In less than an hour, NASA is set to launch Psyche, a mission to an asteroid with lots and lots of bling, arrival date in 2029.
Set to launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Psyche will travel across the solar system to an asteroid of the same name, which has unusually high metal content. Scientists hope understand why this is so, and to help answer fundamental questions about Earth’s own metal core and the formation of our solar system.
The Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) is the first U.S. spacecraft to collect a sample from an asteroid. OSIRIS-REx traveled to near-Earth asteroid Bennu and is bringing a small sample to Earth for study…
The mission, developed by scientists at the University of Arizona, will give us more information about how the early solar system formed and about how life began. It will also help us better understand asteroids that could impact Earth in the future.
The plan is for the return capsule to land at the Defense Department’s Utah Test and Training Range. If successful, humanity will have the opportunity to study pristine asteroid material.
Interested in videos, activities, and other information about the mission? Here you go:
After the autumnal equinox, days become shorter than nights as the Sun continues to rise later and nightfall arrives earlier. This ends with the winter solstice, after which days start to grow longer once again.
The word “equinox” comes from Latin aequus, meaning “equal,” and nox, ”night.” On the equinox, day and night are roughly equal in length.
NASA just released a report on the current status of research on unidentified anomalous phenomena, more commonly referred to by Area 51 enthusiasts as UFOs.
NASA’s UFO study team released its long-awaited first report today, and while its experts found no signs of extraterrestrial origins for reported sightings, the space agency is appointing a new chief to study the phenomenon.
The takeaway? Sorry, folks, it’s not aliens.
But.
When it comes to mysteries like these, we still have a lot more to learn.
This week, you have a once-in-a-430 year chance to see a new comet. Comet Nishimura was just discovered last month, and will be gone by the end of the week.
Scientists determined that this comet takes about 430 years to orbit the sun.
So the last time it was visible from Earth was in the late 1500s — before Galileo Galilei pointed his telescope to the sky.
The last time this comet came through these parts was just a few years before Galileo invented his telescope. The comet was discovered just last month, by an amateur astronomer named Hideo Nishimura.
I should have posted this a few days ago, because the comet is now passing us. If you’re interested, the comet is visible this week with binoculars or a telescope, but only with effort and only from the northern hemisphere. Try looking toward the east, low on the horizon, before sunrise, and look for the constellation Leo.
I don’t have good binoculars or a telescope, but that’s fine. It’s enough for me to know that this comet, and so many other fascinating objects, are still out there.
Today’s Word of the Day (in my world, at least) is “noctilucent.”
The term is typically applied to a specific type of cloud, “a luminous thin usually colored cloud seen especially at twilight at a height of about 50 miles (80 kilometers).” It’s the luminous aspect that makes these clouds particularly dramatic.
The name noctilucent is derived from the Latin words “nocto” and “lucent” which translates to “night” and “shining” respectively, according to Merriam Webster.
These clouds are seasonal, and in the Northern hemisphere that season is now.
The season for noctilucent clouds at northerly latitudes is now. People at high latitudes report seeing noctilucent clouds. This happens every year, from about May through August in the Northern Hemisphere, and from November through February in the Southern Hemisphere.
I chose this word because its Latin origins are interesting to unpack, it refers to a beautiful and intriguing phenomenon, and it’s fun to say.
The world is a marvelous, mysterious and magical place. Science (and science fiction!) just makes it that much better.
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Photo of noctilucent clouds taken in Laboe, Germany, on June 21, 2019. Image by Matthias Süßen/ Wikipedia/ CC BY-SA 4.0.
Happy summer solstice, everyone! (Fine, it’s called the June Solstice, but we all know what that means here in the Northern Hemisphere, don’t we? Summer!)
After decades of searching for extraterrestrial intelligence, humanity finally picked up a message from outer space today. Three of Earth’s top radio astronomy observatories detected the signal coming from somewhere near Mars. Its content has yet to be decoded.
Okay, okay, the message is not actually from aliens. Humans arranged for it to be transmitted to simulate receiving a signal from extraterrestrials. Consider it a dress rehearsal — a chance for us all to see how we’d respond if aliens really did transmit a message to Earth.
For more background on the project and the coded message, head to A Sign in Space.
Also, who knew that SETI has an artist in residence (and are we sure she isn’t an alien?)
Today’s post is brought to you by fiber optic cable, the innovation currently being inserted into my lawn.
In a discussion about grass vs. clover lawns today, I mentioned that our neighborhood is being wired for fiber internet. For weeks, we’ve had orange-vested dudes (and they’re all dudes) roaming in packs, hauling giant spools of multi-colored cables, digging up driveways and yards (and reseeding with industrial-strength grass seed), and generally doing their best to drag our 1990s development into the modern era.
Now we’ve got cable ends sticking up everywhere, a new panel in the grass looking like a secret bunker entrance, and neighbors wondering whether all this fuss is worth it.
It also led to the question, how do fiber optics work, exactly?
Answer: I have a layman’s understanding of the technology (data becomes light and zoom zooms down a shiny glass tube) but yeah, better look that up:)
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Here’s a quick backgrounder about fiber optics from the folks who invented it.
Corning scientists Dr. Robert Maurer, Dr. Peter Schultz, and Dr. Donald Keck invented the first low-loss optical fiber in 1970. Inspired by their belief that information could be transmitted through light, Drs. Maurer, Schultz, and Keck spent four years experimenting with different properties of glass until they succeeded, creating the first low-loss optical fiber for telecommunications use.
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How does it work?
Encoded into a pattern of light waves, information travels through each optical fiber by a process of internal reflection. The waves move through the fiber from a given source to a destination such as a cable box where it is then decoded.
(So is it a little like a super sophisticated version of an Aldis signal lamp? I guess that’s one way to think about it.)
For more (and more scientific) details, check out this excellent video:
And just for fun, how do they connect North America to Africa to Asia, and everywhere else?
J.R. Johnson 
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