia%20brochure%2011.2019%20optimized.pdf

(Morozov S.L. Calendar of Asgardia and its role in the strategy of industrialization of space. ROOM magazine №3 (21), 2019, pp. 66-72)
https://asgardia.space/files/asgardia-calendar-morozov-sep-19.pdf

(Morozov S.L. Calendar of Asgardia and its role in the strategy of space industrialization. VKS №2 (99), 2019, pp. 10-19)
https://asgardia.space/files/asgardia-calendar-morozov.pdf

(Morozov S.L. Universal mathematical model for calculating the duration of a calendar year for all types of stock calendars. Calendar constant. Journal of CEMI RAS "Economics and Mathematical Methods" 2015. V. 51. No. 1. P. 109-129)
https://yadi.sk/i/IOVXgDoHuWpr-Q

(Morozov S.L. Ideology of space expansion. Journal "Aerospace Sphere" (VKS) №1 (98), 2019, pp. 50-61)
https://www.vesvks.ru/public/wysiwyg/files/VKS-1(98)-2019-zam_compressed-50-61.pdf

(Morozov S.L. Homeostatic ark as the main tool in the strategy of space exploration. BKC №3 (96), 2018, pp. 28-37)
https://www.vesvks.ru/public/wysiwyg/files/BKC-3(96)2018-for-WEB-28-37.pdf

(Morozov S.L. Standard 13-month I. Medler - D.I. Mendeleev - S.L. Morozov standard calendar and its application for the industrialization of space society. Monograph - M .: LLC "VASH FORMAT", 2019. - 260 pp. (Rus). ISBN 978-5-907092-99-0)
http://www.cemi-ras.ru/dissertation/defense/morozov/%D0%9C%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B7%D0%BE%D0%B2_%D0%BC%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%B3%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%84%D0%B8%D1%8F-%D0%A1%D0%A2%D0%90%D0%9D%D0%94%D0%90%D0%A0%D0%A2%D0%9D%D0%AB%D0%99-13-%D0%9C%D0%95%D0%A1%D0%AF%D0%A7%D0%9D%D0%AB%D0%99.pdf

FOREWORD: PARDOX TRIFFINA AS THE FIRST CAUSE OF GLOBAL ECONOMIC DISORDER?

In his speech on March 29, 2009, entitled “Reform of the International Monetary System,” Zhou Xiaochuan, Governor of the People's Bank of China explicitly named “The Triffin Dilemma or Paradox” as the root cause of the economic turmoil and financial crisis of 2007-2008.

This will entail a gradual move away from the US dollar as the sole dominant reserve currency (the reserve non-dominant currencies are: Swiss franc, British pound sterling, Japanese yen, Chinese yuan and the EU euro).

Over the past decade, more than 60% of the total volume of gold and foreign exchange reserves (gold and foreign exchange reserves) of the countries of the world were in US dollars.

Zhou argued that part of the reason for the destruction of the original Bretton Woods system was the refusal to accept Keynes's "Bancor" (1883-1946), the second-ever economist equal to Karl Marx (1818-1883) to be the special international reserve currency to be used instead of a dollar. (Wikipedia site: wikichi.ru).

Colonization of the Moon and other space objects is a very costly area of industrial activity.

Russia, USA, China, EU, UK, UAE, India - and all civilization on Earth, must make a historic choice between missiles and yachts.

Is this a fundamental choice between "transformation from above" through the UN and the departure of all together from History into oblivion?

In the strategic astrophysical perspective of the natural evolution of our Sun, the entire civilization that did not colonize the Moon in due time, and therefore remained on Earth, will be doomed to perish along with all its "yachts".

Figuratively speaking, all subjects on the Moon with missiles and nuclear thermonuclear energy will have a chance to survive in a strategic perspective. Those who remain on Earth with "yachts" will not have such a chance.

Civilization has no economic ability to colonize space, while maintaining at the same time a wasteful oligarchic form of social organization.

We need a "selenostrategic" concentration and mobilization of all resources to address the key issues of space colonization.

Even a wealthy country like the United States has problems with sovereign debt, even though the United States today alone holds the world's only dominant reserve currency.

The US national debt is growing at a rapid pace, by an average of $ 1 trillion every month.

US national debt is the debt owed by the US federal government to its creditors.

