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The Boeing Starliner module has been plagued with issues despite what seemed to be the dawning of a new commercial space giant. The module detached from the International Space Station on 7 September but without its crew! Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams journeyed to the ISS in June this year in what was supposed to be a mission lasting just a week. They are still there! Just a few days ago, their module returned under remote control while they stay in orbit until February! 

I think the two astronauts stuck up in the ISS (although NASA and Boeing try and contain the use of the term ‘stuck’) would agree, space exploration is unpredictable! We are only just scraping the surface of the physics of the cosmos and the extreme conditions beyond the safe confines of Earth’s atmosphere.

NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test astronauts (from top) Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams pose on June 13, 2024 for a portrait inside the vestibule between the forward port on the International Space Station’s Harmony module and Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft. Credit: NASA

Spacecraft like the Boeing Starliner must protect the crew from the hostile environment that includes high levels of radiation, and micrometeoroids to name just tow of them. Even with the extreme levels of planning that go into space missions, sometimes things go wrong! Human error, equipment malfunction and even cosmic events can all transpire to make space exploration one of the trickiest endeavours our species has undertaken. 

The Starliner module was developed by Boeing as one of a new generation of spacecraft designed to transport astronauts to the ISS. It was developed as part of NASAs Commercial Crew Program as an independent, re-usable module. The module is equipped with touch screen controls to give it a real ‘Star-Trek’ appeal, a streamlined suite of instruments that enable it to be either manually or automatically controlled. It has been designed for land-based recoveries like most others that splash down on their return to Earth.

The Starliner spacecraft is pictured docked with the Harmony module at the International Space Station high above the Mediterranean Sea. Credit: NASA

The Boeing contract with NASA was secured in September 2014 and, after a few test failures, finally launched its first crew to the ISS on 5 June 2024. The intention was for them to stay on board for a week but as history shows, that hasn’t quite gone to plan. Before they had even left a helium leak had been identified in the propulsion system but was considered to be isolated. During the flight, another four leaks were identified. 

What do these dates have in common; 14 June, 18 June and 24 August? They are all dates that NASA and Boeing a delay for the return of Willliams and Wilmore. Now it looks likely that their return won’t be until February next year hitching a ride on board the SpaceX Dragon module instead. 

Crew Dragon docking with ISS

The decision was taken to return the Starliner module to Earth autonomously for safety concerns. Now it is back on Earth teams of engineers will begin work to understand what has been plaguing the propulsion system. It touched down on 7 September landing at the White Sands Space Harbour in New Mexico in what has been described as a text book landing, unfortunately Williams and Wilmore had to watch from the comfort of the ISS!

Source : Starliner Lands in New Mexico

The post Starliner Comes Home Empty appeared first on Universe Today.

We recently reported on the successful deployment of the solar sail of the Advanced Composite Solar Sail System (ACS3) technology demonstration mission. That huge achievement advances one of the most important technologies available to CubeSats – a different form of propulsion. But getting there wasn’t easy, and back in May, a team of engineers from NASA’s Langley Research Center who worked on ACS3 published a paper detailing the trials and tribulations they went through to prepare the mission for prime time. Let’s take a look at what they learned.

ACS3 was only a technology demonstration mission—it had no science payload to deal with. And that’s a good thing, too, because fitting the solar sail into the housing of a CubeSat was a challenge even without any scientific equipment.

The technology demonstrated was the deployable boom system that created an 81 square meter surface of solar sail to catch the photon particles used to propel the mission forward. That sounds much easier than it was, as is evident from the descriptions of the problems the team had to overcome.

Fraser describes how useful solar sails are.

Eventually, the mission launched in a 12U CubeSat configuration, weighing about 16 kg (36 lbs) in total mass. However, the mission was initially prototyped to fit into a 6U configuration—about half the size and weight of the 12U. With the amount of deployable material and the necessary motors to drive their deployment, the engineers couldn’t fit other essential components, like reaction wheels, to steady the CubeSat’s orientation.

