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Jumat, 30 April 2021

SpaceX making 1st US crew splashdown in dark since Apollo 8 - Toronto Star

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - SpaceX this weekend will attempt the first U.S. splashdown of returning astronauts in darkness since the Apollo 8 moonshot in 1968.

Elon Musk’s company is targeting the predawn hours of Sunday to bring back three NASA astronauts and one from Japan, after dangerously high wind scuttled a pair of earlier attempts.

The astronauts — only the second crew to fly SpaceX — will depart the International Space Station on Saturday night aboard the SpaceX Dragon capsule that carried them up last November. They’ll aim for a splashdown 6 1/2 hours later, around 3 a.m. in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Panama City, Florida.

SpaceX brought back a station cargo capsule with a splashdown in darkness in January. That adds to NASA’s confidence for a nighttime homecoming, said Rob Navias, a spokesman at Johnson Space Center in Houston.

“SpaceX has done numerous dress rehearsals and spent a lot of time with nighttime recoveries,” he said.

Navias said the time slot provided the best weather conditions in the coming days.

The capsule carrying Apollo 8’s three astronauts — the first men to fly to the moon — splashed into the Pacific near Hawaii before dawn on Dec. 27, 1968.

The Russians also had one crew splashdown in darkness, back in 1976. The two-man capsule could not dock to the Soviet Union’s Salyut 5 space station as intended and had to make a hasty return, ending up in a partially frozen lake in Kazakhstan — in the middle of a blizzard. It took hours for recovery teams to rescue the cosmonauts.

Even with the early hour, the Coast Guard promises to have more patrols to keep sightseers at a safe distance. On a Sunday afternoon last August, pleasure boaters swarmed the capsule that parachuted into the Gulf of Mexico with the first SpaceX crew.

The departure of NASA’s Mike Hopkins, Victor Glover and Shannon Walker and Japan’s Soichi Noguchi will leave seven aboard the space station. Their replacements — representing the U.S., Japan and France — arrived last weekend in their own SpaceX capsule for a six-month mission. The three remaining crew members — one American and two Russians — launched in a Russian capsule from Kazakhstan three weeks ago.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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2021-04-30 20:32:11Z
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NASA Mars helicopter goes farther and faster for dramatic fourth flight - CNET

The "high-risk, high-reward" Ingenuity helicopter is now pouring on the rewards for NASA. It completed its fourth and most ambitious test flight across Mars on Friday.

NASA JPL tweeted "Success," saying Ingenuity went father and faster than ever before. NASA also shared a nifty image from one of the Perseverance rover's cameras showing the helicopter in flight in the distance.

Ingenuity had originally been scheduled for a fourth flight on Thursday, but a known glitch prevented the rotorcraft from switching into flight mode. The chopper remained safe and healthy and ready for the redo.

The plan for the latest test was to fly the helicopter to an altitude of 16 feet (5 meters), collect images of the landscape below, hover and then head back to its takeoff spot. The flight path was set to take it 436 feet (133 meters) downrange and last 117 seconds.

It takes time to send the data back from Mars, but NASA is expecting to receive a bounty of photos snapped by the helicopter during the flight. This will help prove the rotorcraft's potential for use as a scout that can assist surface vehicles like rovers as they explore from the ground.

NASA said the plucky chopper already "has met or surpassed all of its technical objectives." That gave the helicopter team license to try the more daring fourth flight to push its capabilities in the thin atmosphere of Mars.

Ingenuity will soon move into a new demonstration phase if its planned fifth flight is also successful. The next phase will prioritize Perseverance and look at how Ingenuity can assist the rover's mission to study Mars and look for signs of ancient microbial life.

Perseverance is on the move and looking for interesting rocks to check out. Ingenuity may try to tag along. "The helicopter can use these opportunities to perform aerial observations of rover science targets, potential rover routes, and inaccessible features while also capturing stereo images for digital elevation maps," said NASA in a statement on Friday.

The rotorcraft no longer has to prove that powered, controlled flight is possible on another planet. It's done that and more. Every flight from here on out will just add to its aerial legacy.

Follow CNET's 2021 Space Calendar to stay up to date with all the latest space news this year. You can even add it to your own Google Calendar.

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2021-04-30 19:45:00Z
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Rare ‘Moon Dog’ Captured In Antarctica While Epic ‘Super Pink Moon’ Lights-Up Arabian Desert - Forbes

Did you see the “Super Pink Moon” this week? It was coming, then it was gone (and it wasn’t too dangerous), but some stunning images have come to light since that you need to see.

May’s full Moon, traditionally called the “Pink Moon” in North America because this time of year sees the flowering of phlox.

That’s not the case globally, but the name has stuck regardless. It was termed a “supermoon” because out satellite was almost as close to Earth as it gets on its slightly elliptical orbit.

The result was a full Moon about 6% larger than normal, but a much rarer event was photographed around it close to the South Pole.

Not, not an actually pink Moon (a common misconception), but a “moon dog.”

Rarely seen, though typically only spotted only when the full Moon is low in the sky, a “moon dog” is a halo caused by hexagonal ice crystals in thin clouds, which refract moonlight.

Officially known as “paraselenae,” they’re also called lunar halos, moon rings and winter rings.

This image (above) was shot by Matt Young at the South Pole Telescope, a 10-meter diameter telescope at the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station close to the South Pole in Antarctica.

For fans of rare solar phenomena the “White Continent” is hotting up. Antarctica will see a spectacular total solar eclipse on December 4, 2021 when it will be possible to view an eclipsed Sun low on the horizon above ice-scapes and floating icebergs.

Meanwhile, about 8,000 miles away on the Arabian Peninsular a team were out to capture the very same “Super Pink Moon” in a completely different environment.

