Science

What is a new moon?

What is the modern definition of a new moon? This video explains why this happens and how often.

The new moon is the first lunar phase, which leaves Earth’s natural satellite in shadow.

The modern definition of the new moon occurs “when the Moon and Sun are at the same geocentric ecliptic longitude,” explains NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio on its website. “The part of the Moon facing us is completely in shadow then.”

“There’s a new moon about once a month, because the moon takes about a month to orbit Earth,” explains EarthSky. “Most of the time, the new moon passes not in front of the sun, but simply near it in our sky. That’s why, in most months, there’s no solar eclipse.”

NEW MOON ON DECK: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

Typically, new moons can’t be seen, says EarthSky, which notes that they usually make their way across the sky during the day. For a solar eclipse to occur, the moon must be at its new phase, according to EarthSky.

The moon rises over the Parthenon on the ancient Acropolis Hill in Athens, Greece, Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2019. The full moon, or supermoon, appears brighter and bigger than other full moons because it is close to its perigee, which is the closest point in its orbit to Earth.
(AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

A solar eclipse occurs when the moon passes between the Earth and the sun and scores a bull’s-eye by completely blotting out the sunlight. Many Americans fondly remember the solar eclipse of 2017, which captivated millions of people across the country.

The coast-to-coast eclipse on Aug. 21 of that year carved a 70-mile wide path of totality from the Pacific coast to the Atlantic, with hordes of people donning solar eclipse glasses to experience the unusual event. The eclipse, which began in Oregon and ended in South Carolina, was the first to cross the continental U.S. since 1918.

SNOW MOON STUNS AS ONE OF THE LARGEST FULL MOONS OF 2020 LIGHTS UP THE SKY

Families from all over the country flocked to cities in the line of totality, such as Charleston and Nashville, which hosted over 1 million visitors.

The traditional new moon in an image posted by NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio.
(Ernie Wright/David Ladd (USRA)/Noah Petro/John Keller(NASA/GSFC). NASA Scientific Visualization Studio)

The next total solar eclipse in the U.S. will be in 2024 and the next coast-to-coast one won’t be until 2045.

The new moon is an important part of many cultures.

EPIC NASA PHOTOGRAPH SHOWS INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION CROSSING THE MOON

“About a day after the New Moon conjunction, the Moon becomes visible again as a Waxing Crescent Moon,” explains timeanddate.com. “The initial period, as only the thinnest sliver of a Crescent Moon becomes visible, used to be called New Moon while the darkest phase was called Dark Moon.”

“This traditional definition of New Moon is still in use in some cultures, defining the beginning of the months in the Islamic calendar,” it adds.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

NASA also notes that the traditional new moon is “the earliest visible waxing crescent, which signals the start of a new month in many lunar and lunisolar calendars.”

The Associated Press contributed to this article.

Follow James Rogers on Twitter @jamesjrogers

New moon on deck: What you need to know

The next new moon will occur on Feb. 23. Here is what you need to know.

The moon will be new at 10:32 a.m. ET on Sunday, Feb. 23, according to NASA. “By the modern definition, New Moon occurs when the Moon and Sun are at the same geocentric ecliptic longitude. The part of the Moon facing us is completely in shadow then,” explains the space agency’s Scientific Visualization Studio on its website.

However, typically, new moons can’t be seen, according to EarthSky, which notes that they usually make their way across the sky during the day.

SNOW MOON STUNS AS ONE OF THE LARGEST FULL MOONS OF 2020 LIGHTS UP THE SKY

Skygazers recently enjoyed the spectacular February full moon or snow moon. The snow moon is one of the largest full moons of 2020 and lit up the sky on Feb. 8 and 9.

The moon sets behind the Statue of Liberty, Feb. 8, 2020.
(James Rogers/Fox News)

In New York City, photographers braved the cold on the waterfront at Red Hook, Brooklyn on Feb. 8 to capture images of the almost-full moon behind the Statue of Liberty.

