Monday, October 5, 2020

Defense News : Double the firepower: MQ-9 tests flying with eight Hellfire missiles

Double the firepower: MQ-9 tests flying with eight Hellfire missiles

by Stephen Losey, Air Force Times, October 1, 2020

https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2020/10/01/double-the-firepower-mq-9-tests-flying-with-eight-hellfire-missiles/

An MQ-9A Reaper assigned to the 556th Test and Evaluation Squadron sits on the ramp at Creech Air Force Base carrying eight Hellfire missiles. This was the first flight test of the MQ-9 carrying double its normal payload of Hellfires. (SrA Haley Stevens/Air Force)

The Air Force last month conducted the first flight of an MQ-9A Reaper that had been configured to carry eight AGM-114 Hellfire missiles — twice the number the drone normally carries.

The 556th Test and Evaluation Squadron at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada conducted the flight test on Sept. 10, the Air Force said in a Wednesday release.

A software upgrade expected to be rolled out to MQ-9s by the end of the calendar year made the expanded Hellfire capacity possible, the Air Force said. In the past, Reapers could carry no more than four Hellfires, two on the outboard station of each wing.

But with the upgrade, stations that were previously used for fuel tanks or 500-pound bombs can be used for Hellfires.

Master Sgt. Melvin French, the program’s test system configuration manager, said in the release that the hardware and launchers that now can be used to carry Hellfires are the same as the original stations used.

An earlier model MQ-9 Reaper in flight

“Aside from the extra hardware required to be on-hand, no other changes are required to support this new capability and added lethality,” French said in the release. "The Reaper retains its flexibility to fly 500-pound bombs on any of these stations, instead of the AGM‑114s, when mission requirements dictate.”

Adding the flexibility to carry more Hellfires will let the Reaper meet the needs of both Air Combat Command and Air Force Special Operations Command, the release said.

U.S. Air Force MQ-9 Reaper drone Takes Flight with 8 Hellfire Missiles, Oct 1, 2020

In the past, the Air Force said, the Reaper has run out of firepower during its long missions, which sometimes resulted in waits for a freshly armed backup to arrive before a target could be struck.

The Air Force needs the Reaper to be able to find and immediately strike high-priority targets — some of whom are only vulnerable for fleeting periods of time — as well as defend friendly forces isolated on the ground. Giving the Reaper more firepower will allow it to keep engaging the enemy during its long sorties, which often go for hours on end.

“History has proven the MQ-9′s ability to provide aerial continuity and attack support for air and ground forces during counter-insurgency and close air support,” said 556th commander Lt. Col. Michael Chmielewski. “Doubling the firepower of this high-endurance aircraft with Hellfires improves the lethality and agility of the MQ-9 over many combat roles, with an arsenal of highly versatile, accurate, and collateral-friendly weapons for all combatant commanders.”

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Sunday, October 4, 2020

SPACE - S0 - 20201004 - Ice Age Trigger Ongoing, Nearby Star Activates, Science-Slap

Good Morning, 0bservers!

Solar wind speeds continued their downward slope, dropping below 400 KPS after midnight UTC. Particle density is also de-escalating apace, and the temperature went down in the first half of the day before stabilizing around midline on the chart. The KP-Index remained calm in the KP-1 to KP-2 range. Electron Flux readings remain high, while the X-Ray Flux went down a bit to the middle of the Class A flare range. Seeing some coronal hole development along the equator near the midpoint, but they've not yet fully consolidated We're also seeing a couple of bright spots on the disc but I'm not seeing magnetic complexity in there. The glow from the Southeast lim yesterday is showing at least two potential bright spot regions (there could be more underneath) so we'll see how those form out in the next report. The lithosphere really made up for lost time, though, with a Mag 5.1 just beneath the Japanese Southernmost coast, a Mag 5.3 in Eastern Greenland, another Mag 5.3 about 70 miles SSE of Kandrian, Papua New Guinea, a Mag 5.0 in the South Shetland Islands, and another Mag 5.0 about 120 miles SSW of Severo-Kuril'sk, Russia.

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Saturday, October 3, 2020

Physicists build circuit that generates clean, limitless power from graphene

OCTOBER 2, 2020, by University of Arkansas

https://phys.org/news/2020-10-physicists-circuit-limitless-power-graphene.html

Credit: University of Arkansas

A team of University of Arkansas physicists has successfully developed a circuit capable of capturing graphene's thermal motion and converting it into an electrical current.