Qatar National Tourism Council (QNTC) has captured the incredible Pink Supermoon above the Torch Tower in Doha and in the Al Aamriya Desert. Partnering with local astro-photographer Vinay Swaroop Balla, the striking images show the moon rising above the country’s iconic locations. — Qatar National Tourism Council (QNTC) has captured the incredible Pink Supermoon above the Torch ... [+] Tower in Doha and in the Al Aamriya Desert. Partnering with local astro-photographer Vinay Swaroop Balla, the striking images show the moon rising above the country’s iconic locations.
Vinay Swaroop Balla & Qatar National Tourism Council

Partnering with local astro-photographer Vinay Swaroop Balla, the Qatar National Tourism Council (QNTC) has issued these stunning images of the “Super Pink Moon” besides camels, the desert and some landmarks in Qatar’s capital, Doha.

The photos are partly to promote Qatar as a destination for stargazing, with new astro-toursim packages announced for when the country reopens its borders later this year.

An “Arabian Nights” package includes a moon-lit camel safari and stargazing with an astronomer, but do be careful on timing; you can never get a full Moon AND a dark sky on the same night because the big, bright full Moon rises at dusk and sets at dawn, looking beautiful all night, for sure, but also bleaching the night skies and making stargazing virtually impossible. In reality you have to choose one or the other (go around New Moon for truly dark, moonless skies).

The package includes BBQ dinner banquets by the campfire and a stay at the Regency Sealine Camp in the south-east of Qatar overlooking the UNESCO-protected Khor Al-Adaid, where sand dunes meet the ocean.

Qatar has recently been the perfect place to view a spectacular “ring of fire” solar eclipse on December 26, 2019.

It was caused by the very opposite of a “supermoon,” when our satellite was the furthest it gets from Earth in its monthly orbit. Consequently smaller in the sky, it wasn’t able to full cover the Sun when the eclipse occurred, resulting in a “ring of fire” around the Moon.

From Qatar is was possible to see a rare “Devil’s Horns” crescent sunrise as a partially eclipsed Sun poked above the horizon.

Although the “Super Pink Moon” was impressive, it’s nothing compared to what will happen next month as a “Super Flower Blood Moon Eclipse”—a rare total lunar eclipse—will see the lunar surface visibly turn a reddish color for about 15 minutes.

The key date for your diary is May 26, 2021. However, lunar eclipses are visible from about half of the Earth’s surface, and this one will only be seen by those around the Pacific Rim in western U.S. states, western South America, the islands of the Pacific, Eastern Asia, Australia and New Zealand.

Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes.

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2021-04-30 02:00:00Z
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4th flight fizzles for NASA's Mars helicopter, retry Friday - CTV News

CAPE CANAVERAL, FLA. -- NASA's Mars helicopter fizzled Thursday on its fourth flight attempt.

The 4-pound (1.8-kilogram) helicopter named Ingenuity was supposed to lift off on its longest, fastest flight yet, after three successes. But the chopper remained on the ground.

Flight controllers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California will attempt a redo on Friday.

Ingenuity's took flight for the first time at Mars on April 19 -- becoming the first powered aircraft to soar at another planet -- after controllers fixed a software error.

Managers said the solution would work 85% of the time. After three successful flights, Thursday's attempt was not one of them.

The helicopter team has until early next week to test Ingenuity in the Martian skies. Two more flights are planned before NASA's Perseverance rover shoves off on its primary mission: seeking signs of past life in the Martian rocks. The rover will collect core samples and set them aside for pickup by a future robotic craft, for eventual return to Earth.

Perseverance and Ingenuity arrived at Mars on Feb. 18, landing in an ancient river delta.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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2021-04-29 21:12:00Z
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Kamis, 29 April 2021

CGTN：Tianhe lifts off China's space station ambition - Canada NewsWire

Tianhe will act as the foundational module for China's first space station in low-Earth orbit named Tiangong, which means "heavenly palace" in Chinese.

Chinese President Xi Jinping said in a congratulatory message Thursday that the successful launch of the core module Tianhe means that China's space station construction has entered the full implementation stage, which lays a solid foundation for follow-up tasks.

Building a space station and national space laboratory is an important goal of the three-step strategy of China's manned space program, and an important leading project to boost the country's strength in science and technology, as well as in space, Xi said in the message.

He called on all members who participated in the mission to be self-reliant and innovative, to win the overall victory of the space station construction mission, and to make new and greater contributions to the comprehensive construction of a modern socialist country.

An open platform

China's new space station will not just be for Chinese scientists. Foreign astronauts and global cooperation on scientific experiments are most welcome in China's space station, Hao Chun, the director of China Manned Space Engineering Office, said in an exclusive interview with CGTN.

"China and the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs carried out cooperation on applications concerning the use of China's space station. We signed an agreement," said Hao.

So far, a total of nine projects proposed by 17 countries including France, Germany and Italy have been selected for the first round of experiments to be conducted in the new space lab.

"In the future, there will surely be foreign astronauts participating in China's space flight, working and living on our space station. In addition, some foreign astronauts are already participating in Chinese flights and are already learning Chinese," said the director.

Build an aerospace power

Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), Xi, also general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, has personally directed the implementation of major aerospace projects, and promoted China's steady progress to become an aerospace power.

"Exploring the vast universe, developing space programs and becoming an aerospace power have always been the dream we've been striving for," Xi said in an instruction on China's first Space Day on April 24, 2016.

In 2020, China's space industry has produced remarkable achievements: China successfully put into orbit its final Beidou satellite on June 23; an unmanned probe to Mars was sent into space on July 23; an uncrewed mission called Chang'e-5 with the aim of collecting lunar material was launched on November 24 and China successfully landed the Chang'e-5 probe on the moon's surface on December 1.

https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-04-29/Tianhe-lifts-off-China-s-space-station-ambition--ZR9lfbX2iA/index.html

SOURCE CGTN

For further information: Jiang Simin, +86-188-2655-3286, [email protected], www.cgtn.com

Celebrating the life of Michael Collins, Apollo 11 astronaut - Washington Post

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Celebrating the life of Michael Collins, Apollo 11 astronaut Washington Post
Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins dead at age 90 CBC.ca
Astronaut Michael Collins, Apollo 11 pilot, dead of cancer CP24 Toronto's Breaking News
Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins dies aged 90 Euronews
RIP Michael Collins, "Third Man" of the first Moon landing Boing Boing
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2021-04-29 16:10:04Z
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Net Zero: Study finds world's glaciers melting at alarming rate - iPolitics.ca

Welcome to Net Zero, your daily industry brief on clean energy and Canadian-resource politics.

