posted October 22, 2001
New Data, New Ideas, and Lively Debate about Mercury
Written by G. Jeffrey Taylor
Mercury is an important planet. It is closest to the Sun, so its chemical composition helps us test ideas for how the planets formed. In contrast to Venus and Mars, Mercury is generating a magnetic field today--useful in understanding Earth's magnetic field. It has a huge metallic core compared to the other rocky planets. Its cratered, lunar-like surface records a fascinating geologic history.
A hundred scientists attended a conference about this important little planet. It was held at the Field Museum in Chicago, Illinois, and was sponsored by the Museum, the Lunar and Planetary Institute, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Mariner 10, the only space mission to Mercury, flew by it three times in 1974 and 1975. Reworking the data in light of a better understanding of remote sensing and using new image analysis techniques is leading to amazing new insights about the planet's origin and geological evolution. And although we have had only one mission to the planet, there are a growing number of astronomical observations from Earth to study the tenuous and complicated mecurian atmosphere. Radar observations are providing dramatic new views of the surface and have revealed mysterious deposits (probably of water ice) in the polar regions. New ideas about Mercury's formation, geologic history, interior processes, magnetic field, and atmosphere will be tested by two missions that will examine the planet in detail.
Mercury has a pockmarked, moonlike surface with impact craters up to 1300 kilometers across. Smooth plains occur between the craters and inside many of them. Some of the plains are almost certainly lava flows. The planet's surface is also decorated with fault scarps, produced when the crust contracted as the planet cooled, causing one part of the crust to be thrust over another.
|Mercury has impact craters, smooth plains, and fault scarps. [Click on image for high-resolution options from NASA's Planetary Photojournal.]|
During its fly-bys of Mercury in 1974 and 1975, the Mariner 10 spacecraft took pictures using three color filters. Mark Robinson (Northwestern University) recalibrated the old Mariner 10 color data using techniques not available in the mid-1970s, and applied modern image processing tools to them. The result is a collection of three-color images that allow us to determine compositional variations across Mercury's seemingly drab face. [See PSRD article: Mercury Unveiled.] Presentations at the conference by Robinson and by B. Ray Hawke (University of Hawai`i) show a planet with a compositionally complex surface.
|D = relatively dark and blue unit consistent with enhanced titanium content. |
B = bright red unit that may represent primitive crustal material.
F = color unit that follows plains boundaries, interpretated as lava flow.
K = crater Kuiper shows color consistent with fresh material excavated from a subsurface unit that may have an unusual composition.
(Caption from NASA Planetary Photojournal, click on image for high resolution options.)
A central question about Mercury is the amount of iron oxide (FeO) in its rocky portion. Measurements made in the 1970s with earth-based telescopes of the amount of light reflected in different wavelengths, suggested that the amount of FeO is no more than about 6 wt%. Results reported at the conference refine that estimate. David Blewett (NovaSol, Inc. in Honolulu) compared the spectra of light reflected from regions of the Moon with known FeO contents to similar spectra of Mercury. His assessment is that lunar regions with about 3 wt% provide good spectral matches to Mercury. Johan Warell used the Swedish Vacuum Solar Telescope to measure the spectrum of reflected visible and near infrared light. He also concludes that Mercury has little FeO, possibly none, on its surface. Bruce Hapke (University of Pittsburgh), the grand master of planetary reflectance spectroscopy, concurred with these estimates on the basis of an analysis of the effects of space weathering. Tom Burbine (Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History) measured the light reflected from meteorites called aubrites, which contain no FeO. He concluded that such totally FeO-free materials are not likely to be present on Mercury. Thus, Mercury appears to have some FeO, but it is certainly less than 6 wt%. There seems to be a consensus that the amount is about 3 wt%. This has important implications for the composition of the entire rocky portion of Mercury and for its formation, as outlined below.
The surface of Mercury is a harsh place. When illuminated its temperature soars to almost 500 degrees Celsius. Because it is close to the Sun, projectiles, including the ubiquitous cosmic dust, hit it much faster than they do the Moon, and a larger number of dust grains hit it. The result is likely to be a surface that contains more glass and material condensed from impact-produced vapor than does the Moon. This is consistent with the spectra of energy in the mid-infrared (8 to 13 micrometers in wavelength), as reported in an interesting poster presentation by Bonnie Cooper (Oceaneering Space Systems, Houston) and her colleagues. Cooper's data show few or no spectral features, indicative of a small abundance of crystalline material. On the other hand, other investigators using different telescopic instruments have observed spectral features that suggest minerals are present on the surface. These discrepancies may be due largely to different capabilities of the instruments used. Given the small amount of telescope time devoted to observations of Mercury, the debate about the amounts of glass and minerals on the surface will continue.
Planetary scientists call the combination of these effects space weathering. One of the products of space weathering is ultra-tiny blobs of metallic iron. These little droplets measure only a few billionths of a meter across and are known to be the cause of a characteristic slope of the spectra of reflected light from the Moon. Sarah Noble and Carlé Pieters (Brown University) are studying the effect the high surface temperature might have on the minute metal grains. Noble calculated the rate at which the grains grow by a process called solid-state coarsening during the daytime (which lasts 44 earth days on Mercury). The metallic nanoblebs might double in size in only centuries, thus affecting the way light reflects. The surface in the equatorial regions would be affected more than colder polar regions. This work is only in its early stages, but might lead to a better assessment of the amount of space weathering that has occurred.
Mariner 10 imaged only one hemisphere of Mercury. Tantalizing views of the mysterious other hemisphere from Earth-based imaging radar suggested that there might be at least one large volcano. However, John Harmon (Arecibo Observatory) described new observations made with the upgraded Arecibo radio telescope. These startling clear images demonstrate that the suspected volcanic feature is actually an impact crater. Much of the unexplored hemisphere appears to be like the imaged hemisphere, but there are still too few observations to be sure of this.
|Radar image of impact crater on Mercury with a prominent ejecta blanket and ray system. Click on image for a larger version.|
Topography and the Nature of the Rocky Subsurface
Tony Cook and Tom Watters (Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum) and Mark Robinson presented a striking digital elevation model (DEM) mosaic (a topographic map) of Mercury, shown below. They used a semi-automated technique to match points on 1709 pairs of stereo images obtained by the Mariner 10 mission. The mosaic covers about 25% of the mercurian surface. More information is available from the Center for Earth and Planetary Sciences.
|In this hemispheric projection of a DEM mosaic of Mercury, elevations from lower to higher are colored blue, green, yellow, orange, red, and white.|
Tom Watters has used the new topographic map to study an impressive feature on Mercury, the Discovery Rupes scarp. Planetary geologists interpret this feature and others like it as a thrust fault. Thrust faults are places where one part of the crust has been pushed over another. Discovery Rupes is over 500 kilometers long. Watters and his colleagues Cook, Robinson, and Richard Schultz (University of Nevada, Reno) show that the scarp is up to 1.5 kilometers high and they use the topographic data to interpret the depth of the rigid outer portion of Mercury.
|Representation of the thrust fault at Discovery Rupes.|
Using assorted values for the amount of displacement along the fault, the angle the fault makes with the surface, and the depth to which the fault cut, Watters and his colleagues calculated the resulting topography on the surface. They compared this to the measured topography. Watters obtained the best agreement with the real topography when the fault depth was between 35 and 40 kilometers. This suggests that at a depth of about 40 kilometers the crust was too weak to support the fault surface at the time the faulting occurred. Because rocks soften sufficiently at about 600 degrees Celsius, Watters suggests that this implies that the temperature inside Mercury's crust increased about 11 degrees C per kilometer when the faulting took place billions of years ago.
|Plot of topographic profiles across Discovery Rupes.|
Steve Hauck (Washington University in St. Louis) and colleagues at Washington University and the Carnegie Institution also investigated the features of lobate scarps. He concludes that the amount of strain indicated by their sizes can be accomplished by only 60 degrees Celsius of cooling since the end of the period of intense impact bombardment (about 4 billion years ago). The calculation assumes that all the strain that results in thrust faulting resulted from contraction of the planet as it cooled. The fault scarps may be caused by contraction of the metallic core by crystallization of a solid, inner core. (The solid core would be about 5% less dense than the outer liquid core, thereby taking up less volume and contracting the whole planet.) Hauck also drew attention to the effect contraction might have on the efficiency of magma delivery to the surface. It would seal off pathways to the surface, making eruption more difficult. Jim Head (Brown University) and Lionel Wilson (Lancaster University) discussed theoretical aspects of magma ascent and also raised the possibility that under certain circumstances little magma will have reached the surface to erupt as lava flows. This suggestion sparked some spirited debate because most geologists who have examined images of mecurian smooth plains conclude that many are certainly volcanic. Nevertheless, Head argued that it is important to study alternative theoretical frameworks that can be tested by the missions that will observe Mercury up close.
V. Solomatov and C. Reese (New Mexico State University) discussed their analysis of processes operating inside Mercury. Careful consideration of how the planet cools lead them to conclude that convection does not take place in the silicate mantle. Because convection drives plate tectonics and produces volcanic hot spots on Earth (such as the Hawaiian island chain), this indicates that Mercury never experienced a period when huge blocks of rock roamed and collided. The surface shows no evidence of either plate tectonics or isolated volcanic hot spots.
Mercury's Big Metallic Core and Its Magnetic Field
Mercury's high density (5.43 grams per cubic centimeter) indicates the presence of a large metallic core. Depending on the details of its composition (especially on how much sulfur it contains), geophysicists calculate that the core makes up 70 to 80 wt% of the planet. For comparison, Earth's metallic core makes up only about 32 wt% of the planet.
