The search for life on Mars

One of the advantages of being a higher education student or in my case alumni is you get to join groups. I have just been watching a live webcast on the experiments that are being used onboard Mars rovers to look for possible indicators that Mars once supported life.

Exploring the Habitability of Mars with the Curiosity and Rosalind Franklin rovers and Orbital Missions

I am not sure if there is a recording of this going up, but the link to a some more information is here.

I am currently undertaking Particle Physics but there is also a really interesting series of lecutures on AstroBiology I want to check out too.

#OpenUniversity,#OU,#space,#science,#mars,#curiosity,#rover,#talks,#education,#chemistry,#biochemistry,#biology, #orgnaic,#OrganicMolecules,#NASA,#JPL,Rovers, #RosalindFranklin.#OrbitalMissions

Meteorites Talk

Just been watching a really interesting talk by Dr Tim Gregory – Meteorites from 8th October 2020 – YouTube.

This was really interesting and accessible people with both a science and non science background,

Briefly touched on how the solar system was formed, protoplanetary disks looked at the two different types of asteroids, how they are formed, what makes them up internally, and finished off with a quick look at some of the organic molecules that have been found and how these could have found their way to earth.

Well worth a look, the video can be found on Youtube.

Thank you to the OU Science Club for pointing me to this talk.

#science,#astronomy,#chemistry,#space,#asteroids,#meteorites,#cosmochemistry,#geology,#rocks,#solarsystem,#planet,#formation

OSIRIS-REx mission

Yesterday, there was an update to the NASA OSIRIS-REx mission to collect and return a sample of dust from an asteroid.

This post was prompted by a BBC Science news report. The NASA mission page can also be found here.

NASA OSIRIS-REx mission page

Mission should return to earth in 2023.

Hopefully the sample collection went as planned.

Update 21/10/2020

Mission on the way back, sample collections went successfully, should return largest sample from a foreign body since Apollo.

Follow @OSIRISREx for updates.

Discussion

Feel free to start a thread on Science Forums to discuss further.

#nasa,#space,#mission,#asteroid,#sample,#return,#OSIRIS-REx

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope

6th October

So following on from Septembers lecture, the Space telescope science institute present their next lecture.

With details here

You can find more upcoming (monthly) lectures below.

http://www.stsci.edu/public-lectures

#video,#astronomy,#space,#science,#stsci

Searching and classifying exoplanets

Searching and Characterizing Exoplanets with CHEOPS, ARIEL, and PLATO

Video here

#video,#astronomy,#space,#science

Sailing across the Local Universe with ULLYSES

2nd September

http://www.stsci.edu/public-lectures

Added 15/9/2020

This lecture is really interesting and especially if you are studying science, even at GSCE level the explanation(s) around the electromagnetic spectrum, absorption and emission lines are really good and the lecture is a good way to see the context on how this is used.

You can find more public lectures here

#video,#astronomy,#space,#science

Building Black Holes in a Lab

This is a really interesting video from PBS Space Time.

So if Black holes leak away mass via Hawking Radiation, does this mean that as white holes also exist, and expel matter rather than suck matter in. then are they also contributing to a mass reduction. This probably assumes the theory that there is a white hole at the other end of the Black hole, otherwise it raises questions as to where does all that matter go?

Further Study

Coursera offer several Physics Courses

References

• PBS Spacetime

Further discussion

• Qoto Discourse
  
• Science Forums

A thread asking about black hole mass loss via white holes can be found on Science Forums here if anyone would like to contribute to the conversation.

#space,#physics,#blackhole,#astrophysics,#astronomy

Mars Perseverance Rover

The Mars Perseverance Rover launched today in the Atlas V rocket, as planned. You can read more about this on the NASA mission page.

Should arrive on Mars in early 2021

Feel free to discuss further on the QOTO Discourse forum.*

• Free sign up will be required.

#science,#space,#Mars,#rover,#mission,#NASA,

Hubble – Eye in the Sky part 3

Part 3 of the NASA Mission Operations – Hubble Video Miniseries is released today.

• Eye in the Sky miniseries

The series so far, has been really interesting and each episode is roughly 10 minutes in length, so could make an ideal teaching resource too.

#nasa,#hubble,#space,#telescope,#miniseries,#documentary,#EyeintheSky

Hubble – Eye in the Sky – Mini Series

Yesterday (15/7/2020) NASA started a 3 part mini series on the Hubble space telescope.

• Hubble – Eye in the Sky

Schedule as follows

• Episode 1: Driving the Telescope Release date: July 15,
• Episode 2: An Unexpected Journey Release date: July 20
• Episode 3: Time Machines Release date: July 23

Should make an interesting series.

#space,#nasa,#telescope,hubble,#miniseries,#series,#science,#astronomy