Astronomical News

Kyoto University and Sumitomo Forestry unveil world's first wooden satellite​



LignoSat, the world's first wooden satellite, unveiled at Kyoto University in Kyoto on Tuesday

LignoSat, the world's first wooden satellite, unveiled at Kyoto University in Kyoto on Tuesday






Kyoto University and Sumitomo Forestry announced Tuesday the completion of LignoSat, the world's first wooden artificial satellite.

LignoSat will launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to the International Space Station in September, with deployment from the Japanese Experiment Module Kibo slated for approximately one month later.

With development beginning in April 2020, LignoSat is crafted from magnolia wood, selected for its strength and workability after space exposure tests were conducted on cherry, birch and magnolia wood chips. The wood was sourced from Sumitomo Forestry’s company forest.

The 10-cubic-centimeter probe was assembled using a traditional Japanese technique that doesn't require any screws or glue and is equipped with external solar panels. Ground tests confirmed that the wood would not adversely affect astronauts' health and safety, as well as precision equipment and optical components.

The LignoSat project aims to combat space clutter and promote more environmentally friendly space activity. Current international rules mandate that satellites reenter the atmosphere after their missions to avoid them becoming space debris. Conventional satellites pose air pollution risks due to metal particles generated during reentry.

Wooden satellites, which burn up upon reentry, are expected to mitigate this effect.

“Expanding the potential of wood as a sustainable resource is significant," said Kyoto University professor and astronaut Takao Doi. "We aim to build human habitats using wood in space, such as on the moon and Mars, in the future.”

In the six months post-launch, data on wood expansion and contraction, internal temperature, geomagnetism and electronic equipment performance will be collected. This data, received by Kyoto University's communications station, will inform the development of a second satellite, LignoSat-2.

Sumitomo Forestry will also study the results to understand how wood breaks down at the nano-level, with aims to develop technology to prevent wood from degrading and to create new uses for wood, including highly durable materials for building exteriors.

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2024/05/29/japan/science-health/world-first-wooden-satellite/
 
Floyd said:

Kyoto University and Sumitomo Forestry unveil world's first wooden satellite​



LignoSat, the world's first wooden satellite, unveiled at Kyoto University in Kyoto on Tuesday's first wooden satellite, unveiled at Kyoto University in Kyoto on Tuesday
LignoSat, the world's first wooden satellite, unveiled at Kyoto University in Kyoto on Tuesday






Kyoto University and Sumitomo Forestry announced Tuesday the completion of LignoSat, the world's first wooden artificial satellite.

LignoSat will launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to the International Space Station in September, with deployment from the Japanese Experiment Module Kibo slated for approximately one month later.

With development beginning in April 2020, LignoSat is crafted from magnolia wood, selected for its strength and workability after space exposure tests were conducted on cherry, birch and magnolia wood chips. The wood was sourced from Sumitomo Forestry’s company forest.

The 10-cubic-centimeter probe was assembled using a traditional Japanese technique that doesn't require any screws or glue and is equipped with external solar panels. Ground tests confirmed that the wood would not adversely affect astronauts' health and safety, as well as precision equipment and optical components.

The LignoSat project aims to combat space clutter and promote more environmentally friendly space activity. Current international rules mandate that satellites reenter the atmosphere after their missions to avoid them becoming space debris. Conventional satellites pose air pollution risks due to metal particles generated during reentry.

Wooden satellites, which burn up upon reentry, are expected to mitigate this effect.

“Expanding the potential of wood as a sustainable resource is significant," said Kyoto University professor and astronaut Takao Doi. "We aim to build human habitats using wood in space, such as on the moon and Mars, in the future.”

In the six months post-launch, data on wood expansion and contraction, internal temperature, geomagnetism and electronic equipment performance will be collected. This data, received by Kyoto University's communications station, will inform the development of a second satellite, LignoSat-2.

Sumitomo Forestry will also study the results to understand how wood breaks down at the nano-level, with aims to develop technology to prevent wood from degrading and to create new uses for wood, including highly durable materials for building exteriors.

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2024/05/29/japan/science-health/world-first-wooden-satellite/
Click to expand...
With the name of 'LignoSat,' I thought the main wood that they may have been using would be 'Lignum Vitae!'
 
