Science is Fun Fridays!

 


Perhaps you saw some aurora this week, thanks to a solar storm.

But that caused a delay for the new Mars Mission launch, the Blue Origin New Glenn rocket.

It was scheduled for November 12, but was able to go up yesterday instead.  It was originally supposed to launch in October of 2024, but a series of technical and scheduling issues brought us to November 2025.

All this is for the ESCAPADE spacecraft - Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers - and it is meant to study the exact kind of space weather that delayed it.

As the sun releases large clouds of plasma, known as coronal mass ejections, the electricity charged material triggers auroras when the particles interact with Earth's magnetic field lines and atmosphere.

ESCAPADE will examine how this weather, as well as solar wind, previously stripped Mars of the thicker atmosphere the planet used to have.  

Mission


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Vacation Open Thread!

Image
 From Highway 395 overlooking Mono Lake. This year we're driving on past that to check out Mammoth Lakes and Bishop.  A few sites in the area I'd like to see, not to mention the lakes themselves and some hot springs. There's a fire in Yosemite, so we're hoping the winds keep the smoke to the west. I'll be back on the 18th! ❤️
Read more

Science is Fun Fridays!

Image
  Pterosaurs have incredibly lightweight skeletons, so finding one intact is pretty rare. In the Solnhofen Limestones in Germany, paleontologists came across a perfectly preserved hatchling.  And it is tiny, with a wingspan of less than 20 centimeters. "The odds of preserving one are already slim, and finding a fossil that tells you how the animal died is even rarer," reports lead author, Rab Smyth, from the University of Leicester Centre for Paleobiology. The fractures suggest a powerful twisting force, such as a severe storm, that caused catastrophic injuries. It should be noted that several young pterosaur fossils have been found in this area, and now scientists understand why - adults would likely have survived the storm. Here they explain the conditions:
Read more

Venice Film Festival

Image
This week I thought we might check out some fashion along with some background. The festival began in 1932, and includes the Venice Biennale, one of the world's oldest exhibitions of art. The first film to be presented: Helen Hayes was voted best actress, which she followed up with an Oscar. This year: Cate Blanchett, Father Mother Sister Brother Emily Blunt, The Smashing Machine Noomi Rapace, Mother Colman Domingo, Dead Man's Wire Shailene Woodley, Motor City
Read more