"An energy-harvesting circuit based on could be incorporated into a chip to provide clean, limitless, low-voltage power for small devices or sensors," said Paul Thibado, professor of physics and lead researcher in the discovery.

The findings, published in the journal Physical Review E, are proof of a theory the physicists developed at the U of A three years ago that freestanding graphene—a single layer of carbon atoms—ripples and buckles in a way that holds promise for energy harvesting.

The idea of harvesting energy from graphene is controversial because it refutes physicist Richard Feynman's well-known assertion that the thermal motion of atoms, known as Brownian motion, cannot do work. Thibado's team found that at room temperature

the thermal motion of graphene does in fact induce an alternating current (AC) in a circuit, an achievement thought to be impossible.

In the 1950s, physicist Léon Brillouin published a landmark paper refuting the idea that adding a single diode, a one-way electrical gate, to a circuit is the solution to harvesting energy from Brownian motion. Knowing this, Thibado's group built their circuit with two diodes for converting AC into a (DC). With the diodes in opposition allowing the current to flow both ways, they provide separate paths through the circuit, producing a pulsing DC current that performs work on a load resistor.

Credit: University of Arkansas

Additionally, they discovered that their design increased the amount of power delivered. "We also found that the on-off, switch-like behavior of the diodes actually amplifies the power delivered, rather than reducing it, as previously thought," said Thibado. "The rate of change in resistance provided by the diodes adds an extra factor to the power."

The team used a relatively new field of physics to prove the diodes increased the circuit's power. "In proving this power enhancement, we drew from the emergent field of stochastic thermodynamics and extended the nearly century-old, celebrated theory of Nyquist," said coauthor Pradeep Kumar, associate professor of physics and coauthor.

According to Kumar, the graphene and circuit share a symbiotic relationship. Though the thermal environment is performing work on the load resistor, the graphene and circuit are at the same temperature and heat does not flow between the two.

That's an important distinction, said Thibado, because a temperature difference between the graphene and circuit, in a circuit producing power, would contradict the second law of thermodynamics. "This means that the second law of thermodynamics is not violated, nor is there any need to argue that 'Maxwell's Demon' is separating hot and cold electrons,"

https://youtu.be/KiLTEjm8zLw

Thibado said.The team also discovered that the relatively slow motion of graphene induces current in the circuit at low frequencies, which is important from a technological perspective because electronics function more efficiently at lower frequencies.

"People may think that current flowing in a resistor causes it to heat up, but the Brownian current does not. In fact, if no current was flowing, the resistor would cool down," Thibado explained. "What we did was reroute the current in the circuit and transform it into something useful."

The team's next objective is to determine if the DC current can be stored in a capacitor for later use, a goal that requires miniaturizing the circuit and patterning it on a silicon wafer, or chip. If millions of these tiny could be built on a 1-millimeter by 1-millimeter chip, they could serve as a low- battery replacement.

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Defense News : Israel in negotiations to acquire V-22 Osprey from the US

Report: Israel in negotiations to acquire V-22 Osprey from the US

By Dan Arkin, Israel Defense, 10/03/20

https://www.israeldefense.co.il/en/node/45607

The V-22 is suitable for flying forces on special operations thanks to its special structure and high speed. According to foreign reports, the deal is also supposed to include motors, infrared radar systems and related equipment

The V-22. Photo from the Boeing website

The government of Israel is restarting its talks with the American administration on the acquisition of the V-22 Osprey hybrid helicopter-airplane. Israel is interested in acquiring 12 of the aircraft, manufactured by Bell Boeing, according to a report by the Defense Blog website.

The site points out that the deal is also supposed to include motors made by Rolls Royce, AN/AAQ-27 infrared radar systems and related equipment. The American administration expressed willingness to sell Israel these planes in 2012, and two years later the State Department approved the sale of six V-22 Block C airplanes worth $1.13 billion.

Why America's V-22 Osprey Just Keeps Getting Better - Able to Fly Across the Pacific Ocean

The V-22 Osprey takes off and lands vertically like a helicopter and flies horizontally like an airplane. It can reach high speed (double that of transport helicopters) and high altitude, and therefore is suitable for flying forces on special operations.