However, the 12U design “came with several technical challenges,” according to the paper. One was whether to use four independent spools of material, each tied to an independent boom or one central hub spool with all four booms coiled around a central axis. As was the case with almost all engineering projects, the team’s decision wasn’t based on what was technically best. They decided to use the four independent spools since that required the least modification from the original 6U design.

Another lesson described in the paper was the timing of the launch coordination. Both the “dispenser” (i.e., the system that sends the CubeSats out into space after a successful launch) and the launch contract weren’t submitted until ACS3 was already in testing. By then, modifications had been made to the design, which made it difficult to integrate into an existing dispenser, as the team had modified the edges of the satellite to fit the sails better. But doing so messed up one of the critical touchpoints for standard CubeSat dispensers.

Here’s Fraser’s overview of what a solar sail is.

To make matters worse, without a known launch date and inclination, the team had to overengineer many of the CubeSat systems. They had to meet a much wider range of temperatures and shock/vibration environments. But when they finally got their launch date of April 23rd on an Electron rocket from New Zealand, the system had been engineered for an environment much harsher than what it was subjected to, causing increased cost and delays in the delivery.

To meet these challenges, the team took the approach of rapidly prototyping, including developing several different 3D-printed prototypes before finally making the full system out of metal. At one point, a management decision was made not to replace any insert fasteners that were never intended to be used on the final flight but ended up being included anyway because of the cost of replacing them.

Again, these kinds of management decisions are commonplace to anyone involved in an engineering project. However, it’s nice to see that, in this case, it didn’t affect the project’s overall success. Despite some indications that it might be either tumbling or wobbling, ACS3 undoubtedly achieved its primary objective of deploying its solar sail. So, after all the effort and compromises that the team at Langley and elsewhere at NASA put into it, now you just need to look up into the night sky, and you might see the fruits of their labor streaking across it.

Learn More:
Schneider et al. – Advanced Composite Solar Sail System (ACS3): Mechanisms and Lessons Learned from a CubeSat Solar Sail Deployer
UT – NASA’s New Solar Sail Extends Its Booms and Sets Sail
UT – NASA’s Next Solar Sail is About to Go to Space
UT – NASA’s Putting its Solar Sail Through its Paces

Lead Image:
CAD image of the ACS3 spacecraft.
Credit – Schneider et al

The post What Did We Learn From Manufacturing the ACS3 Solar Sail Mission? appeared first on Universe Today.

Phase separation, when molecules part like oil and water, works alongside oxygen diffusion to help memristors -- electrical components that store information using electrical resistance -- retain information even after the power is shut off, according to a recent study.

Phase separation, when molecules part like oil and water, works alongside oxygen diffusion to help memristors -- electrical components that store information using electrical resistance -- retain information even after the power is shut off, according to a recent study.

Demand for cancer genetic testing is on the rise, but there's not enough genetic counselors to guide patients through the process. Researchers say chatbots could be the answer.

An ancient passerby may have visited the Sun and inadvertently helped shape the Solar System into what it is today. It happened billions of years ago when a stellar drifter came to within 110 astronomical units (AU) of our Sun. The effects were long-lasting and we can see evidence of the visitor’s fleeting encounter throughout the Solar System.

Neptune is the outermost planet in the Solar System, and by a simple definition, that can mark the edge of the Solar System. There’s an entire realm of other objects beyond Neptune called the Kuiper Belt. It’s the home of Pluto, most of the dwarf planets, and some comets. Astronomers aren’t certain how large the Kuiper Belt population is, but it could contain tens of thousands of objects larger than 100 km in diameter.

Some of these objects have unusual orbits and are called Trans-Neptunian objects (TNO). In new research, a team of astronomers suggest that these orbits, and some other evidence in the Solar System, support the idea that another star passed by our Solar System and drove these objects into their current orbits. The star may have disturbed some objects so strongly that they were driven into the inner Solar System and took up residence as moons around the giant planets.

