Here are today’s most important updates from the realm of Science and Space.
The European Space Agency (ESA), in collaboration with the Portuguese Space Agency and the Portuguese Navy, has launched the SubSea project, which aims to recreate the isolation and confinement challenges faced by astronauts during long-duration space missions. The first crew of the SubSea project returned to shore after completing a rigorous 60-day underwater expedition. This mission involved 25 volunteers living in cramped quarters, simulating conditions similar to those experienced by astronauts. A scientific team from universities in Germany, Italy, and Portugal is analyzing how stress, mood, and crew dynamics evolve in such confined environments. This mission marks an important step toward preparing for future explorations to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.
(Credit - X/@eso)
In a world first, a team of astronomers from the University of Cologne, Germany, have discovered a binary star system orbiting a black hole called Sagittarius A*, which is roughly 27,000 light years from Earth and 23.5 million kilometres in diameter. The system is known as D9. A binary star system is simply two stars orbiting each other. Binary star systems are useful to astronomers because their motion contains a wealth of information. Although scientists have previously predicted that binary star systems exist near supermassive black holes, they have never actually detected one.
NASA is gearing up for the launch of ambitious DAVINCI (Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging) mission in 2030s. The name is inspired from famous polymath Leonardo da Vinci. DAVINCI’s probe will be the first in the 21st century to brave Venus’ atmosphere as it descends from above the planet’s clouds down to its surface. Two other missions, NASA’s VERITAS and ESA's (European Space Agency) Envision, will also explore Venus in the 2030s from the planet’s orbit. This mission will be the first to analyze the chemical composition of Venus’ lower atmosphere through measurements taken at regular intervals, starting from approximately 90,000 feet above the surface and continuing until just before impact.
The moon formed in the solar system's early days when a large protoplanet named Thea slammed into a baby version of Earth, creating the planet we know today and ejecting enormous masses of molten rock into space. However, the true age was always a mystery. In a new study, scientists showed how a massive "remelting event" may have reset the age of almost all lunar rocks, tricking scientists into thinking our planet's constant companion is younger than it is. Scientists initially believed this incident happened somewhere around 4.35 billion years ago, based on the age of lunar samples recovered during NASA's Apollo missions. However, the new study estimated that the moon could be anywhere between 4.43 billion and 4.53 billion years old.