The US national debt consists of two parts: intragovernmental and public - their size is now about $ 5.9 trillion and more than $ 20 trillion, respectively (in a ratio of 1: 4 so far).

Part of the latter (public government debt) was taken by the FRS (the Federal Reserve System - as the Central Bank in the United States is called) from the central banks of other countries in the form of buying paper government bonds (government guarantees) from the US Federal Reserve, which have some super-reliable stable interest rate.

All this takes place in the system of "dualism" of the US FRS dollar, within the framework of the "Triffin Paradox", that is, a conflict of economic interests that inevitably arises between short-term domestic and long-term international goals for those countries whose national currencies serve simultaneously and in the second capacity of global (international) reserve currencies.

The use of the national currency, for example, the US dollar, at the same time in the role of a single world dominant reserve currency, leads to contradictions between its national and global (international) components.

This is reflected in fundamental imbalances in the balance of payments, in particular in the current account, as some purposes require an outflow of dollars from the United States, while others require a general inflow. This is the Triffin Paradox or Dilemma.

The US Federal Reserve, figuratively speaking, is objectively between the "two fires" of internal and external public debt.

The US Federal Reserve today combines the functions of two Central Banks at the same time in one person: the Central Bank of the internal, actually the United States, and the world external global Central Bank for the rest of the world.

This is the essence of the "dualism" of the US FRS dollar. It is in one person and the currency of the United States, and the currency of the whole world - "Bancor".

The first type of debt (within the US) is formed by the debt of the US budget to government agencies, for example, government pension funds. The second is with loans in foreign markets.

The problem of the US national debt and the problem of colonization of space turned out to be directly interconnected.

To meet its space needs, the United States today can increase its national debt indefinitely, while other countries cannot do this by definition.

The US space program will always potentially be financially secure in almost any size. Therefore, purely theoretically, no one will be able to win against the United States of their "Lunar Strategy" - Selenostrategy.

The United States today has an absolute financially secure dominant and stable leadership position in the world.

Is it supposed that in this paradigm the US Federal Reserve's public debt can grow indefinitely?

The United States has a decisive strategic financial advantage over all other countries on Earth, owning the only dominant reserve currency in the world and through it subjugating everyone to its influence. All central banks of the world have the same US FRS dollar as collateral for their national currencies.

John Maynard Keynes, involved in the creation of the post-war world financial system in Bretton Woods in 1944, foresaw this difficulty and advocated the use of a second global reserve currency, in addition to the US Federal Reserve dollar, called "Bancor", that is, he proposed to separate external and internal currency functions, ridding the US dollar of its artificial "dualism".

John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946)

However, no one still has a final solution to this issue. Can it be adopted only at the level of all members of the UN Security Council with the right to "veto"?

However, such paramount practical issues as thermonuclear and nuclear power in space must be addressed today and now.

Elon Musk's rockets are the ideal vehicle for colonizing the moon

Using the huge reserves of helium-3 on the Moon to create a network of thermonuclear space power plants (both stationary and mobile) will forever (for many billions of years ahead) solve the main energy problem and guarantee civilization a successful colonization of outer space for all future times.

ITER project, nuclear fusion reactor (plasma)

We do not know how much it will cost for civilization to "tame" (create a controlled) thermonuclear (solar) reaction.

Maybe this will be an order of magnitude equivalent to several thousand trillion US dollars? https://wikichi.ru/wiki/Triffin_dilemma

DYNAMICS OF US GOVERNMENT DEBT OVER THE PAST 40 YEARS

Coming soon: Exodus of civilization into space - The US decided to overtake China? "Plus the renewable electrification of the whole country?" - ISS-2? Part 19.