If a deal is reached, Israel will be the second country – after Japan – to acquire V-22 aircraft. The Japanese military has so far bought five of them at a cost of $332 million.

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SPACE - S0 - 20201003 - Nova Shells, Polar Fields of the Galactic Current Sheet

Good Morning, 0bservers!

Not sure, but I think we dodged a bullet with the coronal hole stream. Maybe it did overshoot us from the North, going literally over our heads. Solar wind speeds spent all of yesterday calming down, from a morning peak of 540 KPS down to a current range of 450-470 KPS. Particle density and temperature are also steady to slightly lower. The Phi Angle didn't have any wild shifts, but it's still less than solid. The Electron Flux hasn't been below the threshold in a couple of days now, and the X-Ray Flux is still in the upper Class A flare range, but it's down slightly from yesterday. The KP-Index remained in the green all day yesterday, mostly KP-2s with a few KP-3s. No new coronal holes, and no major bright spots on the Earth-facing surface. I am seeing a bit of glow at the Southeast lim, so we might have some incoming activity there. There was only a single Mag 5.1 less than 60 miles Northwest of Port-Vila, Vanuatu, and a few mild blot echoes.

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Friday, October 2, 2020

Defense News: Israel Defense Ministry delivers Iron Dome battery to U.S. Army

Israel Defense Ministry delivers Iron Dome battery to U.S. Army

By Israel Defense, September 30, 2020

https://www.israeldefense.co.il/en/node/45573

Photo: Ariel Hermoni, Israeli Ministry of Defense

The Israeli Ministry of Defense on Wednesday delivered the first of two Iron Dome air defense batteries it is supplying to the U.S. Army in the framework of a 2019 agreement. The batteries are to be deployed for the defense of US troops against a variety of aerial threats. A ceremony was held at the Iron Dome production line of defense contractor Rafael Advanced Defense Systems to mark the event.

Defense Minister Benny Gantz said, “The Iron Dome system, as a part of (Israel's) multi-layered missile defense system, reflects the strength of the Israeli defense establishment. As a result of the effectiveness of this system, many deaths were prevented on the home front of southern Israel, and it has a significant impact on the battlefield. I am proud that this advanced system will also protect U.S. Army troops. This is an extraordinary achievement for both the Ministry of Defense and for Israel’s excellent defense industries."

Photo: Shaul Golan

"Last week I visited the United States and met with senior officials in the U.S. Department of Defense and the military. Among other things, we discussed procurement and information sharing in the field of technology. The completion of this agreement serves as further proof that the defense alliance (between the U.S. and Israel), is based on common values and interests, which are stronger than ever," Gantz said.

The Israel Missile Defense Organization (IMDO) of the ministry's Directorate of Defense R&D (DDR&D) made the delivery.

In August 2019 the United States and Israel signed an agreement for the procurement of two Iron Dome Defense System batteries (IDDS-A). The first battery was delivered in record time, and the second battery will be delivered in the near future within the framework of the agreement, according to Rafael.

IMDO head Moshe Patel said, "In the coming year, the Iron Dome system will complete ten years of operational activity, with over 2,400 interceptions. This activity has saved thousands of lives. It is a great privilege for the State of Israel to deliver the first out of two Iron Dome batteries to the U.S. Army, for the protection of American troops. The very fact that we are handing over the first battery, a year after the agreement was signed, is an achievement in itself - alongside production for the benefit of the State of Israel, we have met the requirements of the U.S. military."

Rafael Executive Vice President and Head of Air and Missile Defense Division, Pini Yungman, said "The Iron Dome system which will serve the U.S. military is tailored according to U.S. requirements. This being said, its performance capabilities, as seen in Israel, will remain the same. We began the project with a series of tests and demonstrations in the 'White Sands' testing field in the US. To date, we have conducted three demonstrations and intercepted targets chosen by the U.S. Army for the Iron Dome system."

Israel Delivers First Iron Dome Battery to US Army, i24 News, Oct 1, 2020

The advanced system has been operational in Israel since 2011 and is an integral part of Israel’s multi-layered defense array developed by the IMDO. The defense array includes the Iron Dome, David’s Sling, Arrow-2 and Arrow-3 weapon systems.

