Dante Lauretta

"Dante Lauretta, a planetary scientist at the University of Arizona, has waited nearly 20 years to get his hands on pristine specimens from an asteroid, which he says is a key to unlocking answers to mysteries about the origin of life on Earth. On Tuesday, he got his first look at dust grains returned by NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission."

https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/09/scientists-get-first-glimpse-of-samples-returned-from-asteroid/

371 Days In Space

"After spending an American record-breaking 371 days in space, NASA astronaut Frank Rubio safely landed on Earth with his crewmates Wednesday."

https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/record-setting-nasa-astronaut-crewmates-return-from-space-mission

Cosmic History

Did you know?

"This early era of cosmic history remains out of reach for observers. So to investigate it, theorists perform sophisticated computer simulations, which help tease out what happened as pristine clouds of hydrogen and helium gas gravitationally collapsed. According to calculations these clouds fragmented into multiple clumps that formed stars with masses up to 500 Suns. These early beacons lived fast and died young shining with millions of times of energy of our Sun but lasting only a few million years. They died in studendous supernova explosions and their cores collapsed into black holes with 100 to 200 solar masses."

Astronomy Magazine March 2021 "How to Grow a Giant Black Hole" pp. 19-20

High Res CMB

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"High-resolution measurements of CMB show that the universe at this time was extremely--but not perfectly--uniform. Subtle irregularities in the density of matter eventually enabled gravity to do its thing. Starting around 200 million years after the Big Bang, regions with slightly greater concentrations of dark matter and gas started collapsing into the first stars and protogalaxies."

Astronomy Magazine March 2021 "How to Grow a Giant Black Hole" p. 19

Universe Existance

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"Critically, in the first few minutes of the universe's existance, the prevailing temperatures and pressures enabled subatomic particles to coelece into hydrogen and helium nuclei, with only the barest tracest of heavier elements. When the universe cooled further, 380,000 years later, electrons continued with the hydrogen and helium nuclei, forming neutral atoms and releasing the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB)."

Astronomy Magazine March 2021 "How to Grow a Giant Black Hole" p. 19

Cold Dark Matter

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"Lamda-Cold Dark Matter (ACDM for short) the universe originated 13.8 billion years ago in the Big Bang. The early universe was initially a nearly featureless cauldron of subatomic particles and dark matter (which outweighs familiar atomic matter by nearly 6 to 1), with material almost evenly distributed and thus unable to clump together into intesting structures."

Astronomy Magazine March 2021 "How to Grow a Giant Black Hole" p. 19

High Red Shift Quasars

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"The relative dearth of high-redshift quasars means the conditions that form them are uncommon--i.e., a highly unusual set of conditions can do the trick, creating "seeds" that grow quickly into quasars. As University of Texas at Austin astrophysist Volkar Bromm says, "We only need very few seeds to explain the observed billion-solor-mass quasars at high redshift."

Astronomy Magazine March  2021 "How to Grow a Giant Black Hole" p. 19