The moon looms large in America’s space future. NASA’s Artemis program aims to land American astronauts on the moon by 2024 and establish a sustainable human presence on Earth’s natural satellite.

EPIC NASA PHOTOGRAPH SHOWS INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION CROSSING THE MOON

After Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin set foot on the moon on July 20, 1969, only 10 more men, all Americans, have walked on the lunar surface. The last NASA astronaut to set foot on the moon was Apollo 17 Mission Commander Gene Cernan, on Dec. 14, 1972.

The traditional new moon in an image posted on NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio.
(Ernie Wright/David Ladd [USRA]/Noah Petro/John Keller[NASA/GSFC]. NASA Scientific Visualization Studio)

With America ramping up its space strategy, Vice President Mike Pence vowed this week that NASA astronauts will soon launch into space from U.S. soil for the first time in almost 10 years.

Pence, who is chairman of the National Space Council, gave the speech at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia.

NASA ASTRONAUTS WILL RETURN TO SPACE FROM US SOIL ‘BEFORE SUMMER’: PENCE

“Before we even get to the summer, with the strong support of all of you, the United States will return American astronauts to space on American rockets from American soil,” he explained. “We’re going back, and we going back from the USA.”

Since the retirement of the space shuttle in 2011, the U.S. has been relying on Russian Soyuz rockets, launched from Kazakhstan, to get astronauts to the International Space Station.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Follow James Rogers on Twitter @jamesjrogers

Water spotted in Jupiter’s atmosphere

The largest planet in the Solar System, Jupiter has a treasure trove of information for astronomers to research and observe. A new study states that the gas giant also contains water in its atmosphere.

Using data from the Juno orbiter, there is at least 0.25 percent water in the planet’s atmosphere, notably near the equator, NASA JPL wrote in a blog post.

“Just when we think we have things figured out, Jupiter reminds us how much we still have to learn,” said Scott Bolton, Juno principal investigator, in the statement. “Juno’s surprise discovery that the atmosphere was not well mixed even well below the cloud tops is a puzzle that we are still trying to figure out. No one would have guessed that water might be so variable across the planet.”

Thick white clouds are present in this JunoCam image of Jupiter’s equatorial zone. At microwave frequencies, these clouds are transparent, allowing Juno’s Microwave Radiometer to measure water deep into Jupiter’s atmosphere. The image was acquired during Juno’s flyby on Dec. 16, 2017. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Kevin M. Gill)

EXTRATERRESTRIAL LIFE ON EUROPA OR ENCELADUS COULD BE ‘INDIGENOUS,’ STUDY SAYS

The researchers used data from Juno’s first eight flybys of Jupiter to come up with their findings.

“We found the water in the equator to be greater than what the Galileo probe measured,” Cheng Li, a Juno scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, added. “Because the equatorial region is very unique at Jupiter, we need to compare these results with how much water is in other regions.”

NASA JPL stated these are the first findings on the presence of water since the 1995 Galileo mission “suggested Jupiter might be extremely dry compared to the Sun.” The comparison is not based on liquid water, but rather the presence of oxygen and hydrogen, the agency explained.

NASA MISSION TO EUROPA COULD ‘POSSIBLY SENSE LIFE’

Getting an accurate estimate on the total water amount in the gas giant’s atmosphere “has been on the wish lists of planetary scientists for decades,” NASA JPL wrote in the blog post, adding that it “represents a critical missing piece to the puzzle of our solar system’s formation.”

Scientists believe Jupiter was the first planet to form and it houses gas and dust that are not a part of the sun.

The research was published in the scientific journal Nature Astronomy.

In November, an international research team detected water vapor above the surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa for the first time. It’s unclear what the oceans on Europa are made up of, but the Hubble Space Telescope detected the presence of sodium chloride on its surface, according to a study published in June.