The prime contractor for the development and production of Iron Dome is Rafael. The MMR radar is developed by ELTA, a subsidiary of Israel Aerospace Industries, and the command and control system (BMC), is developed by mPrest.

Wednesday's ceremony was attended by Defense Minister Gantz, Minister of Economy Amir Peretz, DDR&D head Dani Gold, IMDO head Patel, Rafael Chairman Uzi Landau, and Rafael CEO Yoav Har-Even. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the event was conducted in accordance with regulations set by the Ministry of Health.

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Achieving invisibility: Cross-wavelength invisibility integrated with invisibility tactics

SEPTEMBER 30, 2020 FEATURE, by Thamarasee Jeewandara

https://phys.org/news/2020-09-invisibility-cross-wavelength-tactics.html

Biological inspiration, schematic view, and practical sample of an optically transparent microwave invisibility cloak. (A) Photo of the hyperiid amphipod crustacean Cystisoma, which lives in a midwater oceanic environment. Photo credit: David Liittschwager, used with permission. (B) Schematic of the optically transparent microwave invisibility cloak. This cloak can conceal objects with preserved phases and microwave amplitudes (green beams with incident angle α and reflected angle ϕ). At the same time, the cloak can ensure that internal observers see external aircraft clearly (blue beams) and can decrease the optical scattering (yellow beams). (C) Example of the optically transparent microwave invisibility cloak. The metallic badge with the words “Jilin University” represents an object concealed inside. The enlarged section presents a schematic view of the metasurfaces composed of nano-Ag/Ni networks. Photo credit: Fu-Yan Dong, Jilin University.

Credit: Science Advances, doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abb3755

Invisibility is a superior self-protection strategy of long-standing interest in academia and industry, although the concept is thus far most popularly encountered in science fiction.

In a new report on Science Advances, Su Xu and colleagues in engineering, nanotechnology, nanobionics and quantum information in China were inspired by the natural ecological relationship between transparent oceanic animals and their predators that employ a cross-wavelength detection strategy. The scientists proposed a new concept of cross-wavelength invisibility that integrated a variety of invisibility tactics. They presented a Boolean metamaterial design strategy to balance divergent material requirements across cross-scale wavelengths. As proof of concept, they simultaneously demonstrated longwave cloaking and shortwave transparency using a nanoimprinting technique.

The work extended stealth techniques from individual strategies of invisibility targeting a single-wavelength spectrum to integrated invisibility targeting cross-wavelength applications. These experiments will pave the way to develop cross-wavelength integrated metadevices.

Becoming transparent

Allowing the passage of light through the body is a superior self-defense strategy in the ocean for midwater organisms. For example, the amphipod crustacean Cystisoma is mostly transparent aside for some necessary organs including eyes to avoid detection by predators. However, a few predators can still detect and successfully attack transparent prey due to their cross-spectral vision. If prey could conceal themselves completely by balancing the prey-predator interaction to overcome the cross-spectral vision of predators, their survival rates will be much higher. Xu et al. were bioinspired by this ecological relationship when they proposed a concept of cross-wavelength invisibility that simultaneously integrated longwave cloaking and shortwave transparency.

The new strategy complements existing mainstream strategies of chameleon-like adaptive camouflage and the wave-bypassing invisibility cloak. In this work, scientists break the existing ecological relationship by attempting to hide the transparent prey from the cross-spectral vision of their predators. As a result, this philosophy of invisibility will be of significance for practical stealth technologies.

Boolean metamaterial design procedure for an optically transparent microwave cloak. (A and B) Schematic of the metasurface unit cell for the microwave regime and the phase shifts under different incident angles: (A) for TE-polarized incidence and (B) for TM-polarized incidence. The dotted line indicates the theoretically ideal phase compensation value at α=10°. (C) Cross-scale dispersion engineering with silver nanostructures. The silver ( ωp = 1.39 × 1016 s−1 and ωc = 3.22 × 1013 s−1) structure has a geometry of tm = 8 μm and pm = 200 μm, and wm/pm varies from 0.001 to 0.2. σmicrow and σopt represent the conductivities at 7 GHz and 580 nm, respectively. The underlying substrate is not considered here. (D) Boolean multiplication (denoted by ∧) performed to merge the structures with single-band engineered dispersion into an integrated metastructure with cross-scale engineered dispersion. M(xm, ym, zm), V(xv, yv, zv), and BM(xbm, ybm, zbm) are the coordinates for the microwave regime, the visible regime, and the final structure, respectively.

