Biofuel-Powered Rocket Makes Historic Launch in Maine

Despite bad weather and early technical difficulties, employee-owned bluShift Aerospace “made history Sunday afternoon when it launched its prototype rocket, Stardust 1.0,” reports Maine’s Portland Press Herald:
The company became the first in Maine to launch a commercial rocket and the first in the world to launch a rocket using bio-derived fuel… It carried three payloads, two commercial and one, free of…

Searching for stardust: How to find micrometeorites in your gutters

Space dust is constantly falling to Earth, sprinkling rooftops with beautiful particles unchanged since the birth of the solar system. To find some, start with a sieve – and be patient Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24833132-500-searching-for-stardust-how-to-find-micrometeorites-in-your-gutters/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…

Ancient micrometeoroids carried specks of stardust, water to asteroid 4 Vesta

The formation of our solar system was a messy affair. Most of the material that existed before its formation—material formed around other, long-dead stars—was vaporized, then recondensed into new materials. But some grains of that material, formed before the sun’s birth, still persist. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-06-ancient-micrometeoroids-specks-stardust-asteroid.html…

Have the first proteins been found in meteorites?

Researchers say they’ve discovered the first complete proteins inside 2 meteorites. It’s tantalizing, since proteins play a key role in the cells of living creatures. But will the results hold up to scrutiny? Source: https://earthsky.org/space/proteins-amino-acids-meteorites-acfer-086-and-allende-origin-of-life…

VLT sees surface of dim Betelgeuse

The European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope is in northern Chile. Astronomers used it to capture the unprecedented dimming of Betelgeuse, a red supergiant star in the constellation of Orion. The new images show how the apparent shape of this star is changing. Source: https://earthsky.org/todays-image/betelgeuse-dimming-supernova-new-vlt-images…