The Lead

The rate the world’s glaciers are melting has nearly doubled over the last 20 years, according to a study published in Nature journal. The researchers also determined that melting glaciers currently contribute more to rising sea levels than both the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets.

“Over the last 20 years, we’ve seen that glaciers have lost about 267 gigatonnes per year. So, if we take that amount of water and we divide it up across the island of Ireland, that’s enough to cover all of Ireland in 3m of water each year,” Robert McNabb, a member of the research team that conducted the study, told BBC News.

While this particular study did not explore the causes of glacial retreat, many scientists believe human emissions resulting in rising global temperatures are the predominant contributor to ice loss.

Scientists have long warned that warming temperatures driven by climate change are impacting glaciers and ice sheets around the world, resulting in rising sea levels that threaten many of the the world’s coastal cities.

“Ten years ago, we were saying that the glaciers are the indicator of climate change, but now actually they’ve become a memorial of the climate crisis,” said World Glacier Monitoring Service director Michael Zemp. The Canadian Press has more.

Internationally

The U.S. Senate approved a measure to reintroduce regulations that work to limit methane emissions, which are extremely destructive compared to other greenhouse gas emissions. The regulations were originally introduced by the Obama administration, but were relaxed by former president Donald Trump last year.

Andrew Wheeler, a former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, declared the change would “strengthen and promote American energy″ while saving companies tens of millions of dollars a year in compliance requirements. The Associated Press has the full story.

Staying in the U.S., the Minnesota Supreme Court affirmed a lower court’s revocation of a vital mining permit for the proposed PolyMet copper-nickel mine in northeastern Minnesota. PolyMet seeks to be the first copper-nickel mine in the state, but many are concerned about its impact on local water quality.

Environmental advocacy groups that were protesting the $1-billion project are celebrating the ruling.

“Today, the Supreme Court hit the reset button on PolyMet,” Kathryn Hoffman, CEO of the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, said in a statement. “Now it’s up to Governor [Tim] Walz and his agencies to make better decisions and protect Minnesotans and the water they depend on.”

Meanwhile, a mining robot being tested on the floor of the Pacific Ocean is currently stranded, according to the Belgian company running the experimental trial. The machine is programmed to collect samples from the seabed that are rich in cobalt and other metals used in the production of batteries.

Many environmental activists, including David Attenborough, are calling for a moratorium on deep-sea mining, on account of the largely unknown environmental impact of the practice. Reuters has the details.

On Thursday morning at 10:16 a.m., West Texas Intermediate was trading at US$64.88 and Brent Crude was going for US$68.43.

In Canada

Federal Green party members are criticizing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s recently unveiled climate plan for not going far enough.

“We see this as a global announcement on the part of the Government of Canada that Canada is not seeking at this time to be a leader in the fight against the climate crisis,” said party leader Annamie Paul.

The party, in association with several think tanks, has advocated that Canada commit to shrinking its greenhouse gas emissions to 60 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030. The Greens argue this would better reflect Canada’s fair share in tackling the climate crisis. Last week, Trudeau announced Canada’s plan to cut 2005 emissions levels by 40 to 45 per cent by the end of this decade.

“Even with the full weight of pressure from the Biden administration to do the right thing, the best we could get was 40 to 45 per cent? That is pathetic,” former Green party leader Elizabeth May said. “It’s a disgrace.”

In other news, B.C.’s provincial budget is receiving condemnation from environmental activists, who question the province’s commitment to climate change, given its reaffirmed support for the liquefied natural gas export industry. The National Observer has more details.

Finally, Vermilion Energy reported a first quarter jump in net income to $500 million, which was largely attributed to higher global oil prices and strong natural gas prices in Europe. Last year, the Calgary-based company recorded a $1.2-billion net loss over the same period, due to low commodity prices.

Canadian Crude Index was trading at US$51.90 and Western Canadian Select was going for US$51.11 this morning at 10:17 a.m.

Noteworthy

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2021-04-29 15:20:00Z
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NASA Pays Rich Homage To Apollo 11 Astronaut Michael Collins - Gadgets 360

NASA on Thursday paid a rich tribute to Michael Collins, the American astronaut who was the command module pilot for the Apollo 11 mission to the moon. Collins, 90, passed away on Wednesday after battling cancer, his family said. Sharing a photograph on Instagram, NASA said the picture was clicked by Collins, who spent seven years of his career as an astronaut with them. The photograph shows the lunar module, “Eagle,” returning to the command module, “Columbia,” after landing on the Moon. The Earth can be seen in the background of the picture. NASA said the picture had all of the humanity in it, save for Collins who captured it.

Collins kept the command module flying while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the moon. “We remember Michael Collins, @NASA astronaut and crew member of Apollo 11, who passed away on April 28, 2021,” NASA said.

In the post, NASA also quoted what Collins had said during a transmission to Mission Control on the trip back to Earth from the Moon on July 21, 1969. “This trip of ours to the Moon may have looked, to you, simple or easy… All you see is the three of us, but beneath the surface are thousands and thousands of others, and to all those I would like to say, thank you very much.”

NASA further shared what the mission control stated during Apollo 11. “Not since Adam has any human known such solitude as Mike Collins is experiencing during the 47 minutes of each lunar revolution when he's behind the Moon with no one to talk to except his tape recorder aboard Columbia. While he waits for his comrades to soar with Eagle from Tranquility Base and rejoin him for the trip back to Earth, Collins, with the help of Flight Controllers here in Mission Control Center has kept the Command Module's system going.”

Besides, the space agency also released a statement, saying the nation had lost a "true pioneer and lifelong advocate for exploration" in Collins. NASA Administrator Steve Jurczyk said that as the pilot of Apollo 11 some referred to him as the "loneliest man in history".

"While his colleagues walked on the Moon for the first time, he helped our nation achieve a defining milestone. He also distinguished himself in the Gemini Program and as an Air Force pilot," he said.