|The diameter of Mercury's core may be three quarters of the diameter of the planet.|
Measurements by Mariner 10 surprised everyone by showing that Mercury has a magnetic field. Small planets are not supposed to have magnetic fields. On Earth, geophysicists think that the Earth's magnetic field results from convection of liquid metallic iron. The convection is driven by cooling of the core at its boundary with the rocky mantle. The cooling causes crystallization of solid metallic iron at the top of the solid inner core. This releases heat, causing the liquid metal to become slightly hotter and hence more buoyant, so it rises, producing the motions necessary for generating the field. The fact that Mercury has a magnetic field suggests that things are more complicated. M. Aurnou (Carnegie Institution) and F. M. Al-Shamali (University of Alberta) reported new calculations of convection and magnetic field generation in the core, which make specific predictions that will be tested by future missions. Their calculations specifically take into consideration the presence of a thin mantle of rock. This is quite different from calculations done for the Earth and its much larger rocky mantle.
Studying its very flimsy atmosphere is one of the most active fields of research about Mercury. (In reality, Mercury does not have an atmosphere because it is so tenuous that atoms do not hit each other often as they do in official atmospheres like on Venus, Earth, and Mars.) There are new observations of the atmosphere using Earth-based telescopes, experiments on the effects of the space environment on surface materials (the source of the gases in the atmosphere), and theoretical studies of how the gases are released, subsequently trapped again, and how much gas is lost to space.
Ann Sprague (University of Arizona) reviewed what we know about the atmosphere. It is dominated by sodium and potassium atoms. These come from the surface of Mercury. There was a great hope in the past that we could use the concentrations in the atmosphere to deduce the concentrations in the surface, which would provide crucial information for understanding how Mercury formed. Unfortunately, much of the sodium and potassium is recycled--it is released from the surface, flies around in the atmosphere for a while, and gets redeposited on the surface. In addition, some of the sodium and potassium come from impacting meteoroids, not only from Mercury. The whole atmosphere-surface system is quite complicated and there was spirited debate among specialists in mecurian atmospheric composition and dynamics.
Ice at the Poles
Like the Moon, Mercury might have water ice in permanently-shadowed craters near its poles. This is where we expect water to concentrate because it is cold enough. Water added by a comet impact, for example, would be lifted into the atmosphere during the daytime. Some would be lost by a variety of processes, but some would condense out onto the surface at night. Eventually, some of the water might reach a crater near the poles where it is dark all the time. It then stays there more or less permanently.
John Harmon (Arecibo Observatory) reviewed the evidence for water ice from observations of Mercury using radar. The first evidence for water ice came from observations made in 1991 using the Goldstone radio telescope in California in conjunction with the Very-Large Array in New Mexico. Such observations have now been made from both the Goldstone-VLA system and the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico.
The basic data for detecting water ice involves the nature of the polarization of radar waves by surface materials. This leads to a distinctive signature for water ice, though other possibilities cannot be completely ruled out. Harmon outlined the main evidence for water ice. First, the ice signature is almost entirely confined to permanently-shadowed craters. Second, this is where calculations suggest the water ice should be found. On the other hand, some of the apparent ice deposits are in craters too small and too far from the pole to be cold enough. So, the case is not closed.
|Radar reflectance shows polar impact craters with bright floors interpreted as ice deposits on Mercury. Click on image for a larger version.|
Formation of Mercury
The chemical composition of Mercury is important in testing ideas for how the planets formed. We think we know two important chemical facts about the planet. One is that its metallic iron core makes up about 70 wt% to 80 wt% of the planet, much more than the other rocky planets. The second is that it is low in oxidized iron (FeO). We know the surface contains little FeO, but how do we know that the interior also does? Mark Robinson and I suggested in a recently published paper that since lava flows do not have much FeO, the mantle must not have much, either. Our reasoning is that when rocks melt, the first magma to form has about the same amount of FeO as does the rock that is melting. Thus, if the surface of Mercury has 3 wt% FeO (as discussed above), and at least some smooth plains are volcanic, then the mantle has low FeO, too. Amazingly enough, nobody seems to disagree with this conclusion, though everybody, including Mark and I, recognize that we need independent measurements of the chemical composition of Mercury.
The compositions of lavas on the surface of Venus, which were measured by the Soviet Venera landers in the 1970s and 1980s, are a bit lower in FeO compared to Earth, so Venus probably has a bit less FeO than Earth. Numerous studies of the composition of the rocky portion of Earth (crust and mantle) suggest a FeO content of 8 wt%. Martian meteorites and other information about Mars indicate much more FeO, about 18 wt%. So, there appears to be a gradient in FeO in the inner Solar System: Low in Mercury, medium in Venus and Earth, and high in Mars.
|Not shown to scale. Click on image for a higher resolution version.|
The apparent gradient in FeO might give important clues to the way the planets formed. The current view of planet formation is that there was a stage of rapid growth from hundreds of millions of asteroid-sized objects to tens of roughly lunar-sized objects, though millions of smaller bodies remained. These moon-sized objects have been nicknamed "planetary embryos." George Wetherill (Carnegie Institution) has done numerous computer calculations to follow collections of planetary embryos as they assembled into larger planets. He paid particular attention to the source locations of the embryos that ended up forming bodies at different distances from the Sun. The calculations suggest that the inner planets formed from embryos originally located at distances of 0.5 to 2.5 astronomical units (AU; the distance of the Earth from the Sun is 1 AU). In other words, the calculations predict that there should not be much of a chemical gradient in the inner Solar System. The apparent gradient in FeO suggests that the calculations overestimate the amount of mixing. On the other hand, we need much more data about Mercury, Venus, and Mars to be sure.
Several hypotheses have been proposed to explain why Mercury has such a humongous metallic core. For example, one calls on the differing physical properties of metallic iron and rock to separate them from each other during collisions between planetesimals, with more metal ending up in Mercury. Another suggests that a giant impact stripped away much of an originally much larger silicate mantle. Neither idea explains why Mercury is also low in FeO. However, an idea proposed by Al Cameron (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics) and studied in detail by Bruce Fegley (Washington University in St. Louis) and Cameron predicts that Mercury has low FeO. The idea is that early in its history, but after the inner planets formed, the Sun went through an extremely high-temperature phase. The temperature might have been so high that it vaporized much of the mantle of Mercury, leaving behind a thin shell of chemically-modified rock. They predict the necessary low FeO, but also enormous enrichments in aluminum, calcium, and magnesium, and very low amounts of sodium and potassium. These can be tested by instruments onboard the missions to Mercury.
My colleague Ed Scott and I suggest that a special class of meteorites might represent the type of rock that accreted to form Mercury. Called collectively metal-rich chondrites, they have lots of metallic iron and their silicate minerals are low in FeO (2-4 wt% FeO, just like Mercury). Other chemical features include low concentrations of sodium and potassium, but no enrichments in thorium or uranium. This suggestion will be tested by the missions to Mercury.
New Missions to Mercury
Mercury is difficult to get to. It is close to the Sun, so it requires a lot of energy to put on the gravitational brakes and go into orbit. As a result, most routes to Mercury involve close fly-bys of Venus to slow the spacecraft and allow it to approach Mercury. Once there, the spacecraft and its instruments have to operate in a very hot environment. Sunlight is strong and the planet's surface on the daylight side is very hot. This requires sunshades and special orbits that place the spacecraft far from the hottest part of the surface.
|Click on either image to link to the mission website.|
Two missions are planned for Mercury. One, already being built and funded by NASA's Discovery Program, is called the MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging mission. Its nickname, MESSENGER, conjures up the role of the Roman god Mercury, who flew from Olympus on winged heels as the swift-footed messenger of the gods. It carries a payload that will allow us to address numerous fundamental problems. The key questions to be addressed are:
The other mission is named in honor of Giuseppe (Bepi) Colombo, an Italian scientist who explained Mercury's unusual rotation (three turns for every two trips around the Sun). He also suggested to NASA the way to make multiple fly-bys of Mercury during the Mariner 10 mission. The BepiColombo mission, sponsored by the European Space Agency, is still in the planning stages. Preliminary plans call for one small lander and two orbiters (one orbiter contributed by the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, ISAS, of Japan). The total payload is similar in many ways to that on MESSENGER, but the team will be able to design the spacecraft's orbits to obtain high-resolution coverage for different regions than those characterized by MESSENGER. The teams are in close communication to maximize the science returned by the two missions.
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- May 31, 2019
- Posted by: Myles Freedman
- Category: More Africa News
In November 2019, Ethiopia would like to launch a satellite for communication and broadcasting in space. The operation will be carried out with the help of China.
A partnership agreement was signed for this purpose in Addis Ababa on May 27, 2019 between Solomon Belay, the Director General and the Ethiopian Institute of Space Science, and Han Chinping, Vice President of China Rocket Company. .
The design, development and manufacture of the satellite will be the fruit of a collaboration between Ethiopian and Chinese engineers. China has also provided training to Ethiopian technicians for the success of this $ 8 million project. $ 6 million is provided by China while the rest is financed by the Ethiopian government.
As part of the partnership agreement, it is also planned to identify the potential users of the satellite and related activities that will be assigned to it. This phase should begin during the month of June.
Beyond sovereignty in telecommunications, the Ethiopian satellite should also contribute to job and wealth creation.