The conditions on Europa have been previously likened to exoplanet Barnard B, a “super-Earth” 30 trillion miles from Earth. It likely has a surface temperature of roughly 238 degrees below zero and may have oceans underneath its icy surface, according to a July 2018 statement from NASA.

NASA is launching a mission to Europa within the next decade, a trek that could answer whether the icy celestial body could be habitable for humans and support life.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Fox News’ James Rogers contributed to this story.

Alien planet is on its way towards the ‘edge of destruction’

Experts have been intensely watching an exoplanet that is so close to its star, it may well be on the “edge of destruction.”

Known as NGTS-10b, this planet is a “hot Jupiter,” a gas giant that orbits its star very closely. So far, approximately 400 exoplanets have met the “hot Jupiter” definition, but this particular one has a year that only lasts 18 hours, making it “perilously close” to its star.

“Although in theory hot Jupiters with short orbital periods (less than 24 hours) are the easiest to detect due to their large size and frequent transits, they have proven to be extremely rare,” the study’s lead author, James McCormac, said in a statement. “Of the hundreds of hot Jupiters currently known there are only seven that have an orbital period of less than one day.”

Artist’s impression of a hot Jupiter orbiting close to a star. (Credit: University of Warwick/Mark Garlick)

ALIEN PLANET IS SO HOT IT’S TEARING ITSELF APART

The 18-hour orbit of NGTS-10b is the shortest discovered for a “hot Jupiter” to date.

NGTS-10b, which is believed to be roughly 10 billion years old, is not in the habitable zone — an area that could allow for liquid water to be on the surface.— and is 1,000 light-years from Earth. One light-year is the equivalent of 6 trillion miles.

The planet is likely tidally locked (one side of it always faces the star), meaning astronomers estimate its average temperature to be more than 1,000 degrees Celsius or 1,832 degrees Fahrenheit. NGTS-10b is believed to be 20 percent larger than Jupiter itself and more than twice its mass. It’s also believed that the star, NGTS-10, is 1,000 degrees cooler than the sun and is roughly 10 billion years old as well.

POSSIBLE ‘SUPER-EARTH’ PLANET DISCOVERED NEARLY 4 LIGHT-YEARS AWAY FROM EARTH

Planets of this size with exceptionally short orbits are believed to eventually tear themselves apart, the study’s co-author, David Brown said, with another co-author, Daniel Bayliss, adding it could happen in the next decade.

“Over the next 10 years, it might be possible to see this planet spiraling in,” Bayliss said. “We’ll be able to use NGTS to monitor this over a decade. If we could see the orbital period start to decrease and the planet start to spiral in, that would tell us a lot about the structure of the planet that we don’t know yet.”

“Either we are seeing it in the last stages of its life, or somehow it’s able to live here longer than it should,” Bayliss added.

The research was published in the scientific journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Earlier this month, another “hot Jupiter,” KELT-9b, was discovered. The planet has such extreme temperatures that it tears apart its hydrogen gas molecules on the dayside part of the planet, only to reform once they move around to the nightside part, NASA said.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

What should we do if a ‘planet-killer’ asteroid takes aim at Earth?

An illustration shows a rocket approaching an asteroid that’s drifted too close to Earth. A scout probe orbits nearby. (Credit: Christine Daniloff, MIT)

If a giant object looks like it’s going to slam into Earth, humanity has a few options: Hammer it with a spacecraft hard enough to knock it off course, blast it with nuclear weapons, tug on it with a gravity tractor, or even slow it down using concentrated sunlight.

We’ll have to decide whether to visit it with a scout mission first, or launch a full-scale attack immediately.

Those are a lot of decisions to make under existential duress, which is why a team of MIT researchers have come up with a guide, published February in the journal Acta Astronautica, to help future asteroid deflectors.

In movies, an incoming asteroid is usually a very last-minute shock: a big, deadly rock hurtling right toward Earth like a bullet out of the darkness, with only weeks or days between its discovery and its projected impact. That is a real threat, according to an April 2019 presentation by NASA’s Office of Planetary Defense that Live Science attended. But NASA believes that it’s spotted most of the largest, deadliest objects that have even a small chance of striking Earth — the so-called planet killers. (Of course, there are probably plenty of smaller rocks — still large enough to kill whole cities — that remain undiscovered.)

