Space

Black hole cosmology suggests that the Milky Way and every other observable galaxy in our universe is contained within a black hole that formed in another, much larger, universe.

The theory challenges many fundamental models of the cosmos, including the idea that the Big Bang was the beginning of the universe.

It also provides the possibility that black holes within our own universe may be the boundaries to other universes, opening up a potential scenario for a multiverse.

Mine blown 🤯

For those of us who have closely followed the story of Wilmore and Williams over the last nine months—and Ars Technica has had its share of exclusive stories about this long and strange saga—the final weeks before the landing have seen it take a disturbing turn.

In February, President Trump and the chief executive of SpaceX, Elon Musk, began to say that the two astronauts were "stranded" in space because the Biden administration did not want to bring them home. "They got left in space," Trump said.

"They were left up there for political reasons," Musk concluded.

Just what those political reasons were never specified. But the basic message was clear: Biden, bad; Trump, good.

The reality is that NASA set a plan for the return of Wilmore and Williams last August. The spacecraft that brought them back to Earth on Tuesday safely docked to the space station in September. They could have come home at any time since. NASA—not the Biden administration, which all of my reporting indicates was not involved in any decision-making—decided the best and safest option was to keep Wilmore and Williams in orbit until early this year. Musk knew this plan. He had to sign off on it. Senior NASA officials earlier this month confirmed, publicly and on the record, that the decision was made by the space agency in the best interests of the International Space Station Program. Not for political reasons.

And still, the lies came.

Powering spacecraft with solar energy may not seem like a challenge, given how intense the Sun’s light can feel on Earth. Spacecraft near the Earth use large solar panels to harness the Sun for the electricity needed to run their communications systems and science instruments.

However, the farther into space you go, the weaker the Sun’s light becomes and the less useful it is for powering systems with solar panels. Even in the inner solar system, spacecraft such as lunar or Mars rovers need alternative power sources.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.it/post/15755274

"So, I decided to take a leap of faith. The patrons got us almost all the way there, so let's remove the ads from the website and go for it. Not only that, but let's remove the cookies, tracking scripts, and every scrap of Javascript from the site—just pure text and images."

A team at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, has captured first-of-its-kind imagery of a lunar lander’s engine plumes interacting with the Moon’s surface, a key piece of data as trips to the Moon increase in the coming years under the agency’s Artemis campaign.

The Stereo Cameras for Lunar-Plume Surface Studies (SCALPSS) 1.1 instrument took the images during the descent and successful soft landing of Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lunar lander on the Moon’s Mare Crisium region on March 2, as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative.

Includes a YouTube video

If its a total lunar eclipse why does one edge remains brighter than the rest?

I have been googling for an answer for a while and cant find it. Even pictures of previous total lunar eclipses are the same. Is it because that side remain closer to the edge of the umbra? Or is it caused by how light behaves; Or because the surface of the moon is more reflective on that part.