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多个国家和私人太空公司正在竞相登陆月球。 2024 年 1 月 24 日——美国宇航局几周前发射的游隼月球着陆器发生重大故障，坠毁在地球上。日本的 SLIM 着陆器几天前成功在月球表面进行了精确着陆，但不幸的是，它出现了电力和通信问题——尽管日本航天局仍希望着陆器系统能够重新启动，尽管它侧着着陆，甚至是倒着着陆。 印度的月船三号月球着陆器于2023年成功着陆，中国的嫦娥四号月球着陆器着陆在月球背面——这是此前任何国家都未曾实现过的成就。 太空公司 Intuitive Machines 计划从 2024 年 2 月中旬左右开始前往月球。他们的 Nova-C 着陆器将前往月球南极附近的 Malapert A 陨石坑。这次任务将搭载五个 NASA 和商业月球有效载荷。此外，还有更多载荷即将抵达！ 有许多即将进行的月球探测任务处于规划的早期和后期阶段。事实上，欧洲航天局 (ESA) 已经表示，到 2023 年，将有超过100 次月球探测任务。并非所有任务都是月球车。其中很大一部分将是月球轨道器，用于详细勘测月球表面并寻找资源。甚至还有一辆名为 Roo-ver 的澳大利亚月球车将在未来的阿尔特弥斯 (Artemis) 任务中进行飞行，它将收集月球风化层* 并尝试从中提取氧气。 尽管自 1972 年 12 月阿波罗 17 号以来人类还未登陆月球，但就连最持怀疑态度的评论人士也估计，美国宇航局一再推迟的阿尔忒弥斯 (Artemis) 计划将会让人类重返月球表面，而且有可能另一项太空计划将抢先一步。 鉴于上世纪 90 年代和本世纪初只有极少数的登月太空任务，为什么有如此多的登月新计划正在进行或处于规划中？ 国家威望 20 世纪 60 年代最初的登月竞赛很大程度上是受地缘政治声望的驱使，即在其他国家之前将人类送上月球表面。在被苏联抢先送入地球轨道并首次将人类送上月球后，美国开始大规模努力将人类送上月球。1969 年，他们实现了这一目标，并成功将另外五名阿波罗机组人员送上月球。在此过程中，阿波罗计划解答了一些重要的科学问题，包括有关地月系统形成的问题。 在“击败俄罗斯人登上月球”之后，美国人民很快对阿波罗计划失去了兴趣，而 NASA 也因该计划的巨额成本而面临压力。阿波罗 18、19 和 20 号计划被取消，自 1972 年阿波罗 17 号任务以来，人类从未离开过地球轨道。（阿波罗 13 号“躲过一劫”后，NASA 中的一些人担心极其复杂的阿波罗飞船会再次发生事故。） 几十年来，太空探索，特别是月球探索，一直被视为发达、高科技社会的标志——这无疑是许多发展中国家所向往的。 在月球上居住和生活以及探索月球以外的资源 氧气和水。研究表明，这两种关键资源都存在于月球风化层和月球极地地区的冰冻中，且数量充足。氧气尤其丰富，几乎遍布月球的任何地方。问题是它“储存”在哪里 每吨月球风化层含有约 450 公斤氧气。它与风化层中的岩石物质紧密结合，因此需要使用能量来打破这些化合物的化学键。我们已经在地球上使用包括铝在内的常见材料做到这一点，所以这不是未知的技术。只是在月球上学习如何做到这一点有点棘手！ 众所周知，月球极地周围深阴影处有水冻结。关于月球表面实际可利用的水量存在一些争议，但水储量巨大。 开发利用太阳系其他地区材料的技术 学习在太空中生活和工作很难。国际空间站 (ISS) 就是用来做这件事的，但仅限于在轨道上生活，而不是在表面生活。许多研究人员认为，月球上的永久基地将能够作为未来前往火星和太阳系其他矿产和资源丰富的小行星的“门户”。（目前 SpaceX 将人类送上火星的计划是直接前往火星——没有月球停留。您可以在这里查看。） 美国宇航局的阿尔忒弥斯计划计划在月球南极建立一座大本营，地点可能是靠近月球南极的沙克尔顿陨石坑。 这些月球基地还需要很多年才能建成，而不是几十年。请 在此处查看 NASA 的 Artemis 基地营计划。 月球上的科学——保护古代遗址 月球上有什么需要保护的？它不是一个没有生命的岩石天体吗？ 几乎没有理由为了进一步的科学研究而封闭部分月球。人们在月球极地寻找的水很可能是数十亿年来陨石和彗星撞击月球而带到月球表面的。这意味着这些水冰区域是太阳系最早期的样本，可能包含地球生命发展的线索。（太阳系其他卫星上也有水，但可能经历了数十亿年的地质和生物过程。） 美国宇航局的《阿尔忒弥斯》协议由31个国家签署，除其他事项外，该协议还一致同意月球上的某些区域（例如阿波罗登陆点）具有历史价值，将受到保护，用于和平的太空探索和资源开采，但对于具有科学价值的地区没有明确的保护规定。 月球是安装各种望远镜的理想场所（图片来自 KORNMESSER/ESO）   长期以来，人们一直建议将大型光学和射电望远镜安置在月球远离地球的背面，而不是将它们安置在太空中。光污染不会成为问题，地球发出的无线电辐射也会被月球屏蔽。月球轨道上的探测器与地面采矿探测车的通信可能会干扰无线电观测，扬起的月球细尘也可能影响观测。 地球上可以利用的资源 氦-3经常被用作月球竞赛的理由。氦-3 是氦的同位素，其优点是在核聚变过程中不会使反应堆和周围环境具有放射性。与其他材料相比，它需要更高的温度才能实现核聚变点火。 月球上氦-3 含量比地球上更多，是因为月球的风化层在数十亿年的时间里被太阳风吹拂，形成了这种同位素。地球上可能存在氦-3 储量，它们要么来自行星的形成，要么来自此后的过程，被困在地幔中。** 人们认为，由于地幔远低于地壳，因此从月球表面获取氦-3 会更容易。 不过，所有这些都只是理论上的。毫无疑问，大规模核聚变能确实会改变世界，而实现这一目标所需的燃料数量相当少。然而，我们并不具备任何可持续核聚变反应堆的技术，更不用说使用氦-3 的反应堆了。换句话说，为什么要花一大笔钱去购买可能还要几十年才能实现的发动机的燃料呢？ 那么，为什么每个人都要前往月球呢？ 可以看出，原因有很多。这关系到国家声誉，也关系到新技术和太空生活方式的测试。那里可能有地球上不易找到的矿物和稀有元素，而且非常重要的是，它是探索和利用太阳系更远地方资源的门户。 最后——您能通过望远镜看到美国宇航局阿波罗登陆点吗？ 不。即使是地球上最强大的望远镜也看不到它们。你可以看到它们着陆的地方，但之前留下的设备和宇航员的足迹太小，无法从地球上分辨出来。 阿波罗登陆点指南 - 图片来自 NASA 当您通过望远镜仰望月球时，请记得向在月球轨道上和月球表面爬行的越来越多的机器人队伍挥手致意。 干杯， 厄尔·怀特 *风化层是指覆盖月球表面的一层尘埃和小岩石。与地球上的复杂土壤不同，风化层没有经历任何风化过程，也不含生物物质。

美国宇航局终于揭开了 OSIRIS-REx 任务从小行星贝努 (Bennu) 收集的珍贵原始物质样本，该样本可追溯到太阳系早期历史。 2024 年 1 月 19 日：我们都经历过这种情况。你有你最喜欢的食物，果酱或三明治酱。无论你如何努力，#$#&#!! 盖子都会卡住，无论你如何努力都无法取下。（我承认我已经放弃了热水、各种工具等——我只是先将卡住的罐子的盖子猛地砸在坚硬的表面上，这通常有效。） 大胆的 OSIRIS-REx 任务于 2016 年发射，前往近地小行星贝努，并于 2018 年抵达贝努。 贝努被选为 OSIRIS-REx 的目的地，是因为它是一个富含碳的天体，含有太阳系早期的原始物质。事实上，人们认为贝努是在太阳系形成后 1000 万年内形成的。 图片来源：NASA/Robert Markowitz OSIRIS-REx 花了几年时间探索贝努周围的环境，甚至降落在小行星上收集样本。 航天器返回地球，但并未着陆。它在前往下一个目的地——小行星阿波菲斯的途中经过了我们。它投下了一个样品罐，该样品罐于 2023 年 9 月 23 日安全降落在犹他州的沙漠中。 从主样品容器或 AGSAM（触碰式样品采集装置）外部采集的样品远超预期，为 70.3 克，而计划为 60 克。这些珍贵材料的整理和研究已经开始。 然而，获取 AGSAM 中的主要样本材料却有些困难。NASA 评定的用于研究这些材料的超洁净环境的工具都无法打开容器的盖子！两个卡住的紧固件阻止了打开。NASA 没有急着把它摔在桌子上或用螺丝刀撬开盖子看里面有什么，而是开发了额外的工具，测试了它们以及拆除顽固紧固件的程序，最终在本周成功取出它们并打开了容器。 接下来是对容器中的材料进行成像和研究，然后仔细提取和编目，最终分发给研究机构。NASA 将向全球科学家公开他们的研究结果。更多信息请点击此处。如果对于一些太空岩石来说，这似乎需要经历很多事情，请记住，它们是在我们太阳系还只是现在年龄的一小部分时形成的。 还...... 今天早些时候，由于重大硬件故障，游隼号月球着陆器未能成功着陆，最终坠入太平洋。它在绕月飞行一圈后，选择了“自由返回”路径返回地球 这是游隼一号返回并坠毁在太平洋时拍摄的最后一张照片中的地球。 游隼一号任务已经结束。希望团队能够查看过去一周左右收集的数据，以帮助下一次着陆尝试取得成功。 日本首个月球登陆器预计将在未来一天左右着陆。 即将提供更多内容.... 干杯， 厄尔·怀特 宾特尔

2024 年 1 月 10 日：最近几天在美国 CES 活动上推出了一些令人惊叹的新产品——它们将在不久的将来抵达 BINTEL！ Celestron Origin 智能家居天文台 世界领先的望远镜制造商 Celestron 推出了他们的首款智能望远镜。 多年来，Celestron 一直生产高科技和计算机化的望远镜，从 20 世纪 80 年代末的原始 Celestron Compustar SCT 望远镜开始，到 90 年代的 NexStar 系列以及最近的 StarSense Explorer 和 NextStar Evolution 望远镜。（在 BINTEL，我们几十年来一直为客户提供这些 Celestron 望远镜。） 因此，Celestron 不仅推出了自己的智能望远镜，而且还包含一些令人惊叹的高端功能，这并不奇怪。 我们认为 Celestron Origin 吸引我们的地方和与众不同之处包括： 150mm 光圈，f/2.2 RASA 光学系统。这是目前市场上最大的智能望远镜。 相机的可升级性 方便的外部过滤抽屉 即将推出的外部引导和 EQ 安装选项，用于延长曝光时间 针对在大屏幕电视等上共享图像和显示视图进行了优化。 Celestron Origin 的完整功能列表非常全面。 Celestron Origin 将于未来几个月在 BINTEL 上市，数量非常有限，不过这种情况可能会随着时间的推移而改善。对于那些想要在功能和图像质量方面获得最佳效果的人来说，这绝对是一款高端望远镜。我们将在 Celestron Origin 望远镜上市前更多地谈论它。它无疑扩大了智能望远镜的范围。 施华洛世奇 AX Visio 10X32 双筒望远镜 - 世界上第一台“智能双筒望远镜” 您可能在过去几年听说过智能望远镜 - 带有内置导向、摄像头和图像处理的望远镜 - 但通过人工智能进行复杂的物种识别、照片和视频处理以及物体视图方向等功能正在出现在双筒望远镜上。 新款施华洛世奇 AX Visio 10X32 双筒望远镜的首要功能是能够识别您正在观察的鸟类或动物。有超过 9,000 种不同的物种，其中包括对澳大利亚和新西兰野生动物的全面支持。我最近有幸试用了一副这种新型双筒望远镜，在 BINTEL 展厅前面，他们很快就识别出了温特沃斯公园马路对面的许多不同鸟类，包括深受喜爱的澳大利亚白鹮，又名“Bin Chicken”。此功能对于观鸟者来说非常方便，因为它允许他们记录他们发现的鸟类以及在何时何地看到它们。（与所有高级 AX Visio 功能一样，此功能不必使用。） 施华洛世奇发表了一篇关于使用 AX Visio 双筒望远镜进行野外观鸟的精彩文章，您可以在此处找到。 它们具有巨大的潜力，可以改变观鸟者的方式，尤其是与小群体分享发现，然后进一步在社交媒体上分享。所有这些新功能加上 SWAROVISION 光学元件，可实现超清晰的视图。 下次 - 还有来自 Unistellar 和 Vaonis 的新型智能望远镜。 干杯， 厄尔·怀特 宾特尔

