[Spacetalk] https://www.nasa.gov/index.html; https://spaceflightnow.com

Gabe Gabrielle gabe at educatemotivate.com
Sat Sep 21 06:12:59 CDT 2019


Hi all,

 I’m in Brazil…my 4th international trip in 6 weeks…it has been surreal… like some kind of time warp…not sure where I am, day of the week, or even month…it has been amazing, so much fun…the interface with the kids is so very special…I’ve been going to more universities and the response has been excellent…

 I want thank every one who took the time to send messages regarding my brother, Rich, and 9/11. Each is so special…I read them very carefully because they are special and I know they come from your heart…I also appreciated those who wrote to tell me what you were doing at the time of the attacks…

Check out the subject links for all the latest “space news”...we have to remember to always do our best, enjoy everything we do, believe in ourselves, and let those we care about most know…hugs & smiles…:-) :-) love ya, Gabe

Don't forget the name the rover contest, send your name to mars, (SEND YOUR NAME TO MARS END THIS MONTH, a great way to get kids involved) and the live feed from JPL…

https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-invites-students-to-name-next-mars-rover  
https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/participate/name-the-rover/ <https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/participate/name-the-rover/> 
 Sign up for and invite everyone you know to go to Mars… https://go.nasa.gov/Mars2020Pass <https://go.nasa.gov/Mars2020Pass>    

This is super cool, watch the rover being assemble at the Jet propulsion Lab in California...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnuLxzocuhY <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnuLxzocuhY> 

NASA Television to Broadcast Next Space Station Crew Launch, Docking

Their arrival will increase the orbiting laboratory’s population to nine people until Oct. 3, when Hague and Ovchinin, who are completing a mission of more than 200 days, will return to Earth with Almansoori on the Soyuz MS-12 spacecraft. Meir and Skripochka will spend more than six months on the station.

Coverage of launch and docking activities is as follows (all times EDT):
9 a.m. – Soyuz MS-15 launch coverage
3 p.m. – Docking coverage
5 p.m. – Hatch opening and welcome coverage
The crew will continue work on hundreds of experiments <http://www.twitter.com/ISS_Research> in biology, biotechnology, physical science and Earth science aboard humanity’s only permanently occupied microgravity laboratory.
Check out the full NASA TV schedule, and video streaming information, at: http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv <http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv>

'Alien Megastructure' Star Not Alone. More Mysteriously Dimming Objects Found.
This artist's illustration depicts a hypothetical dust ring orbiting KIC 8462852, also known as Boyajian's Star or Tabby's Star.(Image: © NASA/JPL-Caltech)

A mysterious star whose repeated bouts of darkening might be due to "alien megastructures," according to some researchers' conjectures, may now have more than a dozen counterparts that display similarly mystifying behavior, a new study finds. Further research into all of these stars might help solve the puzzle of their bewildering flickering, the study's author said. In 2015, scientists noticed unusual fluctuations <https://www.space.com/30832-kepler-telescope-alien-megastructure.html> in the light from a star named KIC 8462852. This otherwise-normal F-type star, which is slightly larger and hotter than Earth's sun, sits about 1,480 light-years from Earth, in the constellation Cygnus.


Long-Standing Problem of 'Golden Ratio' and Other Irrational Numbers Solved with 'Magical Simplicity’
The golden ratio is one of the most famous irrational numbers; it goes on forever and can't be expressed accurately without infinite space.(Image: © Shutterstock)

Most people rarely deal with irrational numbers—it would be, well, irrational, as they run on forever, and representing them accurately requires an infinite amount of space. But irrational constants such as  π and √2—numbers that cannot be reduced to a simple fraction—frequently crop up in science and engineering. These unwieldy numbers have plagued mathematicians since the ancient Greeks; indeed, legend has it that Hippasus was drowned <https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/hippasus-metapontum> for suggesting irrationals existed. Now, though, anearly 80-year-old quandary about how well they can be approximated has been solved. In 1941 physicist Richard Duffin and mathematician Albert Schaeffer proposed a simple rule to answer these questions. Consider a quest to approximate various irrational numbers. First, decide on how close the approximation should be for fractions of a particular denominator. (Remember, the “numerator” refers to the top of a fraction and the “denominator” the bottom. Here, all the fractions are fully simplified—so, for example, 2/4 does not count as having the denominator 4 because it simplifies to 1/2.) You might decide that simplified fractions of the form n/2 can approximate any irrational number whose true value falls within 1/10 of them—giving the approximation an “error” of 1/10. Fractions that look like n/10 are closer together on the number line than those with denominator 2, so you might limit the error in that case to only 1/100—those fractions can approximate anything within 1/100th of them. 