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The James Webb Space Telescope has smashed its own record for detecting the most distant known galaxy.
Called JADES-GS-z14-0, the collection of stars was spied as it was a mere 290 million years after the Big Bang.
Put another way - if the Universe is 13.8 billion years old, it means we're observing the galaxy when the cosmos was only 2% of its current age.
Webb used its huge 6.5m-wide primary mirror and sensitive infrared instruments to make the discovery.
The telescope's previous record holder was a galaxy seen at 325 million years after the Big Bang.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjeenyw8rd2o

ea89c120-1f17-11ef-a13a-0b8c563da930.jpg
 
Tunn11 said:
The James Webb Space Telescope has smashed its own record for detecting the most distant known galaxy.
Called JADES-GS-z14-0, the collection of stars was spied as it was a mere 290 million years after the Big Bang.
Put another way - if the Universe is 13.8 billion years old, it means we're observing the galaxy when the cosmos was only 2% of its current age.
Webb used its huge 6.5m-wide primary mirror and sensitive infrared instruments to make the discovery.
The telescope's previous record holder was a galaxy seen at 325 million years after the Big Bang.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjeenyw8rd2o

View attachment 77499
Click to expand...
The age of the Universe. . . h'mm, I always wondered how they managed to work that one out? Is it really just best guess?
https://www.space.com/24054-how-old-is-the-universe.html
 
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Floyd said:

Kyoto University and Sumitomo Forestry unveil world's first wooden satellite​



LignoSat, the world's first wooden satellite, unveiled at Kyoto University in Kyoto on Tuesday's first wooden satellite, unveiled at Kyoto University in Kyoto on Tuesday

LignoSat, the world's first wooden satellite, unveiled at Kyoto University in Kyoto on Tuesday






Kyoto University and Sumitomo Forestry announced Tuesday the completion of LignoSat, the world's first wooden artificial satellite.

LignoSat will launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to the International Space Station in September, with deployment from the Japanese Experiment Module Kibo slated for approximately one month later.

With development beginning in April 2020, LignoSat is crafted from magnolia wood, selected for its strength and workability after space exposure tests were conducted on cherry, birch and magnolia wood chips. The wood was sourced from Sumitomo Forestry’s company forest.

The 10-cubic-centimeter probe was assembled using a traditional Japanese technique that doesn't require any screws or glue and is equipped with external solar panels. Ground tests confirmed that the wood would not adversely affect astronauts' health and safety, as well as precision equipment and optical components.

The LignoSat project aims to combat space clutter and promote more environmentally friendly space activity. Current international rules mandate that satellites reenter the atmosphere after their missions to avoid them becoming space debris. Conventional satellites pose air pollution risks due to metal particles generated during reentry.

Wooden satellites, which burn up upon reentry, are expected to mitigate this effect.

“Expanding the potential of wood as a sustainable resource is significant," said Kyoto University professor and astronaut Takao Doi. "We aim to build human habitats using wood in space, such as on the moon and Mars, in the future.”

In the six months post-launch, data on wood expansion and contraction, internal temperature, geomagnetism and electronic equipment performance will be collected. This data, received by Kyoto University's communications station, will inform the development of a second satellite, LignoSat-2.

Sumitomo Forestry will also study the results to understand how wood breaks down at the nano-level, with aims to develop technology to prevent wood from degrading and to create new uses for wood, including highly durable materials for building exteriors.

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2024/05/29/japan/science-health/world-first-wooden-satellite/
Click to expand...

A wooden one. Yeeeah ok.
 
It has not happened in 228 years, the earliest Summer Solstice is on June 20th, UK at 9:50 PM and U.S. at 4:50 PM.

Stonehenge will start their celebration on June 20 at 7 PM.

A controlled crowd of 8,000 will be let in, so get your tickets early.

There be lots of police so I guess no one naked. ?
 
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charliebrown said:
If things don’t go your way this coming Monday, it may be that six of our planets are in alignment causing strange things ?
Click to expand...
Elaborate?
*** Just had a look at this online ~ via MS 'co-pilot,' and it states (quote). . . while this alignment won’t cause any strange events, it’s a fantastic opportunity to appreciate the dance of our neighbouring planets in the night sky!
 
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Sid said:
The age of the Universe. . . h'mm, I always wondered how they managed to work that one out? Is it really just best guess?
https://www.space.com/24054-how-old-is-the-universe.html
Click to expand...
No; far from it. The age of the universe has been determined using a range of methods, using observations that go back to John Goodricke, a deaf astronomer who died at the age of 21 in York. It is a fascinating story, and full of twists and turns.

However there are two main methods to determine the age of the universe; both use the observed rate of expansion of the universe (the Hubble Constant), but using different data; these two methods show a range of dates for the age, and those dates used to overlap due to uncertainties in the data, so we could comfortably say that the probable age of the universe was somewhere in between. All the astronomers expected that these dates would converge as we refined our data and made better observations. That was the expectation up until about 2009.