These results are in two new papers. One is published in the journal Nature and is titled “Trajectory of the Stellar Flyby Shaping the Outer Solar System.” The second is published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters and is titled “Irregular moons possibly injected from the outer solar system by a stellar flyby.” Susanne Pfalzner, the lead author of both, is from Jülich Supercomputing Centre, Forschungszentrum (Research Center) Jülich, Jülich, Germany.

“The beauty of this model lies in its simplicity. It answers several open questions about our solar system with just a single cause.”

Susanne Pfalzner, Jülich Supercomputing Centre, Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany

While Neptune marks the outermost boundary of planets in our Solar System, an entire population of objects exists beyond it. “However, several thousand celestial bodies are known to move beyond the orbit of Neptune,” said Pfalzner. “Surprisingly, many of these so-called trans-Neptunian objects move on eccentric orbits that are inclined relative to the common orbital plane of the planets in the solar system. “

Pluto is the most well-known TNO because it used to be considered a planet. Its orbit is inclined by 17 degrees relative to the ecliptic, an imaginary plane that Earth follows as it orbits the Sun. In the ecliptic, Earth is considered to orbit the Sun at zero degrees, and none of the other planets are inclined by more than only seven degrees.

Pfalzner and her co-researchers used simulations to try to understand how some objects are inclined. They ran more than 3,000 supercomputer simulations in their effort. They wanted to investigate the idea that a passing star could be responsible, and their work showed that it could.

“Our exhaustive numerical parameter study consists of over 3,000 individual simulations modelling the effect of a stellar flyby on a planetesimal disk surrounding the Sun extending to 150?au and 300?au, respectively,” the authors write in their research.

There are three distinct populations of TNOs:

• the cold Kuiper belt objects moving on nearly circular orbits close to the plane,
• the Sedna-like TNOs orbiting at large distances (rp?>?60?au) on highly eccentric orbits (e?>?0.5),
• TNOs with high inclination (i?>?60°).

Any theory on the formation of the Solar System has to explain these three groups, according to the authors. “While only three Sedna-like objects and few highly inclined TNOs are known so far, they are the make-or-break test for any outer Solar System formation theory,” they write.

This isn’t the first time scientists have wondered if a stellar flyby can explain these puzzling parts of our Solar System. But this question has been dismissed because stellar flybys were thought to be rare. However, as we get more powerful telescopes, we’re discovering that they’re more commonplace. “However, recent Atacama Large Millimeter Array observations reveal that close stellar flybys seem to be relatively common,” the authors write.

The flyby hypothesis has gained renewed interest, but it’s difficult to study because the flyby parameter space is so large, and predictions are vague.

These researchers have made important progress, though, and their simulations can explain a lot.

“Even the orbits of very distant objects can be deduced, such as that of the dwarf planet Sedna in the outermost reaches of the solar system, which was discovered in 2003. And also objects that move in orbits almost perpendicular to the planetary orbits,” Pfalzner said. Sedna has an extremely wide orbit and takes 11,400 years to complete one orbit around the Sun. Its orbit is also wildly eccentric.

According to Pfalzner and her colleagues, a stellar flyby can also explain two Solar System objects with very oddball orbits. 2008 KV42 has a retrograde orbit, meaning it orbits in the opposite direction than the planets. 2011 KT19‘s orbit is tilted 110 degrees, meaning it effectively follows a polar retrograde orbit.

What kind of star could’ve shaped these objects’ orbits?

This table from the paper shows the trajectory of the stellar flyby that shaped the outer Solar System. Columns: solar masses, AU, inclination, angle of periastron, and assumed pre-flyby disk size. Image Credit: Pfalzner et al. 2024.

