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NASA's Chandra X-ray space telescope has spotted the supermassive black hole at the heart of our galaxy erupting, proving even quiet black holes like Sagittarius A* need to vent sometimes.

Tonight and the rest of the weekend could be your best chance ever to see the aurora.

The Sun has been extremely active lately as it heads towards solar maximum. A giant Earth-facing sunspot group named AR3664 has been visible, and according to Spaceweather.com, the first of an unbelievable SIX coronal mass ejections were hurled our way from that active region, and is now hitting our planet’s magnetic field.

Solar experts predict that people in the US as far south as Alabama and Northern California could be treated to seeing the northern lights during this weekend. For those of you in northern Europe, you could also be in for some aurora excitement. Check the Space Weather Prediction Center’s 30-minute Aurora Forecast for the latest information.

If the weather conditions are right in your area, you might hit the aurora jackpot.  See a map with predictions, below.

A map from the Space Weather Prediction Center shows the aurora forecast for the U.S. on May 11, 2024. Credit: Space Weather Prediction Center

“If you happen to be in an area where it’s dark and cloud free and relatively unpolluted by light, you may get to see a fairly impressive aurora display, and that’s really the gift from space weather, is the aurora,” said Rob Steenburgh, from NOAA’s (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC), during a briefing on Friday.

A map from the Space Weather Prediction Center shows the aurora forecast for the northern hemisphere on May 10, 2024. Credit: Space Weather Prediction Center

According to SWPC, the impact from the geomagnetic storm reached Earth-based magnetometers on May 10th at 1645 UT. More CMEs are following close behind and their arrival could extend the storm into the weekend.

While these solar storms could provide stunning views of auroras, there is also the potential for disruption to communications systems, power grids and satellite operations.

The Sun is super active right now! ?? ? ?

The video below shows a series of flares that erupted over the past seven days… not counting another X-class flare that happened this morning! pic.twitter.com/O5jwUBmMDT

— NASA Sun & Space (@NASASun) May 10, 2024

As we reported earlier this week, the Sun released three X-class solar flares — the strongest class of flares — in short succession. Solar flares are explosions on the Sun that release powerful bursts of energy and radiation coming from the magnetic energy associated with the sunspots. The more sunspots, the greater potential for flares.

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured these images of the solar flares — as seen in the bright flashes in the upper right — on May 5 and May 6, 2024. The image shows a subset of extreme ultraviolet light that highlights the extremely hot material in flares and which is colorized in teal. Credit: NASA/SDO

The sunspot group AR3664 is so large, it is visible to the naked eye — but you MUST be wearing special eye-wear (got any of your eclipse glasses left from April 8?) or use special solar filters for telescopes or binoculars. AR3664 is enormous, about 10 times the size of Earth.

How to see the Northern Lights

The aurora is an incredible sight. Your best shot to see it is to be in a dark area.

“Get away from city lights into a dark, rural surrounding and look north,” said the National Weather Service in St. Louis, Missouri on X (Twitter). “Aside from some clouds associated with a passing front, much of the time looks mostly clear.”

Check the weather forecast in your region for cloud cover. But if you don’t have any luck tonight, check again Saturday or Sunday night. With multiple CMEs, the storm was expected to last through the weekend.

Good luck!

The post If You’ve Never Seen An Aurora Before, This Might Be Your Chance! appeared first on Universe Today.

Experts explain how certain worms can infect the brain and why they are an important global public health problem

A beastly sunspot that's 15 times the diameter of Earth remains highly active — and you might be able to spot it with your eclipse glasses!

The Moon’s polar regions are home to permanently shadowed craters. In those craters is ancient ice, and establishing a presence on the Moon means those water ice deposits are a valuable resource. Astronauts will likely use solar energy to work in these craters and harvest water, but the Sun never shines there.

What’s the solution? According to one team of researchers, a solar collector perched on the crater’s rim.

There’s abundant solar energy on the Moon. But not all the time and not everywhere. At the bottom of the deepest craters closest to the poles, there’s no Sun.

Researchers from the Texas A&M Department of Aerospace Engineering are anticipating future missions to the Moon’s permanently shadowed craters to harvest water resources. They’re working with NASA’s Langley Research Centre on reflectors that can be mounted on a crater rim. When paired with a receiver somewhere inside the crater, solar power can be delivered where it’s needed.

Dr. Darren Hartl is an associate professor of aerospace engineering at Texas A&M University. He’s leading a team of researchers working on solar reflectors. “If you perch a reflector on the rim of a crater, and you have a collector at the center of the crater that receives light from the sun, you are able to harness the solar energy,” said Hartl. “So, in a way, you’re bending light from the sun down into the crater.”

