A remote outback station about 800km north of Perth in Western Australia is one of the best places in the world to operate telescopes that listen for radio signals from space. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-12-radio-astronomers-quiet-middle-western.html…
Tag: outback
Asteroid Ryugu dust delivered to Earth; NASA astrobiologists prepare to probe it
On Dec. 6 local time (Dec. 5 in the United States), Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa2 dropped a capsule to the ground of the Australian Outback from about 120 miles (or 200 kilometers) above Earth’s surface. Inside that capsule is some of the most precious cargo in the solar system: dust that the spacecraft collected earlier this year from the surface of asteroid…
What has Japan’s Hayabusa2 mission accomplished?
A small capsule from Japan’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft successfully landed in a sparsely populated desert in the Australian Outback on Sunday. After a preliminary inspection, it will be flown to Japan for research. The extremely high precision required to carry out the mission thrilled many in Japan, who said they took pride in its success. The project’s manager, Yuichi Tsuda of the…
Japan’s capsule with asteroid samples retrieved in Australia
A Japanese capsule carrying the world’s first asteroid subsurface samples shot across the night atmosphere early Sunday before landing in the remote Australian Outback, completing a mission to provide clues to the origin of the solar system and life on Earth. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-12-japan-capsule-asteroid-samples-australia.html…
Australian Telescope Maps New Atlas of the Universe In Record Speed
A powerful new telescope developed by Australian scientists has mapped three million galaxies in record speed, unlocking the universe’s deepest secrets. The Guardian reports: The Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (Askap) broke records as it conducted its first survey of the entire southern sky, mapping approximately three million galaxies in 300 hours. Scientists used the telescope at an observatory in outback…
Ancient microbial life used arsenic to thrive in a world without oxygen
Today, most life on Earth is supported by oxygen. But ancient microbial mats existed for a billion years before oxygen was present in the atmosphere. So what did life use instead? Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/ancient-microbial-life-arsenic…
Gold miners discover 100 million-year-old meteorite crater Down Under
About 100 million years ago, a gigantic meteorite collided with Australia, creating a 3-mile-wide impact crater. Source: https://www.livescience.com/meteorite-crater-australia-outback.html
Australian telescope finds no signs of alien technology in 10 million star systems
A radio telescope in outback Western Australia has completed the deepest and broadest search at low frequencies for alien technologies, scanning a patch of sky known to include at least 10 million stars. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-09-australian-telescope-alien-technology-million.html…
Has mystery of universe’s missing matter been solved?
Cosmologists have only been able to find half the matter that should exist in the universe. With the discovery of a new astronomical phenomenon and new telescopes, these researchers say they’ve just found the rest. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/cosmic-bursts-unveil-universe-missing-matter-mystery…
Earth May Have Been a ‘Water World’ 3 Billion Years Ago, Scientists Find
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Scientists have found evidence that Earth was covered by a global ocean that turned the planet into a “water world” more than 3 billion years ago. Telltale chemical signatures were spotted in an ancient chunk of ocean crust which point to a planet once devoid of continents, the largest landmasses on Earth….