Jurczyk shared that Collins would say, "Exploration is not a choice, really, it's an imperative," adding "What would be worth recording is what kind of civilisation we Earthlings created and whether or not we ventured out into other parts of the galaxy."

Jurczyk added that Collins' own signature accomplishments, his writings about his experiences, and his leadership of the National Air and Space Museum helped gain wide exposure for the work of all the men and women who have helped our nation push itself to greatness in aviation and space. "There is no doubt he inspired a new generation of scientists, engineers, test pilots, and astronauts."

We dive into all things Apple — iPad Pro, iMac, Apple TV 4K, and AirTag — this week on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts.

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2021-04-29 06:45:29Z
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Glaciers melting at a faster rate, new study finds - Al Jazeera English

Nearly all of the world’s glaciers are losing mass – and at an accelerated pace, according to a new study that experts said painted an “alarming picture”.

The research published on Wednesday in the science journal Nature provides one of the most wide-ranging overviews yet of ice mass loss from about 220,000 glaciers around the world, a major source of sea-level rise.

Using high-resolution imagery from NASA’s Terra satellite from 2000-2019, a group of international scientists found that glaciers, with the exception of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets which were excluded from the study, lost an average of 267 gigatonnes of ice per year.

A gigatonne of ice would fill New York City’s Central Park and stand 341 metres (1,119 feet) high.

The researchers also found that glacier mass loss accelerated. Glaciers lost 227 gigatonnes of ice annually from 2000 to 2004, but that increased to an average of 298 gigatonnes each year after 2015.

The melt was significantly impacting sea levels by about 0.74 millimetres a year, or 21 percent of overall sea-level rise observed during the period.

Glaciers tend to have a faster response to climate change compared with ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, and are currently contributing more to sea-level rise than either individual ice sheet, scientists said.

The study could fill important gaps in understanding ice mass loss, leading to more accurate predictions, said co-author of the study Robert McNabb, a remote sensing scientist at Ulster University in the United Kingdom. Previous studies looking at individual glaciers only account for about 10 percent of the planet, he said.

Scientists have long warned that warming temperatures driven by climate change are eating into glaciers and ice sheets around the world, contributing to higher sea levels that threaten the world’s populous coastal cities.

Global thinning rates, different than volume of water lost, doubled in the last 20 years and “that’s enormous,” said Romain Hugonnet, a glaciologist at ETH Zurich and the University of Toulouse in France who led the study.

Shrinking glaciers are a problem for millions of people who rely on seasonal glacial melt for daily water and rapid melting can cause deadly outbursts from glacial lakes in places like India, added Hugonnet.

“Ten years ago, we were saying that the glaciers are the indicator of climate change, but now actually they’ve become a memorial of the climate crisis,” said World Glacier Monitoring Service Director Michael Zemp, who was not part of the study.

Some glaciers in Alaska, Iceland, the Alps, the Pamir Mountains and the Himalayas were among the most impacted by melting, researchers found.

“Those areas are seeing a rapid pace of glacier melt that could be fairly worrying,” McNabb said.

“We get this increase in melt and that actually increases the availability of water that comes in these rivers … but the problem is, after a period of time, that stops increasing and then decreases fairly rapidly,” he added.

Human emission leading cause

While the study did not delve into the cause of the glacial retreat, rising temperatures widely believed by scientists to be the result of human emissions were inevitably leading to more ice loss, McNabb said.

“It’s hard to separate the fact that the temperature is what is causing the melt with the fact that humans are, by and large, causing the increase in temperature,” he said.

Once glacial ice melts, it could take decades or centuries to regrow because it must pile up year after year, scientists said.

The study reiterates that the world must bring down global temperatures to slow ice loss, said Twila Moon, a glaciologist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center who was not involved in the study.

“I have no expectation, in all honesty, that even substantial action to reduce our emissions and control the Earth’s temperature rise is going to grow our glaciers,” Moon said. “We’re at a point where we’re trying to keep as much ice as possible and slow that rate of loss,” she added.

While researchers identified instances where melt rates actually slowed between 2000 and 2019, like Greenland’s east coast, they attributed that to a weather anomaly that led to higher precipitation and lower temperatures.

McNabb said the study’s overall picture was one of “fairly rapid” ice mass loss, with no indication it would change soon, but there is still time to put the brakes on melt by reducing emissions.

“When you see something like this where glaciers are losing mass, it’s getting faster, that sounds really bad,” he said. “But there’s something that we can do here, we need to act.”

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2021-04-28 17:36:32Z
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Rabu, 28 April 2021

Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins dead at age 90 - CBC.ca

American astronaut Michael Collins, who stayed behind in the command module of Apollo 11 on July 20, 1969 while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin travelled to the lunar surface to become the first humans to walk on the moon, died on Wednesday at age 90, his family said.

A statement released by his family said Collins died of cancer.

Often described as the "forgotten" third astronaut on the historic mission, Collins remained alone for more than 21 hours until his two colleagues returned in the lunar module. He lost contact with mission control in Houston each time the spacecraft circled the dark side of the moon.

"Not since Adam has any human known such solitude as Mike Collins," the mission log said, referring to the biblical figure.

WATCH | Long-lasting legacy of Apollo 11:

Our panel looks at the impact of space exploration on pop culture, technology and social change. 13:02

Collins wrote an account of his experiences in his 1974 autobiography, Carrying the Fire, but largely shunned publicity.

"I know that I would be a liar or a fool if I said that I have the best of the three Apollo 11 seats, but I can say with truth and equanimity that I am perfectly satisfied with the one I have," Collins said in comments released by NASA in 2009.

Collins's path to the moon

Collins was born in Rome on Oct. 31, 1930 — the same year as both Armstrong and Aldrin. He was the son of a U.S. army major general and, like his father, attended the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., graduating in 1952.

Like many of the first generation of American astronauts, Collins started out as an air force test pilot.

In 1963, he was chosen by NASA for its astronaut program, still in its early days but ramping up quickly at the height of the Cold War as the United States sought to push ahead of the Soviet Union and fulfil President John F. Kennedy's pledge of landing a man on the moon by the end of the decade.