Though they’re still in the early stages of their research, computer models show that a parabolic reflector transmits the optimal amount of light to crater bottoms. Parabola designs are common in different types of things like telescopes, microphones, and car headlights. There are also solar parabolic reflectors at work here on Earth.

This is the Eurodish, a parabolic solar collector. The collector is mounted to the dish itself, but on the Moon, the collector would be in the crater where power is needed. Image Credit: Schlaich Bergermann und Partner and released into the Public Domain at http://wire0.ises.org/wire/independents/imagelibrary.nsf

Parabolic dishes are common on Earth. Here, we can make them any size we want and build them wherever we need to. But the whole endeavour is different on the Moon. Every pound we launch into space is expensive. Their goal is a reflector small enough to be transported to the Moon and large enough to harness enough energy.

The researchers are working with self-morphing material that was developed by Hartl and other engineers at Texas A&M. Self-morphing materials are based on natural materials that turn matter into complex surfaces. They can change shape in response to their environments. These include muscles, tendons, and plant tissue.

“During space missions, astronauts may need to deploy a large parabolic reflector from a relatively small and light landing system. That’s where we come in,” said Hartl. “We are looking at using shape memory materials that will change the shape of the reflector in response to system temperature changes.”

Dr. Hartl specializes in advanced multifunction materials. At Texas A&M, his team focuses on projects ranging from “… self-folding origami-based structures to self-regulating morphing radiators for spacecraft to advanced actuators for avian-inspired aircraft,” according to his bio. He also has over a decade of experience working with self-morphing structures and Shape Memory Alloys (SMA.)

One of the difficulties of operating on the Moon is the wild temperature swings between night and day. At the equator, the temperature can reach 121 Celsius (250 F), far hotter than anywhere on Earth. But at night, the temperature drops precipitously to -133 C (-208 F.) The permanent shadows in the Moon’s deep polar craters foster temperatures as low as -250 C (-415 F.)

Hartl has experience developing materials for these pronounced swings in temperature. He leads the Multifunctional Materials and Aerospace Structures Optimization (M2AESTRO) Lab at Texas A&M. “Our proposed solutions incorporate shape-shifting metals that adjust their own heat rejection based on how hot or cold they are, so it solves the problem for us,” Hartl said in 2019.

This video explains some of what they’re working on at M2AESTRO, though it’s a few years old.

The Moon is the next frontier for human habitation. Astronauts will live and work there, and water is a vital resource. Not just for drinking, but it can also be split into oxygen for respiration and hydrogen for fuel. Scientists aren’t certain how much water ice there is, but there’s enough to be useful.

Extracting and managing that resource will be critical for the success of Artemis and other lunar exploration efforts. Doing it effectively will require advanced solutions designed specifically for the lunar environment. Self-morphing materials could play an important role.

The post Lighting Up the Moon’s Permanently Shadowed Craters appeared first on Universe Today.

Some black hole pairs roll around each other in wobbly, egg-shaped orbits that could hold clues about their origins, gravitational wave measurements suggest.

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Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)  Four Expedition 70 crew members pose for a fun portrait inside their crew quarters aboard the International Space Station’s Harmony module. Clockwise from bottom are, NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli; ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Andreas Mogensen; JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Satoshi Furukawa; and NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara.NASA

NASA will host four astronauts at 10 a.m. CDT Tuesday, May 14, for a media opportunity at the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

NASA astronauts Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral O’Hara, ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Andreas Mogensen, and JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Satoshi Furukawa served as part of Expedition 70 and will discuss their recent mission to the International Space Station.

Media are invited to attend this event and participate in a news conference to speak with the astronauts about their experiments aboard the microgravity laboratory and other mission highlights.

Media interested in participating must confirm their attendance by 12 p.m., on Monday, May 13, with Joel Wallace in Marshall’s Office of Communications at joel.w.wallace@nasa.gov or 256-786-0117.

Media must report by 9 a.m., Tuesday, May 14 to the Redstone Arsenal Joint Visitor Control Center Gate 9 parking lot, located at the Interstate 565 interchange at Research Park Boulevard. The event will take place in the NASA Marshall Activities Building 4316. Vehicles are subject to a security search at the gate, so please allow extra time. All members of media and drivers will need photo identification. Drivers will need proof of insurance, if requested.