Instead, the values for the Hubble Constant shown by the two methods have diverged even more strongly, and now show completely different ranges. This discrepancy is called the Hubble Tension. and no-one knows how to solve it (yet).

main-qimg-9e6b25fc46a0a92ef8c368f53014f799-pjlq

The orange values are the ones derived from Delta Cepheid observations, going back to John Goodricke in 1786; the red values are derived from the red-shift of the Cosmic Microwave Backround Radiation, a constant low-level static that used to disrupt our television screens back in the early 1960s before they switched to UHF transmissions.

Instead of merging together, the estimates for the age of the universe have diverged by several hundred million years. They have, however, both become more accurate in themselves. Solving the Hubble Tension will no doubt result in some interesting conclusions about the events in the early universe; it is one of the most unusual mysteries in current cosmology, and is therefore important.
 
eburacum said:
No; far from it. The age of the universe has been determined using a range of methods, using observations that go back to John Goodricke, a deaf astronomer who died at the age of 21 in York. It is a fascinating story, and full of twists and turns.

However there are two main methods to determine the age of the universe; both use the observed rate of expansion of the universe (the Hubble Constant), but using different data; these two methods show a range of dates for the age, and those dates used to overlap due to uncertainties in the data, so we could comfortably say that the probable age of the universe was somewhere in between. All the astronomers expected that these dates would converge as we refined our data and made better observations. That was the expectation up until about 2009.

Instead, the values for the Hubble Constant shown by the two methods have diverged even more strongly, and now show completely different ranges. This discrepancy is called the Hubble Tension. and no-one knows how to solve it (yet).

main-qimg-9e6b25fc46a0a92ef8c368f53014f799-pjlq

The orange values are the ones derived from Delta Cepheid observations, going back to John Goodricke in 1786; the red values are derived from the red-shift of the Cosmic Microwave Backround Radiation, a constant low-level static that used to disrupt our television screens back in the early 1960s before they switched to UHF transmissions.

Instead of merging together, the estimates for the age of the universe have diverged by several hundred million years. They have, however, both become more accurate in themselves. Solving the Hubble Tension will no doubt result in some interesting conclusions about the events in the early universe; it is one of the most unusual mysteries in current cosmology, and is therefore important.
Click to expand...
Found this well illustrated map. . . makes me wonder what might sit beyond the visible 'lit' objects when it comes to the point of not being able to travel onwards, or/objects/images can no longer be detected ~ out into the unknowns of dark space - if that's not a daft question?
1717494300391.jpeg
 
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One weird thing about the most distant objects we can currently see is that we see them as they existed about 13 billion years ago, ie, a few hundred million years after the Big Bang. There is a kind of gap between the Cosmic Microwave Background and the formation of stars and galaxies, which should be full of hot gases (mostly hydrogen and helium) falling into random denser locations to form stars. These stars should then collect together to form galaxies; the whole process should take about a billion years. Instead we are seeing galaxies forming very early, too quickly to conform with current theories.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjeenyw8rd2o
Earliest and most distant galaxy ever observed
The James Webb Space Telescope has smashed its own record for detecting the most distant known galaxy.
Called JADES-GS-z14-0, the collection of stars was spied as it was a mere 290 million years after the Big Bang.
Put another way - if the Universe is 13.8 billion years old, it means we're observing the galaxy when the cosmos was only 2% of its current age.
Webb used its huge 6.5m-wide primary mirror and sensitive infrared instruments to make the discovery.
The telescope's previous record holder was a galaxy seen at 325 million years after the Big Bang.
Click to expand...
I suspect that these galaxies - perhaps all galaxies - formed around primordial black holes that formed during the earliest and densest phases of the Big Bang - but this is going to be tricky to prove.
 
Another weird thing about these distant galaxies is that we can never reach them from Earth; they are being carried away from us at many times the speed of light, and even if we had a spacecraft that could travel at light speed we would never reach there.
 
Interesting piece about the confirmation of caves on the Moon, in spite of this howler on the BBC page: The "mare" or sea was probably once an ocean ...no, I don't think so.

Cave discovered on Moon could be home for humans

Scientists have for the first time discovered a cave on the Moon.

At least 100m deep, it could be an ideal place for humans to build a permanent base, they say.

It is just one in probably hundreds of caves hidden in an “underground, undiscovered world”, according to the researchers.

Countries are racing to establish a permanent human presence on the Moon, but they will need to protect astronauts from radiation, extreme temperatures, and space weather.

Helen Sharman, the first British astronaut, told BBC News that the newly-discovered cave looked like a good place for a base, and suggested humans could potentially be living in lunar pits in 20-30 years.