The Government Accountability Office noted an improvement in the overall cost performance of 16 projects in NASA’s pipeline, with cost overruns declining from $12 billion in 2022 to $7.6 billion in 2023.
In its fifteenth annual assessment of major NASA projects, the government watchdog attributed last year’s cost growth to launches of the James Webb Space Telescope and other missions, which require significant spending.
GAO’s study covered Artemis major projects in the formulation and implementation phase, as well as non-Artemis missions including the Dragonfly rotocraft exploration of Saturn’s moon, and the On-orbit Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing I satellite refueling program.
While the Webb Space Telescope incurred $4.5 billion in cost overruns in 2022, expenditures have not grown this year following its launch. The Space Launch System and Orion Multipurpose Crew Vehicle had consistent overruns in 2022 and 2023, valued at $2.7 billion and $2.5 billion, respectively.
Twelve of the 16 projects have experienced delays in schedule, which is contributing to cumulative cost performance.
GAO has given multiple recommendations to address gaps in NASA’s management of major projects. NASA has not followed 16 of the recommendations, but it has made efforts to improve performance, such as earlier acquisition strategy planning and discussion.


WASHINGTON: The world’s first 3D printed rocket is scheduled to blast off from Florida on Saturday on the maiden flight of an innovative spacecraft billed as being less costly to produce and fly.
Liftoff of the rocket, Terran 1, had been scheduled for Wednesday at Cape Canaveral but was postponed at the last minute because of propellant temperature issues. The new launch window for the rocket built by California aerospace startup Relativity Space to put satellites into orbit is from 1pm to 4pm on Saturday.
Terran 1 is set to reach low Earth orbit eight minutes after blastoff on a voyage intended to gather data and demonstrate that it can withstand the rigors of liftoff and space flight.
If the rocket manages to attain low Earth orbit, it will be the first privately-funded vehicle using methane fuel to do so on its first try, according to Relativity.
Terran 1 is not carrying a payload for its first flight but the rocket will eventually be capable of putting up to 2,755 pounds into low Earth orbit.
The rocket is 110-feet tall with a diameter of 7.5 feet and 85 per cent of its mass is 3D printed with metal alloys, including the engines.
It is the largest ever 3D printed object according to the Long Beach-based company whose goal is to produce a rocket that is 95pc 3D printed.
Terran 1 is powered by Aeon engines using liquid oxygen and liquid natural gas — the “propellants of the future,” according to Relativity, capable of eventually fueling a voyage to Mars. Vulcan rockets being developed by United Launch Alliance and SpaceX’s Starship use the same fuel.
DOHA: Only a third of people in the world’s poorest countries can connect to the internet, the UN telecoms agency said on Sunday, but low-flying satellites could bring hope to millions, especially in remote corners of Africa.
Tech giants including Microsoft have pledged to help populations hobbled by poor internet services to “leapfrog” into an era of online connectivity, with satellites set to play a key role as rival firms send thousands of new generation transmitters into low level orbit.
At the moment just 36 per cent of the 1.25 billion people in the world’s 46 poorest countries can plug into the internet, the International Telecommunication Union said. By comparison, more than 90pc have access in the European Union.
The ITU condemned the “staggering international connectivity gap” that it said had widened over the past decade.
The divide has been a key complaint at a UN summit of Least Developed Countries in Doha, where UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres told their leaders that “you are being left behind in the digital revolution”.
The digital dearth is particularly acute in some African countries, including the Democratic Republic of Congo, where barely a quarter of the population of nearly 100 million can connect.
While internet access is easy in major DRC cities such as Kinshasa, huge rural zones and swathes of territory battled over by rival rebel groups for more than two decades are digital deserts.
The launch of thousands of Low-Earth Orbit satellites could bring speedy change and boost African hopes, tech experts promised at the Doha summit.
‘Leapfrog other nations’
Satellite coverage will play a key role in Microsoft’s vow to bring internet access to 100 million Africans by 2025, which was outlined ahead of the summit.
Microsoft announced a first phase for five million Africans in December and last week added a commitment to cover another 20 million people.
The initial five million will be served by Viasat, one of the companies sending constellations of satellites into space to compete with land-based fibre broadband.
Elon Musk’s Space X and Starlink are also putting thousands of satellites into an orbit between 400 and 700 kilometres above Earth.
Microsoft president Brad Smith said that when he first saw the 20 million figure proposed by his team last year, he asked “is this real?”, but that he was now convinced it is possible.
“The technology costs have come down substantially and will continue to drop,” he said. “That is part of what makes it possible to move this fast to reach this size of population.
War, budget cuts, a pandemic and a crash: For all its trials, Europe’s ExoMars mission might be more deserving of the name Perseverance than NASA’s Martian rover. But the European Space Agency still hopes the mission can launch in 2028 on its long-delayed quest to search for extraterrestrial life on the Red Planet. This time last year, the ESA’s Rosalind Franklin rover was all ready for a September launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, planning to catch a ride on a Russian rocket and descend to the Martian surface on a Russian lander. Then Moscow invaded Ukraine in March, and sanctions imposed by the ESA’s 22 member states led to Russia pulling out and the mission being suspended.
It was just the latest blow for the hundreds of scientists who have been working on the project for more than two decades. First conceived in 2001, the ambitious program quickly proved too expensive for Europe, which has still to land a rover on Mars. The United States’ space agency NASA stepped in to fill the funding gap in 2009. But three years later, budget cuts led to NASA pulling out. Help then came from an unexpected source: Russia’s space agency Roscosmos.
Together, the ESA and Roscosmos launched the Schiaparelli EDM module in 2016 as a test run for ExoMars. But when Schiaparelli arrived at Mars, a computer glitch caused it to crash into the surface and fall silent. That failure pushed back the launch of the joint Russian-European ExoMars mission to July 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic pushed that date back to 2022, when it was again delayed by the invasion of Ukraine.
Tricky Russian negotiations
Late last year, the ESA’s ministerial council agreed to kept the mission alive with an injection of 500 million euros ($540 million) over the next three years. David Parker, the ESA’s director of human and robotic exploration, said last week that one of the arguments they put forward for continuing the mission was “that this is a unique piece of European science. “It’s like James Webb,” he said referring to the space telescope that has been sending back astonishing images of distant galaxies since 2022.
“But it’s for Mars-it’s that scale of ambition. “This is the only mission that is foreseen that can actually find evidence of past life.” But some significant hurdles remain that could make a 2028 launch difficult-including that the ESA needs a new way to land its rover on Mars. The ESA will first have to recover European components, including an onboard computer and radar altimeter, from Russia’s Kazachok lander, which is still at its assembly site in Turin, Italy.
However only Russia can extract the components from the lander. Difficult negotiations have been underway for Russian experts to come and dismantle the lander. “We expected them in mid-January, but they didn’t come,” ESA ExoMars program team leader Thierry Blancquaert told AFP. “We asked them to have everything done by the end of March,” he added.
NASA to the rescue?
To get off the ground, the new mission will depend on support from NASA, which has so far indicated it is happy to help. For its new lander, the ESA hopes to take advantage of US engines used to get NASA’s Curiosity and Perseverance rovers onto the Martian surface.
It will also have to rely on NASA for radioisotope heater units, after losing access to Russia’s supply. These units keep the spacecraft warm. NASA has not yet voted on a budget that would support such efforts, but “we are preparing the collaborative work together and things are progressing well,” Blancquaert said.
Francois Forget, an astrophysicist at France’s CNRS scientific research centre, said that “this new impetus for cooperation is linked to the fact that this time, the US has a joint project with Europe: Mars Sample Return.” The mission, planned for around 2030, is intended to return to Earth samples collected from Mars by both ExoMars and Perseverance, which touched down on the planet in July 2021.
Unlike Perseverance, the Rosalind Franklin rover can drill up to two meters (6.5 feet) below the surface of Mars, where traces of possible ancient life could be better preserved. ExoMars’ planned landing site is also in an area of Mars expected to have been more favorable to hosting past life. “We think there was a lot of water there,” said Forget. “There is another Mars to explore, so even in 10 years’ time the mission will not be obsolete,” he added. – AFP