The Expedition 70 mission to the space station began Sept. 27, 2023, and ended April 5. During their mission, the Expedition 70 crew marked the 25th anniversary of space station operations in December 2023.

As part of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-7, Moghbeli, Mogensen, and Furukawa traveled 84,434,094 miles during their mission, spent 197 days aboard the space station, and completed 3,184 orbits around Earth. The Crew-7 mission was the first spaceflight for Moghbeli. Mogensen has logged 209 days in space over his two flights, and Furukawa has logged 366 days in space over his two flights.

NASA astronaut and Expedition 70 Flight Engineer Jasmin Moghbeli uses DNA analysis to identify bacteria extracted from water samples collected aboard the International Space Station. Known as BioMole, the study is demonstrating the ability to monitor the spacecraft’s microbial environment without sending samples back to Earth for analysis.NASA

Throughout their mission, the Crew-7 members contributed to a host of science and maintenance activities and technology demonstrations. Moghbeli conducted one spacewalk, joined by O’Hara, replacing one of the 12 trundle bearing assemblies on the port solar alpha rotary joint, which allows the arrays to track the Sun and generate electricity to power the station. Crew-7 returned to Earth in March.

O’Hara completed 204 days in space, 3,264 orbits of the Earth, and 86.5 million miles during her first spaceflight. She witnessed the arrival of eight visiting spacecraft and the departure of seven visiting spacecraft, including both crewed and cargo missions. O’Hara also completed one spacewalk totaling six hours, 42 minutes.

While aboard the orbiting lab, O’Hara conducted dozens of science and technology activities to benefit future exploration in space and life back on Earth. O’Hara is among the first astronauts to participate in the Complement of Integrated Protocols for Human Exploration Research Program, an investigation that studies the psychological and physiological changes humans experience during spaceflight. Collecting data from astronauts on missions of different durations supports the development of ways to protect crew health on long-duration missions to the Moon and future missions to Mars. O’Hara returned to Earth in April aboard the Roscosmos Soyuz spacecraft.

The International Space Station remains the springboard to NASA’s next leap in space exploration, including future missions to the Moon and, eventually, Mars. The agency’s Huntsville Operations Support Center, or HOSC, at Marshall provides engineering and mission operations support for the space station, Commercial Crew Program, and other missions. Within the HOSC, the commercial crew support team provides engineering and safety and mission assurance expertise for launch vehicles, spacecraft propulsion, and integrated vehicle performance. The HOSC’s Payload Operations Integration Center, which operates, plans, and coordinates science experiments aboard the space station 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, supported Expedition 70, managing communications between the International Space Station crew and researchers worldwide.

For more information on the Expedition 70 crew, visit:

Expedition 70

Joel Wallace
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
256-786-0117
joel.w.wallace@nasa.gov

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Sols 4182-4183: We Reached the South Side of Pinnacle Ridge… What’s Next? This image was taken by Left Navigation Camera onboard NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity on Sol 4180 (2024-05-10 03:55:37 UTC). NASA/JPL-Caltech

Earth planning date: Friday, May 10, 2024

We planned quite a drive on Wednesday, with lots of twists and turns over very bumpy terrain, so the team was delighted to learn everything completed as planned when we received our downlink at ~4 am Pacific Time this morning! The successful drive means Curiosity is now parked on the south side of Pinnacle Ridge, the final area of upper Gediz Vallis ridge that we planned to investigate before we cross Gediz Vallis channel. We visited the north side of Pinnacle Ridge last week and collected all sorts of data that tell us a lot about the composition and textures of the rocks that form the ridge.  

We had a big decision to make this morning: Now that we can see the south side of Pinnacle Ridge is traversable, should we drive onto it to get additional contact science data on the Gediz Vallis ridge rocks, or should we continue to drive along Gediz Vallis channel towards our planned channel crossing spot? Driving onto Pinnacle Ridge at this location could give us an opportunity to learn more about the materials that make up the ridge and the role of water in this area, but it could also take several sols and not tell us much more than what we already learned from our investigation on the north face of Pinnacle Ridge.  

My role today was Long Term Planner, which meant I had to lead the team’s discussion to talk through the pros and cons of this decision, and (ideally) help the group come to a consensus. We talked a lot about how the rocks we could see from our current location compared with the rocks we already investigated on the north side, and ultimately the ~25 scientists who were on the tactical operations planning group today came to a consensus decision that we’d rather move on then spend more time here.