Credit: Science Advances, doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abb3755

Constructing a device of invisibility

The strategy proposed here aims to realize concepts that have so far remained rooted in science fiction. For instance, Xu et al. envision their invisibility philosophy to contribute to the development of a futuristic, transparent stealth aircraft in the lab, where pilots will be able to freely view their surroundings without detection via the microwave radar system.

The team constructed the experimental device using microscopic silver/nickel wires to ensure extremely low optical conductivity with nanoimprinting fabrication. The results demonstrated an optical transparency from 400 nm to 760 nm, and significantly reduced scattering in the microwave regime from 6 to 10 GHz. The team could penetrate the transparent cloak with visible light (blue and yellow rays) with negligible loss, allowing the internal observer to freely view outside. The team engineered the optically transparent microwave invisibility cloak with two metasurfaces imprinted on flexible polyethylene terephthalate (PET) films and isolated by a curved PET spacer. The internal layer of the metasurface acted as a perfect elastic conductor (PEC) boundary, while external ring resonators on the metasurface provided proper phase compensation and amplitude preservation effects.

Phase and amplitude response of ring resonators after the Boolean procedure. (A) Amplitude attenuation of a reflected wave for various sheet resistances. The amplitude is averaged under TE polarization incidence (θ = 20 ° and 40°), and the dotted curves are fits from simulations. The inset shows the average magnitude of ring resonators for the practical structure after the Boolean procedure with θ = 0°, 10°, 20°, 30°, and 40° for TE and TM illumination at 7 GHz. (B and C) Phase responses for TE and TM polarization.

Credit: Science Advances, doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abb3755

Engineering the electromagnetic response and developing the optically transparent microwave cloak

Xu et al. engineered the electromagnetic response for microwave invisibility according to the generalized Snell's law and used eight kinds of ring resonators to build the cloak. Designing unit cells alone for microwave invisibility was insufficient to realize cross-wavelength invisibility. Therefore, the team adopted a Boolean metamaterial design strategy to merge meta-structures to achieve integrated single-band functionality. To accomplish this, they integrated the meta-structures for the microwave regime and visible regime by adopting a Boolean logical multiplication (denoted by ∧ or AND) in an integrated circuit. The integrated metastructures were equal to the macroscopic metallic network formed by mapped microscopic metal wires exhibiting an extremely high local electrical conductivity while preserving an extremely low global optical conductivity.

The see-through ability of the optically transparent microwave invisibility cloak obtained using a micro wireless surveillance camera.

Credit: Science Advances, doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abb3755

To construct the optically transparent microwave cloak, the team chose an advanced nanoimprinting technique that provided a large-area metasurface to conceal macroscopic objects and enable high-precision fabrication of the microscopic metal wires at the microscale. They conducted optical characterization of the outer layer using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The scientists developed the outline of the microscopic ring resonator with metallic circular wires and oriented several shorting wires along the radial direction to connect the circular metal wires. The team conducted a field test to experimentally prove the optical see-through vision of the optically transparent cloak compared to direct observations without the cloak to allow the user to see through the cloak with minimal distortion.

Stealth technology

The scientists experimentally showed the microwave cloaking performance under transverse electric (TE) and transverse magnetic (TM) polarized incidence and studied the total scattering reduction of the sample across different frequencies. The phase and amplitude of the wave reflected from the cloak was much like the wave reflected from the ground plane, causing substantial reduction of total scattering. In this way, the cloak decreased the total scattering of the object beyond the frequency range from 6 to 10 GHz. The results showed the achievement of cross-wavelength invisibility with preserved amplitude and undistorted phase at microwave frequencies, alongside omnidirectional transparency across the visible spectrum. Compared to carpet cloaks developed in the past, this work presented an experimental demonstration to achieve invisibility across cross-wavelength regions by combining multiple schemes of invisibility. The stealth technology detailed here will be more accessible with advanced nanofabrication technologies.

