Space News May 2020

Mining asteroids will compete with earth mines.
They can be staggeringly rich in nickel, platinum, and gold.
Remember the gold on earth was made in the sun
and migrated outwards before
ending up here. 

The US supports "let's make a deal" for space business.  This is great, in my view. The Artemis accords are being drafted to draw in co-signatories and focus on the moon. They include social distancing:  "The Artemis Accords ... propose “safety zones” that would surround future moon bases to prevent damage or interference from rival countries or companies operating in close proximity. The pact also aims to provide a framework under international law for companies to own the resources they mine, the sources said."

Something uncommon with sun spots.  As we go into the next 11 year sunspot cycle, there are briefly co-existing spots from the previous and the upcoming cycle.  Some with magnetic spin sinister, some dexter.

Everybody loves this artist's impression

Omuamua was the first interstellar object confirmed to be passing through our system.  It is rather long and thin, a shape much less probable to have endured than a somewhat rounder form.  What's new is "excess acceleration" not explainable by gravity.  One way to make sense of this is if it is hollow and has a skin thinner than silk allowing it to function as a photon-driven sun sail.  Likelier is a jetting sublimation of surface ice from the tumbling object.

The Japanese have another success with the Hyabusa2 probe.
Not only did it land again on asteroid Ryugu but a slightly jerky movie has been released of it landing and rebounding immediately after capturing some dirt.   The dirt is coming home.


There's a black hole you can "see" with the naked eye.  Not very far away in our own galaxy is a triple star system, visible in the constellation Telescopium from the Southern Hemisphere.  Two are visible and one is not, but of the stars that shine, the one closest to the black hole "star" has a wobble with a 40 day period.  This is 1000 light years away in our galaxy which is over 100,000 light years across.  Two features:  It is the closest ever found and it isn't reacting violently with its environment.

High res infrared mapping of Jupiter was just released.