So today we’re going to collect lots of Mastcam observations and then continue to make our way up and along the channel, heading ~23 meters to the southwest.  Before driving away we’ll also take the opportunity to do some contact science on the rocks at our feet, doing a DRT followed by APXS and MAHLI observations on the target named “Boyden Cave,”  APXS and MAHLI observations on a nearby (dusty) target named “Royal Arches,” and finally a MAHLI only target of a cool nearby rock named “Quarry Peak.”  We’ll also collect two ChemCam LIBS observations of “Otter Lake,” a target very close to Royal Arches, and another nearby rock named “Nevada Falls.”  A suite of environmental monitoring observations will round out the plan.  

I really love operations days like today. We came in this morning with a completely new Martian vista to admire, and then we had to work together as a team to make a quick decision about what to do next.  I think the pace of this decision making, the ability to talk through tough choices with a group of really smart, passionate people, and the realization that these decisions are guiding the course of a one-ton vehicle on an entirely different planet is one of the coolest ways to spend a morning.

Written by Abigail Fraeman, Planetary Geologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

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A photo of a team of researchers from the University of Puerto Rico-Río Piedras while working to discover a more efficient water recycling system for use on space missions. The team is comprised of doctoral students Liz Santiago-Martoral, on the left, and Alondra Rodriguez-Rolon, and their mentor Professor Eduardo Nicolau. One of their experiments can be seen on the countertop to the left of the group.Credits: NASA

NASA is awarding approximately $45 million to 21 higher-education institutions to help build capacity for research. The awards were made possible through the Minority University Research and Education Project Institutional Research Opportunity (MIRO) and Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) grants, which are funded by the agency’s Office of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Engagement.

“NASA’s Minority University Research and Education Project Institutional Research Opportunity and Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research awards help institutions raise their technological bar,” said Torry Johnson, deputy associate administrator of STEM Engagement Programs at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “When institutions enhance their capabilities and infrastructure, they become more competitive in their research, which opens doors to valuable experience and opportunities.”

Minority University Research and Education Project Institutional Research Opportunity (MIRO) Awards

Seven minority-serving institutions will receive approximately $5 million each over a five-year period of performance for projects that span a variety of research topics. The institutions and their proposed projects are:

• Alaska Pacific University in Anchorage – Alaska Pacific University Microplastics Research and Education Center
• California State University in Fullerton – SpaceIgnite Center for Advanced Research-Education in Combustion
• City University of New York, Hunter College in New York – NASA-Hunter College Center for Advanced Energy Storage for Space
• Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University in Tallahassee – Integrative Space Additive Manufacturing: Opportunities for Workforce-Development in NASA Related Materials Research and Education
• New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark – AI Powered Solar Eruption Center of Excellence in Research and Education
• University of Houston in Houston – NASA MIRO Inflatable Deployable Environment and Adaptive Space Systems Center
• University of Illinois in Chicago – Center for In-Space Manufacturing: Recycling and Regolith Processing

NASA’s MIRO award was established to strengthen and develop research capacity and infrastructure of minority serving institutions in areas of strategic importance and value to NASA missions and national priorities.

Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) Award

NASA establishes partnerships with government, higher education, and industry to create lasting improvements in research infrastructure and capacity for specific states or regions, while enhancing its national research and development competitiveness. The program is directed at those jurisdictions that have traditionally not participated in competitive aerospace and aerospace-related research activities.

NASA will award 14 institutions up to $750,000 each over the course of a three-year period of performance. The awarded institutions and their projects are:

• University of Mississippi in University – Development of a Lagrangian Stability Analysis Framework for High-Speed Boundary Layers
• University of Alabama in Huntsville – Testing the functionality and performance of a large area detector for STROBE-X
• Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge – Colloidal Assembly: Understanding the Electric Field Driven Assembly of Colloids and its Applications (Science Mission Directorate)
• West Virginia University in Morgantown – Science Mission Directorate: Bringing Gravitational-Wave Astronomy into the Space Age: Next-Generation Waveform Modeling of Black-Hole Binary Coalescences for Laser Intererometer Space Antenna Data Analysis
• University of Puerto Rico in San Juan – NASA EPSCoR: Space Technology Mission Directorate/Jet Propulsion Laboratory: Advancing High-Energy, Cycle-Stable Sulfur-Based Batteries for NASA Space Missions: An Integrated Framework of Density Functional Theory, Machine Learning, and Materials Innovation
• Desert Research Institute, Reno, Nevada – NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, California: Prospecting and Pre-Colonization of the Moon and Mars using Autonomous Robots with Human-In-The-Loop
• Oklahoma State University in Stillwater – A.7.4.2 Biosignature Detection of Solar System Ocean Worlds using Science-Guided Machine Learning
• Iowa State University in Ames – Johnson Space Center, Ames Research Center: Non-GPS Navigation System Using Dual Star/Planetary Cameras for Lunar and Deep-Space CubeSat Missions
• University of Alaska Fairbanks in Fairbanks – NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland: The Alaska – Venus analog: synthesizing seismic ground motion and wind noise in extreme environments
• University of the Virgin Islands in Charlotte Amalie – University of the Virgin Islands Etelman Observatory in the Era of Time Domain and MultiMessenger Astronomy: Preparing for a New Era of Science Productivity
• University of Hawaii at Manoa in Honolulu – Cubesats for Climate Change Detection of Transient Greenhouse Gas Emissions
• University of Idaho in Moscow – Science Mission Directorate and Goddard Space Flight Center: Improving Global Dryland Streamflow Modeling by Better Characterizing Vegetation Use of Deep-Water Resources Using NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment/Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On, SWOT, and Land Information System
• University of Arkansas in Little Rock – AR- III-Nitride Ultraviolet Laser Diodes for Harsh Environments, Space Based Communications, and Remote Sensing (Space Technology Mission Directorate)
• South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in Rapid City – Science Mission Directorate: High Spatial-Temporal Resolution Soil Moisture Retrieval using Deep Learning Fusion of Multimodal Satellite Datastreams

Both awards were made through NASA’s Office of STEM engagement solicitations. They promote STEM literacy to enhance and sustain the capability of institutions to perform NASA-related research and education, which directly supports the agency’s mission directorates.

For more information about NASA STEM, visit:

https://stem.nasa.gov

-end-

Gerelle Dodson
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-4637
gerelle.q.dodson@nasa.gov

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NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Telescope will hunt for the universe's first stars — or rather, what's left of them after they've been ripped apart by black holes.

Astronomers find multiple streams of dust spiraling into the heart of the nearby Andromeda galaxy, where a supermassive black hole lurks.

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Humanity got its first look at the other side of the Moon in 1959 when the USSR’s Luna 3 probe captured our first images of the Lunar far side. The pictures were shocking, pointing out a pronounced difference between the Moon’s different sides. Now China is sending another lander to the far side.

This time, it’ll bring back a sample from this long-unseen domain that could explain the puzzling difference.

Chang’e-6 (CE-6) launched on May 3rd and is headed for the second largest impact crater in the Solar System: the South Pole Aitken (SPA) basin. It’ll land at Apollo Basin, a sub-basin inside the much larger SPA basin.

China has placed a lander on the far side of the Moon before (Chang’e 4.) They also placed a lander on the near side of the Moon and brought back samples (Chang’e 5.) But CE-6 will be the first sample ever returned from the Lunar far side. It’s the latest mission in the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program (CLEP.)

This graphic outlines China’s Lunar Exploration Program. Image Credit: CASC

A new paper published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters outlines the significance of the CE-6 landing site and the samples it’ll return to Earth. It’s titled “Long-lasting farside volcanism in the Apollo basin: Chang’e-6 landing site.” The lead author is Dr. Yuqi Qian from the Department of Earth Sciences at The University of Hong Kong.

When the USSR’s Luna 3 probe gave us our first look at the lunar far side, it didn’t take scientists long to realize how different it is from the near side. The near side of the Moon is marked by vast basaltic lava plains called lunar mares. Mares cover about 31% of the lunar near side.

But the far side is much different. Lunar mares cover only about 2% of the lunar far side. Instead, it’s dominated by densely-cratered highlands. This is known as the lunar dichotomy. The difference likely stems from a deposit of heat-producing elements under the near side that created the lunar mares. Scientists have also proposed that a long-gone companion moon slammed into the far side, creating the highlands.

This global map of the Moon, as seen from the Clementine mission, shows the differences between the lunar near side and far side. The familiar near side is marked by dark lunar mares. The far side has very few of them. This is known as the lunar dichotomy. Credit: NASA.

“A major lunar scientific question is the cause of the paucity of farside mare basalts,” Qian and his colleagues write in their paper. “The Chang’e-6 (CE-6) mission, the first sample-return mission to the lunar farside, is targeted to land in the southern Apollo basin, sampling farside mare basalts with critical insights into early lunar evolution.” 

CE-6 samples from the far side can start to answer the questions about the differences between the two sides. In preparation for receiving the samples, Qian and his colleagues studied the Apollo Basin’s volcanism. Their work revealed diverse and puzzling volcanism.