But, she said, this cave is so deep that astronauts might need to abseil in and use “jet packs or a lift” to get out.

Lorenzo Bruzzone and Leonardo Carrer at the University of Trento in Italy found the cave by using radar to penetrate the opening of a pit on a rocky plain called the Mare Tranquillitatis.
 
SimonBurchell said:
Interesting piece about the confirmation of caves on the Moon, in spite of this howler on the BBC page: The "mare" or sea was probably once an ocean ...no, I don't think so.

Cave discovered on Moon could be home for humans

Scientists have for the first time discovered a cave on the Moon.

At least 100m deep, it could be an ideal place for humans to build a permanent base, they say.

It is just one in probably hundreds of caves hidden in an “underground, undiscovered world”, according to the researchers.

Countries are racing to establish a permanent human presence on the Moon, but they will need to protect astronauts from radiation, extreme temperatures, and space weather.

Helen Sharman, the first British astronaut, told BBC News that the newly-discovered cave looked like a good place for a base, and suggested humans could potentially be living in lunar pits in 20-30 years.

But, she said, this cave is so deep that astronauts might need to abseil in and use “jet packs or a lift” to get out.

Lorenzo Bruzzone and Leonardo Carrer at the University of Trento in Italy found the cave by using radar to penetrate the opening of a pit on a rocky plain called the Mare Tranquillitatis.
Click to expand...
Then I wish them, (Astronauts), the best of luck ~ as it sound like they're gonna need it!
 

Scientists set sights on asteroid larger than Eiffel Tower as it skims past Earth​

Ramses mission to study 99942 Apophis when it passes closer to Earth than GPS and TV satellites in 2029

Nicola DavisScience correspondent
Tue 16 Jul 2024 11.00 BST
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In 2029 an asteroid larger than the Eiffel Tower will skim past Earth in an event that until recently scientists had feared could foreshadow a catastrophic collision.
Now researchers hope to scrutinise 99942 Apophis as it makes its close encounter in an effort to bolster our defences against other space rocks.

The mission will also shed light on the composition and internal structure of Apophis, as well as its orbit, and explore how the asteroid changes as it passes within 20,000 miles (32,000km) of Earth – about one-tenth of the distance to the moon – on Friday 13 April 2029.

“The flyby it does with Earth is absolutely unique,” said Dr Holger Krag, the head of the Esa’s space safety programme office, adding that no asteroid is expected to come as close for a few thousand years. “If the sky is clear, you should be able to see it with your naked eye.”
Apophis will pass closer to the Earth than the geostationary satellites used for TV broadcasting, navigation and weather forecasting. At that distance, Krag said, the asteroid would start to interact with Earth.


https://www.theguardian.com/science...counter-99942-apophis-ramses-mission-asteroid
 
Paul_Exeter said:

Scientists set sights on asteroid larger than Eiffel Tower as it skims past Earth​

Ramses mission to study 99942 Apophis when it passes closer to Earth than GPS and TV satellites in 2029

Nicola DavisScience correspondent
Tue 16 Jul 2024 11.00 BST
Share


In 2029 an asteroid larger than the Eiffel Tower will skim past Earth in an event that until recently scientists had feared could foreshadow a catastrophic collision.
Now researchers hope to scrutinise 99942 Apophis as it makes its close encounter in an effort to bolster our defences against other space rocks.

The mission will also shed light on the composition and internal structure of Apophis, as well as its orbit, and explore how the asteroid changes as it passes within 20,000 miles (32,000km) of Earth – about one-tenth of the distance to the moon – on Friday 13 April 2029.

“The flyby it does with Earth is absolutely unique,” said Dr Holger Krag, the head of the Esa’s space safety programme office, adding that no asteroid is expected to come as close for a few thousand years. “If the sky is clear, you should be able to see it with your naked eye.”
Apophis will pass closer to the Earth than the geostationary satellites used for TV broadcasting, navigation and weather forecasting. At that distance, Krag said, the asteroid would start to interact with Earth.


https://www.theguardian.com/science...counter-99942-apophis-ramses-mission-asteroid
Click to expand...
Please resist the urge to write: "Missed. Nyah,nyah,nyah." In big letters on your roof.
 
Paul_Exeter said:

Scientists set sights on asteroid larger than Eiffel Tower as it skims past Earth​

Ramses mission to study 99942 Apophis when it passes closer to Earth than GPS and TV satellites in 2029

Nicola DavisScience correspondent
Tue 16 Jul 2024 11.00 BST
Share


In 2029 an asteroid larger than the Eiffel Tower will skim past Earth in an event that until recently scientists had feared could foreshadow a catastrophic collision.
Now researchers hope to scrutinise 99942 Apophis as it makes its close encounter in an effort to bolster our defences against other space rocks.