Related article:

Visions of the Future
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2021/06/visions-of-future.html

Related articles (Exodus of civilization into space archives):

Exodus of civilization into space - Homeostatic Ark & Permanent bases on the Moon and Mars. Part 18.5
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2021/07/exodus-of-civilization-into-space.html

Exodus of civilization into space - American Jobs Plan. Part 18.4
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2021/06/exodus-of-civilization-into-space.html

Exodus of civilization into space - The space age of civilization began its new Third stage (civil). Part 18.3
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2021/06/exodus-of-civilization-into-space-space.html

Exodus of civilization into space - Selenic Strategy - Ideology of the UN in the XXI Century. Part 18.2
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2021/05/exodus-of-civilization-into-space_31.html

Exodus of civilization into space - Selenic Strategy - UN Ideology in the XXI Century. Part 18.1
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2021/05/exodus-of-civilization-into-space_25.html

Space Toilet and Problems of Intestinal Stick Infection. Part 17.7
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2021/05/space-toilet-and-problems-of-intestinal.html

Three Historical Stages of Cosmonautics Development. Part 17.6
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2021/05/three-historical-stages-of-cosmonautics.html

Brief Background to Selenopolitics (Industrial Colonization of the Moon). Part 17.5
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2021/05/brief-background-to-selenopolitics.html

Exodus of civilization into space - Creation of the first ever mobile homeostatic ark (HA) in the USA. Part 16
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2021/05/exodus-of-civilization-into-space_5.html

Exodus of civilization into space - Apocalypse; View from the UK. Part 15
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2021/05/exodus-of-civilization-into-space_3.html

Exodus of civilization into space - Comparison of plans of NASA and Roscosmos. Part 14
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2021/05/exodus-of-civilization-into-space.html

The ideology of space expansion - The question of pregnancy and childbirth in zero gravity. Part 17.4
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2021/04/the-ideology-of-space-expansion.html

Colonization of the Moon - The source of the power, wealth and power of civilization in the Universe. Part 17.3
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2021/04/colonization-of-moon-source-of-power.html

Space manned industrialization of the XXI century - the golden age of civilization. Part 17.2
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2021/04/space-manned-industrialization-of-xxi.html

Exodus of civilization into space - Humanity's strategy to create stationary and mobile Homeostatic arks. Part 17.1
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2021/04/exodus-of-civilization-into-space_21.html

Exodus of civilization into space - Tsiolkovsky Galactic State. Part 9
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2021/04/exodus-of-civilization-into-space_19.html

Exodus of civilization into space - Symbol of the End of the XXI century. Part 8
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2021/04/exodus-of-civilization-into-space_16.html

Exodus of civilization into space - Stopping the process of increasing value added. Part 7
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2021/04/exodus-of-civilization-into-space_14.html

Exodus of civilization into space - The sixth socio-economic formation of civilization. Part 6
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2021/04/exodus-of-civilization-into-space-sixth.html

Exodus of civilization into space - Space man. Part 5
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2021/04/exodus-of-civilization-into-space-space.html

Exodus of civilization into space - Biological End of the World. Part 4
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2021/04/exodus-of-civilization-into-space_7.html

Exodus of civilization into space - Geochronological Ice Ages, periods, eras. Part 3
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2021/04/exodus-of-civilization-into-space_5.html

Exodus of civilization into space - Astrophysical End of the World. Part 2
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2021/04/exodus-of-civilization-into-space.html

The ideology of space expansion - Space calendar. Part 1
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2021/03/the-ideology-of-space-expansion-space.html

Related links:

About Ph.D. Morozov Sergey Lvovich: https://zen.yandex.ru/media/id/5fbb90753e3ad265054f930a/ob-avtore-kanala-5fbd2bf80b4af80149fb12c2

Original article in Russian on Zen.Yandex:
https://zen.yandex.ru/media/id/5fbb90753e3ad265054f930a/ishod-civilizacii-v-kosmos-chast-18-selenostrategiia-ideologiia-oon-v-xxi-veke-60a51f9b9582641d181888d9

Asgardia website: https://asgardia.space/

Author: Ph.D. Morozov Sergey Lvovich / Zen.Yandex. Editor / Translation: Roland Berga.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

Busy Day as U.S., Russian Crews Get Ready for Spacewalks

 

ISS - Expedition 65 Mission patch.

August 18, 2021

All seven Expedition 65 crew members are gearing up three spacewalks the first of which is set to start next week. Two astronauts will go on the first spacewalk then two cosmonauts will conduct the second and third spacewalks. The other three crewmates will provide support to the spacewalkers.

Image above: Spacewalker Thomas Pesquet is attached to the tip of the Canadarm2 robotic arm to install the station’s second new solar array on June 25, 2021. Image Credit: NASA.

