Scientists speculate that the black hole is pulling in gas from nearby space and this has formed a disc of orbiting material around it. Something like a star or small black hole also orbiting around it, is flying through the disc over and over, causing shockwaves and powerful energy bursts.
Watching these repeated eruptions in real time gives scientists a rare chance to study how black holes behave and learn more about these strange, powerful events. But for now, we still have more questions than answers.
It turns out water is great at blocking radiation. But using water as a protection system has its challenges.
A team from the Polymer Chemistry and Biomaterials Group (PBM) at Ghent University in Belgium is looking into a new option: superabsorbent polymers (SAPs).
These materials might be safer and more effective than water alone.
SAPs can soak up hundreds of times their weight in liquid, similar to those “grow monster” toys that expand in water. When swollen with liquid, they’re called “hydrogels.”
📹 ESA – European Space Agency 📸 Lenny Van Daele/Johan Dubruel
Using data from the European Space Agency’s Gaia mission, scientists have found a huge exoplanet and a brown dwarf. This is the first time a planet has been uniquely discovered by Gaia’s ability to sense the gravitational tug or ‘wobble’ the planet induces on a star. Both the planet and brown dwarf are orbiting low-mass stars, a scenario thought to be extremely rare.
📹 ESA – European Space Agency 📸 ESA/Gaia/DPAC/M. Marcussen
A group of volunteers is spending two months lying in bed—with their feet up and one shoulder always touching the mattress—even while eating, showering, and using the toilet. But why? This extreme bedrest study is helping scientists understand how space travel affects the human body and how to keep astronauts healthy on long missions.
Microgravity causes muscle and bone loss, fluid shifts, and other physiological changes similar to those experienced by bedridden patients on Earth. By studying volunteers here on Earth, researchers can develop better countermeasures for astronauts and even improve treatments for medical conditions like osteoporosis.
In this study, participants are divided into three groups: one stays in bed with no exercise, another cycles in bed to mimic astronaut workouts, and a third cycles while being spun in a centrifuge to simulate artificial gravity. Scientists hope artificial gravity could become a key tool in protecting astronauts during deep-space missions.
Could you handle 60 days in bed for the sake of space exploration? Let us know in the comments!
Credits: ESA – European Space Agency
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We are Europe’s gateway to space. Our mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world. Check out https://www.esa.int/ to get up to speed on everything space related.
Air Zero G’s parabolic flights create a weightless environment by flying along a curved path called a parabola. This short period of weightlessness lasts about 22 seconds, during which people and experiments on board the parabolic flight can experience the same weightlessness as astronauts in orbit on the International Space Station.
The price to pay for this free-floating freedom is two short periods of hypergravity, during which everything weighs almost double for 20 seconds: first when the aircraft pulls up sharply and then again when it pulls out sharply afterwards to return to a normal flight path.
Each parabola takes about one minute to complete and is repeated 31 times in one flight, providing a total of about ten minutes of zero-gravity.
The flights provide European scientists with access to a repeatable, low-gravity research environment. Hundreds of experiments have flown over thousands of parabolas, enabling extensive scientific endeavours across many disciplines and resulting in a huge legacy of publications.
Scientists may have found the solution to creating oxygen in space with artificial photosynthesis!
They are creating devices that mimic plant photosynthesis, to turn sunlight and water into oxygen without the need for electricity.
These devices produce oxygen from water and sunlight using semiconductor materials coated with metallic catalysts.
Scientists believe artificial photosynthesis could even work on Mars, where sunlight is weaker, by using simple solar mirrors to concentrate sunlight and boost oxygen production.
These devices could not only help us explore space but could also bring us closer to meeting our green energy and sustainability goals here on Earth. 🌍💚
📹 ESA – European Space Agency
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We are Europe’s gateway to space. Our mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world. Check out https://www.esa.int/ to get up to speed on everything space related.