Related: Top 10 ways to destroy Earth

Because most of the large objects in Earth’s neighborhood are already being closely watched, we’ll likely have plenty of warning before one strikes Earth. Astronomers watch these space rocks as they get near-Earth to see whether they’re likely to cross through one of their “keyholes.” Every Earth-threatening asteroid gets closer and further from Earth at different points in its orbit around the sun. And along that path, near-Earth, it has keyholes. Those keyholes are regions of space that it has to pass through in order to end up on a collision course during its next approach to our planet.

“A keyhole is like a door — once it’s open, the asteroid will impact Earth soon after, with high probability,” Sung Wook Paek, lead author of the study and a Samsung engineer who was an MIT graduate student when the paper was written, said in a statement.

The easiest time to stop an object from hitting Earth is before it hits one of those keyholes, according to the paper. That will keep the object from getting on the route toward an impact in the first place — at which point saving Earth would require far more resources and energy, and involve much more risk.

Paek and his co-authors tossed out most of the more exotic asteroid-deflection schemes out of hand, leaving only nuclear detonation and impactors as serious options. Nuclear detonation is problematic as well, they wrote, because it’s uncertain exactly how an asteroid will behave after a nuclear explosion and because political concerns about nuclear weapons could cause problems for the mission.

In the end, they landed on three options for missions that could reasonably be prepared on short notice if a planet-killer asteroid were spotted heading toward a keyhole:

A “type 0” mission where a single, heavy spacecraft was fired at the incoming object, aimed using the best available information about the object’s makeup and trajectory to knock it off course.

A “type 1” mission where a scout is launched first and collects close-up data about the asteroid before the main impactor is launched, in order to better aim the shot for maximum effect.

A “type 2” mission where one small impactor is launched at the same time as the scout to knock the object a bit off course. Then all the information from the scout and the first impact are used to fine-tune a second small impact that finishes the job.

The problem with “type 0” missions, the researchers wrote, is that telescopes on Earth can only gather rough information about planet killers, which are still faraway, dim, relatively small objects. Without precise information on the object’s mass, velocity, or physical makeup, the impactor mission will have to rely on some imprecise estimates, and has a higher risk of failing to properly knock the incoming object out of its keyhole.

Type 1 missions are more likely to succeed, the researchers wrote, because they can determine the incoming rock’s mass and velocity far more precisely. But they also take more time and resources. Type 2 missions are even better, but take yet more time and resources to get underway.

The researchers developed a method for calculating which mission is best based on two factors: the time between the mission start and the date the planet killer will reach its keyhole, and the difficulty involved in properly diverting the specific planet killer.

Applying those calculations to two well-known planet-killer asteroids in Earth’s general neighborhood, Apophis and Bennu, the researchers came up with a complex set of instructions for future asteroid deflectors in the event one of those objects started heading for a keyhole.

Given enough time, they found, type 2 missions were almost always the right way to deflect Bennu. If time was short, though, a quick-and-dirty type 0 mission was the way to go. There were just a handful of instances where type 1 missions made sense.

Apophis was a different, more complicated story. If time was short, a type 1 mission was usually the best option: collect data quickly in order to properly aim the impact. Given more time, type 2 missions were sometimes better, depending how difficult it appeared to be to deflect from its course. There were no situations where a type 0 mission made sense for Apophis.

In both cases, if the time got too short, the researchers found no mission would be successful at diverting the rock.

The differences between the rocks came down to the level of uncertainty about their masses and velocities, as well as how their internal materials would react to an impact.

These same basic principles could be used to study other potential planet killers, and future studies could incorporate other options for deflecting the asteroids, including nuclear weapons, the researchers wrote. The more complex the list of options, the more difficult the calculation gets. Eventually, they wrote, it would be useful to train machine learning algorithms to make decisions based on the exact available data in any planet-killer scenario.