Dear Mike,<br>Wherever you have been or will be, you will always have the Fire to Carry us deftly to new heights and to the future. We will miss you. May you Rest In Peace. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Apollo11?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Apollo11</a> <a href="https://t.co/q4sJjFdvf8">pic.twitter.com/q4sJjFdvf8</a>
—@TheRealBuzz

Collins's first voyage into space came in July 1966 as pilot on Gemini X, part of the missions that prepared NASA's Apollo program. The Gemini X mission carried out a successful docking with a separate target vehicle.

His second, and final, space flight was the historic Apollo 11.

WATCH | One hour that changed the world — the moon landing:

Celebrate the historic 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. 46:13

He avoided much of the media fanfare that greeted the astronauts on their return to Earth, and was later often critical of the cult of celebrity.

After a short stint in government, Collins became director of the National Air and Space Museum, stepping down in 1978. He was also the author of a number of space-related books.

Collins speaks at a panel discussion on the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 launch in Cocoa Beach, Fla., on July 16, 2019. (Joe Skipper/Reuters)

His strongest memory from Apollo 11, he said, was looking back at the Earth, which he said seemed "fragile."

"I really believe that if the political leaders of the world could see their planet from a distance of 100,000 miles, their outlook could be fundamentally changed. That all-important border would be invisible, that noisy argument silenced," he said.

His family's statement said they know, "how lucky Mike felt to live the life he did."

"Please join us in fondly and joyfully remembering his sharp wit, his quiet sense of purpose, and his wise perspective, gained both from looking back at Earth from the vantage of space and gazing across calm waters from the deck of his fishing boat."

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2021-04-28 17:26:28Z
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Declassified satellite data show world's glaciers melting faster than ever - CP24 Toronto's Breaking News

Seth Borenstein, The Associated Press
Published Wednesday, April 28, 2021 12:21PM EDT

Glaciers are melting faster, losing 31% more snow and ice per year than they did 15 years earlier, according to three-dimensional satellite measurements of all the world's mountain glaciers.

Scientists blame human-caused climate change.

Using 20 years of recently declassified satellite data, scientists calculated that the world's 220,000 mountain glaciers are losing more than 328 billion tons (298 billion metric tons) of ice and snow per year since 2015, according to a study in Wednesday's journal Nature. That's enough melt flowing into the world's rising oceans to put Switzerland under almost 24 feet (7.2 metres) of water each year.

The annual melt rate from 2015 to 2019 is 78 billion more tons (71 billion metric tons) a year than it was from 2000 to 2004. Global thinning rates, different than volume of water lost, doubled in the last 20 years and “that's enormous,” said Romain Hugonnet, a glaciologist at ETH Zurich and the University of Toulouse in France who led the study.

Half the world's glacial loss is coming from the United States and Canada.

Alaska's melt rates are “among the highest on the planet,” with the Columbia glacier retreating about 115 feet (35 metres) a year, Hugonnet said.

Almost all the world's glaciers are melting, even ones in Tibet that used to be stable, the study found. Except for a few in Iceland and Scandinavia that are fed by increased precipitation, the melt rates are accelerating around the world.

The near-uniform melting “mirrors the global increase in temperature” and is from the burning of coal, oil and gas, Hugonnet said. Some smaller glaciers are disappearing entirely. Two years ago, scientists, activists and government officials in Iceland held a funeral for a small glacier.

“Ten years ago, we were saying that the glaciers are the indicator of climate change, but now actually they've become a memorial of the climate crisis,” said World Glacier Monitoring Service Director Michael Zemp, who wasn't part of the study.

The study is the first to use this 3D satellite imagery to examine all of Earth's glaciers not connected to ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctic. Past studies either only used a fraction of the glaciers or estimated the loss of Earth's glaciers using gravity measurements from orbit. Those gravity readings have large margins of error and aren't as useful, Zemp said.

Ohio State University's Lonnie Thompson said the new study painted an “alarming picture.”

But the largest threat is sea level rise. The world's oceans are already rising because warm water expands and because of melting ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, but glaciers are responsible for 21% of sea level rise, more than the ice sheets, the study said. The ice sheets are larger longer term threats for sea level rise.

“It's becoming increasingly clear that sea level rise is going to be a bigger and bigger problem as we move through the 21st century,” said National Snow and Ice Data Center Director Mark Serreze.

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2021-04-28 16:21:00Z
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Glaciers Are Melting More Rapidly, Risking Floods and Droughts - BNN

(Bloomberg) -- The world’s glaciers are shrinking at a faster rate than before, with densely-populated parts of Asia at risk of flood and water shortages if the trend continues.

That’s the conclusion of a new study by ETH Zurich and University of Toulouse researchers, who found the world’s ice fields lost 298 gigatons of ice per year from 2005 to 2019, a 30% increase in the rate of retreat compared with the previous five years. Glaciers in Alaska, the Alps and Iceland are among those disappearing at the fastest pace.

“The situation in the Himalayas is particularly worrying,” said Romain Hugonnet, one of the study’s authors, adding that swathes of India and Bangladesh could face water stress during dry periods when major rivers like the Ganges and Indus are mainly fed by glacial runoff.

The scientists used images from a special camera aboard NASA’s Terra satellite, which has circled the Earth every 100 minutes since its launch in 1999. The equipment allowed them to calculate how much mass the world’s 220,000 or so glaciers have lost each year since the turn of the century.

The findings are the latest satellite-based research to point to an accelerating loss of ice in the planet’s cooler regions. Earlier this year, a team led by the University of Leeds in the U.K. found melting of ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland was in line with worst-case climate warming scenarios outlined by experts.

Glaciers typically accumulate ice in the winter, but a warming climate means summer melting has outstripped those gains and caused a net loss of ice in mountain regions. The melting in turn contributes to global warming and indirectly accelerates sea level rise, raising the risk of flooding faced by coastal communities.

Meanwhile, the diminishing contribution from glacial run off during Europe’s drier months has made it impossible for industrial barges to cross the Rhine river.

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2021-04-28 15:17:04Z
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Pink supermoon illuminates sky across Canada, and it's not done yet - Local News 8 - LocalNews8.com

National-World

Click here for updates on this story

TORONTO, Ontario (CTV Network) — The super pink moon illuminated the sky across Canada Monday night, marking the first supermoon of 2021.