“The best match for today’s outer solar system that we found with our simulations is a star that was slightly lighter than our Sun – about 0.8 solar masses, “explained Pfalzner’s colleague Amith Govind. “This star flew past our sun at a distance of around 16.5 billion kilometres. That’s about 110 times the distance between Earth and the Sun, a little less than four times the distance of the outermost planet Neptune.”

The irregular moons are one of the Solar System’s puzzles. Everything in the Solar System formed from the solar nebula, which means barring outside influence, everything should share orbital similarities. “The origin of these irregular moons is still an open question, but these moons have a lot in common with the objects beyond Neptune (trans-Neptunian objects—TNOs), suggestive of a common origin,” the authors write.

The passing star could’ve disrupted distant objects and sent them careening into the inner Solar System, where the giant planets captured them into their orbits.

“Some of these objects could have been captured by the giant planets as moons,” says co-author Simon Portegies Zwart from Leiden University. “This would explain why the outer planets of our solar system have two different types of moons.”

This table from the research shows the Solar System’s irregular moon population. The majority of the irregular moons follow retrograde orbits. Image Credit: Pfalzner et al. 2024.

Irregular moons have unusual orbits that can be inclined, “highly elliptical, sometimes retrograde, and sometimes at great distances from their planet. All four giant planets host irregular moons, like Saturn’s Phoebe and Neptune’s Triton. “The beauty of this model lies in its simplicity,” says Pfalzner. “It answers several open questions about our solar system with just a single cause.”

This Cassini image shows Saturn’s moon, Phoebe. It’s an example of the unusual properties of irregular moons. Like many others, it orbits Saturn in the opposite direction. Image Credit: NASA/JPL

“A stellar flyby can simultaneously reproduce the complex TNO dynamics quantitatively while explaining the origin of the irregular moons and the colour distributions of both populations,” the authors write. Their simulations show that the flyby would’ve sent 7.2% of the TNO population into the inner Solar System. Many of them would’ve followed retrograde orbits, though most would’ve been subsequently ejected from the Solar System, and only a handful were captured by planets.

Could this flyby have impacted the appearance of life? That’s a purely speculative question, but since life is so rare and unexplained, it needs to be asked. It’s possible that some objects disturbed by the flyby crashed into Earth or other planets, possibly delivering prebiotic material and volatiles. At the same time, Earth’s orbit could’ve remained undisturbed. “However, how much prebiotic material originally contained in an injected TNO would survive impact on a terrestrial planet would require further studies,” the authors write.

The simulations were able to explain critical things about the Solar System that are in need of explanations. However, there needs to be more evidence before the work is conclusive.

The team’s predictions may be verified when the Vera Rubin Observatory (VRO)comes online. The VRO is expected to discover around 40,000 TNOs.

The post A Stellar Flyby Jumbled Up the Outer Solar System appeared first on Universe Today.

Although Maher is always accused of being a right-winger, that’s not true at all; he’s more or less a left-centrist, like me.  Here he defines “ick” with some graphic examples, and says that Trump has a bad case of it, and that’s the best thing Democrats have going for them. But. . . . he then says that the extreme Left aren’t immune to it, using as an example of the extreme Left going after Cheryl Hines, married to RFK Jr., for not divorcing him.

He says this, “You want to know why I have a bug up my ass about the Left more than I used to? It’s shit like this: there’s an ugliness they never used to have. The liberals I grew up respecting–none of them are like this.  Going after the wife? Even the Mafia doesn’t do that!”  He then shows a clip of Barack Obama at the latest DNC criticizing everyone across the political spectrum for thinking the worst of those on other side, and thinking that “the only way to win this is to scold and shame and out-yell the other side.”

The YouTube notes:

Donald Trump is stained with “the ick,” but liberals who scold and shame those who don’t share their worldview risk being tainted by it, too.