The number of apps downloaded by Pakistanis in 2022 rose by 35.4 per cent compared to the preceding year, making the country the fastest-growing apps market in the world, according to a report by Data Darbar, a private markets intelligence platform.
The growth rate, which had been 26.8pc in 2021 and jumped to 35.4pc last year, was almost three times that of the next country on the list — China. The growth rates of the next three countries — India, Mexico and Indonesia — were below 10pc.
However, in absolute terms, Pakistan was ranked ninth, up three spots from the preceding year.
“With 3.5 billion downloads, Pakistan was ahead of all comparable markets except for Indonesia. That trend replicated on other metrics: the Southeast Asian nation had both the highest number of publishers and locally made apps,” the report added.
Pakistanis used mobile apps for 161bn hours in 2022, according to the report, placing the country sixth worldwide.
“Pakistan was only second to Indonesia in terms of the number of outstanding active apps by local publishers. However, in terms of traction and usage, very few of the locally developed apps make it to the top charts in Pakistani.”
WhatsApp Business was the most downloaded app according to the report, followed by Snapchat, WhatsApp Messenger, Capcut and TikTok. Among locally developed apps, Easypaisa was the most downloaded, followed by Jazz, Jazz Cash, Zong and Universal Remote TV.
Most downloaded apps by category
Short-videos (excluding TikTok)
WASHINGTON: The House Foreign Affairs Committee plans to hold a vote next month on a bill aimed at blocking the use of China’s popular social media app TikTok in the United States, the committee confirmed on Friday.
The measure, planned by the panel’s chair Representative Michael McCaul, a Republican, would aim to give the White House the legal tools to ban TikTok over US national security concerns.
“The concern is that this app gives the Chinese government a back door into our phones,” McCaul told Bloomberg News, which reported the vote timing earlier.
In 2020, then-president Donald Trump attempted to block new users from downloading TikTok and ban other transactions that would have effectively blocked the app’s use in the United States, but lost a series of court battles over the measure.
The Biden administration in June 2021 formally abandoned that effort. Then last month, Republican Senator Marco Rubio unveiled bipartisan legislation to ban TikTok, which would also block all transactions from any social media company in or under the influence of China and Russia.
But a ban of the short video app, which is owned by ByteDance and is popular among teens, would face significant hurdles in Congress to pass, and would need 60 votes in the Senate.
For three years, TikTok _ which has more than 100 million US users _ has been seeking to assure Washington that the personal data of US citizens cannot be accessed and its content cannot be manipulated by China’s Communist Party or anyone else under Beijing’s influence.
TikTok said on Friday “calls for total bans of TikTok take a piecemeal approach to national security and a piecemeal approach to broad industry issues like data security, privacy, and online harms”.
The US government’s committee on foreign investment in the United States (CFIUS), a powerful national security body, ordered ByteDance in 2020 to divest TikTok because of fears that user data could be passed on to China’s government.
The CFIUS and TikTok have been in talks since 2021, aiming to reach a national security agreement to protect the data of TikTok users.
TikTok said it had a “comprehensive package of measures with layers of government and independent oversight to ensure that there are no backdoors into TikTok that could be used to manipulate the platform” and invested roughly $1.5 billion to date on those efforts.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declined to comment on the bill on Friday. “It’s under review by (CFIUS) so I am just not going to get into details on that,” Jean-Pierre said.
Last month, Biden signed legislation that included a ban on federal employees using or downloading TikTok on government-owned devices. More than 25 US states have also banned the use of TikTok on state-owned devices.
A newly discovered comet could be visible to the naked eye as it shoots past Earth and the Sun in the coming weeks for the first time in 50,000 years, astronomers have said. The comet is called C/2022 E3 (ZTF) after the Zwicky Transient Facility, which first spotted it passing Jupiter in March last year. After travelling from the icy reaches of our Solar System it will come closest to the Sun on January 12 and pass nearest to Earth on February 1. It will be easy to spot with a good pair of binoculars and likely even with the naked eye, provided the sky is not too illuminated by city lights or the Moon.
The comet “will be brightest when it is closest to the Earth”, Thomas Prince, a physics professor at the California Institute of Technology who works at the Zwicky Transient Facility, told AFP. Made of ice and dust and emitting a greenish aura, the comet is estimated to have a diameter of around a kilometer, said Nicolas Biver, an astrophysicist at the Paris Observatory.
That makes it significantly smaller than NEOWISE, the last comet visible with an unaided eye, which passed Earth in March 2020, and Hale-Bopp, which swept by in 1997 with a potentially life-ending diameter of around 60 kilometers. But the newest visit will come closer to Earth, which “may make up for the fact that it is not very big”, Biver said.
While the comet will be brightest as it passes Earth in early February, a fuller moon could make spotting it difficult. For the Northern Hemisphere, Biver suggested the last week of January, when the comet passes between the Ursa Minor and Ursa Major constellations. The new moon during the weekend of January 21-22 offers a good chance for stargazers, he said.
“We could also get a nice surprise and the object could be twice as bright as expected,” Biver added. Prince said another opportunity to locate the comet in the sky will come on February 10, when it passes close to Mars.
The comet has spent most of its life “at least 2,500 times more distant than the Earth is from the Sun”, Prince said. Biver said the comet was believed to have come from the Oort Cloud, a theorized vast sphere surrounding the Solar System that is home to mysterious icy objects. The last time the comet passed Earth was during the Upper Paleolithic period, when Neanderthals still roamed Earth.
Prince said the comet’s next visit to the inner Solar System was expected in another 50,000 years. But Biver said there was a possibility that after this visit the comet will be “permanently ejected from the Solar System”. Among those closely watching will be the James Webb Space Telescope. However, it will not take images, instead studying the comet’s composition, Biver said.
The closer the comet is to Earth, the easier it is for telescopes to measure its composition “as the Sun boils off its outer layers”, Prince said. This “rare visitor” will give “us information about the inhabitants of our Solar system well beyond the most distant planets”, he added. – AFP
NEW YORK: Twitter Inc restored a feature that promoted suicide prevention hotlines and other safety resources to users looking up certain content, after coming under pressure from some users and consumer safety groups over its removal.
A news agency reported on Friday that the feature was taken down a few days ago, citing two people familiar with the matter, who said the removal was ordered by the social media platform’s owner Elon Musk. After the publication of the story, Twitter's head of trust and safety Ella Irwin confirmed the removal and called it temporary. “We have been fixing and revamping our prompts. They were just temporarily removed while we do that,” Irwin said in an email. “We expect to have them back up next week,” she said.
About 15 hours after the initial report, Musk — who did not initially respond to requests for comment — tweeted, “False, it is still there.” In response to criticism by Twitter users, he also tweeted, “Twitter doesn’t prevent suicide.” The feature, known as #ThereIsHelp, placed a banner at the top of search results for certain topics. It listed contacts for support organisations in many countries related to mental health, HIV, vaccines, child sexual exploitation, Covid-19, gender-based violence, natural disasters and freedom of expression.
Its elimination had led some consumer safety groups and Twitter users to express concerns about the well-being of vulnerable users of the platform.
In part due to pressure from consumer safety groups, internet services — including Twitter, Alphabet’s Google and Meta’s Facebook — have for years tried to direct users to well-known resource providers such as government hotlines when they suspect someone may be in danger of harming themselves or others.
In her email, Twitter’s Irwin said, “Google does really well with these in their search results and (we) are actually mirroring some of their approach with the changes we are making.” She added, “We know these prompts are useful in many cases and just want to make sure they are functioning properly and continue to be relevant.” Eirliani Abdul Rahman, who had been on a recently dissolved Twitter content advisory group, said the disappearance of #ThereIsHelp was “extremely disconcerting and profoundly disturbing.”