The first spacewalk on Aug. 24 will see Commander Akihiko Hoshide and Flight Engineer Mark Vande Hei spend about six hours and 50 minutes setting up the Port-4 (P4) truss structure for future Roll-Out Solar Array installation work. They will install a modification kit on P4 that prepares the site for the third of six new solar arrays planned for the station.

Flight Engineers Megan McArthur and Thomas Pesquet reviewed their spacewalk support roles today including controlling the Canadarm2 robotic arm and helping the duo in and out of their U.S. spacesuits. Flight Engineer Shane Kimbrough also spent several hours Wednesday morning assembling the solar array modification kit that Hoshide and Vande Hei will install next week.

Image above: The International Space Station’s solar arrays provide power for the orbiting laboratory. NASA will install a total of six new roll out solar arrays in front of the existing arrays at 1A, 2B, 3A, 3B, 4A, and 4B to augment the power. During the Aug. 24 spacewalk, NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei and astronaut Akihiko Hoshide of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency will install the modification kit on the 4A power channel, where the next new roll out solar array will be installed in 2022. Image Credit: NASA.

On the other side of the station in the Russian segment, cosmonauts Oleg Novitskiy and Pyotr Dubrov are preparing for two of their own spacewalks planned for early September. They are continuing to organize their spacewalk tools and equipment in the Poisk module‘s airlock. The duo will exit Poisk for both excursions and ready the Nauka Multipurpose Laboratory Module for science operations.

Related links:

Expedition 65: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition65/index.html

Port-4 (P4) truss structure: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/elements/truss-structure

Canadarm2 robotic arm: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/elements/mobile-servicing-system.html

Poisk module: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/elements/poisk-mini-research-module-2

Space Station Research and Technology: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/overview.html

International Space Station (ISS): https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html

Images (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Mark Garcia.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

CERN to provide second DUNE cryostat

 

CERN - European Organization for Nuclear Research logo.

August 18, 2021

The laboratory deepens its collaboration with the US-based neutrino experiment with the provision of two enormous stainless-steel vessels for DUNE’s cutting-edge liquid-argon detectors.

Image above: Inside a prototype liquid-argon time-projection chamber for the DUNE experiment. (Image: CERN).

Neutrinos are tricky beasts. Alone among known fundamental particles, they suffer from an identity crisis — if it were possible to put them on a weighing scale, you would unpredictably measure one of three possible masses. As a result, the three neutrino “flavours” merge into each other as they race through space and matter, opening up the potential for matter-antimatter asymmetries relevant to open questions in cosmology. Neutrinos are today the subject of a vibrant worldwide research programme in particle physics, astrophysics and multi-messenger astronomy.

In an eye-catching example of international collaboration in particle physics, CERN has now agreed to produce a second “cryostat” for the detectors of the international Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) in the US. Cryostats are huge stainless-steel vessels that will eventually hold and cool 70,000 tonnes of liquid argon inside the DUNE experiment’s detectors. The large size and low temperatures of the cryostats needed for the DUNE detectors necessitated innovation in collaboration with the liquefied-natural-gas shipping industry. CERN had already committed to build the first of four DUNE cryostats. Following approval from the CERN Council, the Organization has now also agreed to provide a second.

The collaboration exploits CERN’s expertise with a technology which neutrino physicists have dreamt of deploying on such a scale for decades. Neutrinos are notoriously difficult to detect. They stream through matter with a miniscule chance of interacting. And when they do interact, it’s often with one of the least well understood objects in physics, the atomic nucleus, and a spray of particles and excitations emerges from the swirling mess of hadronic matter. To get enough of these ghostly particles to interact with nuclei in the first place, you need a dense target material, however that is a terrible starting point for building a detector sensitive enough to reconstruct these sprays of particles in detail.

Former CERN Director General and Nobel laureate Carlo Rubbia proposed a solution in 1977: neutrinos could interact in tanks of liquid argon, and electric fields could amplify tiny signals caused by the gentle ionization of neighbouring argon atoms by charged particles created in the collision, allowing the “event” to be reconstructed like a three-dimensional photograph, with exquisite resolution which would be unprecedented for a neutrino experiment. Such a “liquid-argon time-projection chamber” was first realized on a large scale by the ICARUS experiment at Gran Sasso, which was built by INFN in Italy, refurbished at CERN, and shipped to Fermilab’s short-baseline neutrino facility in 2017. Each DUNE detector module will be 20 times bigger. Work on these ground-breaking designs has been underway at CERN for several years already in the preparation and testing of two “ProtoDUNE” detectors, which have successfully demonstrated the operational principles of the technology.

