Fellow Asgardians in Damascus,

It will be my pleasure, if elected, to represent you within Asgardia’s official events and be the principal contact between you and the parliament to support any initiatives and ideas that you may would like to participate with.

I joined Asgardia since its early days and have been already active within its community for a while.

I look forward for your support, and let’s work together to build the first Space Nation in human history.

NASA is just a week away from launching its next science mission, a spacecraft called the Parker Solar Probe that will eventually "touch the sun."

If all goes according to plan, the probe will take off in the early morning of August 11 ^th .

To successfully reach the sun, the Parker Solar Probe needs to leave Earth incredibly quickly, hence the massive rocket, which is second in launch power only to SpaceX's brand new Falcon Heavy rocket.

Once the spacecraft waves goodbye to Earth, it will loop around Venus in a gravity assist that will slow down the spacecraft and carefully control its approach to the sun.

That flyby will kick off 24 orbits, performed over seven years, that will gradually pull the spacecraft closer and closer to the sun.

On its final close approach, in 2025, the Parker Solar Probe will get within 6 million kilometers of the sun's surface, so close that it will actually fly through the sun’s corona.

The spacecraft will survive the heat for so many years because of the powerful shield engineers have designed. This shield doesn't weigh down the spacecraft but keeps the instruments aboard at a safe 30 degrees Celsius.
During the spacecraft's orbits, those instruments will be working to solve three major scientific mysteries about our sun:

1. Why its atmosphere becomes hotter farther away from the surface of the sun.
2. How the solar wind of charged particles streaming out into space is born
3. What causes the gigantic outbursts scientists call coronal mass ejections.

The answers could be crucial to scientists' understanding of how stars beyond our solar system work, the probe's work should also help scientists understand and predict the hazards of living near a star.

Source: SPACE.com

It takes 512 years for a high-energy photon to travel from the nearest neutron star to Earth. Just a few of them make the trip. But they carry the information necessary to solve one of the toughest questions in astrophysics.

Beams of X-ray energy burst from the surface of the tiny, ultra-dense, spinning remnant of a supernova, the neutron star. The beams disperse over long centuries in transit, but every once in a while, a single dot of X-ray light that's traveled 512 light-years across space expends itself against the International Space Station's (ISS) X-ray telescope, then down on Earth, a text file enters a new point of data: the photon's energy and its arrival time, measured with microsecond accuracy.

That data point, along with countless others like it collected over the course of months, will answer a basic question as soon as summer 2018: Just how wide is J0437-4715, Earth's nearest neutron-star neighbor?

If researchers can figure out the width of a neutron star, that information could point the way toward solving one of the great mysteries of particle physics: How does matter behave when pushed to its wildest extremes?

In other words, the solution to the mystery of ultra-dense matter is locked away inside some of the universe's densest objects, neutron stars, and scientists can crack that mystery as soon as they measure precisely just how wide (and, therefore, dense) neutron stars really are.

A neutron star is believed to be not much wider than a midsize city. Neutron stars can spin at high fractions of the speed of light, firing flickering beams of X-ray energy into space with more precise timing than the ticking of atomic clocks.

And most importantly, neutron stars are the densest known objects in the universe that haven't collapsed into black holes. But unlike with black holes, it's possible for scientists to figure out what goes on inside them. Astronomers just need to know precisely how wide neutron stars really are.

And answering that question could unlock answers to all sorts of particle-physics mysteries that have nothing to do with neutron stars. For example, it could help answer just how individual neutrons arrange themselves in the nuclei of very heavy atoms.

Source: SPACE.com

Lotteries, accidents and rolls of dice, the world around us is full of unpredictable events. Yet generating a truly random series of numbers for encryption has remained a surprisingly difficult task.

Now, researchers have used an experiment relying on both Albert Einstein's theory of relativity and quantum mechanics, which describes the probabilistic nature of subatomic particles, to produce strings of numbers that are guaranteed to be random.

Computers everywhere use random numbers as keys to lock or unlock encrypted information. Many processes for producing these keys, such as random number generators inside computers, use an algorithm that spits out a seemingly arbitrary string of numbers. Other approaches try to make use of real-world randomness, for instance measuring the length of time between keystrokes or the fluctuating temperature of a computer server, to produce random numbers.