Space Launches 2024 is looking like a busy year on the launch front! 2024 kicks off with the launch on January 8 of the NASA Peregrine Mission 1 (TO2-AB) which will head to the Moon to investigate Lunar geology, magnetic field and the abundance of hydrogen in the surface rocks. It's not on the  first return to the Lunar surface by NASA since the Apollo program, but also the first launched by a commercial space company. China is planning to launch its Chang’e-6 mission to the Moon in later part of 2024. This is a Lunar sample return mission with the aim of return sample from the far side of the Moon - something we haven't been able to study before. October 2024 sees the launch of the Europa Clipper mission. The is expected to arrive at the giant planet Jupiter in 2030 and study its icy moon Europa. It's widely expected that a vast salt water ocean lies under Europa's planet wide crust of ice. This ocean contains more water than all the oceans on Earth combined and is one of the prime sites in the Solar System to search for life. The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, is putting the final touches to it Martian Moon eXploration, or MMX, planned for launch around September 2024. This will explore the Martian moons of Phobos and Deimos.  We're unsure whether these two small moon were formed with their host planet Mars, or are captured asteroids from elsewhere in the Solar System. VIPER (Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover) is a Lunar Rover, planned for delivery to the Moon sometime late in 2024. It's designed to investigate the presence of water ice in the south polar regions of the Moon that are permanently in darkness. Illustration of VIPER prospecting for water ice on the surface of the Moon ESA’s Hera mission. Back in 2022, NASA's DART probe impacted the asteroid Dimorphos as part of the development of an Earth planetary defence system to guard about possible major impacts from space.  You can read our article about it here. Now DART has completed its mission, the European Space Agency's (ESA)  Hera probe due for launch in October 2024 will examine in detail the first test of asteroid deflection as well as performing the first survey of a binary asteroid system. Artemis II - taking humans back to the Moon.  Probably the most anticipated launch of 2024 will be the Artemis II mission planned for late this year.  The Artemis I mission in 2022 took astronauts into low Earth orbit and Artemis II will take humans beyond the Earth's orbit for the first time since the Apollo 17 in December 1972.  Artemis II won't land on the Moon or even perform a Lunar orbital insert manoeuvre, rather it will simply loop around Moon on free trajectory and return to Earth. (Those with a keen interest in space history will realise this is  a similar path that the nearly ill-fated Apollo 13 mission took.) Artemis III is the NASA mission to land humans on the Moon. While was originally planned for 2025, it's looking like it might take place in 2027 Total Solar Eclipse 2024 Another major astronomy story in 2024 will be the Total Eclipse of the Sun on the 8th of April 2024. While not visible here in Australia, it will be a BIG news as the path of the Eclipse crosses over continental North America. In the USA, it will pass over the heads of more than 30 million people. We'll be talking about this major event as it gets closer. If you re having trouble buying Solar filters and equipment at the moment - this is the reason why! Of course this rare event is simply a dress rehearsal for the Total Solar Eclipse which will roll directly over BINTEL in July 2028  :)  Full detail here. New Telescopes? On the mega telescope front, we're still a couple of years from "first light" of the ones under construction we mentioned in a previous blog post.  The closest to completion is probably Vera C. Rubin Observatory,  a massive, ultra wide field 8.4m class telescope being built in Chile. It will be completed in a 2024 with full scale testing to start in January 2025. While there are other 8m and larger telescopes already in operation, the Vera C. Rubin instrument will be able to scan the entire night sky every week in detail that hasn't been achieved before. The Vera C. Rubin Observatory under construction in Chile Part of the reason for imaging all of the sky in such detail is to look for transient astronomical events including GRB (gamma-ray bursts) novae, supernovae, comets and possibly even interstellar objects travelling through the Solar System such as ones found by conventional means in recent years. On the amateur astronomy side, we're expecting new developments to smart telescopes after some exciting product releases in 2023.  We'd say new imaging cameras and mounts systems are also highly possible.   Whatever is released, we'll be chatting about it for sure! Planets put on a show - again Saturn will be at its best in 2024 around the 8th of September, with excellent viewing from around late August to early October.  The rings of Saturn will also continue to appear even more edge on as viewed from Earth as the planet approaches its own equinox in 2025. Saturn taken by Andy Casely and posted to the BINTEL Society Facebook group.  Jupiter will be at its best for 2024 on the 8th of December. Like Saturn, it will be fantastic viewing and an an ideal for imaging for some weeks before and also after this date. Jupiter taken by Andy Casely and posted to the BINTEL Society Facebook group.  