Their research shows that the Apollo basin experienced volcanic activities lasting from the Nectarian (~4.05 billion years ago) to the Eratosthenian Period (~1.79 billion years ago). However, since the far side’s crust is much thicker, it influenced the volcanic activity. In regions like the Oppenheimer Crater, where the crust has intermediate thickness, lava dikes stall beneath the crater floor. Lava spreads laterally and forms a sill and floor-fractured crater.

These two images give context to the CE-6 landing site. The left image shows where Apollo is inside the SPA. The right image shows some of the features in the Apollo crater, with the landing zone in a white rectangle. Image Credit: Qian et al. 2024.

Some regions, like the inner floor of the Apollo crater, have thin crusts. Here, lava dikes erupted directly and formed extensive lava flows. But where the crust is thickest, in the highland regions, there’s no evidence that dikes there ever reach the surface.

“This fundamental finding indicates that the crustal thickness discrepancy between near side and far side may be the primary cause of lunar asymmetrical volcanism,” said Dr. Qian. “This can be tested by the returned Chang’e-6 samples.”

They’ve chosen Apollo Crater’s Southern Mare partly because it contains at least two historic eruptions from two different times. Each one has a different Titanium content. The earlier one occurred ~3.34 billion years ago and has a low Titanium content (3.2% by weight.) The later one occurred ~3.07 billion years ago and has a higher Titanium content (6.2% by weight.)

This figure from the study shows the prime location for collecting samples according to the authors. This region would provide samples from the older, low-Ti basalts, the younger high-Ti basalts, and also overlying impact ejecta from the Chaffee S crater. Image Credit: Qian et al. 2024.

The titanium content in the rock is relevant because of petrogenesis, the origin and formation of rocks. Scientists think that high-Ti and low-Ti lunar basalts form when different geological layers of the Moon melted. “CE-6 samples returned from the unique geological setting will provide significant petrogenetic information to address further the paucity of farside mare basalts and the lunar nearside-farside dichotomy,” the authors write.

The authors suggest that CE-6 collect samples from the edge of the later eruption with the higher Titanium content. That sample will have higher scientific value because it’ll actually sample three things at once: Newer high-Ti basalt, underlying low-Ti basalt, and other materials unrelated to the mares that were transported by impact events. “Diverse sample sources would provide important insights into solving a series of lunar scientific questions hidden in the Apollo basin,” said Professor Joseph Michalski, a co-author of the paper also from the University of Hong Kong.

“The result of our research is a great contribution to the Chang’e-6 lunar mission. It sets a geological framework for completely understanding the soon-returned Chang’e-6 samples and will be a key reference for the upcoming sample analysis for Chinese scientists,” said Professor Guochun Zhao, Chair Professor of HKU Department of Earth Sciences and the co-author of the paper.

Chang’e 6 will deliver up to 2 kg (4.4 lbs) of lunar material. It should arrive on Earth around June 25th.

“These returned samples could help to answer questions about the evolution of high-Ti and low-Ti basalts, the influence of crustal thickness on lunar volcanism, and the most fundamental unsolved question of lunar science: What is the cause of the pronounced lunar nearside-farside asymmetry?” the authors conclude.

The post Here’s Where China’s Sample Return Mission is Headed appeared first on Universe Today.

Ultra-fast pulses of laser light can be shaped into vortices similar to smoke rings – when chained together, they can carry enough information to transmit a simple image

Ultra-fast pulses of laser light can be shaped into vortices similar to smoke rings – when chained together, they can carry enough information to transmit a simple image

A severe geomagnetic storm has just hit Earth — which means we could see auroras tonight! Here's what you'll need to know.

The post Severe Geogmagnetic Storm Has Arrived! Auroral Blast Expected Friday Night appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

A giant sunspot cluster rivaling the one that caused the Carrington Event in 1859 could trigger a cannibal coronal mass ejection. But this is unlikely to cause major problems

An American Flamingo takes a sip of water in the Indian River at Haulover Canal on Merritt Island on Thursday, Jan. 11, 2024. The American Flamingos are more common in Mexico and Cuba but the winds from Hurricane Idalia relocated them to Florida in September 2023. Kennedy Space Center in Florida shares a border with the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge where more than 310 species of birds inhabit the refuge.

A rare geomagnetic storm not seen for nearly 20 years could cause a stunning aurora borealis on 10 and 11 May

A rare geomagnetic storm not seen for nearly 20 years could cause a stunning aurora borealis on 10 and 11 May