This story from Vision Australia delighted me. Several young clients, 8-12 years old, prepared questions and had the chance to interview a real astronaut, Mike Fossum, about his life and work in space as he circled the earth at 27,000km per hour on board the International Space Station.
What an amazing, interactive science and technology lesson! The complete audio of the interview is available on Vision Australia’s site, along with background information about all the hard work involved in making it happen. For example, the students only had nine minutes to ask their questions because they were communicating with the space station via relay, so they had to time it precisely to catch the station while it traveled from horizon to horizon.
As national coordinator Paul Paradigm said to the young “space cadets”: “Don’t let having a vision impairment stop you from aiming high. You’re about to ask questions of an astronaut – keep aiming that high and keep asking questions and who knows where you might end up.”


Friday, September 10, 2021 – 11:25 to 12:15
Virtual event via Blue Jeans
Kathryn Stack-Morgan, Mars 2020 Deputy Project Scientist, recaps the first eight months of the NASA Perseverance mission.
Jennifer Glass, Georgia Tech Astrobiology
In February 2021, NASA’s Perseverance rover landed successfully at the Octavia E. Butler Landing Site in the Jezero Crater, the site of an ancient open-system lake on Mars. Perseverance is seeking signs of ancient life, and is collecting Martian rock and soil samples for possible return to Earth by a future mission. Upon completing a 90-day commissioning phase, Perseverance embarked on an exploration and sampling campaign of the rocks and outcrops comprising the present-day floor of Jezero Crater.


Small density perturbations have collapsed into galaxies and clusters, because after recombination, the coupling between individual baryons has become too weak in order to keep these in an equilibrium state. The freeze-out of Dark Matter is a non-equilibrium process as well. Furthermore, a deviation from thermal equilibrium is a necessary condition for the generation of the asymmetry between matter and antimatter in the Universe.
A viable explanation for the generation of primordial density perturbations that have eventually grown into galaxies and clusters is the amplification of quantum fluctuations in the expanding space-time, which can be described by Quantum Field Theory in curved space times. Therefore, light travelling through ionized hydrogen and neutral hydrogen shows different absorption lines. In addition, the light will have travelled for billions of years to reach us, so any absorption by neutral hydrogen will have been redshifted by varied amounts, rather than by one specific amount, indicating when it happened.
These features make it possible to study the state of ionization at many different times in the past. They show that reionization began as "bubbles" of ionized hydrogen which became larger over time. These observations have narrowed down the period of time during which reionization took place, but the source of the photons that caused reionization is still not completely certain. To ionize neutral hydrogen, an energy larger than Protons and electrons will recombine if energy is not continuously provided to keep them apart, which also sets limits on how numerous the sources were and their longevity.
However, by this time, matter had become far more spread out due to the ongoing expansion of the universe. Although the neutral hydrogen atoms were again ionized, the plasma was much more thin and diffuse, and photons were much less likely to be scattered. Despite being reionized, the universe remained largely transparent during reionization. As the universe continued to cool and expand, reionization gradually ended.
Matter continues to draw together under the influence of gravity , to form galaxies. The stars from this time period, known as Population II stars, are formed early on in this process, with more recent Population I stars formed later. Gravitational attraction also gradually pulls galaxies towards each other to form groups, clusters and superclusters. The Hubble Ultra Deep Field observatory has identified a number of small galaxies merging to form larger ones, at million years of cosmic time 13 billion years ago  this age estimate is now believed to be slightly overstated.
The universe has appeared much the same as it does now, for many billions of years. It will continue to look similar for many more billions of years into the future. Based upon the emerging science of nucleocosmochronology , the Galactic thin disk of the Milky Way is estimated to have been formed 8. Its behavior had originally been dominated by radiation relativistic constituents such as photons and neutrinos for the first 47, years, and since about , years of cosmic time, its behavior had been dominated by matter. During its matter-dominated era, the expansion of the universe had begun to slow down, as gravity reigned in the initial outward expansion.
- Chronology of the universe - Wikipedia.
- CMB and Physics of the Early Universe.
- Theoretical Physics of the Early Universe: Home.
- Susan Sontag (Critical Lives).
- And Quiet Flows the Vodka: or When Pushkin Comes to Shove: The Curmudgeons Guide to Russian Literature with the Devils Dictionary of Received Ideas.
- The Jazz Book: From Ragtime to the 21st Century?
But from about 9. While the precise cause is not known, the observation is accepted as correct by the cosmologist community. By far the most accepted understanding is that this is due to an unknown form of energy which has been given the name " dark energy ". Research is ongoing to understand this dark energy. Dark energy is now believed to be the single largest component of the universe, as it constitutes about Dark energy is believed to act like a cosmological constant - a scalar field that exists throughout space. Unlike gravity, the effects of such a field do not diminish or only diminish slowly as the universe grows.
While matter and gravity have a greater effect initially, their effect quickly diminishes as the universe continues to expand. Objects in the universe, which are initially seen to be moving apart as the universe expands, continue to move apart, but their outward motion gradually slows down. This slowing effect becomes smaller as the universe becomes more spread out. Eventually, the outward and repulsive effect of dark energy begins to dominate over the inward pull of gravity.
Instead of slowing down and perhaps beginning to move inward under the influence of gravity, from about 9. The universe has existed for around Beyond that, we need to better understand the universe to make any accurate predictions. Therefore, the universe could follow a variety of different paths beyond this time. There are several competing scenarios for the possible long-term evolution of the universe. Which of them will happen, if any, depends on the precise values of physical constants such as the cosmological constant , the possibility of proton decay , the energy of the vacuum meaning, the energy of "empty" space itself , and the natural laws beyond the Standard Model.
If the expansion of the universe continues and it stays in its present form, eventually all but the nearest galaxies will be carried away from us by the expansion of space at such a velocity that our observable universe will be limited to our own gravitationally bound local galactic cluster. In the very long term after many trillions — thousands of billions — of years, cosmic time , the Stelliferous Era will end, as stars cease to be born and even the longest-lived stars gradually die.
Beyond this, all objects in the universe will cool and with the possible exception of protons gradually decompose back to their constituent particles and then into subatomic particles and very low level photons and other fundamental particles , by a variety of possible processes.
Table of contents
Ultimately, in the extreme future, the following scenarios have been proposed for the ultimate fate of the universe. The effect would be that the quantum fields that underpin all forces, particles and structures, would undergo a transition to a more stable form. New forces and particles would replace the present ones we know of, with the side effect that all current particles, forces and structures would be destroyed and subsequently if able reform into different particles, forces and structures. In this kind of extreme timescale, extremely rare quantum phenomena may also occur that are extremely unlikely to be seen on a timescale smaller than trillions of years.
These may also lead to unpredictable changes to the state of the universe which would not be likely to be significant on any smaller timescale. For example, on a timescale of millions of trillions of years, black holes might appear to evaporate almost instantly, uncommon quantum tunneling phenomena would appear to be common, and quantum or other phenomena so unlikely that they might occur just once in a trillion years may occur many times. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Events since the Big Bang, Early universe. Subject history.
Discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation. Religious interpretations of the Big Bang theory. Universe events since the Big Bang Nature timeline. This box: view talk edit. Matter-dominated era.glennelmegemad.cf
A DIY take on the early universe may reveal cosmic secrets
Single-celled life. Multicellular life. Dark Ages. Earliest stars. Earliest galaxy. Omega Centauri. Andromeda Galaxy. Milky Way spirals.
The Physics of the Early Universe
Alpha Centauri. Earliest life. Earliest oxygen. Atmospheric oxygen. Sexual reproduction. Earliest plants.
Cambrian explosion. Earliest mammals. Earliest apes.
See also: Human timeline , and Life timeline. It includes the Planck epoch , during which currently understood laws of physics may not apply; the emergence in stages of the four known fundamental interactions or forces — first gravity , and later the strong , weak and electromagnetic interactions; and the expansion of space itself and supercooling of the still immensely hot universe due to cosmic inflation , which is believed to have been triggered by the separation of the strong and electroweak interaction.
The early universe , lasting around , years. Initially, various kinds of subatomic particles are formed in stages.
PHYS Particle Physics and the Early Universe | School of Physics
These particles include almost equal amounts of matter and antimatter , so most of it quickly annihilates, leaving a small excess of matter in the universe. Much later, hydrogen and helium hydride react to form molecular hydrogen, the fuel needed for the first stars At about , years, [ citation needed ] the universe finally becomes cool enough for neutral atoms to form " recombination " , and as a result it also became transparent for the first time.
Dark Ages and large-scale structure emergence , from , years until about 1 billion years. After recombination and decoupling , the universe was transparent but the clouds of hydrogen only collapsed very slowly to form stars and galaxies , so there were no new sources of light.
The only photons electromagnetic radiation, or "light" in the universe were those released during decoupling visible today as the cosmic microwave background and 21 cm radio emissions occasionally emitted by hydrogen atoms. The decoupled photons would have filled the universe with a brilliant pale orange glow at first, gradually redshifting to non-visible wavelengths after about 3 million years, leaving it without visible light.


Step into the realm of celestial enchantment with “Sandia Moonriser,” a mesmerizing artwork that captures the delicate dance between the moon and the rugged Sandia Mountains. It is an enchanting artwork that captures the delicate interplay between nature’s elements and the luminous glow of the moonrise.
- Celestial Choreography: Sandia Moonriser is a visual symphony that celebrates the celestial choreography of the moonrise. The mountains serve as the canvas for this mesmerizing dance, as the moon’s light caresses the landscape, illuminating every contour with a touch of magic.
- Luminous Elegance: This artwork resonates with luminous elegance—a delicate balance between light and shadow that defines the landscape’s contours. The moon’s radiant glow infuses the scene with a serene atmosphere, inviting contemplation and tranquility.
- Nature’s Poise: The Sandia Mountains in this artwork exude a sense of grandeur and poise. The curvature of the peaks, the gentle slopes, and the serene foreground evoke a deep connection to the natural world, drawing viewers into a state of harmonious reverie.