Optical characterization of the cloak. (A) SEM photo of ring 1 with the smallest radius (0.5 mm); scale bar, 100 μm. (B) SEM photo of the quasi-PEC layer; scale bar, 100 μm. The insets show a close-up view of the metal wires and their reliable electrical connections; scale bar, 10 μm. (C) Optical transparency of the outer-layer metasurface (black solid line), quasi-PEC film (orange dashed-dotted line), and bilayer structure (yellow dashed line). The bilayer transparency equals that of the ring resonators multiplied by that of the quasi-PEC film. (D) Experimental proof of how an internal observer sees through the cloak compared to (E) the case of direct observation without the cloak. Photo credit: Fu-Yan Dong and Dong-Dong Han, Jilin University.

Credit: Science Advances, doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abb3755

By combining longwave cloaking and shortwave transparency in this work, Su Xu and colleagues allowed the eyes of a stealth system to clearly observe the external world, while remaining undetected. Compared to existing methods of electromagnetic wave control, the Boolean metamaterial design provided a strategy to combine various invisibility strategies for cross-wavelength invisibility integration. The work includes integrated logic circuits and paves the way to realize multifunctional or multiphysics devices within compact dimensions.

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There’s too much gold in the universe. No one knows where it came from.

By Rafi Letzter - Staff Writer

https://www.livescience.com/where-did-gold-come-from.html

Something is showering gold across the universe. But no one knows what it is.

An illustration shows the collision of two neutron stars. Scientists had proposed that such collisions might have filled our solar system with gold, but new research casts doubt on that claim.

(Image: © NASA/Swift/Dana Berry)

Here's the problem: Gold is an element, which means you can't make it through ordinary chemical reactions — though alchemists tried for centuries. To make the sparkly metal, you have to bind 79 protons and 118 neutrons together to form a single atomic nucleus. That's an intense nuclear fusion reaction. But such intense fusion doesn't happen frequently enough, at least not nearby, to make the giant trove of gold we find on Earth and elsewhere in the solar system. And a new study has found the most commonly-theorized origin of gold — collisions between neutron stars — can't explain gold's abundance either. So where's the gold coming from? There are some other possibilities, including supernovas so intense they turn a star inside out. Unfortunately, even such strange phenomena can't explain how blinged out the local universe is, the new study finds.

Neutron star collisions build gold by briefly smashing protons and neutrons together into atomic nuclei, then spewing those newly-bound heavy nuclei across space. Regular supernovas can't explain the universe's gold because stars massive enough to fuse gold before they die -- which are rare -- become black holes when they explode, said Chiaki Kobayashi, an astrophysicist at the University of Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom and lead author of the new study. And, in a regular supernova, that gold gets sucked into the black hole.

So what about those odder, star-flipping supernovas? This type of star explosion, a so-called magneto-rotational supernova, is "a very rare supernova, spinning very fast," Kobayashi told Live Science.

During a magneto-rotational supernova, a dying star spins so fast and is wracked by such strong magnetic fields that it turns itself inside out as it explodes. As it dies, the star shoots white-hot jets of matter into space. And because the star has been turned inside out, its jets are chock full of gold nuclei. Stars that fuse gold at all are rare. Stars that fuse gold then spew it into space like this are even rarer.

But even neutron stars plus magneto-rotational supernovas together can't explain Earth's bonanza of gold, Kobayashi and her colleagues found.

"There's two stages to this question," she said. "Number one is: neutron star mergers are not enough. Number two: Even with the second source, we still can't explain the observed amount of gold."

Past studies were right that neutron star collisions release a shower of gold, she said. But those studies didn't account for the rarity of those collisions. It's hard to precisely estimate how often tiny neutron stars — themselves the ultra-dense remnants of ancient supernovas — slam together. But it's certainly not very common: Scientists have seen it happen only once. Even rough estimates show they don't collide nearly often enough to have produced all the gold found in the solar system, Kobayashi and her co-authors found.

"This paper is not the first to suggest that neutron star collisions are insufficient to explain the abundance of gold," said Ian Roederer, an astrophysicist at the University of Michigan, who hunts traces of rare elements in distant stars.

But Kobayashi and her colleagues' new paper, published Sept. 15 in The Astrophysical Journal, has one big advantage: It's extremely thorough, Roederer said. The researchers poured over a mountain of data and plugged it into robust models of how the galaxy evolves and produces new chemicals.

