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A sweet spot in space

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By ScienceAdvisor.  Excerpt: Victory is sweet for astronomers, who have just discovered the presence of a sugar molecule in interstellar space —a discovery that may have implications for the origin of life. The molecule, erythrulose, is also found on Earth in raspberries and self-tanner. ...researchers observed a large cloud of gas and dust called G+0.693–0.027, located about 27,000 light-years from Earth, using ...radio waves, which can pass through gas and dust and reveal information about the molecules within. ...Erythrulose isn’t the first sugar to be detected outside Earth, as samples from meteorites and the asteroid Bennu have shown ribose and glucose. But the new, more complex sugar is the first to be detected in interstellar space—and a further sign of how the carbon-rich building blocks of genetic material could have first formed in space. “ We have been waiting for an actual detection like this ,” geochemist Yoshihiro Furukawa, who was not involved in the study, told The ...
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New Images Reveal That This Asteroid Is Actually Two Conjoined Space Rocks. They Form a Peanut-Shaped Object Called a ‘Contact Binary’

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By Sara Hashemi , Smithsonian Magazine.  Excerpt: On July 5, a Japanese spacecraft flew past an odd-looking asteroid named Torifune. The probe snapped photos, which it beamed to Earth, revealing that the object is actually made of two space rocks that are stuck together—something called a “contact binary.” ...The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) spacecraft that captured the data, Hayabusa2 , snapped a particularly show-stopping close-up from just over half a mile from Torifune’s surface, according to a statement ....  Full article at https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/new-images-reveal-that-this-asteroid-is-actually-two-conjoined-space-rocks-that-form-a-peanut-shaped-object-called-a-contact-binary-180989090/ .  See also The New York Times article, Cosmic Conjoined Twins, Caught on Camera .  
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Uranus and Neptune may not be ‘ice giants’ after all

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By Hannah Richter , Science.  Excerpt: For decades, elementary students learned the same tale of the Solar System: first come rocky terrestrial planets such as Earth, followed by gas giants such as Jupiter and ice giants such as Neptune, with lovable Pluto bringing up the rear. ...the so-called ice giants likely contain very little ice. ...Uranus and Neptune were first called ice giants because they orbit past the Solar System’s so-called ice lines: the points beyond which water, ammonia, carbon monoxide, and other volatile molecules exist as solids rather than gases. If this region abounded with frozen water during the early Solar System, then Uranus and Neptune’s interiors might consist mostly of water, squeezed by the pressure of the planets’ gravity into a hot “supercritical” soup. ...researchers have come up with a smorgasbord of ideas about the interiors of our outermost planets. The newest, posted as a preprint last week and currently in review at The Astrophysical Journal ,...
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Rubin observatory begins a 10-year movie of the changing universe

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By Daniel Clery , Science.  Excerpt: Last night, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory began to film the greatest time-lapse movie ever made: a 10-year record of the changing night sky. Over a few nights, the telescope will sweep the entire hemisphere of sky visible from its Chilean mountaintop with the largest digital camera ever built, then do it again and again for a decade. In its first year the survey will generate more data than all previous optical telescopes combined. It will capture everything from wandering asteroids and exploding stars to the growth of distant galaxies, and it will spew the data continuously to the world’s astronomers....  Full article at https://www.science.org/content/article/rubin-observatory-begins-10-year-movie-changing-universe .
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If scientists discover aliens, they have a plan for ‘disclosure day’

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By Daniel Clery , Science.  Excerpt: Disclosure Day , arriving in movie theaters this week, deals with what would be a pivotal event in history: the moment conclusive evidence arrives of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. The movie pits sinister military-industrial forces that hide and control the information against those who strive to reveal the truth. ...Researchers involved in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) have long realized this moment—if it ever arrives outside cinemas—is going to be fraught with emotion, confusion, and possible danger. To get a jump on such events, the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) convened a permanent committee of SETI experts. In 1989, the committee drew up a set of “postdetection protocols,” nonbinding guidelines for what scientists and their institutions should do when the time comes. The protocols stress the importance of verifying the alien signal and making accurate and transparent announcements. They sugge...
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First results put neutrino experiment in China on track for breakthrough

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By Adrian Cho , Science.  Excerpt: A new neutrino experiment in China has put the world on notice that it’s poised to make a breakthrough. The Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO), a plastic sphere 10 stories high filled with a liquid that flashes when certain particles pass through it, detects neutrinos streaming from nuclear power plants 53 kilometers away. Neutrinos come in three types that “oscillate,” or morph into one another, as they zip along at near–light-speed, a phenomenon physicists have yet to fully puzzle out. Now, JUNO has measured with unequaled precision two of the six parameters that describe the oscillations, as reported today in Nature . The result, based on just 2 months of data, suggests JUNO is on track to reach its main goal: sorting the neutrinos by mass. ...Nearly massless, neutrinos interact with other matter so rarely that every second trillions pass through each of us....  Full article at https://www.science.org/content/article/first-re...
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Radical proposal would block solar storms with orbital ‘airbag’

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By Paul Voosen , Science.  Excerpt: When violent eruptions from the Sun slam into Earth’s magnetic field, they do more than paint aurorae across the night sky. They can scramble the electronics of satellites and induce powerful ground currents that knock out electrical grids. It’s been estimated that a one-in-a-100-year solar storm like the 1859 Carrington Event could cause more than $3 trillion of damage to the power grid alone. ...In a study published today in Space Weather , the researchers describe a provocative proposal called “StormWall”: a fleet of satellites that would release hundreds of tons of gases into space just before a solar storm strikes Earth. Computer simulations suggest the artificial cloud could cut the intensity of a major solar storm by half or more....  Full article at https://www.science.org/content/article/radical-proposal-would-block-solar-storms-orbital-airbag . 
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