Mars fans will have to wait until January 2025 to see the red planet at its best. A slim chance, but hey, who knows.... There's more than a few astronomers who are eagerly awaiting the discovery of biosignatures on exoplanets - indicators in a planet's atmosphere of biological processes happening on the surface planet or perhaps even taking place in the atmosphere itself. Major searches are underway and the JWST especially can possibly observe and analyse what's in the atmospheres of  planets around  other stars. There's even been some such as UK astronomer and presenter of The Sky at Night, Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock, Dr Becky Smethurst from Oxford University and famous astronaut Tim Peake who have all stated  in the last few days that they feel 2024 will be the year that we announce a discovery along these lines. It would be major event  to state the obvious. We're certainly not going to include exoplanet biosignatures on our "likely to happen in '24" list, but will be keeping one eye on the news... Cheers, Earl White BINTEL 5th January 2024      

Here's some of our favourite images and happenings over the last 12 months. The Sun puts on a show The Sun's been in the news globally in 2023. First of all, there was a rare hybrid total Solar Eclipse visible in a remote part of Western Australia in April. This was viewed and photographed by thousands of visitors to the Ningaloo region in WA. There was a widely-visible partial annular Solar Eclipse in the USA in October.  This event will be followed up by a Total Solar Eclipse that will be seen on the 8th of April 20 in  parts of  Mexico, the United States, and Canada. While eclipses grab the world's attention, for astronomers 2023 has seen an increase in the number of Sunspots visible on the Sun as it heads into "Solar Maximum" in 2024, a year earlier than we'd previously thought.  2023 has been a great time to view and photograph the Sun and  2024 will be even better! The Sun imaged through a ZWO Seestar S50 telescope in December 2023 by Steven Olney and posted to the BINTEL Society Facebook group. Full details here Gravitational Waves spreading across the Universe  - the background hum In June,  a team of Astronomers from across the globe, The NANOGrav collaboration, announced they’d observed a faint sign of a background signal or “hum” of Gravitational Waves that’s spread through the Universe.  Gravitational Waves are ripples in space and time caused by the acceleration of massive objects. These move away or “propagate” in all directions from their source at the speed of light. They contain information about the event that caused them and transport energy, in a similar way electromagnetic radiation or light does.   Artist’s impression of an array of pulsars being affected by gravitational waves produced by orbiting super massive black holes in a faraway galaxy (Image credit: Aurore Simonnet for the NANOGrav Collaboration) This  "background hum" was discovered by observing small variations in the timing in some of the Universe's most reliable clocks - fast spinning stars called pulsars. More on this here. Hubble captures spokes in Saturn's ring The second largest planet in the Solar System has long been known to have "spokes" - dark areas that radiate outwards towards the edges of the ring system. These only last some two or three orbits around the fast rotating planet which has meant they've only really been properly photographed by spacecraft like NASA's Cassini probe to Saturn. In 2023  the Hubble Space Telescope has been able to image Saturn's spoke from Earth orbit as part of the Outer Planets Atmospheres Legacy (OPAL) programme which monitors outer Solar System planets for changes. Saturn imaged by the  Hubble Space Telescope on Oct. 22, 2023. (Image credit: NASA, ESA, STScI, Amy Simon (NASA-GSFC)) The largest rocket ever built by humans flew twice in 2023 and blows up both times - a spectacular success! SpaceX launched and flew their Starship twice in 2023.  Both flights ended in the destruction of the rocket shortly afterwards.  Despite this RUD (Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly), the real world engineering data obtained will lead to improvements to the Starship design and increased reliability. Previous SpaceX rockets such as the Falcon 9 also went through lengthy periods of development and have now successfully reached orbit hundreds of time, with nearly 100 flights  in 2023 alone. Image via @SpaceX SpaceX's Starship is not the only rocket designed to carry humans beyond Earth orbit.  The Saturn V first did that in December 1968 and the NASA Artemis program plans to  return astronauts to Lunar orbit towards the end of 2024. However, SpaceX has plans for Starship far beyond the Earth/Moon system, with their eyes on possible human flights to Mars or even destinations in the Solar System.  