"The paper contains references to 341 other publications, which is about three times as many references as typical papers in The Astrophysical Journal these days," Roederer told Live Science.

Pulling all that data together in a useful way, he said, amounts to a "Herculean effort."

Using this approach, the authors were able to explain the formation of atoms as light as carbon-12 (six protons and six neutrons) and as heavy as uranium-238 (92 protons and 146 neutrons). That's an impressive range, Roederer said, covering elements that are usually ignored in these types of studies.

Mostly, the math worked out.

Neutron star collisions, for example, produced strontium in their model. That matches observations of strontium in space after the one neutron star collision scientists have directly observed.

Magneto-rotational supernovas did explain the presence of europium in their model, another atom that has proved tricky to explain in the past.

But gold remains an enigma.

Something out there that scientists don't know about must be making gold, Kobayashi said. Or it's possible neutron star collisions make way more gold than existing models suggest. In either case, astrophysicists still have a lot of work to do before they can explain where all that fancy bling came from.

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SPACE - S0 - 20201002 - Space Science, Earth's Magnetic Flip Review

Good Morning, 0bservers!

Have to admit I'm a bit surprised. I really thought those coronal hole streams would have impacted by now, but the solar wind speeds spent all of yesterday going down instead of up. The peak of 560 KPS occurred right after midnight UTC yesterday, dropping down below 500 KPS by mid-evening, and now in the 480-520 KPS range. Particle density and temperature had also been going down most of the day, but actually jumped up a bit in mid-evening. If that's the vanguard of the coming storm, the storm must be stuck in traffic. Or, perhaps it missed the planet entirely, going North of our orbital position. The KP-Index has been mostly in the green zone, but we did get a KP-4 (yellow) just before midday. The Electron Flux remains high, the X-Ray Flux is riding the higher end of the Class A flare range, and the Phi Angle looks like it's been run through a blender. The videos showed a small coronal hole developing at about the same latitude as the departing bright spot, but it's already passed the midpoint. We only had four blot echoes since yesterday's report, one of them a Mag 6.0 about 60 miles West of Papua New Guinea (and about 65 miles deep). Oops, looks like the lithosphere is trying to make a liar out of me - a late-breaking Mag 5.8 in the South Shetland Islands.

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Thursday, October 1, 2020

Stellar explosion in Earth's proximity

SEPTEMBER 30, 2020, by Technical University Munich

https://phys.org/news/2020-09-stellar-explosion-earth-proximity.html

This manganese crust started to grow about 20 million years ago. It grew layer by layer until it was retrieved a few years ago and analyzed in the Maier-Leibnitz-Laboratory at the Technical University of Munich. In layers that are around 2.5 million years old, the researchers found iron-60 and elevated levels of manganese-53. Their occurrence is evidence of a near-Earth supernova 2.5 million years ago.

Credit: Dominik Koll / TUM

When the brightness of the star Betelgeuse dropped dramatically a few months ago, some observers suspected an impending supernova—a stellar explosion that could also cause damage on Earth. While Betelgeuse has returned to normal, physicists from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have found evidence of a supernova that exploded near the Earth around 2.5 million years ago.

The life of stars with a mass more than ten times that of our sun ends in a supernova, a colossal stellar explosion. This explosion leads to the formation of iron, manganese and other heavy elements.

In layers of a manganese crust that are around two and a half million years old a research team led by physicists from the Technical University of Munich has now confirmed the existence of both iron-60 and manganese-53.

"The increased concentrations of manganese-53 can be taken as the "smoking gun"—the ultimate proof that this supernova really did take place," says first author Dr. Gunther Korschinek.

While a very close supernova could inflict massive harm to life on Earth, this one was far enough away. It only caused a boost in cosmic rays over several thousand years. "However, this can lead to increased cloud formation," says co-author Dr. Thomas Faestermann. "Perhaps there is a link to the Pleistocene epoch, the period of the Ice Ages, which began 2.6 million years ago."

Ultra-trace analysis

Typically, manganese occurs on earth as manganese-55. Manganese-53, on the other hand, usually stems from cosmic dust, like that found in the asteroid belt of our solar system. This dust rains down onto the earth continuously; but only rarely do we perceive larger specks of dust that glow as meteorites.