Entangled photons

Quantum mechanics, on the other hand, offers truly random outcomes. For instance, a light particle, or photon, can either be pointing up or pointing down. Before it's measured, the particle is in a superposition state, in which it has a 50 percent chance of pointing up and a 50 percent chance of pointing down once measured. Its eventual outcome is certifiably random, but using this property for number generation has still been somewhat problematic.
Consider a photon in a superposition state of up and down, and upon measurement, the photon turns out to be down, an outcome that nobody should have been able to predict in advance.
But how it could be known that the photon wasn't always down? In other words, there's no way to prove, for any individual photon, that it was in a superposition state before it got measured. To get around this conundrum, pairs of photons were entangled with one another, meaning that their properties were forever tied together.
In their experiment, the researchers then sent the two photons to opposite ends of their lab, separated by a distance of 187 meters, and measured their properties. Because of their entanglement, the photons always returned coordinated results, if one was found to be up, the other was always down.
Because they were so far apart, there's no way for the photons to have discussed their perfect lockstep synchronization unless they could send signals faster than the speed of light, which would violate Einstein's theory of relativity. The two photons therefore serve as a check on one another, guaranteeing that they were actually in a superposition state before being measured and that their results are genuinely random.
This could mean that an ultimate quantum random number generator was just built, but the method took about 10 minutes to produce 1,024 random strings, whereas current cryptographic processes would need far faster number generators.

The new technique's first real-world use will come when it's incorporated into NIST's randomness beacon, a public source of randomness for researchers studying unpredictability, and researchers hope the experimental setup could one day be shrunk enough to fit on a computer chip and help in the creation of "unhackable" messages.

Source: SPACE.com

Space junk is a huge problem. In fact, if we don't do something about the more than 20,000 objects, from defunct satellites to paint chips, that are orbiting Earth, we may one day be unable to leave the planet at all.

In the UK, a team at Airbus is developing a charmingly method of removing large pieces of junk from orbit: a giant harpoon.

The harpoon, which is about a meter long, would be attached via a strong tether to a spacecraft which would follow it as it punctured space trash. The spacecraft would then tow the junk back down to Earth, where it would burn up in the atmosphere.

To test their invention, the researchers have been shooting their harpoon in the lab, using compressed air, at sheets of metal that are 3 cm thick aluminum composite honeycomb panels.

The harpoon goes through these panels like a hot knife through butter. once the tip is inside, it has a set of barbs that open up and stop the harpoon from coming back out. Then the satellite is de-tumbled with a tether on the other end.

Many of these targets will be tumbling and if a robotic arm was used, that involves a lot of quite complex motions to follow the target. Whereas, with the harpoon, all what have to be dome is sit a distance away, wait for the target to rotate underneath, and at the right moment fire the harpoon. And because it's a really quick event, it takes out a lot of the complexity.

The biggest quarry out there for this new invention is the broken Envisat Earth observation satellite, an eight ton hunk of metal that's floated uselessly for six years now.

Airbus' harpoon will soon be put to the test. A miniature version of the device will be sent into space next month with a mission by RemoveDebris, another group focused on the space junk problem. This test mission will release its own piece of junk and then try using both a net and the harpoon to capture it.

The big harpoon still needs more testing. But if it works, it could free up a significant amount of space in Earth's orbit.

Source: Popular Mechanics

Ever since Galileo Galilei peered at Jupiter with a telescope in the early 1600s, astronomers have marveled at the dramatic features on the solar system's largest planet, such as its colorful bands and its Great Red Spot. But much has remained unknown about Jupiter's poles, which are not visible from Earth.

Visible and infrared images taken by NASA's Juno spacecraft in orbit around Jupiter have revealed giant cyclones arranged in geometric patterns at the planet's poles. For example, at Jupiter's north pole, one cyclone about 4,000 kilometers wide has eight cyclones each of similar diameter around it. And at the south pole, one cyclone about 6,400 km wide is encircled by five cyclones ranging in size from 5,600 km to 7,000 km.