The moon didn’t actually appear pink, despite the name. The Old Farmer’s Almanac says that the name refers to the fact that April’s full moon coincides with the blooming of the bright pink creeping phlox flowers.

You’ll have another chance to catch the moon if you missed it. While the moon reached its peak illumination at around 11:32 p.m. EDT Monday night, NASA says the moon is expected to appear full for three days until Wednesday morning.

Supermoons tend to be around 15 per cent brighter and seven per cent bigger than an average full moon.

NASA says this is because the moon orbits around the Earth in an ellipse or oval shape rather than a perfect circle. A supermoon can be seen when the moon reaches its closest point to the earth.

The next supermoon is expected to shine on May 26, which the Old Farmer’s Almanac calls the “flower moon.”

Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.

ctvnews.caproducers@bellmedia.ca

News / Top Stories

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2021-04-28 13:10:33Z
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3 Space Stocks to Benefit from Increased Spending - Morningstar.ca

ESA and NASA with Space X launch

The last couple of weeks have seen major developments in the field of space exploration, including the historic flight of NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter on the surface of Mars, the first-ever powered flight on another planet. Other noteworthy events include SpaceX snagging a US$2.9 billion deal from NASA to develop a human lander that will carry the next astronauts to the lunar surface and beyond. The week also marked the 60th anniversary of the first human in space.

If the list of active and upcoming projects is any indication, space-related activity is taking off like never before. And as mankind’s quest for a deeper understanding of space becomes more intense, a growing number of companies are jumping into the fray with an eye on commercial opportunities on the horizon. There’s now a space-themed ETF for those wishing to bet on the commercialization of spaceflight.

The revenue generated by the global space industry is projected by Bank of America to hit US$1.4 trillion by 2030, from $414 billion in 2018. As more countries rush to develop their space economies, the following companies stand to significantly profit due to their entrenched positions, technological expertise, and research and development capabilities.

Northrop Grunman Corp
	Ticker	NOC
	Current yield:	1.67%
	Forward P/E:	14.73
	Price	US$340.22
	Fair value:	US$331
	Value	Fairly valued
	Moat	Wide
	Moat Trend	Stable
	Star rating	***
Data as of April 26, 2021

Leading defense contractor, Northrop Grumman (NOC) offers products and services through aeronautics, mission systems, defense services, and space systems segments. The company’s aerospace segment creates the fuselage for the massive F-35 program while its space systems segment produces various space structures, sensors, and satellites.

“We view Northrop Grumman as a higher-tech defense prime contractor, with a greater focus on producing hardware for classified programs,” says a Morningstar equity report, noting many of these programs are procured and sustained over decades.

The company is a dominant force in space exploration and is actively engaged in multiple current and future programs. Northrop Grumman is supporting NASA’s moon missions, Artemis, by providing six additional abort motors and attitude control motors for the Orion human spaceflight. NASA has also awarded the contractor US$187 million to design the crew cabin for astronauts, part of the Gateway, a lunar orbiting outpost, part of NASA’s Artemis program. More recently, the defence contractor won a US$84 million deal to provide rocket motors for NASA’s Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV), which will bring back soil and rock samples from Mars in 2026.

The company’s wide moat is underpinned by intangible assets including product complexity that thwarts new entrants, contract structures that reduce risks for the contractor, decades-long product cycles, a lack of alternative suppliers, and high switching costs for space program clients.

“Regulated margins, mature markets, customer-paid research and development, and long-term revenue visibility allow the defense primes to deliver a lot of cash to shareholders, which we view positively,” says Morningstar equity analyst Burkett Huey, who puts the stock’s fair value at US$331.

Lockheed Martin Corp
	Ticker	LMT
	Current yield:	2.65%
	Forward P/E:	14.88
	Price	US$377.29
	Fair value:	US$433
	Value	13% premium
	Moat	Wide
	Moat Trend	Stable
	Star rating	****
Data as of April 26, 2021

Lockheed Martin (LMT) is the world’s largest defence contractor whose largest segment is Aeronautics, which is dominated by the massive F-35 program (30% of total revenue). The firm’s other segments include rotary & mission systems (Sikorsky helicopter business); missiles and fire control (missiles and missile defence systems); and space systems (satellites).

The company’s space systems business has a wide moat and while competition from SpaceX and Blue Origin is intense, “the space segment is much larger than launch vehicles,” says a Morningstar equity report.

LMT generates 60% of its space systems segment revenue from satellite products and services generally to the Department of Defense for secure military communications and surveillance.

On the space front, as part of a US$4.6 billion deal with NASA, Lockheed Martin recently finished building the Orion spacecraft—the most advanced deep space vehicle in production—that will take astronauts to the moon as part of the Artemis mission. The company also won a US$27 million contact from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Other lucrative contracts include the US$900 million deal with the U.S. Air Force and a US$2.77 billion contract with the U.S. Army.

The firm’s sustainable competitive advantage is built on the market structure of the defense industry where incumbent firms are the only companies capable of servicing the military’s large need to purchase arms.

“The three biggest stock-specific growth opportunities for Lockheed Martin are F-35 sustainment, a large potential contract for the Future Vertical Lift program, and hypersonic missiles and missile defence programs,” says Huey, who recently upped the stock’s fair value from US$433 to US$436, prompted by strong first quarter performance.

Boeing Co
	Ticker	BA
	Current yield:	-
	Forward P/E:	232.56
	Price	US$243.20
	Fair value:	US$257
	Value	Fairly valued
	Moat	Wide
	Moat Trend	Stable
	Star rating	***
Data as of April 26, 2021

Aerospace and defense heavyweight, Boeing (BA) primarily generates revenue from manufacturing commercial aircraft. Commercial airplanes account for 60% of sales and two-thirds of operating profit, while defense equipment makes up 25% of sales and 13% of operating profit. The company also provides after-market servicing of aircraft which produces 15% of sales and 21% of operating profit.