I’m not sure that Bill Maher qualifies as an expert on marriage given that he’s never been married and vowed he never will be. But, as usual, he’s funny, and the message not to fully demonize one’s political opponents is always worth pondering. Maher ends up by criticizing the Republican politicians as “far worse” than the Democratic ones, but adds tjat “the kind of people who are always howling on social media are the ones who give people the ‘ick’ when they hear the word ‘liberal.'”

It was good to hear Obama again: I’d missed his convention speech.

Ancient humans are said to have evolved to leave the trees, where our primate ancestors lived, in favour of open grassy savannahs – but we may have this idea wrong

As you know, there’s a Big Debate tonight between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. It’ll be broadcast on television on ABC, a non-cable channel. ABC says this: (note that times are Eastern times):

The ABC News debate, moderated by David Muir and Linsey Davis, will take place on Tuesday, Sept. 10 at 9 p.m ET. A prime-time pre-debate special will air at 8 p.m. ET. It will air on ABC and stream on ABC News Live, Disney+ and Hulu. Viewers can also stream the debate on the ABC app on a smartphone or tablet, on ABC.com and connected devices.

The debate will last an hour and a half. I may do a live post with readers reacting in real time, but I will refrain from giving any of my own take until the next day.

If you’re a PBS fan, there’s a bunch of broadcasting on PBS starting at 6 pm EDT with the PBS News Hour, and continuing through the debate (with, undoubtedly, some post-debate analysis).

A few comments and some related articles.

Although Harris has been notably silent about specific policy issues until now, and has sat for only one (softball interview), I now see that there’s a menu of policy positions on her website, which you can see here. You’d better believe that the Trump campaign will be scanning them for what they see as weak spots.  There are, of course, a gazillion ways Trump himselfcan be attacked, though, like Harris, he seems to have moderated some of his more extreme stands (e.g., on abortion) in a pragmatic bid for victory.

I’m not convinced that either candidate will tell the truth about what they really plan to do, as both now seem to be acting pragmatically: they both want to win, and both will say what they think will get them elected. Such is politics: you can’t govern unless you win.  That said, I think Harris is absolutely serious in wanting to pass a law that reinstates the provisions of Roe v Wade nationwide, and I support her on that. But unless both houses of Congress turn Democratic, she stands no chance. As for Trump, I have no idea what he’s absolutely serious about, which scares me.

But I don’t think that Trump will have the self-control that will gain him a victory in the debate. Still, a victory in the debate may not, unlike the fatal Trump/Biden debate, have much to do with how people vote come November.

What will happen tonight?  All I can predict with confidence is that it’s going to get nasty despite both candidates having moderated their tone and made noises about sticking to the issues. I don’t think Trump can control himself, and to the extent that Harris keeps her cool, she’ll come off looking better. But I hasten to add that Trump has always seemed impervious to how he “comes off,” and the support he’s enjoyed despite all the civil and criminal trials in his future support his statement that “”I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK?. . . . It’s, like, incredible.”

As Tom Friedman notes in the NYT op-ed below (click headline to read, or find the article archived here). Harris has taken some positions in the past that could come back to haunt her should Trump bring them up in the debate. These include immigration and Title IX issues. As the Free Press reports in its daily news summary.

Even as Harris gets a little more specific in 2024, the promises she made in 2019 remain a headache. The latest unwelcome reminder of the progressive positions she took in the Democratic primary five years ago come courtesy of CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski, who reports that during that race Harris told the ACLU she supports cutting ICE’s funding and providing gender transition surgery to detained migrants.

Further, she’s susceptible to her statement that her values haven’t changed but some of her positions have (e.g., fracking).  If I were a moderator, I’d ask her to explain that. She’s also not good when thinking on her feet, and, with the pressure of a deranged opponent coming down on her, she has to try hard to keep her cool.

I am not a fan of Friedman so much, but I think he’s pretty much correct in his article below:

An excerpt:

“Joe and I got a lot of things right, but we got some things wrong, too — and here is what I have learned.”

For my money, uttering those 23 words, or something like them, is the key for Kamala Harris to win Tuesday’s debate against Donald Trump — and the election.