Originally published on Live Science.

Majestic leopard seen ‘posing’ for camera on city streets, pictures reveal

A majestic leopard was captured by a photographer as it seemed to pose for the camera on a city street in India.

Nayan Khanolkar, a 45-year-old naturalist and wildlife photographer from Mumbai, photographed the creature with the city’s lights as a glowing backdrop.

“Usually, they avoid interactions with humans and move silently at night when human activity decreases,” Khanolkar explained to SWNS. “But it is not uncommon to see a big cat on the roads of Aarey between dusk and dawn.We have been following this particular leopardess for quite some time now – right from when she herself was a cub moving with her mother to this date, when she has become a mother of two cubs.”

PERFECTLY PRESERVED 6,000-YEAR-OLD LEAF THAT FELL FROM ELM TREE DISCOVERED BY ARCHAEOLOGISTS

This amazing picture of a leopard was captured by a photographer on the edge of Mumbai, India.
(SWNS)

The photographer said that the leopard has made Aarey Colony its home and is familiar with the human-dominated metropolis around Sanjay Gandhi National Park.

“A bold animal by nature, she crosses a high-traffic, high-speed road regularly along with her cubs and moves right up to the southwestern edge of Aarey, which is occupied by slums and city towers,” he told SWNS.

”Here she is seen with her cub at an artificial waterhole created by local residents for dogs. The light filtering through the foliage comes from a house situated barely 50 meters away,” Khanolkar added.

COULD HACKERS TURN SATELLITES INTO WEAPONS?

Another image of a leopard and cub on the outskirts of Mumbai, India. (SWNS)
(SWNS)

Despite being not far from the city, the leopard and her cub seem very calm in the photographs.

GET THE FOX NEWS APP

NASA astronaut Fred Gregory recounts historic missions, eyes America’s space future

In 1989, astronaut Fred Gregory made history when he became the first African-American to command a NASA mission, but he paid little attention to the headlines that he made.

An Air Force officer who flew 550 combat missions as a helicopter pilot in Vietnam, Gregory was a test pilot before joining the astronaut corps in 1978.

Speaking to Fox News prior to the Feb. 24 premiere of the Smithsonian Channel documentary “Black in Space: Breaking the Color Barrier,” Gregory said that at the time NASA was keen to extend its talent pool.

“If you look at the astronaut corps prior to the space shuttle program it was white European male,’ the former astronaut said. “They made a conscious effort to diversify the group of astronauts for the space shuttle.”

NASA ASTRONAUTS WILL RETURN TO SPACE FROM US SOIL ‘BEFORE SUMMER’: PENCE

Of the 35 astronauts in the group, 15 were test pilots and 20 were mission specialists, which included engineers, scientists, mathematicians and doctors. The group also included Guion “Guy” Bluford, who became the first African-American in space, and Sally Ride, who became the first American woman in space.

On Jan. 16, 1978, NASA announced its first astronaut class in nine years. Dr. Ronald McNair (left), Guy Bluford (center) and Fred Gregory (right) were among those selected, the first African Americans in NASA’s astronaut program. (NASA)

Another member of the group was Ron McNair, who perished during the launch of the space shuttle Challenger in 1986.

Gregory’s first trip to space was as the pilot of shuttle mission STS-51B in 1985. Four years later he became the first African-American to command a NASA mission when he led STS-33. He was also the commander of STS-44 in 1991.

The former astronaut told Fox News that the historic nature of the missions was not at the forefront of his mind. “We became aware of the fact that Guy was the first African-American to fly [in space], we became aware that I was the first African-American to command … when we saw it in the papers,” he said. “It was not an issue, it was not a concern.”

NASA ASTRONAUT EYES MOON JACKPOT, RANGING FROM SPACE MINING TO POLAR ICE

“That’s something that a certain group of people think is important – for me, it’s not important at all,” he added.