Where Do Black Holes Lead?
Space Mysteries: If you travel through a black hole, where do you go? 

Where does a black hole go?(Image: © All About Space magazine)
So there you are, about to leap into a black hole <https://www.space.com/15421-black-holes-facts-formation-discovery-sdcmp.html>. What could possibly await should — against all odds — you somehow survive? Where would you end up and what tantalising tales would you be able to regale if you managed to clamber your way back? The simple answer to all of these questions is, as Professor Richard Massey explains, "Who knows?" As a Royal Society research fellow at the Institute for Computational Cosmology at Durham University, Massey is fully aware that the mysteries of black holes run deep. "Falling through an event horizon is literally passing beyond the veil — once someone falls past it, nobody could ever send a message back," he said. "They'd be ripped to pieces by the enormous gravity, so I doubt anyone falling through would get anywhere.” If that sounds like a disappointing — and painful — answer, then it is to be expected. Ever since Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity <https://www.space.com/17661-theory-general-relativity.html> was considered to have predicted black holes by linking space-time with the action of gravity, it has been known that black holes result from the death of a massive star leaving behind a small, dense remnant core. Assuming this core has more than roughly three-times the mass of the sun <https://www.space.com/17001-how-big-is-the-sun-size-of-the-sun.html>, gravity would overwhelm to such a degree that it would fall in on itself into a single point, or singularity, understood to be the black hole's infinitely dense core. 

What about a wormhole?


Or is it? Over the years scientists have looked into the possibility that black holes could be wormholes <https://www.space.com/20881-wormholes.html> to other galaxies. They may even be, as some have suggested, a path to another universe. 

Such an idea has been floating around for some time: Einstein <https://www.space.com/15524-albert-einstein.html> teamed up with Nathan Rosen to theorise bridges that connect two different points in space-time in 1935. But it gained some fresh ground in the 1980s when physicist Kip Thorne — one of the world's leading experts on the astrophysical implications of Einstein's general theory of relativity — raised a discussion about whether objects could physically travel through them.

"Reading Kip Thorne's popular book about wormholes is what first got me excited about physics as a child," Massey said. But it doesn't seem likely that wormholes exist.

Indeed, Thorne, who lent his expert advice to the production team for the Hollywood movie Interstellar, wrote: "We see no objects in our universe that could become wormholes as they age," in his book "The Science of Interstellar" (W.W. Norton and Company, 2014). Thorne told Space.com that journeys through these theoretical tunnels would most likely remain science fiction, and there is certainly no firm evidence that a black hole could allow for such a passage. 




Artist's concept of a wormhole. If wormholes exist, they might lead to another universe. But, there's no evidence that wormholes are real or that a black hole would act like one. 
(Image credit: Shutterstock)
But, the problem is that we can't get up close to see for ourselves. Why, we can't even take photographs of anything that takes place inside a black hole — if light cannot escape their immense gravity <https://www.space.com/classical-gravity.html>, then nothing can be snapped by a camera. As it stands, theory suggests that anything which goes beyond the event horizon is simply added to the black hole and, what's more, because time distorts close to this boundary, this will appear to take place incredibly slowly, so answers won't be quickly forthcoming.

"I think the standard story is that they lead to the end of time," said Douglas Finkbeiner, professor of astronomy and physics at Harvard University. "An observer far away will not see their astronaut friend fall into the black hole. They'll just get redder and fainter as they approach the event horizon [as a result of gravitational red shift]. But the friend falls right in, to a place beyond 'forever.' Whatever that means."


Odds of Life on Newfound Earth-Size Planet '100 Percent,' Astronomer Says
This artist's conception shows the inner four planets of the Gliese 581 system and their host star, a red dwarf only 20 light-years from Earth. The large planet in the foreground is Gliese 581g, whose discovery was announced in September 2010. The planet is in the middle of the star's habitable zone and is only three to four times as massive as Earth.(Image: © Lynette Cook)

An Earth-size planet has been spotted orbiting a nearby star at a distance that would makes it not too hot and not too cold — comfortable enough for life to exist, researchers announced today (Sept. 29). If confirmed, the exoplanet, named Gliese 581g,  would be the first Earth-like world found residing in a star's habitable zone a region where a planet's temperature could sustain liquid water on its surface.  And the planet's discoverers are optimistic about the prospects for finding life there.


More information about the Spacetalk mailing list