Space

Given that annual fluctuations in solar irradiation become less pronounced the closer you get to the equator, it might get less relevant to track time by referring to our position to the sun?

If they launch, the highlight of the mission will be the first spacewalk composed entirely of non-professional astronauts, who will be wearing sleek, newly developed SpaceX extravehicular activity (EVA) suits outfitted with heads-up displays, helmet cameras, and an advanced joint mobility system.

Yewtube mirror: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=d-YcVLq98Ew

Scott Manley discusses Lumen Orbit's plan to data centres in space and whether it or not makes sense.

On Saturday NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore noticed some strange noises emanating from a speaker inside the Starliner spacecraft.

"I've got a question about Starliner," Wilmore radioed down to Mission Control, at Johnson Space Center in Houston. "There's a strange noise coming through the speaker ... I don't know what's making it."

Wilmore said he was not sure if there was some oddity in the connection between the station and the spacecraft causing the noise, or something else. He asked the flight controllers in Houston to see if they could listen to the audio inside the spacecraft. A few minutes later, Mission Control radioed back that they were linked via "hardline" to listen to audio inside Starliner, which has now been docked to the International Space Station for nearly three months.

crosspostato da: https://lemmy.ml/post/12123577

crosspostato da: https://lemmy.ml/post/12123473

Using the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT), astronomers have characterised a bright quasar, finding it to be not only the brightest of its kind, but also the most luminous object ever observed. Quasars are the bright cores of distant galaxies and they are powered by supermassive black holes. The black hole in this record-breaking quasar is growing in mass by the equivalent of one Sun per day, making it the fastest-growing black hole to date

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/697648

Exposure to microgravity causes changes to the human immune system:

"Here we show that the expression of many genes related to immune functions rapidly decreases when astronauts reach space, while the opposite happens when they return to Earth after six months aboard the ISS," said Dr. Odette Laneuville, an associate professor at the Department of Biology of the University of Ottawa, leading author of a new study in Frontiers in Immunology.

doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fimmu.2023.1171103

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/659341

This article summarizes findings showing that the Spitzer telescope has observed the spectral signature of tryptophan in an extrasolar system.

This isn't the first instance of amino acids found extra-terrestrially (previously found on asteroids), but is the first found outside our solar system. Tryptophan has a very strong and very clear spectral signature (it is ubiquitously used in life sciences for example).

doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stad1535

Orbital index is an excellent weekly roundup of space news. Highly recommended!