It is between 18,000 and 19,000 gentle years distant and has an obvious magnitude of seven.66. Messier 25 is an open cluster with an obvious magnitude of four.6, about 2,000 gentle years from Earth. It was discovered by Philippe Loys De Chéseaux in 1745 and added to Messier’s catalogue in 1764. It is elliptical in shape and about 32 arc minutes across in dimension. It has an obvious magnitude of 5.1 and is approximately 10,600 gentle years distant. It is one of the nearest globular star clusters to Earth.
Sigma Sagittarii can also be notable for being the brightest star that can be occulted by an exterior planet. This, nevertheless, solely applies to Mars and it happens extremely hardly ever. Nunki has a faint (magnitude 9.5) companion about 5.2 arc minutes away. Nunki is situated close to the eclipic and it could possibly sometimes be occulted by the Moon and, very rarely, by planets. The star was final occulted by a planet on November 17, 1981, when Venus handed in entrance of it.
Extra: 2021 Sagittarius Love Horoscope
Omega Sagittarii is a G-kind subgiant marking the northeast corner of the Terebellum, about 78 light years distant from Earth. fifty nine Sagittarii is a K-sort shiny giant at the southeast corner, about 1,200 light years distant.
- Your communication is ideal for one another, one thing you each have to really feel linked.
- All this needed to be set inside specifically erected tents since no home had but been constructed that could accommodate the large King Bran.
- A relationship with a Scorpio could also be wonky at first, however you’ll learn the worth of commitment from a Scorpio and uncover how to be extra emotionally fluent as well.
- M 1-forty two is one other planetary nebula within the constellation, located at a distance of 10,000 gentle years from Earth.
- They match your intellectual capabilities, so that you’ll all the time feel stimulated and motivated.
- Phi Sagittarii is a B8 class big approximately 231 mild years from Earth.
A transiting planet was spotted orbiting the magnitude sixteen eclipsing variable star OGLE-TR-10 in 2002. The pink dwarf MOA-2009-BLG-387L, located almost 20,000 gentle years away, is host to an orbiting planet with a mass between 1.zero and 6.7 times that of Jupiter. A fuel giant planet was found orbiting the orange dwarf HD (K3.5Vk) in 2010. Sagittarius has seven stars brighter than magnitude three.00 and three stars positioned within 10 parsecs (32.6 mild years) of Earth. The brightest star in Sagittarius is Kaus Australis, Epsilon Sagittarii (spectral class B9.5 III), with an apparent magnitude of 1.79. The nearest star is Ross 154 (V1216 Sagittarii, spectral class M3.5V), located at a distance of only 9.sixty nine light years from Earth.
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For others, this might simply get stale, however on your indicators, slow and steady wins the race. You’re in a relationship for the lengthy haul, and if you’re with one other Capricorn with the identical sensibilities and ideas, it’s a recipe for achievement. Pisces is a mutable signal such as you, that means they’re adaptable, flexible, and at all times on the go. Their watery power might initially sound like it might douse your pure fire, but your two indicators can get on pretty properly together despite that! Both of you require independence, and since you understand one another’s want for alone time, it really works out. Interestingly sufficient, your mutual understanding of the other’s noncommittal nature is one thing that strengthens your bond!
You find inspiration in each other’s artistic spirit and have an unapologetic, highly romanticized view on love that you simply discover with each other. Sagittarius is daring and brash and initially may appear https://asiansbrides.com/iranian-brides/ too loud and energetic on your taste. If you get with one, nonetheless, you received’t be able to resist their pure charm for long.
Your phrases have extra impression than usual, and what you’re studying is significant. Healthy discussions about your expectations, limits, and bounds can figure strongly, or you come to a better understanding of these items on your own.
The Best Zodiac Signal In Your, Um, Zodiac Signal
Instead, this is usually a time of special curiosity in a passion project or some exciting analysis or investigating. There could be some conflicts skilled over money or sources, but if so, there seems a direct route to a resolution. May begins with much activity in your photo voltaic chart associated to work, well being, and routines, dear Sagittarius. And, with a powerful focus on your partnership sector as May advances, this is not the time for going it alone.
60 Sagittarii is a G-kind big on the northwest nook of the asterism, roughly 340 light years away. 62 Sagittarii is an M-sort giant at the southwest nook, about 450 gentle years from Earth. Some of the brightest stars in Sagittarius – Delta, Epsilon, Gamma-2, Lambda, Zeta, Phi, Tau and Sigma Sagittarii – kind an asterism known as the Teapot. The star lies at a center of a planetary nebula, shaped after the star’s purple big stage about 8,300 years ago.
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With a mass of 10,000 solar plenty, it’s about 10 instances more large than typical open clusters in the Milky Way. The cluster is about sixty seven mild years in radius and has an obvious magnitude of 9.18. It is a densely populated cluster, categorized as class I. The cluster is about 34 light years in radius, has an apparent magnitude of 9.06 and is roughly 29,300 gentle years distant.
NGC 6522 is a globular cluster with an obvious magnitude of 10.5, mendacity at a distance of 25,a hundred mild years from Earth. The estimated age of the cluster is more than 12 billion years, making NGC 6522 one of the oldest known clusters in the Milky Way. The Sagittarius Dwarf Irregular Galaxy is a dwarf galaxy situated in Sagittarius, roughly 3.39 million mild years from the solar system. The cluster has an obvious magnitude of 6.9 and is about 2,150 light years distant.
This is the star’s modern name, which is both Babylonian or Assyrian in origin. The significance of the name is unknown, besides that it’s a correct name.


Q. Is it permissible to look at the sun during a solar eclipse?
A. The Sunnah practice of our Nabi (sallallahu alaihi wasallam) was that whenever there was a fearful natural occurrence, he would hasten towards the Musjid and perform Salaat. With regard to the solar and lunar eclipse as well, the Sunnah practice was to perform Salaat. Nabi (sallallahu alaihi wasallam) said:
“The sun and moon are two signs from amongst the signs of Allah. When you see them (in eclipse) then seek refuge in the Remembrance of Allah and Salaat.”
The practice of the Nabi (sallallahu alayhi wasallam) teaches us that these are occasions when a Mu`min should display fear for Allah Ta`ala. Looking directly at the eclipse demonstrates the opposite. The Salaat of the eclipses should be made extraordinarily long. In fact, the Salaat should last as long as the eclipse. It starts when the eclipse begins and ends with the completion of it. This is the original Sunnat and the best method. However, it is permissible to perform a shorter Salaat.
This practice in itself will demonstrate to us that during the occurrence of the eclipse a Mu`min should be engaged in Salaat and not stand outside gaping at the sun. These events should instil fear for Allah Ta`ala in hearts of Muslims. It is a demonstration of Allah Ta`ala’s Qudrat (Power), that He can alter the norm of things. We are supposed to hasten towards Salaat and supplicate for His Mercy and Forgiveness. Even the scientists and doctors say that to look directly at the sun during an eclipse, is extremely harmful to the eyes. Therefore it is not permissible to look at the eclipse.
Q. Some people say that an eclipse of the moon signifies punishment for the moon. Is this true?
A. All the funny stories you hear about eclipses are baseless superstition. An eclipse is a sign of Allah Ta’ala. Two raka’ts with long Surahs should be performed during an eclipse.
ADDENDUM – SOME RULES OF PRAYER DURING ECLIPSE[Extracted from Beheshti Zewar]
1. At the time of solar eclipse (kusoof) two rakaats of salaat are sunnah.
2. Salaatul kusoof has to be offered with jama’at on the condition that it is led by the imam of jumu’ah salaat, the ruler of that time or his deputy. According to one narration, it is permissible for the imam of every musjid to perform this salaat in his musjid.
3. There is no adhaan or iqaamah for salaatul kusoof. But in order to gather the people, this announcement can be made: “as-Salaatu jaami’atun” i.e. the salaat is about to commence with jama’at.
4. It is sunnah to recite lengthy Surahs such as Surah Baqarah in salaatul kusoof, and also to lengthen the ruku and sajdahs. The qira’at should be made silently.
5. After the salaat, the imam should occupy himself in dua and the muqtadis should continue saying aameen to his duas. This dua should continue until the eclipse disappears. However, if in this state, the sun sets or the time of a certain salaat enters, the dua should be stopped and the salaat should be offered.
6. Two rakaats of salaat are also sunnah at the time of lunar eclipse (khusoof). However, jama’at is not sunnah for this salaat. The people should offer this salaat at their homes individually. It is not preferable to go to the musjid.
7. In the same way, if some fear or calamity is experienced, it is preferable to offer salaat. For example: there is a severe hurricane, an earthquake, lightning, thunder storms, a lot of snow falls, very heavy rain falls, a certain disease such as cholera becomes rife or there is a fear of a certain enemy. However, whatever salaat that is offered in this time should not be offered with jama’at. Each person should offer his salaat at home individually. When Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam experienced any difficulty or sorrow, he used to occupy himself in salaat.
8. Apart from these salaats that have been mentioned, the more optional salaats a person engages in, the more reward he will receive and he will reach higher stages. Especially salaats in those times for which certain virtue has been mentioned in the Hadith. And also in which Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam has urged us to engage in some ibaadah or the other. For example, in the last ten nights of Ramadaan and the fifteenth of Sha’baan. Many virtues and a lot of reward has been mentioned in the Hadith for engaging in ibaadah in these days and nights. We have avoided going into details so that this chapter does not get too lengthy.
* Ghusl is mustahab for offering the salaats of Kusuf (solar eclipse), Khusuf (lunar eclipse) and Istisqaa’ (salaat read for rains).


