Connect with us

Space

Saturn’s moon Enceladus declared habitable

Published

on

Pictures taken by the automatic apparatus “Cassini”, cruising in the vicinity of Saturn, and subsequent studies led to the conclusion that under the ice of Enceladus, a satellite of the giant planet, an ocean is hidden. Water from it beats with powerful fountains directly into space.

The jets were first noticed in 2005, and in 2015 it was possible to take a sample from them. This was done by Cassini, which flew only a few tens of kilometers from the gushing surface.

For a long time it was not clear what these bursts were. NASA specialists were the first to clarify. The collected data testified: jets of water. And salty. They are not formed when ice turns into steam. Their source is liquid water.

From the subglacial ocean of Enceladus, jets of water shoot through cracks in the ice.

Subsequently, it was found that this water contains molecular hydrogen – about one percent, carbon dioxide, methane and ammonia. And these “impurities” indicate that hydrothermal springs work at the bottom of the ocean of Enceladus and create conditions suitable for the life of certain organisms – at least bacteria and maybe shellfish.

Suspicions that Enceladus may be habitable have recently been reinforced by specialists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). As reported in the journal Science Advances.

Additional analysis and computer simulations showed that areas of more salty water are at the poles of Enceladus – under a thicker layer of ice. At the equator, the ice is thinner and the water less salty.

On average, the saturation of water in the ocean of the satellite with salt reaches about 30 grams per liter. This should be conducive to life and the appearance of some inhabitants. For comparison, the salinity of the earth’s – inhabited – oceans is 35 grams of salt per liter.

Earth, Moon and Enceladus

The probable existence of geothermal sources at the bottom of the Enceladus ocean was also indicated by the data collected by Cassini. Under the ice of the satellite there are powerful sources of heat. As if there are 20 thermal power plants with a total capacity of 15.8 ± 3.1 gigawatts (1 gigawatt = 1000 megawatts).

“We assumed that the level of heat flow from the bowels of Enceladus is about 1.1 gigawatts, maximum – 5.8, but it turned out to be much higher,” said Carly Howett, research leader from the Southwest Research Institute (Southwest Research Institute in Boulder).

Scientists still cannot explain what drives heat sources so powerfully.

Of course, the interior of Enceladus is heated by gravitational interaction with Saturn – the tidal force. A little – adds radiation. But the performance of both is not enough to generate heat as powerfully as it is observed.

Continue Reading

Space

UFO in the form of a black cube was filmed over Texas

Published

on

By

A video of a strange black object that appears to be a cube was filmed this week on Tuesday at an unspecified location in Texas, USA.

According to the unnamed author of the video, he and his wife looked up at the sky as a military plane that looked like an F-111 bomber flew west to east right over their house.

They regarded this incident as very unusual, since military aircraft had previously very rarely appeared in their area.

But they were even more confused when, literally “seconds later” after the bomber’s passage, a dark object appeared in the sky.

At first it seemed to them spherical, but then they considered that it was more like a cube. It is also possible that the object has changed its shape.

In the video, a man can be heard saying, “It’s so weird. A military plane flies by, and then THIS appears, whatever it is,” to which his wife replies, “I have no idea what it is.”

It is indicated that the man sent the video he shot to the UFO site MUFON. The eyewitness also admitted that the strange object could be something mundane, such as a baby balloon, but he thinks that this “air anomaly” emits some kind of glow, which is clearly not related to the properties of balloons.

In his opinion, this “glow” may be associated with the propulsion system of the aircraft.

Continue Reading

Space

China has put hundreds of satellites in orbit to target U.S., as Space Force commander reveals Beijing’s horrific plan for America

Published

on

By

The head of the U.S. Space Force, Gen. Chance Saltzman, says that China has launched numerous satellites in the past six months and currently possesses 347 orbiting crafts capable of gathering intelligence on American armed forces.

The general warned that China is the “most immediate threat” to U.S. operations in space given its development of technologies such as lasers to disrupt satellite sensors, electronic warfare jammers, and even building crafts that can potentially disrupt rival orbiting platforms.

Saltzman stated that China’s ultimate goal is to become the most dominant space-faring nation by 2045, a part of its plan for a fully modernized, world-class military, the UK’s Daily Mail noted.

“Over the last six months, China conducted 35 launches adding advanced communications and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) satellites to their orbital architecture,” he noted in a written statement to the Senate Armed Service Subcommittee on Strategic Forces earlier this week. “Of China’s over 700 operational satellites in orbit, 347 are People’s Liberation Army ISR platforms providing optical, radar, and radio-frequency capabilities which track the Joint Force worldwide.”

Senior U.S. commanders have issued repeated warnings that China’s advancements in space technology, such as the development of reusable rockets, pose a threat to U.S. dominance in space. Chinese officials have even compared the moon and Mars to the disputed islands in the South China Sea that Beijing is trying to assert its sovereignty over, the report said.

“Both China and Russia continue to develop, field and deploy a range of weapons aimed at U.S. space capabilities,” Saltzman told the Senate panel. “The spectrum of threats to U.S. space capabilities includes cyber warfare activities, electronic attack platforms, directed energy lasers designed to blind or damage satellite sensors, ground-to-orbit missiles to destroy satellites and space-to-space orbital engagement systems that can attack U.S. satellites in space.”

He added that both Russia and China have studied how the U.S. has become reliant on its satellites to conduct warfare.

“Whether it’s our precision navigation and timing, whether it’s satellite communications, the missile warning that we rely on and the intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance persistence that we have with space capabilities… they know we rely on that and so if they can blind us, if they can interfere with those capabilities, or God forbid, destroy them completely, they know that that will diminish our advantages and put the joint force at risk,” said the four-star Space Force commander.

“So I can see interfering with, I can see blinding, I can see some of those grey area kinds of attacks on our capabilities to try and put us behind the eight ball,” he noted further.

China’s rapid economic growth in recent years has allowed them to invest heavily in its space program, leading to significant advancements in its space military capabilities. As China races to the final frontier, its space program has become a point of interest for military analysts and governments around the world.

With the launch of Beijing’s first space station and the successful landing of a rover on the far side of the moon, China has demonstrated its ability to compete with other space-faring nations. However, their military activities in space have raised concerns and sparked debates about their intentions and the potential for an arms race in space.

As for the U.S., Saltzman said the Pentagon will be switching from bigger, more vulnerable geostationary satellites to constellations of smaller satellites that will be deployed in low-to-medium earth orbit.

“With regards to grappling satellites and pulling them out of orbit, much tougher to deal with when you have less than maneuverable older legacy satellites,” he told senators. “So again, shifting to a proliferated [low earth orbit] constellation where you don’t have what Gen. Hyten called a ‘big juicy target’ sitting there in a [geostationary orbit] makes that a much tougher proposition for them to execute against.”

By: JD Heyes

Continue Reading

Trending

Generated by Feedzy