Boeing established its space technology credentials in 1964 when it won the NASA contract for making lunar orbiters for the Apollo program. The company was also picked by NASA as as a prime contractor to build the International Space Station, the flying laboratory in low earth orbit. Since then, the contactor has maintained its position as a dominant player in space-related activities. Boeing is also the prime contractor for the Space Launch System core stage flight hardware, to be used for NASA’s upcoming Artemis lunar mission.

The company’s commercial aircraft segment, which generates more than half of the total revenue, comprises two segments: narrow-bodied planes (for short-haul routes), and wide-bodies (transcontinental flights). “Sales volumes for narrow-bodies have increased over the past 20 years due to the worldwide rise of low-cost carriers and an emerging-market middle class,” says Huey, who pegs the stock’s fair value at US$257.

The aircraft maker’s wide moat, built on intangible assets and switching costs, places the firm at the top of the commercial aerospace value chain. This sustainable competitive advantage “will allow the company to generate economic profits for the long haul,” asserts Huey, pointing out the company will continue to benefit from structural barriers to entry in the aircraft manufacturing market, “despite Boeing's troubles with the grounding of the 737 MAX.”

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2021-04-28 09:43:56Z
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Canadian researchers help uncover oldest evidence of human activity in African cave - CTV News

TORONTO -- A team of archeologists and geologists has confirmed the oldest cave dwelling at Wonderwerk Cave in South Africa's Kalahari Desert, dating back nearly two million years.

Wonderwerk Cave is an archeological record that spans over millions of years and holds evidence of some of the first use of fire and tool making by prehistoric humans.

The study, led by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the University of Toronto, published in Quaternary Science Reviews, has confirmed the date of this site.

"We can now say with confidence that our human ancestors were making simple Oldowan stone tools inside the Wonderwerk Cave 1.8 million years ago. Wonderwerk is unique among ancient Oldowan sites, a tool-type first found 2.6 million years ago in East Africa, precisely because it is a cave and not an open-air occurrence," lead author, Ron Shaar at Hebrew University's Institute of Earth Sciences, said in a press release.

The team of researchers was able to determine that the shift from the Oldowan tools, sharp flakes and chopping tools, to early hand axes occurred more than one million years ago.

Deep inside the cave they also found evidence of early uses of fire from one million years ago. There were burnt bones, sediment, tools and even ash. According to the press release, the discovery of fire use inside the cave is significant because most evidence of early human fire use occurred in outdoor spaces where wildfire can’t be excluded as a possibility.

Due to the difficulty of dating cave deposits, the team worked on a 2.5-metre layer of sedimentary material using paleomagnetism and burial dating.

"We carefully removed hundreds of tiny sediment samples from the cave walls and measured their magnetic signal," Shaar said in the release.

According to the press release, magnetization would have happened when clay particles from outside the cave went inside and landed on the cave’s floor. These particles would preserve the direction of the Earth’s magnetic field at the time they entered the prehistoric cave.

"Our lab analysis showed that some of the samples were magnetized to the south instead of the north, which is the direction of today's magnetic field,” Shaar said. “Since the exact timing of these magnetic "reversals" is globally recognized, it gave us clues to the antiquity of the entire sequence of layers in the cave.”

A second method was used to further confirm dating of the human activity in the cave.

“Quartz particles in sand have a built-in geological clock that starts ticking when they enter a cave. In our lab, we are able to measure the concentrations of specific isotopes in those particles and deduce how much time had passed since those grains of sand entered the cave," Ari Matmon, Director of HU's the Institute of Earth Sciences, said in the press release.

Co-directors of the Wonderwerk Cave project, University of Toronto’s Michael Chazan and Hebrew University’s Liora Kolska Horwitz, said that these findings play an important role in understanding the rate of evolution in Africa.

“With a timescale firmly established for Wonderwerk Cave, we can continue studying the connection between human evolution and climate change, and the evolution of our early human ancestors' way of life."

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2021-04-27 23:10:00Z
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Selasa, 27 April 2021

What is a supermoon? 1st supermoon of 2021 illuminates skies - Global News

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2021-04-27 20:36:26Z
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‘Frenzy’ of hook-jawed sea worms spotted swarming off South Carolina - Global News

It’s a great time of year to enjoy the waters off Myrtle Beach, S.C. — as long as you don’t mind diving into a seething mass of hook-jawed, skin-piercing sea worms.

South Carolina’s Department of Natural Resources has released footage of thousands of young clamworms swarming in a Charleston harbour earlier this month, where they were drawn to the surface by the light of the April moon.

The video shows thousands of fast-moving grey slivers darting across the surface of the water below a dock in South Carolina. It also shows wildlife officials scooping up some of the worms in a net and pouring one out into a bottle cap for a closer look.

The clamworms in the video are about the size of an adult’s pinky finger, with furry grey bodies, two pairs of eyes, a black tail and a head with two strong hooked jaws.

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A clamworm is shown off the coast of South Carolina in this image from video. South Carolina Department of Natural Resources/Facebook

The clamworms spend most of their lives on the seafloor, but the young ones are drawn to the surface during the full and new moon each spring, according to the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources.

“Their bodies morph into reproductive forms called ‘epitokes’ as they swarm in coastal waters,” the department wrote on Facebook. “You may not want to go swimming with epitokes, as clamworms do have a set of hooked jaws,” it added.

The epitokes will grow into centipede-like sea worms that measure up to 91 centimetres (3 feet) long, but the creepy-crawly sea creatures typically do not rise to the surface of the water after they are fully grown, so you would not need to worry about encountering one while swimming.

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The epitokes show up each year off South Carolina, officials say. And while they might be a spine-tingling sight for swimmers, they serve as an all-you-can-eat buffet for fish and birds in the area.

“It’s hard not to appreciate such an unusual coastal sight,” the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources said.

“Appreciate” might not be the right word for a swarm of wriggling sea worms, but it certainly is an unforgettable sight.

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2021-04-27 13:50:54Z
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First supermoon of 2021 lights up the sky - Aljazeera.com

The first of at least two supermoons of 2021 appeared on Monday, lighting up the night sky around the world.

It is also known as a pink moon, after the pink phlox that blooms in springtime, although it is pink in name only.