For more details, read the full story in CERN Courier magazine: https://cerncourier.com/a/cern-to-provide-two-dune-cryostats/

Note:

CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is one of the world’s largest and most respected centres for scientific research. Its business is fundamental physics, finding out what the Universe is made of and how it works. At CERN, the world’s largest and most complex scientific instruments are used to study the basic constituents of matter — the fundamental particles. By studying what happens when these particles collide, physicists learn about the laws of Nature.

The instruments used at CERN are particle accelerators and detectors. Accelerators boost beams of particles to high energies before they are made to collide with each other or with stationary targets. Detectors observe and record the results of these collisions.

Founded in 1954, the CERN Laboratory sits astride the Franco–Swiss border near Geneva. It was one of Europe’s first joint ventures and now has 23 Member States.

For more information about European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), Visit: https://home.cern/

Image (mentioned), Text, Credits: CERN/By Mark Rayner.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

A Ghostly Galaxy's Lack of Dark Matter

 

NASA - Hubble Space Telescope patch.

Aug 18, 2021

Galaxies and dark matter go together like peanut butter and jelly. Rarely is one without the other, but a recently discovered galaxy called NGC 1052-DF2 is nearly entirely lacking in dark matter.

In November 2019, researchers were astonished when they viewed its image captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. Dark matter is an invisible substance that astronomers believe plays an important role in the formation of galaxies and is thought to comprise 85 percent of the universe’s mass. This discovery not only challenges the ideas of how galaxies form, but also provides evidence that dark matter is real. It shows that dark matter is not always coupled with regular matter in galaxies and that it has its own separate existence. In addition to lacking dark matter, galaxy NGC 1052-DF2 is an anomaly because you can see straight through it. This is called an ultra-diffuse galaxy because it has an extremely low density. As a result of these findings, a team of researchers are hunting for more dark-matter deficient galaxies to better understand the nature of dark matter and the formation of galaxies.

Hubble Space Telescope (HST)

Learn more: https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/13131

For more information about Hubble, visit:

http://hubblesite.org/

http://www.nasa.gov/hubble

http://www.spacetelescope.org/

Related link:

Dark Energy and Dark Matter: http://www.nasa.gov/subject/6891/dark-energy-and-dark-matter/

Image, Animation Credits: NASA, ESA, and P. van Dokkum (Yale University)/Text Credits: NASA/Yvette Smith.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

Zhurong's first weather report from Mars & Tianwen-1 orbiter delays move into science orbit

 

CNSA - Tianwen-1 (天問-1) Mission to Mars logo.

August 18, 2021

Zhurong instruments

According to the Tianwen-1 mission team, the Zhurong rover measured the atmospheric pressure on Utopia Planitia, Mars, to be around 800 Pascals. Around the Marian noon, the temperature was between minus 20 to minus 10 degrees Celsius. 

Zhurong rover & Tianwen-1

Tianwen-1 (天问一号) is China’s first Mars exploration mission with an orbiter, a lander and a rover named Zhurong (祝融).

Zhurong's first weather report from Mars

Due to the Mars solar conjunction, that is expected to impact communication from mid-September to late October 2021, the Tianwen-1 orbiter will remain in the relay communication orbit. For the moment, the Tianwen-1 orbiter will continue to relay communications from the Zhurong rover.

Tianwen-1 orbiter delays move into science orbit

Related articles:

Zhurong completes its designed mission
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2021/08/zhurong-completes-its-designed-mission.html

Tianwen-1 and Zhurong – a new phase of Mars exploration
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2021/08/tianwen-1-and-zhurong-new-phase-of-mars.html

Tianwen-1 Mission to Mars - Close-Up of Zhurong’s Parachute
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2021/07/tianwen-1-mission-to-mars-close-up-of.html

Tianwen-1 Mission to Mars - New images from Zhurong
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2021/07/tianwen-1-mission-to-mars-new-images.html

Zhurong landing on Mars & Sounds of Zhurong’s descend onto Mars
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2021/06/zhurong-landing-on-mars-sounds-of.html

