Astronauts Andrew Morgan of NASA and Luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency are outside of the International Space Station ( ISS ) as we verbalize . The duo are take a infinite walk to specify a fundamental dark affair experimentation . you could see ( and rewatch ) the advance here .
Spacewalks come about regularly ( there was ahistoric onejust last month ) , but Friday ’s is the most complex servicing mission since the Hubble repair mission , according to the NASA . The last Hubble repair occupy place a X ago . The astronauts are exercise to posit an exciting experiment on the search fordark subject , the stuff that do up most of the universe ’s mass but has only been observed indirectly . After a decennary of exploitation , the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer ( AMS ) was brought to the ISS on the second - to - last blank shuttle flying in 2011 .
The Am is acontroversialparticle sensor onboard the ISS that measures the eminent - energy particles beaming through space call cosmic rays . Most famously , it ’s one of several experiment that have spotted an excess in the antimatter cooperator to the electron , call in the positron . To this twenty-four hour period , it ’s not altogether clear where these surplus positron in cosmic rays come from — perhaps they originated in a nearby neutron star , or maybe they ’re the sign of something more exotic , likedark thing . Research using AMS information will also hopefully swan a strangedrop - offin high - energy antimatter observe by China ’s DAMPE satellite .
A computer-generated image of AMS on the ISSImage: NASA/JSC
https://gizmodo.com/what-is-dark-matter-and-why-hasnt-anyone-found-it-yet-1825608249
americium is also on the hunt forantimatter , most significantly antimatter counterparts to the helium nucleus . Cosmic ray ca n’t produce these nuclei , which means they would have been turn out somewhere else in the existence , perhaps in a mostly - antimatter Galax urceolata . Many are questioning that these areas in the existence exist , Science reports .
For all the work Artium Magister has done , it ’s also in rough contour . Three of its four coolant heart have betray . Friday ’s space walk of life is part of a serial ( there might be four or five of them ) to replace the pumps and fill again the coolant . If those haunt fail , at least the experimentation will have expand scientists ’ noesis of cosmic rays and how they work out .
AstronomyDark matterPhysicsScience
Daily Newsletter
Get the ripe tech , science , and culture newsworthiness in your inbox daily .
news program from the future , delivered to your present .
You May Also Like
