ANU Astrophysicist and Cosmologist Dr Brad Tucker says the shock wave from the underwater Tonga volcano that erupted earlier this year is expected to have released “60 megatons of energy”.
So much energy was projected from the eruption it resulted in water particles being shot into space.
“Satellite data has shown that when that volcano erupted, so much energy came out of it that the water above … actually shot water into space,” Dr Tucker told Sky News Australia.
ANU Astrophysicist and Cosmologist Dr Brad Tucker says NASA’s new spacesuits are running “overtime and over budget” and will not be ready for the 2024 moon mission.
“NASA has been trying to design new spacesuits for its moon mission … and the reason it actually looks quite funny is it’s supposed to be more manoeuvrable,” he told Sky News Australia.
“The previous spacesuits were so bulky astronauts actually had a high rate of tearing their shoulders in them, so astronauts actually had a high rate of shoulder reconstruction surgeries because it was so hard to move.”
Dr Tucker said NASA’s aim was to make the suits fit better to the astronauts and to be more suited to the moon, but the project was taking more time and resources to complete than anticipated.
“The NASA inspector general said it’s now going to be as early as mid-2025 until these spacesuits are ready and they were hoping to land humans in 2024, so it’s going to push back that timeline a bit.
ANU Astrophysicist and Cosmologist Dr Brad Tucker says the “second major collision from two objects in space” has been confirmed after pieces of a Chinese satellite which lost communication were found.
Dr Tucker said the first collision in space was in 2009 when an American and a Russian satellite crashed into one another and “produced 10,000 pieces of debris” and the second was this year as was confirmed by the United States Space Force.
“In March this year a Chinese satellite lost communication and there was a bit of a debate about what exactly happened,” he told Sky News Australia.
“After some mapping of some objects in that near orbit, they have now picked up multiple pieces, at least six of larger sized pieces of debris from that incident in March from essentially an old rocket booster from the Russians back in 1996.”
Dr Tucker said although this has only happened twice satellite collisions are “always a worry” as the Earth will have yet more debris in
ANU Astrophysicist and Cosmologist Dr Brad Tucker says Russia and China working together to build a new ‘Moon Space Station’ to compete with NASA.
“When we look at the US and China in space there has been some competition”, he said.
“The International Space Station going around the earth - China is locked out of it because of the US policies of working with Chinese scientists and government organisations.”
Dr Tucker said this was why China was left out of NASA’s moon station project Gateway - a joint US and Australian venture.
China building their own moon station was never in doubt - but Russia’s decision to merge resources with China was the real interest.
“The International Space Station now is built essentially equally with the US and Russia,” Dr Tucker said.
Instead of furthering their collaboration with the US, Russia decided to work jointly with China to build their own moon station.
The ultimate question surrounding the merger, according to Dr Tuc