The progress of Starship in coming years will be keenly watched! JWST Captures some stunners in 2023 The JWST (James Webb Space Telescope) was well into its second year of operations in 2023 and continued to surprise and delight the world with the beauty of the images it produced. It's a hard task to select the most stunning, but we through this one of the Ring Nebula (M57) was especially wonderful. Image via: ESA/Webb, NASA, CSA, M. Barlow, N. Cox, R. Wesson The Ring Nebula has been previously imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope and a favourite for amateur astronomers as it's visible in quite small telescopes. You can read more about this image at the ESA (European Space Agency) site here. Smart Telescopes become even more affordable We were delighted in 2022 with the emergence of "Smart  Telescopes"  - easy to use astrophotography systems - like the Vespera, Stellina and Unistellar telescopes.  This kicked into high gear for 2023 with the release of the DWARF II from DWARF Labs and the Seestar S50 from ZWO. Both of these are complete, all-in-one telescopes that include a camera, computerised mount and more, all controlled via an app over Wi-Fi were suddenly available for well under $1000.  They were also so compact and could be tucked under you arm!  We admit the struggle to keep up with demand during the course of 2023 has been frustrating, but many hundreds of these clever little devices have found new homes with our BINTEL customers.  Interestingly  they haven't just gone to newbie astronomers - a large number of purchases were by experienced amateur or even professional astronomers after an easy to use imaging setup. All major brands of Smart Telescopes- ZWO Seestar S50, Unistellar eQuinox, DWARF II and Vaonis Vespera - on display at BINTEL Just how easily these new gizmos have made basic astrophotography is amazing. They're certainly not  a replacement for traditional astrophotography systems, rather a way to simple way to obtain great looking astrophotos without  too much complexity.  We think Smart Telescopes are going to continue to grow in popularity in 2024 and introduce the wonders of night sky to even more people. The 5,500 Exoplanet Mark was passed 2023 saw the number of confirmed exoplanets - planets orbiting other stars - pass 5,500 (it's actually now 5,566 as this is being written). This number was reached   just a few decades after the discovery of the first exoplanet in 1992. Many of these are rocky, Earth-like planets orbiting the host star in the  "Habitable Zone" where liquid water could exist on the planet's surface. It's staggering to think of the multitude of worlds in our Milky Way galaxy. More on this milestone here. India lands spacecraft near south pole of the Moon India joined the USA, Russia and China in successfully landing a spacecraft on the Moon's surface.  The Chandrayaan-3 lander touched down in August of 2023 on the unexplored and rugged south pole region of the Moon.  While this a hard place to attempt a landing, it's though there might  oxygen and drinking water for future missions in this region. Illustration of Chandrayaan-3 on the Moon. Image via ISRO The Chandrayaan-3 lander failed to respond to mission control signals after going into hibernation mode for a long period of darkness during the Lunar night at it's landing location and it's now assumed that the probe is longer responding. It did manged to send back important observations prior to this and Chandrayaan-3 has certainly assisted in the planning of future Lunar spacecraft. 2023 - Year of the Swifty - but not in a good way. Another Swift was in the news in 2023, but sadly, the Swift Parrot is now at a point where it's critically endangered. Recent surveys have put the number of these beautiful birds have reached a critical level and urgent action is needed to protect them before they head towards extinction.  You can read more about the 2023 Bird of the Year at Birdlife Australia.  If you want to take action, swing by the this page to add your voice to Australia's nature laws as they undergo their first major rewrite in many years. At BINTEL in 2023, we saw a large spike in the number of folks getting into bird watching, and this has been across a wide range of age groups too. Encouraging to see more and more folks wanting to spend more time with the wildlife around us all. "And the winner is Sidy Ney!" Sydney was announced as the host city for the 76th International Astronautical Congress (IAC) to be held  from the 29 September to 3 October 2025. This is the world's largest space and related technology events and often referred to the as the "Olympics of space", when companies and space experts from all parts of the world gather to discuss and learn about the latest developments in the space industry. With the rapid commercialisation of the space, it's going to be an amazing event to look forward to. More details here. We know there's been many events and developments in the space, nature and astronomy world . Contact us with your favourites and we'll add to them the list! Cheers, Earl White BINTEL      