Zhurong rover and Tianwen-1 lander on Mars
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2021/06/zhurong-rover-and-tianwen-1-lander-on.html

Tianwen-1 Lander and Zhurong Rover seen by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2021/06/tianwen-1-lander-and-zhurong-rover-seen.html

Zhurong is roving on Mars!
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2021/05/zhurong-is-roving-on-mars.html

Why the China Mars rover’s landing site has geologists excited & Zhurong’s first images from Mars
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2021/05/why-china-mars-rovers-landing-site-has.html

Tianwen-1 orbiter relays Zhurong rover’s data and images
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2021/05/tianwen-1-orbiter-relays-zhurong-rovers.html

Zhurong landed on Mars! The Tianwen-1 rover is on Utopia Planitia (Videos)
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2021/05/zhurong-landed-on-mars-tianwen-1-rover.html

China succeeds in landing its rover on Mars
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2021/05/china-succeeds-in-landing-its-rover-on.html

Related link:

For more information about China National Space Administration (CNSA), visit: http://www.cnsa.gov.cn/

Image, Animation, Videos, Text, Credits: China Central Television (CCTV)/China National Space Administration (CNSA)/SciNews/Orbiter.ch Aerospace/Roland Berga.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

Mapping the Universe's Earliest Structures with COSMOS-Webb

 

NASA / ESA / CSA-ASC - James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) patch.

Aug 18, 2021

When NASA's James Webb Space Telescope begins science operations in 2022, one of its first tasks will be an ambitious program to map the earliest structures in the universe. Called COSMOS-Webb, this wide and deep survey of half-a-million galaxies is the largest project Webb will undertake during its first year.

Image above: The COSMOS-Webb survey will map 0.6 square degrees of the sky—about the area of three full Moons—using the James Webb Space Telescope’s Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) instrument, while simultaneously mapping a smaller 0.2 square degrees with the Mid Infrared Instrument (MIRI). The jagged edges of the Hubble field’s outline are due to the separate images that make up the survey field. Image Credits: Jeyhan Kartaltepe (RIT); Caitlin Casey (UT Austin); and Anton Koekemoer (STScI) Graphic Design Credit: Alyssa Pagan (STScI).

With more than 200 hours of observing time, COSMOS-Webb will survey a large patch of the sky—0.6 square degrees—with the Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam). That's the size of three full moons. It will simultaneously map a smaller area with the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI).

It's a large chunk of sky, which is pretty unique to the COSMOS-Webb program. Most Webb programs are drilling very deep, like pencil-beam surveys that are studying tiny patches of sky," explained Caitlin Casey, an assistant professor at the University of Texas at Austin and co-leader of the COSMOS-Webb program. "Because we're covering such a large area, we can look at large-scale structures at the dawn of galaxy formation. We will also look for some of the rarest galaxies that existed early on, as well as map the large-scale dark matter distribution of galaxies out to very early times."

(Dark matter does not absorb, reflect, or emit light, so it cannot be seen directly. We know that dark matter exists because of the effect it has on objects that we can observe.)

COSMOS-Webb will study half-a-million galaxies with multi-band, high-resolution, near-infrared imaging, and an unprecedented 32,000 galaxies in the mid-infrared. With its rapid public release of the data, this survey will be a primary legacy dataset from Webb for scientists worldwide studying galaxies beyond the Milky Way.

Building on Hubble's Achievements

The COSMOS survey began in 2002 as a Hubble program to image a much larger patch of sky, about the area of 10 full moons. From there, the collaboration snowballed to include most of the world's major telescopes on Earth and in space. Now COSMOS is a multi-wavelength survey that covers the entire spectrum from the X-ray through the radio.

Image above: This sea of galaxies is the complete, original COSMOS field from the Hubble Space Telescope’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). The full mosaic is a composite of 575 separate ACS images, where each ACS image is about one-tenth the diameter of the full Moon. The jagged edges of the outline are due to the separate images that make up the survey field. Image Credits: Anton Koekemoer (STScI) and Nick Scoville (Caltech).

Because of its location on the sky, the COSMOS field is accessible to observatories around the world. Located on the celestial equator, it can be studied from both the northern and southern hemispheres, resulting in a rich and diverse treasury of data.