The moon’s orbit around the Earth is elliptical, making the distance between the two bodies change at times. When a full moon makes its closest approach to Earth, it looks bigger and brighter than usual and thus is described as a “supermoon”.

The full moon has other names as well, including the Sprouting Grass Moon, the Egg Moon and the Fish Moon.

According to Brian McNoldy, an atmospheric scientist from the University of Miami in the US, exceptionally high tides are common when the moon is closest to Earth.

“Right now, we’re in the phase of an 18.6-year lunar cycle that lessens the moon’s influence on the oceans. The result can make it seem like the coastal flooding risk has levelled off, and that can make sea-level rise less obvious,” McNoldy said.

The next supermoon will occur on May 26 – the closest supermoon of the year at 357,463km (222,117 miles) away from the Earth.

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2021-04-27 08:28:02Z
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Senin, 26 April 2021

Japanese astronauts on their experience in the ISS - Republic World

A Japanese astronaut handed over a mission sash to a compatriot who arrived with three other astronauts aboard a SpaceX capsule on Saturday, joining him and several others on the International Space Station (ISS).

Japan's Soichi Noguchi handed over to Akihiko Hoshide who had lived at the ISS before.

The International Space Station's population swelled to 11 on Saturday with the jubilant arrival of SpaceX's third crew capsule in less than a year, carrying four astronauts, including Hoshide.

It's the biggest crowd up there in more than a decade.

The astronauts are from the US, Russia, Japan and France.

The capsule arrived a day after launching from NASA's Kennedy Space Center.

The newcomers will spend six months at the space station.

They’ll replace four astronauts who will return to Earth in their own Dragon capsule Wednesday to end a half-year mission.

NASA deliberately planned for a brief overlap so the outgoing SpaceX crew could show the new arrivals around.

The current population includes six Americans, two Russians, two Japanese and one from France.

It will shrink by four on Wednesday when three Americans and Noguchi depart for home and a splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico.

(Disclaimer: This story has not been edited by www.republicworld.com and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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2021-04-26 14:15:00Z
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Icy clouds could have kept early Mars warm enough for rivers and lakes, study finds - Phys.org

One of the great mysteries of modern space science is neatly summed up by the view from NASA's Perseverance, which just landed on Mars: Today it's a desert planet, and yet the rover is sitting right next to an ancient river delta.

The apparent contradiction has puzzled scientists for decades, especially because at the same time that Mars had flowing rivers, it was getting less than a third as much sunshine as we enjoy today on Earth.

But a new study led by University of Chicago planetary scientist Kite, an assistant professor of geophysical sciences and an expert on climates of other worlds, uses a computer model to put forth a promising explanation: Mars could have had a thin layer of icy, high-altitude clouds that caused a greenhouse effect.

"There's been an embarrassing disconnect between our evidence, and our ability to explain it in terms of physics and chemistry," said Kite. "This hypothesis goes a long way toward closing that gap."

Of the multiple explanations scientists had previously put forward, none have ever quite worked. For example, some suggested that a collision from a huge asteroid could have released enough kinetic energy to warm the planet. But other calculations showed this effect would only last for a year or two—and the tracks of ancient rivers and lakes show that the warming likely persisted for at least hundreds of years.

Kite and his colleagues wanted to revisit an alternate explanation: High-altitude clouds, like cirrus on Earth. Even a small amount of clouds in the atmosphere can significantly raise a planet's temperature, a greenhouse effect similar to carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

The idea had first been proposed in 2013, but it had largely been set aside because, Kite said, "It was argued that it would only work if the clouds had implausible properties." For example, the models suggested that water would have to linger for a long time in the atmosphere—much longer than it typically does on Earth—so the whole prospect seemed unlikely.

Using a 3D model of the entire planet's atmosphere, Kite and his team went to work. The missing piece, they found, was the amount of ice on the ground. If there was ice covering large portions of Mars, that would create surface humidity that favors low-altitude clouds, which aren't thought to warm planets very much (or can even cool them, because clouds reflect sunlight away from the planet.)

But if there are only patches of ice, such as at the poles and at the tops of mountains, the air on the ground becomes much drier. Those conditions favor a high layer of clouds—clouds that tend to warm planets more easily.

The model results showed that scientists may have to discard some crucial assumptions based on our own particular planet.

"In the model, these clouds behave in a very un-Earth-like way," said Kite. "Building models on Earth-based intuition just won't work, because this is not at all similar to Earth's water cycle, which moves water quickly between the atmosphere and the surface."

Here on Earth, where water covers almost three-quarters of the surface, water moves quickly and unevenly between ocean and atmosphere and land—moving in swirls and eddies that mean some places are mostly dry (the Sahara) and others are drenched (the Amazon). In contrast, even at the peak of its habitability, Mars had much less water on its surface. When water vapor winds up in the atmosphere, in Kite's model, it lingers.

"Our model suggests that once water moved into the early Martian atmosphere, it would stay there for quite a long time—closer to a year—and that creates the conditions for long-lived high-altitude clouds," said Kite.

NASA's newly landed Perseverance rover should be able to test this idea in multiple ways, too, such as by analyzing pebbles to reconstruct past atmospheric pressure on Mars.

Understanding the full story of how Mars gained and lost its warmth and atmosphere can help inform the search for other habitable worlds, the scientists said.

"Mars is important because it's the only planet we know of that had the ability to support life—and then lost it," Kite said. "Earth's long-term climate stability is remarkable. We want to understand all the ways in which a planet's long-term climate stability can break down—and all of the ways (not just Earth's way) that it can be maintained. This quest defines the new field of comparative planetary habitability."

Explore further

There might be many planets with water-rich atmospheres

More information: Edwin S. Kite el al., "Warm early Mars surface enabled by high-altitude water ice clouds," PNAS (2021). www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.2101959118

Provided by University of Chicago

Citation: Icy clouds could have kept early Mars warm enough for rivers and lakes, study finds (2021, April 26) retrieved 26 April 2021 from https://phys.org/news/2021-04-icy-clouds-early-mars-rivers.html

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2021-04-26 19:00:04Z
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