The astronaut went on to log 455 hours in space and later became the first African-American to serve as NASA’s deputy administrator.

Now 79, Gregory told Fox News that his interest in aviation was piqued during his childhood in Washington, D.C., where his parents were educators. Among his parents’ many friends was one particular group that sparked his interest. “I guess I would have to go back to when I was a very young kid, probably when I was 5 or 6,” he told Fox News. “One of the groups of friends that my parents had was a group of pilots – I remember sitting at their feet listening to them talk about flying.”

The young Gregory eventually accompanied one of the pilots when their plane was taxiing on the runway. He had caught the flying bug.

SPACE CAPSULE SOARS IN DRAMATIC ABORT TEST

He describes his eventual space career as an evolution from his role as an Air Force pilot. “When I was in my 30s, I just happened to see an advertisement for the space program,” he said. “It was more of an evolution for me, as I moved from one career to another.”

However, he did receive encouragement from an illustrious American aviator. His father was friends with many members of the iconic Tuskegee Airmen, including their commander, Ben Davis, and the Air Force general called Gregory when the young man was considering a space career. “Gen. Davis called me and told me that I should apply, not just for myself but for the Tuskegee Airmen.” he said.

The next few years are set to be important ones for NASA, as the space agency prepares to put American boots on the moon once again and eyes future crewed missions to Mars.

Gregory said that he is encouraged by President Donald Trump’s proposal to significantly increase NASA’s annual budget. However, he is more excited by the prospect of crewed missions to Mars than to the moon. “I was raised in a family that said ‘once you have done it, then do something else,’” he told Fox News. “Returning to the moon, 40 years later, to me, it’s not exciting – but for other generations, it’s new to them.”

NASA ASTRONAUT’S OVERJOYED DOG WELCOMES HER HOME AFTER 328-DAY SPACE MISSION IN HEARTWARMING VIDEO

NASA plans to use a “Gateway,” a space station orbiting the moon, for future lunar exploration. The Gateway vessel will be used to support the transfer of crews and supplies into a moon lander.

However, Gregory thinks a Gateway vessel should be positioned elsewhere to better facilitate distant exploration, such as Mars missions. “The Gateway, for me, would have to be at the Sun/Earth Lagrange point,” he said. “The Gateway would be a transition point between Earth and a distant planet.”

Space.com describes Lagrange points as “parking places in space,” locations where the gravitational forces to two large bodies such as the Earth and the Sun equals the centrifugal force “felt by a much smaller third body.”

Gregory believes that NASA could use the Lagrange to significantly reduce the estimated eight-month journey to Mars. “I would say that, from the Gateway, you would have a new system of propulsion that would get you there in two weeks,” he told Fox News.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

“Black in Space: Breaking the Color Barrier,” airs on Smithsonian Channel at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Feb. 24.

Follow James Rogers on Twitter @jamesjrogers

Climate change and pollution could eliminate nearly all coral reefs by end of century

Coral reefs around the world are dying and scientists are looking at a variety of ways to save these endangered structures, including growing them in labs and trying to make them pollution-resistant. However, newly presented research says climate change and pollution could eliminate nearly all coral reef habitats on the planet by the end of the century.

The research said that warming, acidic oceans and rising temperatures could wipe out “nearly all existing coral reef habitats by 2100,” adding that efforts to restore the reefs “will likely meet serious challenges.”

“By 2100, it’s looking quite grim,” said University of Hawaii Manoa biogeographer Renee Setter in a statement. Setter presented her findings at the annual San Diego-based Ocean Sciences Meeting.

Coral bleaching happens when corals are stressed by conditions such as high temperatures. According to new research, rising sea surface temperatures and acidic waters could eliminate nearly all existing coral reef habitats by 2100. (Credit: USGS)

DYING CORAL REEFS COULD BE SAVED BY PLAYING SOUNDS OF HEALTHY CORAL REEFS FROM SPEAKERS

In August, the government agency that manages Australia’s Great Barrier Reef downgraded its outlook for the corals’ condition from “poor” to “very poor” due to warming oceans. Florida scientists have enacted a 10-year, $100 million program in an effort to stop coral reef deaths in the Florida Keys.

