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

Sun Aug 25 10:41:47 CDT 2024

Hi all,

  I know it has been a while…I start these so many times….many are already back in school while others still have some time…it all goes so fast…the time in Brazil was simply amazing…when I am asked what is your favorite presentation, I always say..the last one….my favorite country…is always the one I’m in…enjoying being home, especially in the summer in Florida…most people complain it is too hot but I love it…

Everything is moving along with the Space Program…Artemus II is in the VAB as NASA prepares for the second launch…now scheduled to launch September 2025, it has been delayed and it seems very optimistic it will keep that date…

It had been relatively quite here….Space X had been launching Rockets every week, sometimes twice a week, sometimes twice a day…it was awesome :-) but they had a mishap on 11 July which shut down the launches…they recently were cleared to launch so it should be back to an amazing opportunity to see launches…

 We have to stay positive and always be thankful… remembering to do our best, enjoy everything we do, believe in ourselves, and let those we care about most know (I always say this, we all need to take it to heart) …hugs and smiles… STAY SAFE, TAKE CARE, Love ya, Gabe  

https://spotthestation.nasa.gov
Spot The Station
spotthestation.nasa.gov

NASA rules out bringing astronauts home on Boeing’s Starliner <https://spaceflightnow.com/2024/08/24/nasa-rules-out-bringing-astronauts-home-on-boeings-starliner/>
Boeing’s Starliner Capsule is still at the ISS…for those of you following…the Starliner mission is a commercial crew capsule which was supposed to take astronauts to low earth orbit, similar to Space X Dragon…it had many issues and was delayed many years…it launched in 5 June for a 10 day mission to check the reliability of the capsule….I was at the launch, it was amazing…but software and thruster issues are preventing it from returning… NASA is to planning return astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who will remain on the ISS with a possible return in February 2025 on a Space X Dragon Capsule…the Starliner might attempt a return without the crew….everything is still under review but does create interesting issues…I don’t know a lot about how long it can stay in space but I have heard there are batteries which have to stay charged… possibly it may come back unmanned the end of September.

Boeing's Starliner in front of an aurora during thruster testing on June 15, 2024. The picture was taken from) a SpaceX Dragon docked at the International Space Station. (Image credit: NASA/Matthew Dominick

What happens if you throw a star at a black hole? Things get messy

(Daniel Price (2024))
"What happens when you throw a star at a black hole?" It's not a question we can physically answer here on Earth. 

Thankfully, actual black holes <https://www.space.com/15421-black-holes-facts-formation-discovery-sdcmp.html> and stars can't be smashed together in the lab! However, scientists can use advanced supercomputer modeling to simulate a black hole ripping apart and devouring a star in a so-called "tidal disruption event <https://www.space.com/black-holes-tidal-disruption-events-spaghettifying-stars>" or "TDE." Doing just that, a team of researchers led by Danel Price from Monash University has discovered that the answer to our opening question is "things get messy." 

"Black holes are not able to eat all that much," Price told Space.com. "So much like myself, after a bad curry, a lot doesn't go down the black hole, and most of it comes back in the form of violent outflows <https://www.space.com/13650-nasa-wise-space-telescope-black-hole-burps.html>. We observe this in tidal disruption events — strong outflows, relatively low and constant temperature material, and large emitting distances.”

If this isn't stomach-churning enough, much like a Saturday night misadventure involving alcohol and a dodgy bhuna, black holes wake up surrounded by the regurgitated remains of their meals in a structure called an "Eddington envelope."

"We found that during the disruption, the black hole gets smothered by material. This is new." Price explained. "It's an old idea that this should happen, but we were able to show how it happens by simulating the gas dynamics."

Related: Massive star's gory 'death by black hole' is the biggest and brightest event of its kind <https://www.space.com/black-hole-tde-at2023vto>

Polaris Dawn: Meet the crew of 1st commercial spacewalk
 <https://r.smartbrief.com/resp/sqrQCKojllDDcSvCCigydsCicNctPY?format=multipart>
 <https://r.smartbrief.com/resp/sqrQCKojllDDcSvCCigydsCicNctPY?format=multipart> <https://r.smartbrief.com/resp/sqrQCKojllDDcSvCCigydsCicNctPY?format=multipart>Strapped into the same Crew Dragon that launched Inspiration4, Jared Isaacman, the mission's commander, will ride a Falcon 9 rocket to orbit alongside fellow Polaris Dawn crewmember Scott "Kidd" Poteet, a retired United States Air Force (USAF) Lieutenant Colonel serving as mission pilot, with Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon, both Lead Space Operations Engineers at SpaceX - and the first employees to launch to space on one of the company's rockets - serving as mission specialists. Full Story: Space (8/21) 
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 <https://r.smartbrief.com/resp/sqrQCKojllDDcSvCCigydsCicNctPY?format=multipart>How NASA's Curiosity rover changed Mars landings forever

(NASA/JPL-Caltech)

