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Scientific bulletin titles: – DART spacecraft prepares to collide with asteroid Dimorphos to divert its course – The giant pink diamond Fortune Pink will soon be auctioned in Geneva – New technology to artificially summon precipitation in dry weather
A NASA spacecraft is trying to collide with an asteroid to divert its course, an feat that humanity has never seen before.
In a major test of humanity’s ability to prevent cosmic bodies from destroying life on Earth and preventing mass extinction as happened in the age of the dinosaurs, the “Double Asteroid Redirection Test” spacecraft, which is called DART for short, is approaching its target and it will strike at a speed of 23,000 km the asteroid Dimorphos orbiting around An asteroid larger than it is Didymos. Both of these asteroids orbit without any threat around the sun at a distance of 11 million kilometers from Earth.
The DART spacecraft, which is smaller than the size of a car and has a diameter of about 160 meters, hopes that NASA will be able in the coming hours to push the Dimorphos asteroid to a smaller orbit in order to save ten minutes from the time it takes for this asteroid to orbit the Didymos asteroid.
This experience will bring to life what was previously woven into the science fiction plots of screenplays such as “Armageddon” and “Don’t Look Up.”
Minutes after the impact, the shoebox-sized LICIACube satellite that had just separated from the DART spacecraft, will pass near the site to capture images of ejected materials and crushed rocks created by the impact.
The LICIACube images will be sent back to Earth in the following weeks and months.
Also, a group of telescopes, on Earth and in space, including “James Webb”, will monitor this event, and may be able to see a luminous cloud of dust.
The European Hera probe, scheduled to be launched in 2024, will also monitor the asteroid Demorphos closely in 2026 to assess the consequences of the collision and calculate the mass of the asteroid for the first time.
If the Dart misses its target, the spacecraft will have enough fuel for another try within two years.
But if it succeeds, it will be a first step towards a world capable of defending itself from an existential threat in the future because 30,000 asteroids of all sizes have so far been observed near Earth and nearly 3,000 new species are found every year.
A rare pink diamond will be offered for sale at an auction in Geneva next November.
The Fortune Pink, the largest pear-shaped pink diamond weighing more than 18 carats, will be sold by Christie’s in Geneva this November. Christie’s estimated the purchase value of this unique diamond to be $35 million.
The perfect and perfect Fortune Pink diamond weighs 18.18 carats, a number that carries positive connotations that bring good luck to the new owner, according to Christie’s. A Fortune Pink diamond is set on a ring, flanked on both sides by a large white diamond.
Note that the pink pear-shaped diamond has a light pink color and is a brilliant stone that is very rare to find in this size and a similar stone has never been sold at auction. But two other larger pillow-shaped pink diamonds were sold, the Raj Pink and the Legacy Pink. The latter was discovered about a century ago in South Africa and was bought in 2018 by the American jewelry company Harry Winston, a subsidiary of the Swiss watch group Swatch, prompting it to be renamed immediately under the name “Winston Pink Legacy”.
It is noteworthy that the Harry Winston Company, which is currently headed by Nayla Hayek, the wife of the famous Lebanese watchmaker Nicolas Hayek, had spent to acquire the Winston Pink Legacy diamond amounting to 49.9 million dollars in 2018, which is a record price for a stunning pink stone of this color.
To bring clouds to the place of drought and forest fires, scientists from the United Arab Emirates and the North Caucasus Federal University have devised a new artificial technique for precipitation.
It is known that natural clouds are divided into two parts: local, which originate and gather in a specific place. With a frontal pull, it can “go” over long distances. Moisture in moving clouds turns into heavy rain when cold air enters hot. The problem in the UAE, which suffers from drought like its other neighbors, is that frontal clouds pass over the sea and rain falls into the sea before it reaches land.
Researchers from North Caucasus Federal University and their colleagues from the United Arab Emirates are trying to develop artifical clouds by chemically affecting frontal clouds, distributing atmospheric moisture in them and moving them to a distance of 50-100 km horizontally.
These researchers found a new mechanism to solve the issue of water reserves in frontal clouds, extending their life and increasing their saturation with moisture by using a flyer that leaves in the clouds chemicals such as titanium dioxide TiO2 or sodium chloride NaCI. This proposed method will help in improving the climate and economy of a number of arid regions.