Utter them, and she will hugely improve her chances to win more of the undecided voters in this tight race. Fail to utter them or continue to disguise her policy shifts with the incoherent statement she used in the CNN interview — that while her positions might have changed on fracking and immigration, “my values have not changed” — and she will struggle.

Madam V.P., if you say your positions have changed but your values haven’t, what does that even mean? And what should we expect from your presidency — your values or your actions? Our latest poll shows too many voters still don’t know.

It’s OK to say: “I learned a lot as vice president. I’m proud of our record of putting America on a sustainable path to a clean energy future. It will make us more secure and more prosperous. But I also see that we can’t get there overnight. For reasons of both economic security and national security, we need an all-of-the-above energy strategy right now. So you can trust that in a Harris presidency, America will continue to lead the world in exploiting our oil and gas advantages but we will do it in the cleanest way possible while making the transition as fast as possible.”

I’m not so sure that admitting she was wrong will “hugely improve her chances” to win over undecided voters, but if she doesn’t she’ll be in a tight place.

Will admitting she was wrong hurt her? Not to me, but perhaps to the American public, which may interpret it as a weak candidate flip-flopping on the issues.  Here’s one of the issues—from CNN—that she might want to back off on, especially given the fact that illegal immigration is now an important issue to many Americans (as is, to a lesser extent, “affirmative care”).

Click to read Kaczynski’s article mentioned above:

An excerpt from CNN:

As Kamala Harris pivots to the political center in her campaign for president, a 2019 questionnaire from a leading civil rights organization spotlights her past support for left-wing causes such as taxpayer-funded gender transition surgeries for detained immigrants and federal prisoners.

In an American Civil Liberties Union questionnaire then-Sen. Harris filled out as a candidate for president in 2020, she also expressed support for decriminalizing federal drug possession for personal use, and for sweeping reductions to Immigration and Custom Enforcement operations, including drastic cuts in ICE funding and an open-ended pledge to “end” immigration detention.

The questionnaire has received scant media attention and a spokesperson for the ACLU claimed it had remained live from 2019.

But the ACLU’s website upload and page source indicate the questionnaire was reposted last month after Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee. CNN was unable to find questionnaires filled out by other candidates from the 2020 campaign that the ACLU had reposted.

Harris has acknowledged that some of her stances have evolved over time but that she holds core beliefs that remain unshakable: “My values have not changed,” she said in an interview with CNN last month.

The ACLU questionnaire, which was sent  to all Democratic and Republican candidates during the 2020 presidential campaign, provides a clear record of Harris’ progressive stances. Some candidates did not respond to the questionnaire, including Joe Biden.  The ACLU later ran radio ads attacking Biden for not answering.

The ACLU also had volunteers question candidates at public town halls and later posted videos on their website of their responses.

During one town hall event in New Hampshire in April 2019, Harris was asked by a voter if she supports adding a “third gender” to federal identification cards.

“Sure,” Harris answered to a round of applause from the crowd. “I have my entire life and career been an ally and I see the issue of LGBTQ rights as a fundamental civil rights and human rights issue, period,” Harris said.

Here’s a graphic of that, again from CNN:

I have to say that her stand on this: giving federal funding for gender surgery for immigrants who entered the country illegally, is absurd.  And slashing ICE funding is not something most Americans want.  She’d better be ready to disavow these positions, because if Team Trump has any smarts, they’ll bring them up.

Perhaps most Americans will be watching the debate as a form of entertainment rather than a way to figure out how to vote. It’s not at all clear that there will be more debates, though, so this may be the only chance to see the candidates go mano a mano. All we know is the country is poised to go down two very divergent paths, and I find debate about that to be more anxiety-inducing than entertaining.

Anyway, these are just random thoughts, but I invite your random thoughts or predictions about the debate.  I’m sure people will have more to say tomorrow.

