Space and Related Subjects Astronomers were very surprised at what they found in space. It wouldn’t have surprised me, but I don’t know any better when it comes to these types of observations. They were looking at two stellar gas clouds and found a huge empty space between them. The word empty is relative, but it was empty to the eye. They feel they have come across an area in space where there was a huge explosion. The empty area is 500 light years across. To put that into perspective Alpha Centauri is our nearest star and is about 4.4 light years away and this space is about 113.6 times bigger. Speaking of space, it seems SpaceX is so far ahead of everyone right now in the field of space travel they might even beat NASA to the moon if they are allowed. Wouldn’t that be embarrassing? Things are not looking too good for NASA’s moon rocket and Boeing is looking less and less likely they can even get the moon rocket off the ground. The delays and cost overruns should have been unacceptable to NASA but they just went along with the flow. Meanwhile SpaceX is plowing ahead and getting better every day. Soon we will be seeing their giant Moon and Mars rocket doing takeoffs. A rogue brown dwarf star as been detected speeding through our galaxy the Milky Way. It has been detected traveling at a speed of 800,000 kilometers per hour or about 497,100 miles per hour. It may seem very fast to us, but in speed relative to the size of our galaxy, it is slow. First let me say we are not in any danger from the brown dwarf. We know from time to time objects get blasted or collided out of orbit. This just happens to be one we found. The object has been named the accident by astronomers. Scientists have been investigating whether it would be safe to send astronauts to Mars due to the radiation in space and also if picking a certain time for the trip could make it safer. First of all, they have said if the ship is sufficiently shielded and doesn’t take longer than 4 years for the round trip, it is safe. They also said certain times for launch are safer than others. For example, you wouldn’t want to launch when solar activity was at its peak sending more radiation than usual our way. Shielding is a big problem and there have been several schemes put forward, but they do not seem to be ideal. We should also do everything we can to make the trip shorter, even if we need to use different propulsion from rockets. Rockets take at least 7 months to reach Mars and can take up to 9 months. It is said a nuclear powered rocket can reach Mars in 4 months because it travels twice as fast. We also have to consider what being locked up in a spaceship for many months might do to the crew. One UFO investigator believes he has found a face on Mars equivalent to the faces on Mount Rushmore. I saw the photo, but I believe more evidence is needed. I want to be convinced it is a real carving and not just a rock of unknown size which looks like a face. In this case there is plenty of other evidence on the Red Planet which suggests it was inhabited by intelligent people in the past so if there is a face, or should I say another face, and it is proven I would not be shocked. The Webb telescope is getting ready for launch. If the launch is successful this telescope will be 100 times more powerful than Hubble. Scientists are pinning their hopes on the telescope being able to find signs of alien life on another planet, but even if it does not, we should be able to see things which were not visible with the Hubble. We should also be able to take even more precise measurements due to its more powerful abilities. Scientists were very excited to observe something for the first time. It was the final dance for a neutron star being devoured by a black hole. Another sign was detected the same thing had happened a few days before. They knew this because they received a gravitational wave signal of the event. This could be the only time for the scientists involved where they will ever have the opportunity to see such an event. So far, an event of this type had never been seen in the Milky Way galaxy. Astronomers wanted to know more about spinning objects in space. We know almost all the objects we have found so far spin. They wanted to know what would be the biggest object capable of spinning so a study was conducted and the results were published in Nature Astronomy. What was found out was the filaments connecting galaxies also spin. The thin filaments move in corkscrew orbits. Why do they spin? That is a question which will have to be answered when we get more data. Something is happening to the earth. We all know the earth has a core and is thought of as an iron ball. This is changing however because that ball is getting lopsided and scientists don’t know why. Since we really can’t see the center of the earth, we have to have other ways of detecting its shape and material. Scientists know this is happening from the seismic waves generated by earthquakes passing through the inner core. Scientists in Chile have been conducting studies on rogue planets. These are planets traveling through space because they have been knocked out of orbit like the brown dwarf I talked about above. They have concluded some rogue planets could be traveling with a moon or moons and there could be a possibility life could exist on the moons. They believe this because a model they created showed the moons may have conditions conducive to water and an atmosphere. Astronomers have been studying the phenomenon of fast radio bursts and a new one has supplied more questions than answers. It is the closest one found yet being “only” 11.7 million light years away. It appears in a very old clump of stars where it was not expected. This has led scientists to postulate there could be an unknown mechanism which would also form stars. Scientist had a theory neutron stars caused the radio bursts then they found a magnetar which was causing the burst. A magnetar is a very rare type of neutron star.
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