Setter, along with the other researchers, noted that while the efforts being made so far to clean up plastic pollution in the oceans–which could have a $2.5 trillion impact on the global economy–and cleaning the beaches are positive steps, much of the impact comes from emissions.

“Trying to clean up the beaches is great and trying to combat pollution is fantastic. We need to continue those efforts,” Setter added. “But at the end of the day, fighting climate change is really what we need to be advocating for in order to protect corals and avoid compounded stressors.”

LAB-GROWN CORAL COULD SAVE ENDANGERED REEFS

To come up with the findings, Setter and the other researchers simulated ocean environment conditions, including sea surface temperature, wave energy and acidity of the water, among other inputs. They found that where coral reefs are located at the present, the conditions for “suitable habitats” would not exist by 2045, with the situation getting dire extended out to 2100.

“Honestly, most sites are out,” Setter said. There are a few viable sites looking out to 2100, including “small portions” of Baja California and the Red Sea. However, these locations are not considered “ideal,” because of how close they are to rivers.

Skeptics have largely dismissed fears over man’s impact on global warming, saying climate change has been going on since the beginning of time. They also claim the dangers of a warming planet are being wildly exaggerated and question the impact that fossil fuels have had on climate change.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

The Associated Press and Fox News’ Elina Shirazi contributed to this report.

Artificial intelligence spotted 11 ‘potentially hazardous’ asteroids that NASA missed

An asteroid hitting Earth is one of humanity’s greatest existential threats, making it imperative that asteroid detection is a vital task for government space agencies around the world. Using advanced artificial intelligence, researchers in the Netherlands have discovered several “potentially hazardous objects” that were not spotted by humans.

The research, published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, looked at space objects more than 100 meters in diameter that were likely to come within 4.7 million miles of Earth. The AI ran simulations 10,000 years into the future and discovered 11 asteroids that are not on NASA’s list of “potentially hazardous” near-Earth objects.

“The resulting instrument, named the Hazardous Object Identifier (HOI), was trained on the basis of an artificial set of known impactors which were generated by launching objects from Earth’s surface and integrating them backward in time,” the researchers wrote in the study’s abstract. “HOI was able to identify 95.25 [percent] of the known impactors simulated that were present in the test set as potential impactors. In addition, HOI was able to identify 90.99 [percent] of the potentially hazardous objects identified by NASA, without being trained on them directly.”

Artistic impression of two near earth objects. (Credit: ESA / P. Carril)

POTENTIALLY HAZARDOUS ASTEROID THAT ZIPPED PAST EARTH HAS ITS OWN ‘MOON’

“Potentially hazardous” NEOs (Near Earth Objects) are defined as space objects that come within 0.05 astronomical units and measure more than 460 feet in diameter, according to NASA.

One of the study’s co-authors, astronomer and simulation expert Simon Portegies Zwart, said that now that the method works, further research is needed.

“We now know that our method works, but we would certainly like to delve deeper in the research with a better neural network and with more input,” Zwart said in a statement. “The tricky part is that small disruptions in the orbit calculations can lead to major changes in the conclusions.”

According to a 2018 report put together by Planetary.org, there are more than 18,000 NEOs.

NASA has been preparing for planetary defense from asteroid strikes for years. A recent survey showed that Americans prefer a space program that focuses on potential asteroid impacts over sending humans back to the moon or to Mars.

In April 2019, NASA awarded a $69 million contract to SpaceX, the space exploration company led by Elon Musk, to help it with asteroid deflection via its DART mission.