Up until only a few decades ago, every planet we knew existed in the Universe as well as all asteroids and comets, orbited the Sun. Since the first planet outside the Solar System orbiting another main-sequence star was made in 1995 - or Exoplanet - was confirmed , there been some 5,470 exoplanets found. Exoplanets have been found in a bewildering array of sizes, host star types and star system configurations. (If you're interested on keep track of the numbers of Exoplanets, the current count can be found at the NASA Exoplanet site here.) These have been discovered using a wide variety of methods, both here on the ground or using space-based instruments. Exoplanets are generally discovered by indirect means, IE the effect they have on their host star. Some were found via the light dip of the host star as the Exoplanet transits in front of it, others by the wobble the orbiting planets caused the star, variations Exoplanets cause to variable stars and other techniques. Even the arrangement of Exoplanets varies greatly. The original theories of rocky planets being close to the star and gas giants being on the edges of a star system quickly went out the windows as large, gas giants in orbits close to their host star were discovered in great numbers. It's looking like the configuration of the Solar System - rocky planets in near the host star and all gas giants in the outer regions - might be the least common of all (Read more here.) (One quick point though. I often get asked if you can see Exoplanets in a telescope. The short is answer is NO.) But all Exoplanet discoveries until recently had one thing in common - they were in orbit around a host star. Could there be planets in the Milky Way that aren't in orbit around a host star? Could there be Rogue planets in the Milky Way? Even if the answer is "yes", they might be tricky to detect as Exoplanets are identified by the effects on their host star, how could planets without a star be found? Why would a planet go Rogue? Astronomers have long proposed the idea of a Rogue Planet. This is a planet that is travelling through the Milky Way on its own and not in orbit around a host star.  There's a number of ways a planet could end up like this. It might achieve escape velocity in the star system where it was formed by gravitational interactions with other planets in the same system. In other words, it could get "flung"" put of its star system.  Planets form out of the interstellar materials that are attracted by gravity to form stars. The same process could occur with enough rocky materials bound together by gravity away from star formation. (There's some conjecture as to whether extremely low mass Rogue planets could even form on their own in this way.) How could a Rogue Planet be found? With no host star, Rogue planets cannot be observed using the indirect detection methods mentioned above. They're also too far away from any star to reflect light from it. (This is how was see Jupiter and Saturn in our own Solar System. We see the light of the Sun reflected off them.) There's no light coming from Rogue Planets. There's also nothing nearby to effect so we can't observe their influence on a nearby body. Rather, astronomers look for events called gravitational microlensing. The minute effect the gravity of an object in the foreground has on the space around it, bending space and effecting the path of the light of a star behind it. This bending of light around objects was proposed by Albert Einstein at the start of the 20th century.  Astronomers observe a tiny warping in the light from stars. By analysing these results, it's possible to detect whether a body such as a Rogue planet has passed in front of the star, possibly even at vast distances from it. Only a handful of Rogue planets have been confirmed compared to the number of Exoplanets, including a group of 70 discovered by ESO which was announced last year. Artist’s impression shows an example of a rogue planet with the Rho Ophiuchi cloud Much like Exoplanets which are though to exist around most stars, it's estimated Rogue planets are travelling through the Solar System in enormous numbers. "We estimate that our galaxy is home to 20 times more rogue planets than stars – trillions of worlds wandering alone,” said David Bennett, a senior research scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. This means that the number of Rogue planets vastly the outnumber the planets that orbit stars. This points to planetary systems forming around stars more likely to eject planets than keeping them in orbit around them. The upcoming NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, due for launch in 2027, might even be locate approx. 400 Earth-sized Rogue planets, with two candidates already discovered. “We found that Earth-size rogues are more common than more massive ones,” Sumi said. “The difference in star-bound and free-floating planets’ average masses holds a key to understanding planetary formation mechanisms.” You can read more about what the new space telescope might find here. Do we have direct observation of bodies are travelling through the Solar System that aren't attached to a star? We sure do as three interstellar bodies have been detected in the Solar System. Discovered in 2017, "Oumuamua" cruised through the inner Solar System and is now on the way back out towards deep-space. Interstellar comet "Borisov" disintegrated as it went around the Sun in 2020 and an interstellar meteor with the funky name of CNEOS 2014-01-08 hit the Earth in 2014. (There's a controversial effort underway to recover fragments of this meteor from the ocean floor off the coast of New Guinea.) As always, there's so much to discover in our Universe! Cheers, Earl White BINTEL July 20th July 2023

