Category: space

Perhaps the most dramatic was a powerful coronal mass ejection and solar flare that erupted from the far side of the Sun on February 15 just before midnight. Based on the size, it’s possible that the eruption was in the most powerful category of which our Sun is capable: an X-class flare.

Because the flare and CME were directed away from Earth, we’re unlikely to see any of the effects associated with a geomagnetic storm, which occurs when material from the eruption slams into Earth’s atmosphere. These include interruptions to communications, power grid fluctuations, and auroras. But the escalating activity suggests that we may anticipate such storms in the imminent future. “This is only the second farside active region of this size since September 2017,” astronomer Junwei Zhao of Stanford University’s helioseismology group told SpaceWeather. “If this region remains huge as it rotates to the Earth-facing side of the Sun, it could give us some exciting flares.”

According to SpaceWeatherLive, which tracks solar activity, the Sun has erupted every day for the month of February, with some days featuring multiple flares. That includes three of the second-most powerful flare category, M-class flares: an M1.4 on February 12; an M1 on February 14; and an M1.3 on February 15. There were also five M-class flares in January. The mild geomagnetic storm that knocked 40 newly launched Starlink satellites from low-Earth orbit followed an M-class flare that took place on January 29.

The article suggests this is normal activity, since the sun is about halfway towards “solar maximum” (its peak of sunspot and flare activity) expected to arrive in 2025, while the “solar minimum” was in 2019.
Further Reading: SciTechDaily reports that the ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter spacecraft has now “captured the largest solar prominence eruption ever observed in a single image together with the full solar disc.”

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for submitting the story

Long-time Slashdot reader theodp writes:

This week brought news that Amazon is teaming up with Lockheed Martin and Cisco to put its Alexa voice assistant on NASA’s Orion spacecraft for the (uncrewed) Artemis 1 round-the-moon mission….

On the heels of that announcement came news that Amazon Future Engineer (AFE) has partnered with Mobile CSP and the National Science Teaching Association (NSTA) on the Alexa for Astronauts program, which will provide students in grades 4-and-up with live WebEx by Cisco tours from NASA’s Johnson Space Center. This program will also provide curriculum — NSTA’s Using AI to Monitor Health and Mobile CSP’s Alexa in Space — aimed at teaching high school Science and AP Computer Science Principles students “how to program their own Alexa skills that could help astronauts [and ‘inexperienced space travelers, such as tourists’] solve problems in space and communities at home” using MIT’s App Inventor.

App Inventor, some may recall, was developed at Google to bring programming to the masses only to be suddenly abandoned. App Inventor was later picked up by MIT and — with support from Google and millions in NSF funding — eventually found its way into curriculum developed for the new AP CSP course aimed at mainstreaming AP Computer Science.

The C-type, or carbonaceous, asteroid is much darker than scientists originally thought, only reflecting about 2% of the light that hits it, according to one study published Monday in the journal Nature Astronomy. After opening the sample, scientists were surprised to find that the spacecraft collected 5.4 grams from the asteroid — much more than the single gram they were expecting, said Toru Yada, lead study author and associate senior researcher at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Institute of Space and Astronautical Science.
In the second study, also published Monday in Nature Astronomy, the researchers determined that Ryugu is made of clay and other hydrated minerals, with a number of carbonates and organics inside the sample.

Slashdot reader votsalo shared their report (which also looks at some of the other companies working on the problem of space debris).
South Australian company Neumann Space has developed an “in-space electric propulsion system” that can be used in low Earth orbit to extend the missions of spacecraft, move satellites, or de-orbit them. Now Neumann is working on a plan with three other companies to turn space junk into fuel for that propulsion system… Another U.S. company, Cislunar, is developing a space foundry to melt debris into metal rods. And Neumann Space’s propulsion system can use those metal rods as fuel — their system ionises the metal which then creates thrust to move objects around orbit.

Chief executive officer Herve Astier said when Neumann was approached to be part of a supply chain to melt metal in space, he thought it was a futuristic plan, and would not be “as easy as it looks”.

“But they got a grant from NASA so we built a prototype and it works,” he said…

Astier says it is still futuristic, but now he can see that it’s possible. “A lot of people are putting money into debris. Often it’s to take it down into the atmosphere and burn it up. But if it’s there and you can capture it and reuse it, it makes sense from a business perspective, because you’re not shipping it up there,” he said.

“It’s like developing a gas station in space.”