"COSMOS has become the survey that a lot of extragalactic scientists go to in order to conduct their analyses because the data products are so widely available, and because it covers such a wide area of the sky," said Rochester Institute of Technology's Jeyhan Kartaltepe, assistant professor of physics and co-leader of the COSMOS-Webb program. "COSMOS-Webb is the next installment of that, where we're using Webb to extend our coverage in the near- and mid-infrared part of the spectrum, and therefore pushing out our horizon, how far away we're able to see."    

The ambitious COSMOS-Webb program will build upon previous discoveries to make advances in three particular areas of study, including: revolutionizing our understanding of the Reionization Era; looking for early, fully evolved galaxies; and learning how dark matter evolved with galaxies' stellar content.

Goal 1: Revolutionizing Our Understanding of the Reionization Era

Soon after the big bang, the universe was completely dark. Stars and galaxies, which bathe the cosmos in light, had not yet formed. Instead, the universe consisted of a primordial soup of neutral hydrogen and helium atoms and invisible dark matter. This is called the cosmic dark ages.

After several hundred million years, the first stars and galaxies emerged and provided energy to reionize the early universe. This energy ripped apart the hydrogen atoms that filled the universe, giving them an electric charge and ending the cosmic dark ages. This new era where the universe was flooded with light is called the Reionization Era.

The first goal of COSMOS-Webb focuses on this epoch of reionization, which took place from 400,000 to 1 billion years after the big bang. Reionization likely happened in little pockets, not all at once. COSMOS-Webb will look for bubbles showing where the first pockets of the early universe were reionized. The team aims to map the scale of these reionization bubbles.

(Click on the image for enlarge)

Image above: More than 13 billion years ago, during the Era of Reionization, the universe was a very different place. The gas between galaxies was largely opaque to energetic light, making it difficult to observe young galaxies. What allowed the universe to become completely ionized, or transparent, eventually leading to the “clear” conditions detected in much of the universe today? The James Webb Space Telescope will peer deep into space to gather more information about objects that existed during the Era of Reionization to help us understand this major transition in the history of the universe. Image Credits: NASA, ESA, Joyce Kang (STScI).

"Hubble has done a great job of finding handfuls of these galaxies out to early times, but we need thousands more galaxies to understand the reionization process," explained Casey.

Scientists don't even know what kind of galaxies ushered in the Reionization Era, whether they're very massive or relatively low-mass systems. COSMOS-Webb will have a unique ability to find very massive, rare galaxies and see what their distribution is like in large-scale structures. So, are the galaxies responsible for reionization living in the equivalent of a cosmic metropolis, or are they mostly evenly distributed across space? Only a survey the size of COSMOS-Webb can help scientists to answer this.

Goal 2: Looking for Early, Fully Evolved Galaxies

COSMOS-Webb will search for very early, fully evolved galaxies that shut down star birth in the first 2 billion years after the big bang. Hubble has found a handful of these galaxies, which challenge existing models about how the universe formed. Scientists struggle to explain how these galaxies could have old stars and not be forming any new stars so early in the history of the universe.

With a large survey like COSMOS-Webb, the team will find many of these rare galaxies. They plan detailed studies of these galaxies to understand how they could have evolved so rapidly and turned off star formation so early.

Goal 3: Learning How Dark Matter Evolved with Galaxies' Stellar Content

COSMOS-Webb will give scientists insight into how dark matter in galaxies has evolved with the galaxies' stellar content over the universe's lifetime.

Galaxies are made of two types of matter: normal, luminous matter that we see in stars and other objects, and invisible dark matter, which is often more massive than the galaxy and can surround it in an extended halo. Those two kinds of matter are intertwined in galaxy formation and evolution. However, presently there's not much knowledge about how the dark matter mass in the halos of galaxies formed, and how that dark matter impacts the formation of the galaxies.

COSMOS-Webb will shed light on this process by allowing scientists to directly measure these dark matter halos through "weak lensing." The gravity from any type of mass—whether it's dark or luminous—can serve as a lens to "bend" the light we see from more distant galaxies. Weak lensing distorts the apparent shape of background galaxies, so when a halo is located in front of other galaxies, scientists can directly measure the mass of the halo's dark matter.