The arc of the Milky Way above our heads at night has been seen and recorded for as long as humans have existed. We see the Milky Way in visible light, but much else can be revealed beyond this. Astronomers in recent decades have begun to observe the Milky Way in a wide range of other wavelengths - radio waves, infrared, ultraviolet even gamma rays. Announced this month was a map of the Milky Way not by light, but by subatomic particles called Neutrinos. What's a Neutrino? A Neutrino is a subatomic particle that's found in vast numbers throughout the Universe and created by a variety of processes. They don't have any electrical charge, have miniscule masses close to zero, and hardly interact with matter. This means that while they're constantly zipping around and through us and everything that surrounds us, they're extremely hard to detect. Most of the Neutrinos streaming through us come from either the Sun or our atmosphere. However, a tiny number moving at a higher speed arrive from outside the Solar System. Detecting Neutrinos As Neutrinos are so hard to detect, a unique observatory was built in the Antarctic. The IceCube Neutrino Observatory is a huge facility with some 5,160 sensors in a cubic array one kilometer on each side, buried deep in the ice at the South Pole. IceCube neutrino detector's aboveground lab. Image via YUYA MAKINO, ICECUBE/NSF The detectors located at IceCube are shielded as much as possible from the Sun during winter months and other sources of radiation.  Occasionally Neutrinos will strike the nucleus of atoms in the water molecules in the dense polar ice and break them down into a series of sort lived, subatomic particles, some of which will emit a form of light called Cherenkov radiation.  (This is the same process that gives pools of water surrounding nuclear reactors their blueish glow.) Since starting operations in 2011, about a million Neutrino observations have been recorded by IceCube.  Some of these detections leave tracks that can be analysed and used to point back to where they originated. Others, with much higher velocities sometimes caused "Cascade Events" where they kicked off other processes. These are harder to establish where they originate from. Their usefulness for Astronomy was limited Now Astronomers are using AI networks to scour through these events to establish where these Neutrinos have arrived from. Physicist Naoko Kurahashi Neilson of Drexel University in Philadelphia and her team used Neutrinos to map the Milky Way for the first time in something other than light. “When I first joined IceCube,” Professor Kurahashi Neilson commented, “I used to do air quotes” when using the phrase neutrino astronomy. “I don’t do that anymore.… I don’t have to because we’re starting to resolve things” in neutrino images that resemble the astronomical images from other telescopes." The Milky Way as seen in Neutrinos We have good views of the Milky Way in visible light. Why do we need this? The very nature of Neutrinos is the reason they offer new and unique views of our local galaxy. Much of the Milky Way is hidden from us by interstellar gas and dust. While telescopes sensitive to different wavelengths of light such as Infrared help get around this, Neutrinos can pass through hundreds of thousands of light years of space unimpeded - and bringing with them information about where they were formed. What's next? As always in Astronomy, new telescopes, tools or techniques bring new knowledge and discoveries.  IceCube itself is undergoing a massive in what is simply called IceCube GEN2 (read about it here) Neutrino Astronomy is a very new field, but one that's opening up new ways to look at the Universe. Cheers, Earl White BINTEL 7th July 2023

A team of Astronomers from across the globe, The NANOGrav collaboration, this week announced they'd observed a faint sign of a background signal or "hum" of Gravitational Waves that's spread through the Universe. What's a Gravitational Wave? Gravitational Waves are ripples in space and time caused by the acceleration of massive objects. These move away or "propagate" in all directions from their source at the speed of light. They contain information about the event that caused them and transport energy, in a similar way electromagnetic radiation or light does. They'd been proposed by a number of people but were formally described by Albert Einstein as part of his Theory of General Relativity. Gravitational Waves shrink and then expand the very space they move through. When did we first detect Gravitational Waves? There'd been an indirect detection prior to the first direct detection in 2015 by the LIGO gravitational wave detector, for which the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded. This event was caused by the collision of two Black Holes, some 1.3 billion light years from Earth. If the very fabric of space around me is moving, why can't I feel it? While events that cause Gravitational Waves are extremely energetic, this energy is propagated outwards and hard to detect after what could be millions of years of travel. The frequency of these waves is so low and the wavelength so incredibly long, they're beyond our ability to experience them directly. Artist's impression of an array