These cyclones all lasted for at least seven months. In each cluster, the cyclones were close enough to each other to essentially be in contact.

This isn't the first time astronomers have found giant storms at the pole of a gas giant. Saturn, the second-largest planet in the solar system, possesses a single cyclone at each pole, and the researchers had expected similar findings at Jupiter.

Scientists have also previously detected geometric patterns on other planets in the solar system. For example, astronomers first detected a giant hexagonal pattern of clouds at Saturn's north pole in 1988. However, this is the first time clusters of cyclones were seen arranged in polygonal shapes.

It remains unknown how these cyclones persist without merging, or how they evolved to form geometric patterns. Although such clusters appear unique to Jupiter in this solar system, those structures could be found in other planets similar to Jupiter in other solar systems.

Source: SPACE.com

Astronomers have picked up a long-sought signal from some of the universe's first stars, determining that these pioneers were burning bright by just 180 million years after the Big Bang.

Scientists had long suspected that dawn broke over the cosmos that long ago, theorists' models predict as much, but researchers had never had the evidence to back it up until now.

Before this new study, the oldest stars ever seen dated to about 400 million years after the Big Bang.

The signal which researchers found was surprisingly strong. In fact, It was so strong, that it hints at a possible interaction between mysterious dark matter and the "normal" stuff that makes up the stars and everything else we can see in the universe.

The further back in time we go, the harder it is to spot stars directly, using instruments such as NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. For starters, there are fewer and fewer stars to find. And until about 500 million years after the Big Bang, the universe was suffused with neutral hydrogen atoms, which are good at blocking light. (Radiation from the first stars eventually split these atoms into their constituent protons and electrons, creating a more transparent ionized plasma, but this took a while.)

There are two possible explanations for this surprising signal intensity: Either the radio background was quite a bit stronger in those early days than scientists had thought, or the hydrogen gas was significantly cooler.

The study leans toward the second possibility, because it's tough to imagine a process that would increase the radio background to the necessary levels. It's also tricky to figure out what may have cooled down the hydrogen, but there is a promising contender: dark matter, the mysterious stuff that makes up 85 percent of the material universe, where it is suggested that the cold dark matter may have sucked away energy from the hydrogen gas, cooling it down.

Speaking of confirming the detection, which is the immediate next step in this line of early universe research, another research group needs to spot the signal as well.

If that happens, astronomers can mine the signal for more information. After all, now they know where to find it.

Source: SPACE.com

On July 12, 2017, the Juno spacecraft made a close pass to Jupiter's Great Red Spot, the famous anticyclonic storm that dwarfs any other vortex in the solar system. The resulting images are some of the most detailed and spectacular observations of the storm ever taken. But that flyby told scientists something else: the famous centuries-old storm is on its last legs.

Jupiter's spot has been raging for at least 200 years, and probably longer. The first reliable drawings of the anticyclone were created in the mid 19th-century, and astronomers began photographing the planet-sized storm in the 1880s. Some less-reliable descriptions, which could refer to the Great Red Spot, date as far back as the 1600s.

The turbulent vortex is large enough to swallow the Earth whole, but when it was first discovered, the Great Red Spot was even greater—large enough to swallow about four Earths. But nothing lasts forever. In just 20 years or so, the Great Red Spot could be gone for good.

The storm is driven by rotating atmospheric bands traveling at up to 300 mph that keep the anticyclone swirling. The bands rotate in the opposite direction of the Great Red Spot and keep it spinning. They're like conveyor belts feeding momentum into the 'wheel' that’s spinning between them.

The Great Red Spot has more or less maintained its vertical length, or degrees of latitude, over the centuries. As it shrinks in longitude, it gets closer to a circular shape. But if it crosses the line and becomes prolate, a vertical ellipse, the same atmospheric conveyor belt that currently keeps it running could tear it apart. Even a circular storm would be a sign of the Great Red Spot's way out into the Great Red Beyond.

The death of the storm could prove to be a significant opportunity for scientists who study planetary atmospheres. Long-lasting storms on Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune are the result of poorly-understood churning within the depths of the planets' immense atmospheres. What causes the dynamics from below to bubble up to the surface and trigger megastorms is still a mystery.

