Astronomers Find a Rare “Einstein Cross”

A great example of an Einstein Cross, as seen by Hubble Space Telescope. A "galaxy" with five nuclei is really one galaxy surrounded by a mirage of four images of a distant quasar. The galaxy lies 400 million light years away; the quasar about 8 billion. Credit: NASA/ESA/Hubble
A great example of an Einstein Cross, as seen by Hubble Space Telescope. A "galaxy" with five nuclei is really one galaxy surrounded by a mirage of four images of a distant quasar. The galaxy lies 400 million light years away; the quasar about 8 billion. Credit: NASA/ESA/Hubble

Gravitational lensing is one of astronomy’s great wonders: a natural lens that magnifies the distant universe. Sometimes a lensing system takes the shape of a so-called “Einstein Cross”. Those are rare and amazingly useful ways to study objects far away in space and time.

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NASA and DARPA Award Contract for a Nuclear Engine to Lockheed Martin

Artist's concept of a Lockheed design for a DRACO nuclear-powered demonstration spacecraft. Credit: Lockheed Martin.

NASA plans to send astronauts to Mars in the coming decade. This presents many challenges, not the least of which is the distance involved and the resulting health risks. To this end, they are investigating and investing in many technologies, ranging from life support and radiation protection to nuclear power and propulsion elements. A particularly promising technology is Nuclear-Thermal Propulsion (NTP), which has the potential to reduce transit times to Mars significantly. Instead of the usual one-way transit period of six to nine months, a working NTP system could reduce the travel time to between 100 and 45 days!

In January of this year, NASA and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced that they were launching an interagency agreement to develop a nuclear-thermal propulsion (NTP) system – known as the Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations (DRACO). Just yesterday, DARPA announced that it had finalized an agreement with Lockheed Martin to design and build a prototype NTR system – the Experimental NTR Vehicle (X-NTRV) – that will be sent to space for testing by 2027.

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Senseless Vandalism Damages Canadian Observatory

Damage from vandalism at the Hamilton Centre, an observatory for amateur astronomers, part of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. Image courtesy Victor Abraham/ Hamilton Centre.

The Royal Astronomical Society of Canada’s observatory in Hamilton, Ontario was vandalized earlier this month, with at least $100,000 in damage to equipment and facilities.

Security video shows two people using a truck to repeatedly ram into two buildings – the observatory and a meeting center — knocking down exterior walls on both buildings and damaging telescopes and other equipment inside. Nothing was stolen, but damaged for no apparent reason.

“It appears to be a failed robbery turned utter vandalism,” said the group’s president Andy Blanchard. “It looked like they wanted to destroy everything.”

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Olympus Could Have Been a Giant Volcanic Island in an Ancient Martian Ocean

Olympus Mons, captured by the ESA's Mars Express mission from orbit. Credit: ESA/DLR/FUBerlin/AndreaLuck

Olympus Mons, located at the northwest edge of the Tharsis Montes region on Mars, was appropriately named. Based on readings obtained by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA), an instrument aboard NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor (MGS), this mountain is the tallest in the Solar System, standing 21.9 km (13.6 mi) tall – about two and a half times the height of Mount Everest (8.85 km; 5.5 mi). According to current estimates, this extinct shield volcano formed during Mars’ Hesperian Period (ca. 3.7 to 3 billion years ago), which was characterized by widespread volcanic activity and catastrophic flooding.

This coincides with a period when Mars had a denser atmosphere, a warmer environment, and flowing water on its surface. This included a global ocean that spanned much of the northern hemisphere, known today as the Northern Lowlands, encompassing Olympus Mons. According to a recent study led by researchers from the Centre National de Recherches Scientifique (CNRS), features found on the slopes of Olympus Mons indicate that it could have been a massive volcanic island where volcanic eruptions flowed into the ocean, similar to ones found on Earth.

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Need To Image An Asteroid Close Up? There’s an AMIGO For That.

There are so many asteroids. Just in our own backyard, we’ve found over 30,000 Near Earth asteroids. Exploring them using traditional methods and launching a custom-made mission, like Hayabusa or OSIRIS-REx, would almost certainly be cost-prohibitive. So how can we assess whether they would make good targets for early asteroid mining missions? Ground imaging can help, but there’s nothing like being on-site on one of these asteroids to get a sense of what they are made of. Those visits would be much easier if we mass-produced the Asteroid Mobile Imager and Geologic Observer (AMIGO). 

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A Gamma Ray Burst Lasted So Long it Triggered a Satellite Twice

An artist's depiction of a gamma-ray burst's relativistic jet full of very-high-energy photons breaking out of a collapsing star. Credit: DESY, Science Communication Lab

Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs) are the most powerful astrophysical phenomena in the universe. For a span of seconds to a few minutes, they can be the most powerful high-energy event in the sky, shining across billions of light years. But recently astronomers detected a GRB that lasted more than a thousand seconds, with two blasts of gamma rays that triggered the Fermi Gamma Ray Burst Monitor. It’s such a strange cosmic event that astronomers aren’t sure what caused it, but they do have a possible idea.

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Witnesses Play Up the Alien Angle at Congressional UFO Hearing

Tic Tac object on infrared sensor image
Infrared imagery captured by a Navy fighter jet in 2004 shows an anomalous "Tic Tac" object, highlighted by a red circle. (U.S. Navy Video)

Three former insiders who have played a role in dealing with UFOs — or as they’ve now come to be known, unidentified anomalous phenomena — say the U.S. military knows more than what it’s been telling lawmakers about encounters with potentially alien technology.

During a House subcommittee hearing held today, one of the witnesses said he was told that non-human remains have been recovered from UAP incidents.

“As I’ve stated publicly already … biologics came with some of these recoveries,” David Grusch, a former intelligence officer who took on whistleblower status due to his claims, said in response to a question from Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C.

“Were they, I guess, human or non-human biologics?” Mace asked.

“Non-human,” Grusch replied. “And that was the assessment of people with direct knowledge on the program I talked to, that are currently still on the program.”

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Astronomers Have a New Trick to Work out the Age of Stars

A frame from the Kepler Telescope showing a couple binary systems. Credit: AIP/ David Gruner, NASA (Kepler FFI) & ESO (zoomed)

Twinkle, twinkle little star, I wonder just how old you are.

It isn’t an easy question to answer. Stars are notoriously difficult to age. We know the age of the Sun because we happen to live on one of its orbiting rocks, and we know very well how old the rock is. Without that information, things become a bit more fuzzy. But that could change thanks to a new study.

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A Fine Southern Apparition for Comet T4 Lemmon

Comet T4 Lemmon
Comet T4 Lemmon from July 11th, near the galaxy IC 5267. Image credit: Eliot Herman.

The time to catch Comet T4 Lemmon is now, before it vanishes for another 36,000 years.

Often, icy interlopers creep up on the inner solar system, only to once again vanish into the abyss. Such is the case with long-period comet C/2021 T4 Lemmon, headed towards perihelion early next week.

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