of pulsars being affected by gravitational waves produced by orbiting super massive black holes in a faraway galaxy (Image credit: Aurore Simonnet for the NANOGrav Collaboration) How was the recent discovery made and how long did it take to gather all the data? Rather than looking for individual Gravitational Wave events, the NANOGrav team collected data from a number of "cosmic clocks" to detect the ripples of space on vast scale. Spread throughout galaxies are quickly spinning neutron stars called Pulsars. These are in the final stages of stellar evolution, leftovers after massive stars explode in Supernova events. Their rotating cores compress and shrink under their gravity and spin faster and faster. Think of an ice skater bringing their arms and legs in towards their body to twirl faster. In the case of Pulsars, they spin with extremely regular times of milliseconds to seconds. Their rate of spin will change, but it will be over enormous spans of time. If their magnetic "beam" points towards us, we see Pulsars as some of the most accurate timekeeping devices in the Universe. Astronomers have been studying and cataloging Pulsars for decades, with Murriyang - The CSIRO Radio Telescope outside of Parkes NSW - being a key facility in providing these Pulsar timing observations. Image via Alex Cherne Using a network of radio telescopes around the world, 67 different pulsars were observed for 15 years. NANOGrav found small, but measurable changes to the distances from Earth to these Pulsars caused by Gravitational Waves. The Universe is a noisy place at all frequencies of light, so even with the accuracy of Pulsar timing the NANOGrav was unable to extract individual events, but instead found the long-theorised "hum" of Gravitational Waves that are spread throughout the Universe - and this is not something "out there" either. Gravitational Waves are passing through everything around us and even through our bodies! What causes Gravitational Waves? It's likely the Gravitational Waves that makeup the background hum detected by the NANOGrav team was caused by the merger of Black Holes. A number of these mergers since the beginning of the Universe- possibly in the billions - send Gravitational Waves out into space, they combine and effect space around us. “It’s like a choir, with all these supermassive black hole pairs chiming in at different frequencies,” Chiara Mingarelli, a NANOGrav scientist who worked on the new findings, said. “This is the first-ever evidence for the gravitational wave background. We’ve opened a new window of observation on the universe.” Can astronomers observe using Gravitational Waves? Very likely!  As Gravitational Wave are changes in the fabric or space and time itself, they're not effected by the presence of matter. This means the inner workings of Super Massive Black Holes, or certain eras of the early history of the Universe which is opaque to the wavelengths of lights astronomers use are "visible" to Gravitational Wave. Every time Astronomers have worked out ways to observe the Universe - whether it's been in radio wave, infrared or ultraviolet etc - amazing new discoveries follow. Gravitational Waves will no doubt provide another way to learn about the space we live in. Cheers, Earl White BINTEL 29th June 2023    

NASA this week announced that further study of data received from the Cassini mission to Saturn has revealed the presence of phosphorous on its moon, Enceladus. Hi resolution image of Enceladus showing its "tiger stripes"  (via NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute) Despite its vast distance from Sun and next to no atmosphere, Enceladus is known to have a planet wide water ocean about 10km deep under an icecap that is some 30 to 50 kilometres thick. (For comparison, oceans on the Earth average just under four kilometres deep with the deepest point being around eleven kilometres.) It's thought the water on Enceladus is kept from freezing over entirely by heating from by tidal interactions as it orbits Saturn. The ocean under the ice on Enceladus was confirmed by the discovery that the rocky core of the moon "wobbled" slightly in its ocean underneath the solid icecap. Cracks in the ice on the surface of Enceladus allow plumes of vapor and ice and ice to escape into space. Methane, carbon dioxide, and nitrogen - ingredients for amino acids - embedded into ice particles had previously been observed.  These feed into Saturn's E ring, part of the spectacular system of rings surrounding Saturn. Plumes of material escaping into space from the "tiger stripes" on Enceladus. (Image via NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute) Now researchers have further analysed the particles in Saturn's E ring that were ejected from Enceladus.  They found these particles contain large amounts of sodium phosphates in their samples. Sodium phosphates are molecules of chemically bound sodium, oxygen, hydrogen, and phosphorus.  