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Jan

2022

JWST LAUNCH: EuroMoonMars & Space Renaissance Virtual Event

The Webb Telescope gave humanity a great Christmas present on last 25th December, when it successfully completed its launch and the first steps of the mission. It was an epoch-making event that marked the beginning of a new era in the observation of our Universe. With all eyes on it, this cutting-edge technology — whose value is approximately $10 billion — was launched aboard a European Ariane 5 rocket from Kourou Spaceport in French Guiana and it is currently undergoing the Deployment Process. Among the eyes that watched the event with particular expectations and excitement, were also those of the EuroMoonMars community, an ILEWG initiative that brings together researchers, experts and students with a strong passion for Space.It was with this spirit and enthusiasm that EuroMoonMars decided to organise a virtual event in preparation for the launch. The initiative took place on 24th December at 1pm CET and it was organised in collaboration with Space Renaissance International, a global non-profit organisation dedicated to bringing humanity closer to interdisciplinary space-related topics. The event — which was broadcast live on Space Renaissance International official youtube channel — was a fruitful moment of explanation, debate and questioning on different aspects of the Webb Telescope. The initial idea behind the organisation of the virtual session was to meet in the presence of some guests and experts to follow the launch in real time. The launch had in fact been scheduled by the Space Agencies for 24th December. After the announcement of its postponement, the programme of the event was revisited. The guests’ contributions covered different topics and highlighted the complexity of this innovative instrument.

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Dec

2021

Webb, and Psyche

We just attended the launch of the James Webb Telescope, headed to the Earth-Sun Lagrange point 2 (L2), at 1.5 million kilometers from Earth. A very ambitious project, aimed to place a human eye in a location where it will be easier to investigate the origin and the meaningful life events of the universe, of our solar system and our mother planet.What raised some thoughts in my mind is one of the characteristics of this beautiful sample of human ingenuity and hunger for knowledge: the JWST mirror has been plated with gold, due to elements properties like a high reflection of infrared light and extreme un-reactivity. My aim is not to discuss this choice from the scientific point of view. It makes me rather think about the value of precious metals, that’s not only their beauty, nor the use we make of them to realize precious jewels.

While I was in space just with my mind, it was easy to go some more million kilometers further away, reaching to the 16 Psyche Asteroid. Psyche – an M-type asteroid, fragment of a proto-planet broken up during the birth of the solar system — dwells somewhere in the middle of the Asteroid Belt, between Mars and Jupiter. The distance from Earth ranges from 252 million to 645 million kilometers.

Why Psyche owns such a great reputation, among the space expansionist community, and the space miners subassembly, in a more specific way? Its diameter is estimated not less than 227 km. Due to the gravitational perturbations it causes among other asteroids in its surroundings, Psyche is kind of under special surveillance, since long time. Such perturbations are due to high mass and density, and such properties raised further analysis, by means of ultraviolet light observation. To make short a long research story, Psyche is likely mainly composed by iron and nichel, and its global value is estimated around $10 quintillion, a figure even hard to imagine.

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