UFO Buster Radio News – 387: Space Perspective, SpaceX SN7 Pops, Pluto Had Oceans, and Mars Choppa

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Boom! SpaceX pops huge Starship SN7 test tank on purpose in pressure test (videos)

Link: https://www.space.com/spacex-starship-sn7-test-tank-destroyed-videos.html

SpaceX pushed a massive tank for its latest Starship prototype beyond its limits Tuesday (June 23) in an intentionally explosive test in South Texas.

The Starship SN7 prototype tank ruptured during a pressure test at SpaceX's Boca Chica proving grounds, the second in just over a week for the spacecraft component. But where a June 15 test resulted in a leak, Tuesday's test was a bit more dramatic.

A close up from NASASpaceflight.com on Twitter , captured by Starship watcher Mary (also know as BocaChicaGal), shows the moment the tank ruptured. The tank pops and collapses, sinking into the nitrogen plumes.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has said the company will learn from each Starship test to improve future designs. Last week's test of the SN7 Starship tank, which leaked but did not explode, was a promising sign, Musk said on June 15. The company is shifting from 301 stainless steel to 304L, he has said.

"Tank didn't burst, but leaked at 7.6 bar. This is a good result & supports idea of 304L stainless [steel] being better than 301," Musk tweeted wrote on Twitter, adding that the tank would eventually be used in a destructive test. "We're developing our own alloy to take this even further. Leak before burst is highly desirable."

Surprise! Pluto may have had an underground ocean from the very beginning

Link: https://www.space.com/pluto-hot-formation-subsurface-ocean.html

Though Pluto is now famously frigid, it may have started off as a hot world that formed rapidly and violently, a new study finds.

This result suggests Pluto may have possessed an underground ocean since early on in its life, potentially improving its chances of hosting life, researchers said.

"When we look at Pluto today, we see a very cold frozen world, with a surface temperature of about 45 Kelvin [minus 380 degrees Fahrenheit, and minus 228 degrees Celsius]," study lead author Carver Bierson, a planetary scientist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, told Space.com. "I find it amazing that by looking at the geology recorded in that surface, we can infer Pluto had a rapid and violent formation that warmed the interior enough to form a subsurface water ocean."

The researchers analyzed so-called "extensional features" on Pluto's surface. Water expands as it freezes, so as Pluto's interior cooled, Pluto's surface stretched, generating recognizable structures.

The scientists compared geological observations of Pluto captured by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft, which flew by the dwarf planet in 2015, with various models of Pluto's origin and evolution.

Extensional features the researchers saw on Pluto's icy surface — for instance, cracks in its shell, and an enigmatic system of ridges and troughs — suggest Pluto had a hot start.

"I think the most exciting implication is that subsurface oceans may have been common among the large Kuiper Belt objects when they formed," Bierson said.

These findings suggest that Pluto and other large dwarf planets in the Kuiper Belt, such as Eris, Makemake and Haumea, may have possessed subsurface oceans ever since they formed. This may have influenced the potential habitability of these distant icy worlds, the researchers said.

"At this point, we don't know the ingredients or recipe needed for life to emerge on any world," Bierson said. Still, "we think liquid water is an important ingredient, and this work suggests Pluto has had that for a long time."

NASA has built a helicopter to explore Mars and it's finally ready to launch

Link: https://www.space.com/first-mars-helicopter-ready-to-launch.html

NASA is ready to take its first spin at flying a helicopter on another world as the agency's Mars helicopter, Ingenuity, prepares for launch in July.

The helicopter is part of NASA's Mars...