Watching the Great Red Spot fizzle out will help scientists understand how the storm's energy is dispersed into Jupiter's atmosphere and potentially provide a glimpse of what lurks below the cloud tops. Understanding the depths of planets like Jupiter is the key to learning more about the other gas giants in the solar system, as well as those strewn across the galaxy.

Still, it will be bittersweet to see the Great Red Spot lost back into the depths of Jupiter. The storm has captured the imagination and terror of all humanity for centuries. But like a phoenix from the heart of Jupiter, another red storm of rage could burst to the surface of the giant planet.

Source: Popular Mechanics

When rockets can no longer hold oversize payloads, building in space might be the best way to go.

A rocket blasts off from the launchpad, carrying a couple dozen tons of cargo into space. In the span of a few minutes, the rocket accelerates to around 17,500 miles per hour, orbiting the Earth at nearly 300 miles above the surface.

What is this rocket carrying? Perhaps a communications satellite, a NASA spacecraft, or some payload for the military? Actually, the rocket isn’t even carrying a spacecraft at all. Instead, its payload contains several tons of high-grade plastic and pre-fabricated components, material that will be fed to a 3D printer waiting in orbit. This futuristic printer will then use the plastic and components to construct a functional satellite spanning several miles.

A mile-wide satellite might sound impossible, but that’s exactly where the space industry is headed. In the future, giant telescopes, communication satellites, solar arrays, and space stations will fill the space around the Earth, and many of them will be several times larger than anything ever built on the surface.

Space Lego

Headquartered in Mountain View, California, "Made In Space" is working to make that dream a reality. For the past few years, they’ve operated the Additive Manufacturing Facility, one of the only 3D printers in space. While the AMF sits comfortably aboard the International Space Station, Made In Space has plans to launch a new printer that would operate exclusively in the vacuum of space.

Their prototype, called Archinaut, is scheduled to launch later this year . Future machines like Archinaut will be able to print nearly everything in orbit—where there’s no limit on size.

“We can manufacture a structure that couldn’t support its own mass if it were on Earth,” says Made In Space CEO Andrew Rush. “The only practical limitation you have is how much material you’re providing to the system.”

The first Archinaut prototype is mostly just a proof-of-concept and won't be constructing mile-wide satellites anytime soon. “First you crawl, then you walk, then you run,” says Rush. “We’ll start out with manufacturing space-optimized trusses and booms and reflectors to provide a supply capability that we can’t currently achieve.” But once this tech gets off the ground, it can be used to build structures as big as their owners want them.

There are plenty of technical challenges to overcome, too, says Rudranarayan Mukherjee, a robotics expert at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “Autonomy, manipulation, perception, force control, metrology” are all areas where our robots need to improve. A robot needs to see what it’s doing and delicately piece together components with little or no human oversight.

Satellites and other space structures also have to be completely redesigned, says Mukherjee. “When you talk about making things in space, you have to have interfaces that are standardized and tested for that environment, that provide structural aspects, communication, power lines have to be redesigned, as well as thermal aspects.”

Spacecraft parts have to come together like Lego, fitting in all sorts of combinations while simultaneously providing electrical and data connections.

This is the heart of what Rush is trying to do. He believes that in a few decades, space-based manufacturing is going to be “fundamentally transformative.”

Once these technologies make it possible to construct extremely large structures in space, plenty of people will want to build them. Rush mentions “reflectors that are larger than the International Space Station,” as well as “very long antennas,” as practical structures that are widely useful and easy to build.

What Comes Next?

The possibilities for in-space assembly and manufacturing are nearly unlimited. This is a true “if you can dream it, you can do it” type of scenario. But the technology is still very much in its infancy, with the first prototype device still stuck on the ground.

But in a sense, we already know what the impact is going to be because we’ve done it before. The first large in-space assembly project began twenty years ago with the construction of the International Space Station. The ISS is the largest structure ever built in space, and it was done without any fancy robots or 3D printers.

The impact of this single space-assembled structure has been enormous. The impact of any future space-assembled or space-built structure would be even more so.

No one knows for sure what the future of space exploration will look like, but there’s a very good chance it’ll be built there.

Source: Popular Mechanics