Three amazing recent asteroid finds show what’s possible in terms of astronomy online.

Practical astronomy is increasingly becoming an online affair. In 2023, we wrote about this trend, and highlighted how Russian observer and amateur astronomer Filipp Romanov used time on a remote observatory to successfully discover two asteroids, which he named 623826 Alekseyvarkin and 623827 Nikandrilyich after his great-grandfathers. Now, Filipp has repeated this feat and pushed the limit of what’s possible online with the discovery of a trio of asteroids, including a rare near-Earth asteroid discovery found using a remote system.

Universe Today caught up with Filipp to explain how he did it:

“I have been searching for asteroids in images from remote telescopes from time to time for almost two years, and I have discovered four asteroids that have received their names, but on August 26th, 2024, I made a great find—I found a near-Earth asteroid in the images obtained using the 0.51-meter f/6.8 remote telescope T59 located at the Siding Spring Observatory of the iTelescope network, which is visible in all eight (300 second exposure) photos of one of the fields of the sky.”

A Surreptitious Find

Timing and planning is crucial in the hunt for asteroids, as Filipp elaborates: “I reserved in advance the necessary time on this telescope (when the waning gibbous Moon did not illuminate the sky above this observatory, and when the Moon was still below the horizon) for imaging, calculated the celestial coordinates, and requested specifically for the searching of main-belt asteroids and photography of two areas of the sky near the near the ecliptic and in the opposition region.”

The region is crucial, as asteroids coming into opposition ‘opposite’ to the Sun as seen from Earth are also at their brightest. Also, the area in the constellation Pisces where asteroids are reaching this point in late August into September is also relatively vacant, and far from the densely packed plane of the Milky Way Galaxy. In the era of visual astronomy in the mid-19th century, more asteroids were discovered in September than any other month.

It was in the same constellation than Filipp made a surprise discovery.

“I found an asteroid with a fast movement. In the images, this astronomical object looked like lines, unlike star-shaped (point source) main-belt asteroids, and I thought that it might be a near-Earth asteroid.” This fast motion leaving trails in the images is a clue that the object is also closer to the Earth.

Still, Filipp had to be sure that the asteroid wasn’t a known space rock. “I checked that there were no matches with known astronomical objects from the Minor Planet Center (MPC) database and sent the data of my astronomic measurements to the NEO Confirmation Page (NEOCP) so that they appear there for the attention of astronomers around the world.”

Pinning Down an Asteroid Find

This stage is crucial, in order to confirm the discovery and refine the position and orbit of the asteroid… and the more observations the better. Bad weather over key sites or losing the asteroid in the Sun’s glare can mean a discovery can go missing for months, or even years. “I immediately wrote to a number of astronomers with a request to confirm this astronomical object, but some of the astronomers did not have clear weather for observations (or were) not online at the time. Only one amateur astronomer immediately responded.” Filipp then made a quick decision to use precious observing time to make a follow up observation, using an iTelescope in Chile. “As a result, we both managed to confirm this asteroid and each of us sent results of our astrometric measurements to the MPC.”

Automatic sky surveys have since picked up asteroid 2024 QS, including the Mount Lemmon Survey on September 3rd, and the ATLAS-HKO and -MLO surveys in Hawaii on September 5th.

Asteroid 2024 QS, captured September 1st, days before closest approach to the Earth. Credit: Filipp Romanov.

The discovery became known as 2024 QS, a 43-meter asteroid on a 1.8 year orbit around the Sun, passing 12.1 LD (lunar distances, or slightly less than 4.7 million kilometers) from the Earth yesterday on September 9th at 00:39 Universal Time (UT). This pass ejected the asteroid from the near-Earth vicinity. About 35,000 Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) are known of though certainly, amateur astronomers finding one is rare.

…And Something More Asteroids 679996 (left) and 679999 (right). Credit: Filipp Romanov.