New sediment layers that accumulate year for year on the sea floor preserve the distribution of the elements in manganese crusts and sediment samples. Using accelerator mass spectrometry, the team of scientists has now detected both iron-60 and increased levels of manganese-53 in layers that were deposited about two and a half million years ago.

"This is investigative ultra-trace analysis," says Korschinek. "We are talking about merely a few atoms here. But accelerator mass spectrometry is so sensitive that it even allows us to calculate from our measurements that the star that exploded must have had around 11 to 25 times the size of the sun."

The researchers were also able to determine the half-life of manganese-53 from comparisons to other nuclides and the age of the samples. The result: 3.7 million years. To date, there has only been a single measurement to this end worldwide.

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SPACE - S0 - 20201001 - Polar Ice, Nova Isotopes, Storm Watch

Good Morning, 0bservers!

We saw a peak of 640 KPS for the solar winds yesterday, and the chart showed a lot of variability in the readings (by about 100 KPS, back and forth, throughout most of the day). The later evening brought some calm, and we saw a stabilization of the chart and a steady drop in speed to the 500-520 KPS range. Saw a drop in both particle density and plasma temperature about 0200 EDT, but expect all the readings to jump again when the coronal hole/bright spot stream to charge in today and/or tomorrow. The Phi Angle was pretty wonky most of yesterday, which could explain the squiggly (yes, that is a scientific term) readings. Those two KP-4 readings in the early hours of yesterday were (I thought) the vanguard of a new solar storm, but it calmed back down into the green range for the remainder of the day. Electron Flux is way up there, only dipping briefly below the threshold once before shooting back up. The X-Ray Flux eased up a bit higher in the Class A flare range, but there were no spikes or surges. Also, no new coronal hole development or bright spots on the surface, and the glow at the lim suggests that we don't have any major sunspots lurking on the "dark side" of the Sun. And after a very quiet day on the lithosphere, it looks like the crust woke up and decided to rock 'n' roll a few times. There was a Mag 5.3 about 60 miles Northwest of Port-Vila Vanuatu, another Mag 5.3 some 45 miles ENE of Bacolod Philippines, a Mag 5.1 just a couple miles out of Westmorland California, a bodacious Mag 6.7 about 40 or so miles Southeast of Neaifu Tonga, and a late-breaking Mag 5.2 Southwest of Atka Alaska. Should mention here that there was a cluster of over FORTY small temblors in California to go along with that Mag 5.1 near Westmorland. Better keep an eye on this one...

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Defense News: Danish Army chooses Colt Canada C20 as new sniper rifle

Danish Army chooses Colt Canada C20 as new sniper rifle

Light infantry and special patrol units will reportedly start receiving the weapon early next year

By Eyal Boguslavsky, Israel Defense, 29/09/2020

https://www.israeldefense.co.il/en/node/45536

https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2019/09/26/first-look-colt-canadas-c20-sniper-rifle/

The C20 rifle in use. Photo: Colt Canada

The Royal Danish Army has selected the Colt Canada C20 Designated Marksman Rifle as its new sniper rifle. The weapon that fires 7.62 × 51 mm NATO rounds is intended to replace the Heckler & Koch HK417S currently in service. It has been designated the "FINSKGV, K" in Danish.

New Colt Canada C20 7.62mm caliber sniper rifle for Canadian Army, May 13, 2020

The procurement organization of the Danish Ministry of Defense published last week on Facebook that the FINSKGV,K is expected to be issued from the first quarter of 2021 to light infantry snipers and the special patrol unit of the Danish Home Guard. The rifle comes with a carrying system, magazine bags and other comprehensive accessory packages, which are tailored to the needs of the individual units.

Colt Canada’s C20, 7.62 NATO, Semi-Automatic Sniper Weapon was developed to support the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) requirement for an Intermediate Sniper Weapon. In third party tests, the weapon provided better precision and reliability than other products available on the market and is now in the process of being adopted into the CAF small arms fleet. The C20 has been tested and proven to all relevant NATO D/14 standards for safety, functionality in extreme conditions, and endurance, having fired 8,000 rounds with no stoppages. In terms of precision, the C20 achieved an average of .66 MOA over 144 five round groups, collected throughout endurance testing. All groups were shot first round cold with suppressor, using 175gr Federal Gold Medal Match ammunition.