Шоу The Sun, Our Living Star в Днепре с 01.12.2020 по 06.12.2020
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Днепр · Dnipro Center for Contemporary Culture
The Sun has shone on our world for four and a half billion years. The light that warms our skin today has been felt by every person who has ever lived. It is our nearest star and our planet’s powerhouse, the source of the energy that drives our winds, our weather and all life. The passage of the Sun’s fiery disc across the sky — day by day, month by month — was the only way to keep track of time for countless past civilisations. Don’t be fooled by the terminology; although it is a typical dwarf star, the Sun consumes 600 million tons of hydrogen each second and is 500 times as massive as all the planets combined.
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RegiStar 126.96.36.19986 (x64)
File Size: 20.6 MB
RegiStar is an image alignment, or registration, program that was designed to work specifically with astronomical images. RegiStar finds the stars in an image, and uses their positions to align this image to another image or group of images. RegiStar uses a sophisticated matching algorithm that allows images at different scales and orientations to be registered. RegiStar automatically corrects for geometric distortions including reflections, so it works on images taken with different optical systems. Also, it works on image pairs that have only a small overlap. RegiStar accurately registers most images that have at least a 1% overlap and at least 10 stars in common, even if they contain a large amount of noise such as hot pixels.
RegiStar requires no user input to complete a registration, other than the specification of the images. The matching and alignment are performed automatically without the input of any matching points or parameters.
RegiStar includes the capability of processing several images at once, in a batch. An entire directory of images can be registered using a single command, and several other commands can also handle multiple images.
RegiStar also includes some tools to assemble and manipulate images after they have been registered. These tools were designed specifically to automate tasks commonly done by digital astrophotographers, such as forming mosaics, forming tricolor images, and stacking exposures.
TIFF, JPEG, and FITS images are supported. RegiStar supports 8- and 16-bit depth internally, but will read higher depth FITS images.
RegiStar is not an image-editing program. It is designed to register and assemble images, and, except for the ability to calibrate one image to another, does not have any commands for adjusting brightness or contrast, removing flaws, or otherwise editing images. It is assumed that RegiStar will be used in conjunction with another program that has these capabilities. RegiStar is designed so that other programs can easily be used together with it.


An immersive installation that plunges the viewer into the world of cartography and navigation. “May This Night Have No Darkness” explores the intricate beauty and expansive possibilities of instruments such as Astrolabes, two-dimensional models of the celestial sphere which were once the most used astronomical devices. Developed in the medieval Islamic world by Muslim astronomers, used for navigation and to calculate the direction of the qibla. Their innovations furthered the fields of astronomy and cartography, introducing angular scales to the design, adding circles indicating azimuths on the horizon, which allowed for the calculation of the position and distance of stars. Beams of computer-controlled lights trace a reflective sculptural edge over a large pool, producing diagrams that evoke sacred geometry, light, and cosmography. “May This Night Have No Darkness” inhabits a world of impressions, a world made of time.


Monday, February 13, 2017 2:30 – 4:00pm
Boston University Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies
Mapping and Unmapping Jewish Histories in Early Modern Bibles
147 Bay State Road, 2nd fl. library
Wednesday, March 1, 2017 4:30pm
Picturing the World: Asian Maps After Mercator by Professor Timothy Brook
CGIS South, 1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge
This is part of the Asia Center Seminar Series. It is free and open to the public; reception follows in the Asia Center Lounge on the first floor. Professor Brook is the author of Mr. Selden’s Map of China.
Thursday, April 20, 2017 7:30pm
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Mapping the Heavens a talk by Priyamvada Natarajan of Yale University
Free and open to the public.
From time immemorial humans have been charting the night sky and trying to make sense of it, and contemplating their place in the cosmos. Natarajan will recount the evolution of celestial map-making and show how maps literally track our ever-evolving cosmic view, tracing our understanding of the universe, its contents and its evolution. She also will talk about recent developments in our understanding of two invisible entities: dark matter and black holes.Priyamvada Natarajan is a professor of physics & astronomy at Yale University and author of “Mapping the Heavens: The Radical Scientific Ideas that Reveal the Cosmos.”


Before three Months that’s means in March Chinese Space Station Named Chiangang-1 Fall down to Earth. And This Time a similar Chinese Satellite is also Going To fall down to Earth, Which is an alarming Condition For Whole Earth.
Previously Chingang-2 Travel, Approximately 95 K.M per hours on its Way. But suddenly It’s Changes the Position and Travel Towards Earth with High speed.
From The Report Of NASA, China Send His Space Station in September 2016.
It is said that the space station is showing some weird behavior and is very close to Earth. There are many questions about Tiangong-2’s position and also about its likelihood of falling on the Earth.
Let us tell you that as per Chinese authorities, Tiangong-2 has already returned to its original position. On 13th of June, it had dropped down closer to the earth but within 10 days, it returned to its normal orbit.
It had fallen from 242 miles to 183 miles and this is what had made the scientists worry. But now, it’s sure that it’s not crashing on the Earth like its predecessor.
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Offered for sale is this outstanding antique original brass Persian Islamic Bedouin Astrolabe, being 3 1/2 in diameter, signed by the maker, with Arabic and Zodiac engraving all over the front and back of this instrument. We believe the circa to be early 17th centaury. This old astrolabe is guaranteed to be an authentic antique. Astrolabes are dated at 570 AD to coincide with the birth of Mohamad which was 570 AD. This astrolabe is guaranteed to be an authentic antique. The purple pouch as seen in the photos come with the instrument. Alert: Please be aware that many of the scientific instruments offered for sale are reproductions made by India for export. This instrument is a genuine antique! Historically, each Bedouin Tribe Master had one of these astrolabes to help him navigate either on land (at night) or in water. The tribe master looked up at the stars for the big dipper. After finding the big dipper, he followed the handle which pointed to the north star. Having found the north star, he then knew which way was north. He always used the instrument at night because it was too hot during the day, and the big dipper and the north star was not visible during daylight hours. The Persian Astrolabe is a historical astronomical instrument used by classical astronomers and astrologers. Brass astrolabes were developed in much of the eastern world, chiefly as an aid to navigation and as a way of finding the qibla, the direction of Mecca. In the Islamic world, astrolabes were used to find the times of sunrise and the rising of fixed stars, to help schedule morning prayers. It was the chief navigational instrument until the invention of the compass and sextant. Its many uses included locating and predicting the positions of the sun, moon, planets and stars; determining local time given the local longitude and vice-versa; surveying, and triangulation. Astrologers of European nations used astrolabes to construct horoscopes. In the Islamic world, they are and were used primarily for astronomical studies, though astrology was often involved there as well. The astrolabe was introduced to the Islamic world the mid-eighth century. The astrolabe was fully developed during the early centuries of Islam. Arab treatises on the astrolabe were published in the ninth century and indicate a long familiarity with the instrument (the oldest existing instruments are Arabic from the tenth century, and there are nearly 40 instruments from the 11th and 12th centuries). The astrolabe was inherently valuable in Islam because of its ability to determine the astronomically defined prayer times and as an aid in finding the direction to Mecca (the qibla). It must also be noted that astrology was a deeply imbedded element of early Islamic culture and astrology was one of the principle uses of the astrolabe. Many old astrolabes had astrological features that would allow the user to determine horoscopes. Creating a horoscope requires knowledge of the positions of the planets and the ecliptic for a certain date and time. The astrologer interprets the aspects to advise his client. The astrolabe was a convenient way to determine a horoscope because much astrological stress was placed on the position of the ecliptic. Of particular interest were the ecliptic degree on the eastern horizon (the ascendant), the ecliptic degree on the western horizon (the descendent) and the ecliptic degree on the meridian (the degree of mid-heaven). In use, the astrolabe is set to the time and date of interest birth, death, coronation, etc. And the ecliptic degrees are read directly. The astrolabe could be used to find the “house” occupied by a planet, but an ephemeris was required to find the planetary coordinates for a date. Provenance: Christies, May, 1987: From a private estate. This is a genuine antique! . Remember – Fake news and fake antiques are fakes! This instrument is guaranteed to be an antique original not a reproduction! Tomlinson:’Instruments of Navigation, London, 1958. Of European Scientific Instruments in the Dept. Of Medieval & Later Antiquities of the British Museum, London. Astrolabes of the World, Robert T. Gunther, The Holland Press. Please look at the pictures and read the description, which form a part of the condition description. This product would make a wonderful addition to any scientific instrument, astrolabe or sundial collection when displayed in a prominent place, being a grand collectible item that would adorn any serious collector’s prized scientific instrument and sundial accumulations, while showing a discriminating dedication for fine sundials and other scientific instrument items as well as a devotion to acquiring fine collectibles. The item “Rare Antique Persian Bedouin Islamic Astrolabe Circa Early 1700s” is in sale since Sunday, March 22, 2020. This item is in the category “Antiques\Maritime\Maritime Compasses”. The seller is “captainmadison” and is located in Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania. This item can be shipped worldwide.
- Primary Material: Brass
- Maker: Bedouin
- Original/Reproduction: Antique Original
- Features: Engraved
- Time Period, War: 17 century
- Military Branch: not applicable
- Country/Region of Origin: Persian