"For the first time, we'll be able to measure the relationship between the dark matter mass and the luminous mass of galaxies back to the first 2 billion years of cosmic time," said team member Anton Koekemoer, a research astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, who helped design the program's observing strategy and is in charge of constructing all the images from the program. "That's a crucial epoch for us to try to understand how the galaxies' mass was first put in place, and how that's driven by the dark matter halos. And that can then feed indirectly into our understanding of galaxy formation."

Quickly Sharing Data with the Community

COSMOS-Webb is a Treasury program, which by definition is designed to create datasets of lasting scientific value. Treasury Programs strive to solve multiple scientific problems with a single, coherent dataset. Data taken under a Treasury Program usually has no exclusive access period, enabling immediate analysis by other researchers.

"As a Treasury Program, you are committing to quickly releasing your data and your data products to the community," explained Kartaltepe. "We're going to produce this community resource and make it publicly available so that the rest of the community can use it in their scientific analyses."

Koekemoer added, "A Treasury Program commits to making publicly available all these science products so that anyone in the community, even at very small institutions, can have the same, equal access to the data products and then just do the science."

James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) instruments. Animation Credits: NASA/ESA

COSMOS-Webb is a Cycle 1 General Observers program. General Observers programs were competitively selected using a dual-anonymous review system, the same system that is used to allocate time on Hubble.

The James Webb Space Telescope will be the world's premier space science observatory when it launches in 2021. Webb will solve mysteries in our solar system, look beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probe the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and the Canadian Space Agency.

For more information about Webb, visit:  https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/webb/main/index.html

Images (mentioned), Animation (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Lynn Jenner/Space Telescope Science Institute/Ann Jenkins/Christine Pulliam.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

45th anniversary of the landing of the Luna-24 station

 

CCCP Lunar Program - Luna 24 Medals.

August 17, 2021

45 years ago, on August 18, 1976, the automatic interplanetary station "Luna-24" made a soft landing in the southeastern region of the Sea of ​​Crises of a natural satellite of the Earth. After checking the state of the onboard systems and determining the position of the station on the lunar surface, a soil intake device was switched on by a command from the Earth.

Luna 24 station

The Sea of ​​Crises is a 556 km2 basin, probably formed as a result of the fall of a massive cosmic body on the lunar surface 3-4 billion years ago. It is believed that its lava filling is one of the youngest on the Moon.

The automatic complex for the delivery of soil from the Moon "Luna-24" was created on the basis of the stations "Luna-16" and "Luna-20", but with some modifications. The main difference from its predecessors was the replacement of the soil intake device, due to which the soil entered and remained in the form of a column throughout the entire drilling process. In addition, the total drilling depth was 225 cm (the actual core length is 160 cm) - an order of magnitude deeper than the previous Luna-16 and Luna-20 vehicles.

After sampling the soil on August 19, the lander set off on a return rocket to the Earth and after 84 hours it separated to enter the dense layers of the atmosphere. The device landed in the estimated area 200 km from the city of Surgut. On this, his flight program was fully implemented. Now the mission's lander is in the museum of the S. A. Lavochkin Scientific and Production Association (part of the Roscosmos State Corporation).

The main result of the Luna-24 flight was the delivery of lunar soil samples to Earth. The delivered samples from regions of different structure completed a series of samples: the Sea of ​​Plenty ("Luna-16"), its continental framing ("Luna-20") and the geological section of the Sea of ​​Crises ("Luna-24").

In the soil column, 6 layers were distinguished by color, originating from the areas of distribution of dark basalt (volcanic) rocks. Soil analysis carried out on Earth showed the presence of about 60 elements with an increased content of aluminum and iron. In addition, it was assumed that the soil may contain water in a concentration of 0.1% by weight. Soil isotope analysis has made it possible to determine the age of lunar rocks from mountainous and marine areas and to better understand the geological history of the moon.

LROC view of Luna 24 on the Moon. Image Credit: NASA

Luna-24 was the last spacecraft of the Soviet program for exploring the Moon by interplanetary stations.

Related links:

ROSCOSMOS Press Release: https://www.roscosmos.ru/32213/

NPO Lavochkin: https://www.roscosmos.ru/tag/npo-lavochkina/

Roscosmos: https://www.roscosmos.ru/

Images, Text, Credits: ROSCOSMOS/Orbiter.ch Aerospace/Roland Berga.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch