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Wells Fargo: 3 Chip Stocks to Buy as We Head Into 2021

Semiconductors are one of the modern world’s essential industries, making possible so much of what we rely on or take for granted: internet access, high-speed computers with high-speed memory, even the thermostats that control our air conditioning – there isn’t much, tech-wise, that doesn’t use semiconductor chips.With the end of 2020 in sight, it’s time for the annual ritual of evaluating the equities for the New Year. Wells Fargo analyst Aaron Rakers has cast his eye on the chip industry, tagging several companies as likely gainers next year.The analyst sees several factors combining to boost demand for chips in 2021, including cloud demand, new gaming consoles, and a market resolution to the future of the PC segment. Overall, however, Rakers expects that memory chips and 5G enabled chips will emerge as the drivers of the industry next year. The analyst expects that semiconductor companies, as a group, will see between 10% and 12% growth over the next 12 months.That’s an industry-wide average, however. According to Raker, some chip companies will show significantly higher growth, on the order of 30% to 40% in year ahead. We can look at those companies, along with the latest TipRanks data, to find out what makes these particular chip makers so compelling.Micron Technology (MU)Among the leading chip makers, Micron has staked out a position in the memory segment. The company has seen its market cap expand to $78 billion this year, as shares have appreciated 32% year-to-date. The surge comes on a product line heaving on computer data storage, DRAM, and flash storage.Look back at 2020, Micron has seen revenues increase each quarter, from $4.8 billion in Q1 to $5.4 billion in Q2 to $6.1 billion in Q3. Earnings came in at 87 cents per share, up from 71 cents in Q2 and 36 cents in Q1.The calendar third quarter was Micron’s 4QFY20, and the full fiscal year showed a decline due attributed to the COVID pandemic. Revenue came in at $21.44 billion, down 8.4% year-over-year, and operating cash flow fell to $8.31 billion from $13.19 billion in FY19. During this past quarter, Micron’s 1QFY21, the company announced the release of the world’s first 176-layer 3D NAND chip. The new chip promises higher density and faster performance in flash memory, and the architecture is described as a ‘radical breakthrough.’ The layer count is 40% higher than competing chips.Looking ahead, Micron has updated its F1Q21 guidance, predicting total revenue of $5.7 billion to $5.75 billion. This is a 10% increase from the previous guidance.Wells Fargo's Aaron Rakers calls Micron his top semiconductor idea for 2021. He points out “a deepening positive view on the memory, and in particular the DRAM industry. DRAM accounts for approximately two-thirds of Micron’s revenue and over 80% of the company’s bottom-line profits.” In addition, Rakers notes “Micron’s technology execution – 1Znm DRAM leadership; recently outlined 1αnm ramp into 2021, as well as Micron’s move to 176-Layer 2nd -gen Replacement Gate 3D NAND to drive improved cost curve. We would also highlight Micron’s execution on graphics memory (e.g., GDDR6X), Multi-Chip Packages (MCPs), and High-Bandwidth Memory (e.g., HBME2) as positives.”In line with these comments, Rakers rates Micron shares a Buy, along with a $100 price target. This figure suggests room for 41% growth in 2021. (To watch Rakers’ track record, click here)Micron has 24 recent reviews on record, breaking down to 19 Buys, 4 Holds, and 1 Sell, and giving the stock a Strong Buy from the analyst consensus. Shares are priced at $70.96, and recent appreciation has pushed them almost to the $74.30 average price target. But as Rakers’ outlook suggests, there may be more than just 4.5% upside available here. (See MU stock analysis on TipRanks)Advanced Micro Devices (AMD)With $6.5 billion in total sales last year, and a market cap of $110.7 billion, AMD is a giant company – but it doesn’t even crack the top five of the world’s largest chip makers. Still, AMD has a solid position in the industry, and its x86 processors provide stiff competition for market-leading Intel (INTC). AMD shares have shown solid growth this year, and are up 101% as 2020 comes to a close.The share growth rides on the back of steady revenue gains since the corona crisis peaked in Q1. AMD’s Q3 top line came in at $2.8 billion, up 55% from the $1.8 billion recorded in the year-ago quarter and beating the forecast by 10%. Earnings, at 37 cents per share, were up 220% year-over-year. The company credited the growth to solid results in the PC, gaming, and data center product lines, and boasted that it was the fourth consecutive quarter with >25% yoy revenue growth.AMD announced last month a new product for the scientific research market, the Instinct MI100 accelerator. The new chip is billed as the world’s fasted HPC GPU, and the first such x86 server to exceed 10 teraflops performance.Covering AMD for Wells Fargo, Rakers wrote: “We remain positive on AMD’s competitive positioning for continued sustained gradual share gains in PCs… We also believe AMD’s deepening data center GPU strategy with new Instinct MI100 GPUs and the release of RoCM 4.0 software platform could become increasingly visible as we move through 2021. AMD’s roadmap execution would remain an important focus – 7nm+ Ryzen 4000-series, new RDNA Radeon Instinct data center GPUs (MI100 / MI120), and the 3 rd -gen 7nm+ EPYC Milan CPUs…”Rakers’ stance supports his Buy rating, and his $120 price target implies a 30% one-year upside to the stock.The Moderate Buy analyst consensus view on AMD reflects some residual Wall Street caution. The stock’s 20 recent reviews include 13 Buys, 6 Holds, and 1 Sell. AMD shares are selling for $91.64, and like Micron, their recent appreciation has closed the gap with the $94.71 average price target. (See AMD stock analysis on TipRanks)Western Digital Corporation (WDC)Closing out the Wells Fargo picks on this list is Western Digital, a designer and manufacturer of memory systems. The company’s products include hard disk drives, solid state drives, data center platforms, embedded flash drives, and portable storage including memory cards and USB thumb drives. WDC has had a tough year in 2020, with shares down 19% year-to-date. Still, the stock has seen gains in November and December, on the heels of what was seen as a strong fiscal 1Q21 report.That earnings report showed $3.9 billion in revenue, which was down 3% year-over-year, but the EPS net loss, at 19 cents, was a tremendous yoy improvement from the 93-cent net loss in the year-ago quarter. The earnings improvement, which beat the forecast by 20%, was key for investors, and the stock is up 30% since the quarterly report. The company also generated a solid cash flow in the quarter, with cash from operations growing 111% sequentially.Wells Fargo’s Rakers acknowledges WDC’s difficulties in 2020, but even so, he believes that this is a stock which is worth the risk.“Western Digital has been our toughest constructive call of 2020 and while we believe calling a bottom in NAND Flash (mid/2H2021?) remains difficult and WD’s execution in enterprise SSDs will remain choppy, our SOTP analysis leaves us to continue to believe that shares present a compelling risk / reward. We continue to believe that Western Digital can drive to a ~$7/sh.+ mid-cycle EPS story; however, we continue to think a key driver of this fundamental upside will not only be a recovery in the NAND Flash business, coupled with WD’s ability to see improved execution in enterprise SSDs, but also a continued view that WD’s HDD gross margin can return to a sustainable 30%+ level,” Rakers opined.To this end, Rakers rates WDC a Buy along with a $65 price target. Should the target be met, investors could pocket gains of 29% over the next months Where does the rest of the Street side on this computer-storage maker? It appears mostly bullish, as TipRanks analytics demonstrate WDC as a Buy. Out of 11 analysts tracked in the last 3 months, 7 are bullish, while 4 remain sidelined. With a return potential of 9%, the stock’s consensus target price stands at $54.44. (See WDC stock analysis on TipRanks)To find good ideas for tech stocks trading at attractive valuations, visit TipRanks’ Best Stocks to Buy, a newly launched tool that unites all of TipRanks’ equity insights.Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the featured analysts. The content is intended to be used for informational purposes only. It is very important to do your own analysis before making any investment.

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Space images: The best of 2020 - BBC News

There was stunning cosmic imagery to feast on in 2020, from Hubble's 30th birthday image to footage of a daring sample grab on an asteroid. Here's our pick of the year's offerings.

Hubble's 'cosmic reef'

NASA/ESA

The Hubble telescope, one of the most important scientific tools ever built, celebrated its 30th anniversary in April.

To mark the occasion, an amazing image was released

showing a star-forming region close to our Milky Way galaxy.

In this magnificent Hubble portrait, the giant red nebula (NGC 2014) and its smaller blue neighbour (NGC 2020) reside in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way located 163,000 light years away.

Nebulas are vast interstellar clouds of dust and gas where star formation can take place.

At the heart of NGC 2014 is a clutch of bright stars, which are each 10 to 20 times more massive than our Sun.

The image was nicknamed the "cosmic reef", because astronomers thought the nebulas resembled an undersea world.

A BBC Horizon documentary, broadcast to coincide with the anniversary, showcased stunning 3D visualisations of iconic Hubble images - such as the Pillars of Creation, part of the Eagle Nebula.

See also: Hubble telescope's Universe revealed in 3D

Asteroid grab

This year, Nasa's Osiris-Rex performed a daring "touch-and-go" manoeuvre with the asteroid Bennu, in order to collect samples of rock and soil for delivery to Earth.

Asteroids like Bennu are primitive relics from the dawn of the Solar System. They are the free-roaming building blocks of planets, and offer a window into how worlds like the Earth came into being.

In order to collect samples, Osiris-Rex used a long boom with a ring-shaped collection chamber on the end. The spacecraft descended towards Bennu's surface, delivering a squirt of nitrogen when the boom made contact with the asteroid.

This was so that the gas would stir up Bennu's surface, allowing fragments of the asteroid to float into the collection chamber.

The strategy seems to have worked, as seen in the sequence of images above.

Meanwhile, on 5 December, a Japanese mission to collect samples from a different asteroid returned to Earth with its precious cache. The Hayabusa-2 spacecraft released its sample return capsule, which parachuted down safely in the Australian desert.

The samples will be analysed at a curation facility in Sagamihara City, Japan.

Close-up with the Sun

January saw the release of pictures taken by the Daniel K Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST) on Hawaii that showed the Sun's surface in unprecedented detail.

The images show cell-like structures that are roughly the size of the US state of Texas. They are masses of hot, excited gas, or plasma.

The bright areas denote where this material is rising; the dark lanes in-between are where cooler plasma is sinking.

DKIST is a brand new facility on Haleakalā, a 3,000m-high volcano on the Hawaiian island of Maui.

Scientists want to use it to uncover fresh insights into the dynamic behaviour of our parent star, in the hope that they can better forecast its energetic outbursts.

These colossal eruptions of charged particles can damage Earth-orbiting satellites, harm astronauts, and even to knock out electrical grids.

Jupiter fly-past

Launched in 2011, Nasa's Juno spacecraft continues to send back stunning images from the Solar System's biggest planet - Jupiter.

The probe captured imagery of the gas giant's swirling cloud decks as it performed its 27th close flyby of the world on 2 June.

Citizen scientist Kevin M Gill then transformed the data into a video, which combines 41 still images taken during Juno's close pass.

The stills were digitally projected onto a sphere, with a virtual "camera" providing views of Jupiter from different angles.

Among other things, the footage provides amazing views of Jupiter's most noticeable feature, the giant red spot - which is actually a gigantic ongoing storm.

Starship test

SpaceX

Looking a little like a rocket ship from the golden age of science fiction, Elon Musk's Starship vehicle will - in due course, he hopes - transport humans to the Red Planet.

In December, SpaceX tested the first complete prototype of the vehicle, sending it on a 12.5km flight straight up from its pad at the company's Boca Chica facility in South Texas.

SpaceX

We're cheating a little with its inclusion here, since the images aren't from space, as such. But we might see it there one day, in the not-too-distant future.

The test flight showcased some of the spacecraft's unique features, including its methane-burning Raptor engines and a flight trajectory which includes a belly-facing descent to Earth followed by a flip back to the vertical just before landing.

Reuters

It was at this stage of the test that the Starship prototype, named SN8, approached the pad a little too fast and hard, causing what Musk describes as a RUD - rapid unscheduled disassembly. A crash, in other words.

But the flight will have given SpaceX vast amounts of engineering data to chew on, helping them improve the vehicle. And the next prototype - SN9 - is waiting for its turn on the launch pad.

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All Dark Matter in the Universe Could Be Primordial Black Holes – Formed From the Collapse of Baby Universes Soon After the Big Bang - SciTechDaily

Baby universes branching off of our universe shortly after the Big Bang appear to us as black holes. Credit: Kavli IPMU

The Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU) is home to many interdisciplinary projects which benefit from the synergy of a wide range of expertise available at the institute. One such project is the study of black holes that could have formed in the early universe, before stars and galaxies were born.  

Such primordial black holes (PBHs) could account for all or part of dark matter, be responsible for some of the observed gravitational waves signals, and seed supermassive black holes found in the center of our Galaxy and other galaxies. They could also play a role in the synthesis of heavy elements when they collide with neutron stars and destroy them, releasing neutron-rich material.

In particular, there is an exciting possibility that the mysterious dark matter, which accounts for most of the matter in the universe, is composed of primordial black holes. The 2020 Nobel Prize in physics was awarded to a theorist, Roger Penrose, and two astronomers, Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez, for their discoveries that confirmed the existence of black holes. Since black holes are known to exist in nature, they make a very appealing candidate for dark matter. 

The recent progress in fundamental theory, astrophysics, and astronomical observations in search of PBHs has been made by an international team of particle physicists, cosmologists and astronomers, including Kavli IPMU members Alexander Kusenko, Misao Sasaki, Sunao Sugiyama, Masahiro Takada and Volodymyr Takhistov.

To learn more about primordial black holes, the research team looked at the early universe for clues. The early universe was so dense that any positive density fluctuation of more than 50 percent would create a black hole. However, cosmological perturbations that seeded galaxies are known to be much smaller. Nevertheless, a number of processes in the early universe could have created the right conditions for the black holes to form.

Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) is a gigantic digital camera on the Subaru Telescope. Credit: HSC project / NAOJ

One exciting possibility is that primordial black holes could form from the “baby universes” created during inflation, a period of rapid expansion that is believed to be responsible for seeding the structures we observe today, such as galaxies and clusters of galaxies. During inflation, baby universes can branch off of our universe. A small baby (or “daughter”) universe would eventually collapse, but the large amount of energy released in the small volume causes a black hole to form.  

An even more peculiar fate awaits a bigger baby universe. If it is bigger than some critical size, Einstein’s theory of gravity allows the baby universe to exist in a state that appears different to an observer on the inside and the outside. An internal observer sees it as an expanding universe, while an outside observer (such as us) sees it as a black hole. In either case, the big and the small baby universes are seen by us as primordial black holes, which conceal the underlying structure of multiple universes behind their “event horizons.” The event horizon is a boundary below which everything, even light, is trapped and cannot escape the black hole.

A star in the Andromeda galaxy temporarily becomes brighter if a primordial black hole passes in front of the star, focusing its light in accordance with the theory of gravity. Credit: Kavli IPMU/HSC Collaboration

In their paper, the team described a novel scenario for PBH formation and showed that the black holes from the “multiverse” scenario can be found using the Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) of the 8.2m Subaru Telescope, a gigantic digital camera — the management of which Kavli IPMU has played a crucial role — near the 4,200 meter summit of Mt. Mauna Kea in Hawaii. Their work is an exciting extension of the HSC search of PBH that Masahiro Takada, a Principal Investigator at the Kavli IPMU, and his team are pursuing. The HSC team has recently reported leading constraints on the existence of PBHs in Niikura, Takada et. al. Nature Astronomy 3, 524–534 (2019)

Why was the HSC indispensable in this research? The HSC has a unique capability to image the entire Andromeda galaxy every few minutes. If a black hole passes through the line of sight to one of the stars, the black hole’s gravity bends the light rays and makes the star appear brighter than before for a short period of time. The duration of the star’s brightening tells the astronomers the mass of the black hole. With HSC observations, one can simultaneously observe one hundred million stars, casting a wide net for primordial black holes that may be crossing one of the lines of sight.  

The first HSC observations have already reported a very intriguing candidate event consistent with a PBH from the “multiverse,” with a black hole mass comparable to the mass of the Moon. Encouraged by this first sign, and guided by the new theoretical understanding, the team is conducting a new round of observations to extend the search and to provide a definitive test of whether PBHs from the multiverse scenario can account for all dark matter.  

Reference: “Exploring Primordial Black Holes from the Multiverse with Optical Telescopes” by Alexander Kusenko, Misao Sasaki, Sunao Sugiyama, Masahiro Takada, Volodymyr Takhistov and Edoardo Vitagliano, 30 October 2020, Physical Review Letters.
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.125.181304

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Space images: The best of 2020 - Yahoo News

There was stunning cosmic imagery to feast on in 2020, from Hubble's 30th birthday image to footage of a daring sample grab on an asteroid. Here's our pick of the year's offerings.

Hubble's 'cosmic reef'

The portrait features the giant nebula NGC 2014 and its neighbour NGC 2020

The Hubble telescope, one of the most important scientific tools ever built, celebrated its 30th anniversary in April.

To mark the occasion, an amazing image was released showing a star-forming region close to our Milky Way galaxy.

In this magnificent Hubble portrait, the giant red nebula (NGC 2014) and its smaller blue neighbour (NGC 2020) reside in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way located 163,000 light years away.

Nebulas are vast interstellar clouds of dust and gas where star formation can take place.

At the heart of NGC 2014 is a clutch of bright stars, which are each 10 to 20 times more massive than our Sun.

The image was nicknamed the "cosmic reef", because astronomers thought the nebulas resembled an undersea world.

A BBC Horizon documentary, broadcast to coincide with the anniversary, showcased stunning 3D visualisations of iconic Hubble images - such as the Pillars of Creation, part of the Eagle Nebula.

See also: Hubble telescope's Universe revealed in 3D

Asteroid grab

This year, Nasa's Osiris-Rex performed a daring "touch-and-go" manoeuvre with the asteroid Bennu, in order to collect samples of rock and soil for delivery to Earth.

Asteroids like Bennu are primitive relics from the dawn of the Solar System. They are the free-roaming building blocks of planets, and offer a window into how worlds like the Earth came into being.

In order to collect samples, Osiris-Rex used a long boom with a ring-shaped collection chamber on the end. The spacecraft descended towards Bennu's surface, delivering a squirt of nitrogen when the boom made contact with the asteroid.

This was so that the gas would stir up Bennu's surface, allowing fragments of the asteroid to float into the collection chamber.

The strategy seems to have worked, as seen in the sequence of images above.

Meanwhile, on 5 December, a Japanese mission to collect samples from a different asteroid returned to Earth with its precious cache. The Hayabusa-2 spacecraft released its sample return capsule, which parachuted down safely in the Australian desert.

The samples will be analysed at a curation facility in Sagamihara City, Japan.

Close-up with the Sun

January saw the release of pictures taken by the Daniel K Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST) on Hawaii that showed the Sun's surface in unprecedented detail.

The images show cell-like structures that are roughly the size of the US state of Texas. They are masses of hot, excited gas, or plasma.

The bright areas denote where this material is rising; the dark lanes in-between are where cooler plasma is sinking.

DKIST is a brand new facility on Haleakalā, a 3,000m-high volcano on the Hawaiian island of Maui.

Scientists want to use it to uncover fresh insights into the dynamic behaviour of our parent star, in the hope that they can better forecast its energetic outbursts.

These colossal eruptions of charged particles can damage Earth-orbiting satellites, harm astronauts, and even to knock out electrical grids.

Jupiter fly-past

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xh3EKDghbuU

Launched in 2011, Nasa's Juno spacecraft continues to send back stunning images from the Solar System's biggest planet - Jupiter.

The probe captured imagery of the gas giant's swirling cloud decks as it performed its 27th close flyby of the world on 2 June.

Citizen scientist Kevin M Gill then transformed the data into a video, which combines 41 still images taken during Juno's close pass.

The stills were digitally projected onto a sphere, with a virtual "camera" providing views of Jupiter from different angles.

Among other things, the footage provides amazing views of Jupiter's most noticeable feature, the giant red spot - which is actually a gigantic ongoing storm.

Starship test

Looking a little like a rocket ship from the golden age of science fiction, Elon Musk's Starship vehicle will - in due course, he hopes - transport humans to the Red Planet.

In December, SpaceX tested the first complete prototype of the vehicle, sending it on a 12.5km flight straight up from its pad at the company's Boca Chica facility in South Texas.

The Starship Raptor engines are unusual in burning methane as their fuel

We're cheating a little with its inclusion here, since the images aren't from space, as such. But we might see it there one day, in the not-too-distant future.

The test flight showcased some of the spacecraft's unique features, including its methane-burning Raptor engines and a flight trajectory which includes a belly-facing descent to Earth followed by a flip back to the vertical just before landing.

RUD. But the test flight will provide SpaceX with invaluable data

It was at this stage of the test that the Starship prototype, named SN8, approached the pad a little too fast and hard, causing what Musk describes as a RUD - rapid unscheduled disassembly. A crash, in other words.

But the flight will have given SpaceX vast amounts of engineering data to chew on, helping them improve the vehicle. And the next prototype - SN9 - is waiting for its turn on the launch pad.

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Primordial black holes and the search for dark matter from the multiverse - Phys.org

Fig1. Baby universes branching off of our universe shortly after the Big Bang appear to us as black holes. (Credit：Kavli IPMU)

The Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU) is home to many interdisciplinary projects which benefit from the synergy of a wide range of expertise available at the institute. One such project is the study of black holes that could have formed in the early universe, before stars and galaxies were born.

Such primordial black holes (PBHs) could account for all or part of dark matter, be responsible for some of the observed gravitational waves signals, and seed supermassive black holes found in the center of our Galaxy and other galaxies. They could also play a role in the synthesis of heavy elements when they collide with neutron stars and destroy them, releasing neutron-rich material. In particular, there is an exciting possibility that the mysterious dark matter, which accounts for most of the matter in the universe, is composed of primordial black holes. The 2020 Nobel Prize in physics was awarded to a theorist, Roger Penrose, and two astronomers, Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez, for their discoveries that confirmed the existence of black holes. Since black holes are known to exist in nature, they make a very appealing candidate for dark matter.

The recent progress in fundamental theory, astrophysics, and astronomical observations in search of PBHs has been made by an international team of particle physicists, cosmologists and astronomers, including Kavli IPMU members Alexander Kusenko, Misao Sasaki, Sunao Sugiyama, Masahiro Takada and Volodymyr Takhistov.

Fig2. Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) is a gigantic digital camera on the Subaru Telescope (Credit：HSC project / NAOJ)

To learn more about primordial black holes, the research team looked at the early universe for clues. The early universe was so dense that any positive density fluctuation of more than 50 percent would create a black hole. However, cosmological perturbations that seeded galaxies are known to be much smaller. Nevertheless, a number of processes in the early universe could have created the right conditions for the black holes to form.

One exciting possibility is that primordial black holes could form from the "baby universes" created during inflation, a period of rapid expansion that is believed to be responsible for seeding the structures we observe today, such as galaxies and clusters of galaxies. During inflation, baby universes can branch off of our universe. A small baby (or "daughter") universe would eventually collapse, but the large amount of energy released in the small volume causes a black hole to form.

An even more peculiar fate awaits a bigger baby universe. If it is bigger than some critical size, Einstein's theory of gravity allows the baby universe to exist in a state that appears different to an observer on the inside and the outside. An internal observer sees it as an expanding universe, while an outside observer (such as us) sees it as a black hole. In either case, the big and the small baby universes are seen by us as primordial black holes, which conceal the underlying structure of multiple universes behind their "event horizons." The event horizon is a boundary below which everything, even light, is trapped and cannot escape the black hole.

• 

  Fig3. The Subaru Telescope in Hawaii. (Credit：NAOJ)

• 

  Fig4. A star in the Andromeda galaxy temporarily becomes brighter if a primordial black hole passes in front of the star, focusing its light in accordance with the theory of gravity. (Credit: Kavli IPMU/HSC Collaboration)

In their paper, the team described a novel scenario for PBH formation and showed that the black holes from the "multiverse" scenario can be found using the Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) of the 8.2m Subaru Telescope, a gigantic digital camera—the management of which Kavli IPMU has played a crucial role—near the 4,200 meter summit of Mt. Mauna Kea in Hawaii. Their work is an exciting extension of the HSC search of PBH that Masahiro Takada, a Principal Investigator at the Kavli IPMU, and his team are pursuing. The HSC team has recently reported leading constraints on the existence of PBHs in Niikura, Takada et. al. (Nature Astronomy 3, 524-534 (2019))

Why was the HSC indispensable in this research? The HSC has a unique capability to image the entire Andromeda galaxy every few minutes. If a black hole passes through the line of sight to one of the stars, the black hole's gravity bends the light rays and makes the star appear brighter than before for a short period of time. The duration of the star's brightening tells the astronomers the mass of the black hole. With HSC observations, one can simultaneously observe one hundred million stars, casting a wide net for primordial black holes that may be crossing one of the lines of sight.

The first HSC observations have already reported a very intriguing candidate event consistent with a PBH from the "multiverse," with a black hole mass comparable to the mass of the Moon. Encouraged by this first sign, and guided by the new theoretical understanding, the team is conducting a new round of observations to extend the search and to provide a definitive test of whether PBHs from the multiverse scenario can account for all dark matter.

---

Explore further

On the hunt for primordial black holes

---

More information: Alexander Kusenko et al, Exploring Primordial Black Holes from the Multiverse with Optical Telescopes, Physical Review Letters (2020). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.125.181304

Provided by Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe

Citation: Primordial black holes and the search for dark matter from the multiverse (2020, December 28) retrieved 28 December 2020 from https://ift.tt/2M3KswP

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The Space News We’ll Be Watching in 2021 - Gizmodo

Artist’s concept of an SLS launch.

Image: NASA

Blast off to adventure in the amazing year 2021! No doubt, we’re expecting a ton of cool and exciting space-related happenings next year, with these stories being among the most highly anticipated.

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Three—count ‘em—three mission to Mars

Our ability to study Mars will take a gigantic leap forward in 2021 owing to the arrival of three distinct missions.

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Launched on July 30, 2020, NASA’s Mars rover Perseverance will arrive at the Red Planet on February 18. Should the landing go well, Perseverance will be the fifth rover to reach Mars, the others being Sojourner, Spirit, Opportunity, and Curiosity (other famous probes, like NASA’s InSight, are landers, not rovers). This six-wheeled, 2,260-pound vehicle is packed with instruments, including 23 different cameras, a device to monitor the Martian weather, an ultraviolet spectrometer to scan the surface at microscopic scales, and a ground-penetrating radar, among many other cool toys.

Artist’s impression of Perseverance and the Ingenuity helicopter.

Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech

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Excitingly, Perseverance will take samples of the Martian surface and deposit them in small canisters, which will be retrieved and brought back to Earth during a subsequent mission.

The rover will be landing at Jezero crater, the site of a former lake, where Perseverance will hunt for signs of ancient life. Perseverance is also equipped with a tiny helicopter named Ingenuity, which is poised to become the first aircraft to take flight on another planet, which, serious goosebumps.

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Artist’s impression of the Tianwen-1 mission, showing the Martian orbiter, rover, and lander. This art is obviously not realistic, as it shows Mars in the background, Earth at an impossibly close distance, and the orbiter seemingly above the surface. Look, we’re as confused as you are.

Image: CNSA

On April 23, China’s Tianwen-1 mission will arrive at Mars. This ambitious mission will see the deployment of 13 different scientific payloads, seven of which are on an orbiter and six on a rover. The orbiter will use its radar, spectrometer, magnetometer, and other instruments to study Mars from orbit. The 529-pound rover, with its cameras, ground-penetrating radar, magnetic field detector, surface compound detector, and other instruments, will study the Utopia Planitia region of the Martian surface. Tianwen-1 represents China’s first mission to the Red Planet.

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Artist’s conception of the UAE’s Hope Probe.

Image: UAE Space Agency

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is also conducting its first mission to Mars in the form of the Hope mission. The 3,000-pound satellite will arrive at Mars in February, where it will study the planet’s atmosphere and weather. The probe will enter into a unique equatorial orbit, where it will move in the same direction as the planet’s rotation. This will allow Hope’s instruments to focus on a single target for prolonged periods.

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Our Moon will be the place to be

The Moon is a very cool place again, especially given the big news from this year that it hosts more water than we thought and that this water is practically everywhere. Some upcoming missions in 2021 will continue to improve our understanding of Earth’s large natural satellite.

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Conceptual image of Astrobotic’s lander.

Image: Astrobotic

In July, the private Pittsburgh-based space firm Astrobotic Technology will launch its Peregrine Mission One for NASA. The four-legged probe will land on the northeastern face of the Moon’s visible side in a region called Lacus Mortis. Among the many items on board, Peregrine will deliver NASA instruments for testing navigation and landing technology. The lander will also deposit the DNA of legendary sci-fi writer Arthur C. Clarke, along with the DNA and cremated remains of other individuals.

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Private company Intuitive Machines will also launch a commercial lander, named Nova-C, to the Moon during the summer of 2021. The lander will “capture raw optical images of the lunar surface and convert them into Terrain Relative Navigation measurements to land within 200 meters [660 feet] of its intended landing site,” according to the Houston-based company.

Russia will be returning to the Moon in 2024, sending its Luna 25 lander to the Boguslavsky Crater near the lunar south pole. The probe will be equipped with eight science instruments, which it will use to explore the region and search for signs of water-ice. The last Russian mission to the Moon was in 1976, with the Soviet Union’s Luna 24 mission.

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India’s Chandrayaan-3 mission will involve a soft landing of a rover at the lunar south pole. Launch is scheduled for late 2021, but it could be pushed to 2022. Hopefully this mission will go better than Chandrayaan-2, in which the Vikram probe crashed on the lunar surface following a communications glitch.

Make rockets go now

Some very important launches are scheduled for 2021, perhaps none as important as the inaugural launch of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS).

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Artist’s conception of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) blasting off.

Image: NASA

This is the rocket that will supposedly deliver astronauts to the Moon in 2024 as part of NASA’s Artemis program, and eventually humans to Mars. The first version of this gigantic rocket will be capable of delivering more than 27 metric tons, or 59,500 pounds, to orbits farther than the Moon and reach speeds approaching 24,500 miles per hour (39,400 k/hr). The inaugural launch is scheduled for November 2021, when the rocket will deliver an uncrewed Orion capsule to orbit.

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With Joe Biden being sworn in as U.S. president in January 2021, we should learn more about his administration’s NASA policies and whether the space agency will still be expected to send a crew to the lunar surface in 2024.

Starship prototype during free fall, in a test completed on December 9, 2020.

Image: SpaceX

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2021 should be an exciting year for SpaceX, as the Elon Musk-led company looks to send its 165-foot-tall (50-meter) Starship into orbit. This next-generation rocket is meant to carry cargo and passengers to Earth orbit, the Moon, and Mars. The company will also continue to deliver its sizable batches of Starlink satellites, as SpaceX builds its broadband internet constellation.

Other notable launches in 2021 include Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket with a reusable first stage, United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket, a Mitsubishi Heavy Industries H3 rocket, and Arianespace’s Ariane 6 rocket.

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We’re also expecting an uncrewed launch of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft in January, with a possible crewed launch in the summer. The troubled program is behind schedule following a botched trial run and a subsequent report from NASA outlining no less than 80 recommendations for the private aerospace partner to put into practice. That said, the success of SpaceX’s CrewDragon spacecraft in 2020 means NASA already has a viable option for delivering astronauts to space.

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After numerous delays and much anticipation, NASA will launch (fingers firmly crossed) its James Webb Space Telescope on October 31, 2021. This next-gen infrared telescope will operate at the Earth-Sun L2 Lagrange point, which is just shy of 1 million miles from Earth. From this vantage point, JWST will gaze upon the early universe, study galaxies and supermassive black holes, and provide new insights into exoplanets, including atmospheric composition and possibly even habitability.

Schematic of the DART mission.

Image: NASA/Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab

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Other notable launches in 2021 include NASA’s Lucy spacecraft, which will depart for Jupiter’s trojan asteroids at some point in October or November, and NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test, which is scheduled to launch in late July. The DART spacecraft will visit the double asteroid Didymos and then deliberately smash into the object in order to test our ability to redirect a potentially dangerous asteroid.

Ongoing adventures in deep space

Remember NASA’s Juno spacecraft—the probe responsible for those incredible images of Jupiter? And how it detected shallow lightning and mushy hail on the gas giant?

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A detailed photo of Jupiter’s clouds as captured by NASA’s Juno spacecraft in 2017.

Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Gerald Eichstädt/ Seán Doran

Sadly, it’s almost the end of the line for Juno, as NASA plans to deorbit the spacecraft and have it disintegrate in Jupiter’s atmosphere on July 16 (they’re doing this to prevent contamination of the Jovian system). On a positive note, the mission lasted 41 months longer than NASA initially intended, so there’s that.

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The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is the only nation to successfully collect surface samples from an asteroid (Hayabusa2 returned with samples from asteroid Ryugu earlier this month), but NASA’s OSIRIS-Rex spacecraft, currently at Bennu, may have a storage chamber filled with debris collected from the surface of that asteroid. OSIRIS-REx will leave Bennu in March but won’t arrive at Earth until September 2023.

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe will perform three perihelia (closest orbital approach to the Sun) in 2021, as it inches increasingly closer to its eventual doom, which will probably happen in 2025. The spacecraft will also zip past Venus in October, coming to within 2,352 miles (3,786 km) of the planet. This flyby of Venus will send the probe on a path that will make it the closest human-built object to the Sun (a record it already holds). ESA’s Solar Orbiter, which is also studying the Sun, will officially enter into the main stage of its mission in November, but the probe is already doing some mind-blowing work.

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ESA’s Bepi Colombo is scheduled to enter Mercury’s orbit in late 2025, but it’ll make a close approach to Venus on August 10, 2021. For this second gravity assist, Bepi Colombo will come to within 343 miles (552 km) of Venus.

Space adventures closer to home

Activities aboard the International Space Station will proceed as usual, with the Expedition 64 crew expected to perform the lion’s share of work, making good use of their shiny new Nanorocks Bishop Airlock and performing a bunch of cool science experiments.

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Speaking of space stations, China is expected to make a great leap forward with its very own. The country will launch the Tianhe space station module at some point in 2021, and it will serve as the foundational element of the overall space station, which should be completed by 2025.

The Rubin Observatory currently under construction in Chile.

Image: Rubin Observatory

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The Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile won’t achieve full power until October 2022, but its wide-field reflecting telescope will see its first light in 2021. Astronomers will use the facility to capture 1,000 images each night, surveying nearby stars and distant galaxies, unless Elon Musk’s Starlink gets in the way.

Celestial stuff

Amateur astronomers have some notable events to look forward to in the coming year, including a total lunar eclipse on May 26 that will be visible in all 50 U.S. states (including most of Alaska), most of Canada, southeast Asia, Australia, Oceania, and parts of South America. A total solar eclipse will happen on December 4, but it’ll be limited to Antarctica, with a partial solar eclipse visible from South Africa.

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Potentially hazardous asteroid Apophis will make a close-ish approach of Earth in March, when it will come to within 10.5 million miles (16.9 million km) of our planet. This will be our final chance to observe the asteroid with radar imaging before its very close approach in 2029, when it will come to within 19,000 miles (31,000 kilometers) of Earth, which is one-tenth the distance of Earth to the Moon. Apophis has an exceptionally low but nonzero chance of hitting Earth in 2068.

So, strap in and pack your Kool-aid—we’ve got a big year ahead of us.

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