 <https://r.smartbrief.com/resp/sqrQCKojllDDcSvCCigydsCicNctPY?format=multipart>How NASA's Curiosity rover changed Mars landings forever
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(NASA/JPL-Caltech)

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 <https://r.smartbrief.com/resp/sqrQCKojllDDcSvCCigydsCicNctPY?format=multipart>Imagine trying to land an SUV-sized rover on another world. That's definitely enough of a challenge on its own, but picture doing so while the rover hangs perilously beneath a hovering sky crane, connected by just a handful of clothesline-like nylon cables.Full Story: Space (8/22)  
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 <https://r.smartbrief.com/resp/sqrQCKojllDDcSvCCigydsCicNctPY?format=multipart>Catastrophic collision between Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies may not happen after all, new study hints

Astronomers have long predicted that a collision between our galaxy and nearby Andromeda could be inevitable, but new calculations suggest this may be an over exaggeration.  The Milky Way has a 50-50 chance of colliding with a nearby galaxy in the next 10 billion years, a new study finds.
Yet while those odds appear daunting, the new finding suggests the catastrophic collision is far less likely than previously thought.

Located roughly 2.5 million light-years away, the Andromeda (M31) galaxy is approaching our Milky Way at a speed of 68 miles per second (110 kilometers per second). Because of this astronomers have long predicted that the two galaxies will inevitably become locked in a fatal dance sometime in the next several billion years — spiraling into each other and merging to form a new galaxy.

'Final parsec problem' that makes supermassive black holes impossible to explain could finally have a solution

 <https://r.smartbrief.com/resp/sqrQCKojllDDcSvCCigydsCicNctPY?format=multipart>Catastrophic collision between Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies may not happen after all, new study hints
 <https://r.smartbrief.com/resp/sqeiCKojllDDbKsjCigydsBWcNtfGy?format=multipart> <https://r.smartbrief.com/resp/sqeiCKojllDDbKsjCigydsBWcNtfGy?format=multipart>Astronomers have long predicted that a collision between our galaxy and nearby Andromeda could be inevitable, but new calculations suggest this may be an over exaggeration.   <https://r.smartbrief.com/resp/sqrQCKojllDDcSvCCigydsCicNctPY?format=multipart>The  <https://r.smartbrief.com/resp/sqrQCKojllDDcSvCCigydsCicNctPY?format=multipart>Milky Way <https://www.livescience.com/tag/milky-way> has a 50-50 chance of colliding with a nearby galaxy in the next 10 billion years, a new study finds.
Yet while those odds appear daunting, the new finding suggests the catastrophic collision is far less likely than previously thought.

Located roughly 2.5 million light-years away, the Andromeda (M31) galaxy is approaching our Milky Way <https://www.livescience.com/milky-way.html> at a speed of 68 miles per second (110 kilometers per second). Because of this astronomers have long predicted that the two galaxies will inevitably become locked in a fatal dance sometime in the next several billion years — spiraling into each other and merging to form a new galaxy.

'Final parsec problem' that makes supermassive black holes impossible to explain could finally have a solution

   <https://r.smartbrief.com/resp/sqrQCKojllDDcSwACigydsCicNxaRv>A new study helps solve the "final parsec problem" that has made supermassive black hole formation impossible to explain, pointing to a strange form of dark matter as the key. Scientists have been modeling how supermassive black holes form when two smaller black holes merge. But in their simulations, most pairs of massive black holes get stuck orbiting each other indefinitely. Now, scientists may have finally found a solution to this "final parsec problem" — and it may also help uncover the identity of one of the universe's most mysterious components.
 <https://r.smartbrief.com/resp/sqrQCKojllDDcSvCCigydsCicNctPY?format=multipart>black holes <https://www.livescience.com/space/astronomy/black-holes> form when two smaller black holes merge. But in their simulations, most pairs of massive black holes get stuck orbiting each other indefinitely. Now, scientists may have finally found a solution to this "final parsec problem" — and it may also help uncover the identity of one of the universe's most mysterious components.
Lurking at the heart of most ordinary galaxies is a supermassive black hole (SMBH), like the one imaged by the Event Horizon Telescope <https://www.livescience.com/65196-black-hole-event-horizon-image.html> collaboration in the galaxy M87. That one is about 6.5 billion times the mass of the sun, but it wasn't always so big. Astronomers think SMBHs start out much smaller and grow into behemoths through repeated mergers with other black holes.

Evidence for those colliding giants came in 2023, when scientists with the International Pulsar Timing Array collaboration announced they had found a background "hum" of gravitational waves <https://www.livescience.com/space/black-holes/the-universe-is-rippling-with-a-faint-gravitational-wave-background-created-by-colliding-black-holes-huge-international-study-suggests> — ripples in the fabric of space-time released during mergers of extremely massive objects. Astronomers think this background is produced by distant pairs of massive black holes as they send space "ringing" with the gravitational echo of their faraway collisions.

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