Two more recent discoveries were also made by Filipp:

The first was asteroid 2023 PS3, found on August 9th, 2023 using the the 2-meter Liverpool Telescope. This small (150-170 meter in diameter) asteroid is on a 2.56 year orbit. 2023 PS3 is a member of the Hungaria Group. Astronomers only know of about 30,000 Hungaria Group asteroids. This asteroid was later named 679996 Mariyafilippovna, after Filipp’s great-grandmother.

M.F. Romanova (left) and M.M. Varkina (right), the two great grandmothers of Filipp Romanov.

Mariya Filippovna Romanova (1919-1979) lived in Chugueka and worked as a secretary-typist and as a clerk. She was awarded the Veteran of Labour medal.

Next was asteroid 2023 SJ76, found on September 16th, 2023 using the T11 iTelescope located at the Utah Desert Remote Observatory located at Great Basin desert in Beryl Junction, Utah.

This main-belt asteroid is several hundred meters across, and has an orbital period of 3.57 years. It later received the name of 679999 Mariyavarkina after Filipp’s great-grandmother Mariya Maksimovna Varkina, who tragically died while pregnant in a bus accident in Primorsky Krai, Russia in 1962. She was Mordvin (by nationality), and from Sabanovo (near Penza, Russia).

Filipp Romanov at his laptop.

Congrats to Filipp on these amazing finds, and showing us all what’s possible, with a little dedication and persistence.

The post Amateur Astronomer Finds Additional Asteroids With Remote Telescopes appeared first on Universe Today.

When worker ants are exposed to a pathogenic fungus, they build nests that are more compartmentalised to reduce the risk of an epidemic

Researchers have designed and synthesized a new organic semiconductor for organic solar cells (OSCs). By adding specific side units to their structure, they achieved separation between the frontier molecular orbitals, leading to lower exciton binding energy and increased power conversion efficiency. This tuning of the design of an acceptor component is expected to increase the performance of OSCs leading to more effective large-scale photovoltaic systems and new devices.

Pure metal nanowires (NWs) are nanomaterials with distinctive properties that make them useful for various applications. However, their utilization in modern electronics has been limited by the lack of a mass-production method. Researchers have now succeeded in the mass growth of aluminum NWs. The underlying growth process could in principle be extended to other metals, removing the limitations to the mass production of NWs and ushering in a new era of nanotechnology.

Methane concentrations in Earth's atmosphere increased at record speed over the past five years. At least two-thirds of annual methane emissions now come from human activities, including fossil fuel use, agriculture, and landfills and other waste.

A research team developed a microbial strain that efficiently produces aromatic polyester using systems metabolic engineering.

Researchers have introduced a novel method for converting the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) into ethanol, a sustainable fuel. This significant advancement could pave the way for more environmentally friendly and economically viable alternatives to fossil fuels.

Bioactive glasses, a filling material which can bond to tissue and improve the strength of bones and teeth, has been combined with gallium to create a potential treatment for bone cancer. Tests in labs have found that bioactive glasses doped with the metal have a 99 percent success rate of eliminating cancerous cells and can even regenerate diseased bones.

Researchers report on a new defect passivation strategy for improved power conversion efficiency and stability of perovskite solar cells.

A study has developed an innovative method that overcomes the limitations of traditional additive manufacturing (3D printing), significantly simplifying and accelerating the production of geometrically complex cellular ceramics. This groundbreaking approach has the potential to revolutionize the design and processing of multifarious ceramic materials, opening up new possibilities for new applications in energy, electronics, and biomedicine, including robotics, solar cells, sensors, battery electrodes, and bactericidal devices.

When cars, planes, ships or computers are built from a material that functions as both a battery and a load-bearing structure, the weight and energy consumption are radically reduced. A research group is now presenting an advance in so-called massless energy storage -- a structural battery that could halve the weight of a laptop, make the mobile phone as thin as a credit card or increase the driving range of an electric car by up to 70 percent on a single charge.