MILE-LONG ASTEROID COULD BE DANGEROUS TO LIFE ON EARTH IN MILLIONS OF YEARS IF IT BREAKS UP: SCIENTISTS

NASA has recently expanded its planetary defense protocols, including last year’s unveiling of a bold new plan to protect Earth. In June 2018, NASA unveiled a 20-page plan that details the steps the U.S. should take to be better prepared for NEOs such as asteroids and comets that come within 30 million miles of the planet.

Lindley Johnson, NASA’s planetary defense officer, said at the time that the country “already has significant scientific, technical and operational capabilities” to help with NEOs, but implementing the new plan would “greatly increase our nation’s readiness and work with international partners to effectively respond should a new potential asteroid impact be detected.”

In addition to enhancing NEO detection, tracking and characterizing capabilities and improving modeling prediction, the plan also aims to develop technologies for deflecting NEOs, increasing international cooperation and establishing new NEO impact emergency procedures and action protocols.

ANCIENT ASTEROID STRIKES ON MARS MAY HAVE ‘PRODUCED KEY INGREDIENTS FOR LIFE’

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine has warned that an asteroid strike is not something to be taken lightly and is perhaps Earth’s biggest threat.

“We have to make sure that people understand that this is not about Hollywood, it’s not about movies,” Bridenstine said at the International Academy of Astronautics’ 2019 Planetary Defense Conference in College Park, Md., according to Space.com. “This is about ultimately protecting the only planet we know right now to host life, and that is the planet Earth.”

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Molecular oxygen discovered in another galaxy for first time ever

Astronomers have announced a significant discovery: they have found molecular oxygen for the first time ever outside the Solar System.

In a research published in The Astrophysical Journal, they noted that it was discovered in the Markarian 231 galaxy, 561 million light-years from Earth. A light-year, which measures distance in space, equals about 6 trillion miles.

“This first detection of extragalactic molecular oxygen provides an ideal tool to study AGN-driven molecular outflows on dynamic timescales of tens of megayears,” the researchers wrote in the study’s abstract.

Conceptual image of water-bearing (left) and dry (right) exoplanets with oxygen-rich atmospheres. (NASA/GSFC/Friedlander-Griswold)

NASA DETECTS MYSTERIOUS OXYGEN CHANGES ON MARS IT’S ‘STRUGGLING TO EXPLAIN’

The find is significant since the galaxy is powered by a quasar, a highly active supermassive black hole. Some astronomers believe there are two quasars at the center of the galaxy. though that has yet to be proven. Quasars are considered the brightest objects in the universe and the quasar at the center of Markarian 231 is the closest one to Earth.

The researchers used the IRAM 30-meter radio telescope in Spain to make their observations after looking at it for four days. It’s unclear what is causing the oxygen to appear, but it may be due to “the interaction between the active galactic nucleus-driven molecular outflow and the outer disc molecular clouds,” the researchers wrote in the study.

Oxygen is necessary for life as we know it, according to the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, but so far, molecular oxygen has been difficult to find. It has been detected in the Orion nebula, but since it experiences intense radiation from the young stars being formed, it’s possible the water ice is split into a molecular level, allowing for the discovery of oxygen.

MYSTERIOUS SIGNAL FROM DEEP SPACE IS REPEATING IN 16-DAY CYCLE

Oxigen is the third most abundant element in the universe, trailing hydrogen and helium. Some scientists believe oxygen in space is stuck with hydrogen in the form of water ice, which could be why it is hard to detect.

In November, NASA’s Curiosity rover discovered that oxygen “behaves in a way that so far scientists cannot explain” on Mars.

The Curiosity rover, which has been exploring the Gale Crater since it landed on Mars in August 2012, found that the oxygen in the atmosphere did not behave in the same way that nitrogen and argon did, following “a predictable season pattern, waxing and waning in concentration in Gale Crater throughout the year relative to how much CO2 is in the air.”

Instead, the amount of oxygen in the air throughout the spring and summer rose by as much as 30 percent, then dropped to levels that were predicted by known chemistry in the fall.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Science

Footer

Public File Info