Rafael Serra Perez
Current research interests: Cosmology and gravitation. In particular, alternative theories of gravity, bouncing cosmologies, dark energy and dark matter.
Visiting Professor at UFES (ES, Brazil) (2013 - present)
Post doctoral researcher at UFES (ES, Brazil) (2011 - 2013)
Ph.D. on Physics from CBPF (RJ, Brazil) (2011)
M.S. on Physics from CBPF (RJ, Brazil) (2006)
B.S. on Physics from UFRJ (RJ, Brazil) (2003)
Curriculum: Lattes (Brazilian CV)


A Prize for an Icy Moon Mission to Look for Alien Life
Most people are shocked to learn that there is a very real possibility that alien life exists within our own solar system. Surely if there was even the slightest chance of making such a profound discovery, NASA, the ESA, or one of the other space agencies would do everything that they could to bring about this important breakthrough?
Well, the fact is that many governmental space agencies have put forth planned missions to explore the sub-surface oceans of Jupiter's moon Europa or Saturn's moon Enceladus - both of which scientists now theorize could support life - but frustratingly all of these missions have either been unapproved or cancelled for budgetary reasons.
The Icy Moon Mission FuturePrize seeks to crowdfund a substantial cash prize to be awarded to any governmental space agency (NASA, ESA, RKA, JAXA, ISRO, CNSA) or qualified private group that will launch a mission to explore the sub-surface ocean of one of these moons.
The winning team will put forth a detailed plan for how exactly they intend to land a robotic probe on either the surface of Enceladus or Europa, and then get that probe through the icy crust to the moon's sub-surface ocean, reporting back to earth with data and imagery that will hopefully confirm or disconfirm the presence of an alien biosphere. Beyond the core mission, applicants should also detail what additional scientific research or discoveries their proposed mission could offer the world.
However, the most important goal for any proposed mission is to make absolutely certain that there is zero chance of contaminating any potential alien biosphere. The prize winning team must ensure that the probe will enter the sub-surface ocean in a completely sterile state.
The winning team must also put forth a detailed mission budget, and provide proof of any additional funding from grants, government agencies, or private donations in the event that the prize amount alone will not cover the entire mission cost.
Prize applicants could also make the case for the exploration of Saturn's moon Titan, to look for theorized alternative life forms living in the liquid methane lakes on its surface, or exploring the sub-surface ocean of the dwarf planet Ceres (NASA's Dawn space probe is scheduled to reach Ceres in April 2015, which could potentially provide data that makes Ceres a promising target.)
- The winning team will put forth a detailed plan for how they will land a robotic probe on the surface of Enceladus or Europa, explore the sub-surface ocean, and report back to earth with data and imagery that will confirm or disconfirm the presence of an alien biosphere.
- The winning team will detail additional scientific research or discoveries that could be realized from their proposed mission, beyond the core goal of the discovery of an alien biosphere.
- The winning team will put forth a detailed mission budget, and provide proof of any additional funding necessary if the prize amount will not cover the entire mission cost.
- Most importantly, the winning team must ensure that the probe will enter the sub-surface ocean in a completely sterile state, to make certain that there is zero chance of contaminating a potential alien biosphere.
All images courtesy of Wikipedia.
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The start of 2020 brings a lot of excitement and interest to many people. For some, it’s the anticipation of what this next decade brings. For others it’s the fact that Halloween is on a Saturday this year. But there’s another reason why 2020 is interesting to some people; it’s a Leap Year.
For those who don’t know, a Leap Year is when we add on an extra day to February. So instead of the calendar going February 28 then March 1, it goes February 28, 29, then March 1. There is a Leap Year roughly every four years.
The reason we have a Leap Year is so the Gregorian calendar, the one we typically use in the U.S., stays aligned with Earth’s rotations around the sun. In a non-Leap Year, there are 365 days. But is actually takes Earth around 365 days, five hours, 48 minutes, and 45 seconds to make a full rotation around the sun. This is measured using the March Equinox when the sun shines directly on the equator and the length of the day is almost exactly equal to the length of the night.
If we didn’t have a Leap Year roughly every four years, we would be losing about six hours off the calendar every year. After 100 years, our calendar would be off by about 24 days.
The idea of having Leap Years was introduced by the Roman general, Julius Caesar, over 2,000 years ago. But according to his calendar, the only rule to make a year a Leap Year is if it’s evenly divisible by four. This created too many Leap Years but it wasn’t corrected until over 1,500 years later with the introduction of the Gregorian calendar.
Now, there are three criteria a year must meet in order to be considered a Leap Year. One is if it can be evenly divided by four, it’s a Leap Year. But if the year is evenly divisible by 100, it isn’t a Leap Year; unless it can also be evenly divisible by 400, in which case it is a Leap Year.
Those using the Gregorian calendar aren’t the only ones who have Leap Years. There’s a Chinese Leap Year that adds an entire month to the calendar every three years, the Jewish Leap Year adds a 13th month seven times in a 19-year cycle. One of the most accurate calendar systems comes from the Iranians. Their Leap Year isn’t based on mathematical rules like many of the other calendars, but rather by the timing of the equinoxes.
While a Leap Year in the Gregorian calendar occurs roughly every four years and for only one day, it isn’t impossible to have babies born on that extra day, in fact there are roughly 187,000 people born on February 29, known as Leaplings. So then the question is asked, what do these people do for their birthdays when it isn’t a Leap Year? It depends on the individual Leapling, but some will just celebrate a day early or a day late, some will make their birthday a two-day event, and others will get together with other Leaplings and have an all out celebration.
Regardless of if Leap Years are common knowledge in your household or not, they are important events in our lives that help to keep us synchronized with our planet’s orbit around the sun.


Autumn! The days are cooler, the nights are longer, and the imagination can stretch all the way to the moon. (Image via Wikimedia Commons)
Sunday night is Fifteenth Night in Japan. It’s not a national holiday—that was the Autumn Equinox last week. But many people all over Asia will stop and try to catch a glimpse of the harvest moon.
If the night is fine, I will make a cup of tea, and try to catch the full moon in my cup. Then, I’ll try to catch the moment in a haiku.
My English haiku
Are clumsy things compared to
The moon’s beauty.
But I’ll try anyway. Sometimes, I don’t make it, and the full moon catches me by surprise, like last year.
Driving home tonight,
My parking lights are blinking.
Stopped by a gold moon.
By the time I got home, clouds had covered the sky, and my last glance at the moon was a golden globe, hanging in the blue sky you get about 30 minutes before sunset, over the freshly tilled autumn fields.
Japanese kids are trained to have a special fondness for all of the seasons, but it seems to me that fall has the most nicknames. They call it Foodie Autumn, and Arts and Crafts Autumn, and one of my favorites, Reading Autumn. After all the busy-ness of summer, it’s nice to sit down and reflect before we go into the hibernation of winter. The longer nights give us a chance to sit down and relax.
How about you? It’s a little early, but would you like to give haiku a try? This link from Wikipedia is a good refresher course. (-: And of course, limericks will not be turned away, either.
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When Neil Armstrong first walked on the moon he said,
“One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind, good luck Mr. Goorski.”
Mission control tried to find what he meant by “Good luck Mr. Goorski.”
They checked with Russian astronauts but could not locate Mr. Goorski.
Until now, Neil would not reveal what he meant by “Good luck Mr. Goorski.”
Today in a press conference, he told reporters that years ago, when he was a young boy,he and his brother were playing ball when his brother hit the ball under their neighbor’s bedroom window.
When Neil went to retrieve the ball, he overheard his neighbor’s wife, Mrs. Goorski, telling her husband,
“ORAL $EX? I’LL GIVE YOU ORAL $EX WHEN THE KID NEXT DOOR WALKS ON THE MOON!”