The mission will also shed light on the composition and internal structure of Apophis, as well as its orbit, and explore how the asteroid changes as it passes within 20,000 miles (32,000km) of Earth – about one-tenth of the distance to the moon – on Friday 13 April 2029.

“The flyby it does with Earth is absolutely unique,” said Dr Holger Krag, the head of the Esa’s space safety programme office, adding that no asteroid is expected to come as close for a few thousand years. “If the sky is clear, you should be able to see it with your naked eye.”
Apophis will pass closer to the Earth than the geostationary satellites used for TV broadcasting, navigation and weather forecasting. At that distance, Krag said, the asteroid would start to interact with Earth.


https://www.theguardian.com/science...counter-99942-apophis-ramses-mission-asteroid
Click to expand...
For those not used to continental measurements, a rough rule of thumb is 1 Eiffel Tower = 3 Big Bens.
 

Signs of two gases in clouds of Venus could indicate life, scientists say​

Separate teams find evidence of phosphine and ammonia, potential biomarkers on planet whose surface reaches 450C

Hot enough to melt metal and blanketed by a toxic, crushing atmosphere, Venus ranks among the most hostile locations in the solar system. But astronomers have reported the detection of two gases that could point to the presence of life forms lurking in the Venusian clouds.

Findings presented at the national astronomy meeting in Hull on Wednesday bolster evidence for a pungent gas, phosphine, whose presence on Venus has been fiercely disputed.

A separate team revealed the tentative detection of ammonia, which on Earth is primarily produced by biological activity and industrial processes, and whose presence on Venus scientists said could not readily be explained by known atmospheric or geological phenomena.

The so-called biosignature gases are not a smoking gun for extraterrestrial life. But the observation will intensify interest in Venus and raise the possibility of life having emerged and even flourished in the planet’s more temperate past and lingered on to today in pockets of the atmosphere.

https://www.theguardian.com/science...ses-phosphine-ammonia-in-clouds-of-venus-life
 
NASA Citizen Scientists Spot Object Moving 1 Million Miles Per Hour (nasa.gov)45

Citizen scientists from NASA's Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 project discovered a hypervelocity object, CWISE J1249, moving fast enough to escape the Milky Way. "This hypervelocity object is the first such object found with the mass similar to or less than that of a small star," reports NASA's Science Editorial Team, suggesting the object may have originated from a binary star system or a globular cluster. From the report:

A few years ago, longtime Backyard Worlds citizen scientists Martin Kabatnik, Thomas P. Bickle, and Dan Caselden spotted a faint, fast-moving object called CWISE J124909.08+362116.0, marching across their screens in the WISE images. Follow-up observations with several ground-based telescopes helped scientists confirm the discovery and characterize the object. These citizen scientists are now co-authors on the team's study about this discovery published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters (a pre-print version is available here). CWISE J1249 is zooming out of the Milky Way at about 1 million miles per hour. But it also stands out for its low mass, which makes it difficult to classify as a celestial object. It could be a low-mass star, or if it doesn't steadily fuse hydrogen in its core, it would be considered a brown dwarf, putting it somewhere between a gas giant planet and a star.

Ordinary brown dwarfs are not that rare. Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 volunteers have discovered more than 4,000 of them! But none of the others are known to be on their way out of the galaxy. This new object has yet another unique property. Data obtained with the W. M. Keck Observatory in Maunakea, Hawaii, show that it has much less iron and other metals than other stars and brown dwarfs. This unusual composition suggests that CWISE J1249 is quite old, likely from one of the first generations of stars in our galaxy. Why does this object move at such high speed? One hypothesis is that CWISE J1249 originally came from a binary system with a white dwarf, which exploded as a supernova when it pulled off too much material from its companion. Another possibility is that it came from a tightly bound cluster of stars called a globular cluster, and a chance meeting with a pair of black holes sent it soaring away.

https://science.slashdot.org/story/...s-spot-object-moving-1-million-miles-per-hour
 
A second Kuiper belt?

"This new group of objects isn't a mere extension of the Kuiper Belt. There appears to be a gap between 55 AU and 70 AU where no objects have yet been found, and then a second belt — let's call it "Kuiper Belt 2" — between 70 and 90 AU, which is as far out as 13.5 billion kilometers (8.4 billion miles) from the sun."

https://www.space.com/second-kuiper-belt-solar-system-larger-than-thought
 
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