The key discovery was the presence of phosphorus. This is not found in great quantities in life on Earth unlike elements such as carbon, but it is critical for life processes to take place. Now it's been found on Enceladus, all the "building blocks" of life have now been confirmed on this ocean world. Further work found that the phosphorus concentrations on Enceladus are at least one hundred times that of Earth's oceans. A researcher Christopher Glein, a planetary scientist and geochemist at Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas said " “This key ingredient could be abundant enough to potentially support life in Enceladus’ ocean; this is a stunning discovery for astrobiology.” It's very important to note that while this discovery points to the key ingredients for life are found on Enceladus and other water worlds in the Solar System, this does not mean that life itself or any traces of previous life processes have been discovered. “Having the ingredients is necessary, but they may not be sufficient for an extraterrestrial environment to host life. Whether life could have originated in Enceladus’ ocean remains an open question.” continued Glein. Are we going to check out Enceladus further? Yes! Further research on the data obtained from Cassini will be ongoing. Space-based telescopes like the JWST will also study the Saturn system in more detail. NASA has approved the Enceladus Explorer (EnEx) mission which will orbit and land on the icy moon. This won't happen until 2050. Its main science objectives are: To search for evidence of life. To obtain geochemical and geophysical context for life detection experiments. It will be a long wait, but given the discoveries made so far, the mission might produce some stunning results! Cheers, Earl White BINTEL 16th June 2023    

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory reached a major construction recently. The primary instrument at this revolutionary facility is called the Simonyi Survey Telescope. The massive telescope mount and surrounding structure is ready to be fitted with a "dummy" full size replica of its 8.4m mirror and 32000-megapixel camera and other gear. This will allow full testing and shake down of the mechanical side of the telescope before its main mirror and remarkable camera are installed. Astronomers are really excited about this new observatory and expect it will advance our understanding of the early formation and structure of the Universe as well as observing events in the Solar System. There's already a number of 8m class telescopes operating across the world. So why is the Simonyi Survey Telescope at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory so different? The telescope has an extremely low centre of gravity and short focal ratio. These combine to make is far manoeuvrable than other large professional telescopes. It can quickly move to different parts of the sky and begin imaging within seconds - probably faster than most amateur telescopes. The 32000-megapixel camera can not only capture more of the sky and in more detail than other comparable telescopes, but the telescope can also produce some 200,000 images per year or nearly 1.3 petabytes of uncompressed data. These all combine to enable the Simonyi Survey Telescope to image the entire night sky from its location every 2-3 nights. Why the rush? Traditional all-sky surveys take several years to complete. Long term surveys across the world - including here in Australia - have helped researchers make and discover billions of stars and galaxies in multiple wavelengths of light. The Universe doesn't seem to be going anywhere in a hurry, so we do we need large observatories that can complete a major sky survey every few nights? What we're coming to realise is that the Universe is far from static! It changes from night to night and often on a short timeframe too. Some of these changes are well known and predictable. Examples of these includes Solar System objects as they move around the Sun. Many variable stars have a predictable rise and fall in their light output. Others are less regular. There are also sudden changes. These include events like the recent Supernova explosion in galaxy M10, Other events we're only just learning about. Mergers of Neutron stars, black holes interacting with stars and gases plus lots more! Discovering new objects and studying the movement of vast numbers of bodies in the Solar System, especially in the asteroid belts between Mars and Jupiter and further out in the Kuiper Belt will help us learn more about our local Solar neighbourhood. Rapid scans of the night sky will add another layer to our NEO (Near Earth Asteroid) detection programs to help us identify any objects that could pose a threat to us. The ability to map faint galaxies across large areas of the sky in great detail will also assist in studies of the large-scale structure of the Universe, help us learn more about its formation and the mysteries behind dark energy and dark matter. Probably what's has astronomers excited the most is discovering the things they didn't expect. Every time a major new research facility is opened, we tend to get surprised by something out of left field. First light is expected at the Simonyi Survey Telescope at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory sometime in 2024 with major research starting soon after. This observatory and other mega telescope projects coming on-line in the follow decades mean Astronomy in the second half of the 21st Century is going to be amazing! Cheers, Earl White BINTEL 9th June 2023