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KSP Weekly: The Ghost Particle


SQUAD

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Welcome to KSP Weekly! Yesterday, scientists at the US National Science Foundation (NSF) made an announcement to reveal exciting findings from its IceCube observatory at the South Pole. IceCube – opened in 2010 – is designed to detect neutrinos from elsewhere in the cosmos that make their way to Earth. It uses 86 strings of detectors stretching 2.5 kilometers (1.6 miles) below the Antarctic ice to hunt for these particles. If a neutrino strikes an atom in the ice, it explodes in a shower of secondary particles, detected by the observatory, which then works out where the neutrino came from. Now for first time ever, an international team of astronomers has found the origin of some of these high-energy particles coming from the distant universe!

A neutrino is a fundamental subatomic particle just as tiny as an electron, but without any charge. Scientists know neutrinos have a tiny bit of mass, but they can’t pin down exactly how little, because neutrinos don’t interact with their surroundings very often, which makes them difficult for scientists to spot. However, on September 22, 2017, the IceCube observatory detected an incoming high-energy neutrino. This advanced detector has a real-time alert system, and broadcasted the coordinates of the detection to astronomers around the world just 43 seconds after its discovery.

About 20 observatories including NASA’s orbiting Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope responded to the alert, and trained their views on the skies to try to work out where it was coming from. The process was possible because neutrinos, like photons of light, can cross extremely large distances in the universe in straight lines, without being pulled off course. Other types of high-energy particles can’t do that because they are charged. The combined observations traced the neutrino’s origin to an already-known blazar called TXS 0506+056, which lies about 4 billion light-years from Earth. Blazars are active galactic nuclei with a relativistic jet (a jet traveling at nearly the speed of light), in which the jet is directed very nearly toward the Earth, emitting gamma rays along other particles.

Physicists hope that by studying these particles, they can find clues about some of the biggest mysteries in the cosmos. One of those cosmic mysteries could include an explanation for dark matter. Dark matter has a gravitational pull on regular matter, and it has shaped the cosmic landscape throughout the history of the universe. Some theorists think dark matter could even be a new type of neutrino. We are now in an exciting new era of astronomy where we can study objects not just in electromagnetic radiation, but in the other particles they emit too. Incredible!

[Development news start here]

With an upcoming 1.4.5 patch about to come out of the oven, this week had the team performing various polish-related tasks. The QA team was particularly busy, testing and pushing to the limits all the fixes performed by the devs last week.

Meanwhile, the devs had also their good share of work. For instance, the version checking system has been fully established. This versioning system will trigger a warning dialog whenever there’s a problem with a save, craft or mission file due to incompatibility. Users will be able to load their files anyways, but at their own risk of course.

The work on KSP Enhanced Edition is also at a similar stage. BlitWorks has been performing a great deal of bug fixes, improvements, and feedback-based additions for an upcoming patch for the console versions of KSP, and we’re getting really close to its launch. So stay tuned to learn more about the patch and its official release date!

Remember that you can also share and download missions on Curse, KerbalX, and the KSP Forum.

That’s it for this week. Be sure to join us on our official forums, and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and Facebook. Stay tuned for more exciting and upcoming news and development updates!

Happy launchings!


*Information Source:

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2 hours ago, SQUAD said:

With an upcoming 1.4.5 patch about to come out of the oven

Soon!TM :)

I too am looking forward to tasting 1.4.5.  Please @SQUADmake sure it is baked to the right recipe... and not over cooked so that it burns when used or underdone leaving  a doughy icky centre.

Peace.

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3 hours ago, XLjedi said:

Apprehensively optimistic...

 

2 hours ago, klgraham1013 said:

Words to live by.

Along with "Hope for the best, expect the worst" But really, it can't be that bad...

Pretty light on details this week, but I suppose that's to be expected when the patch is in QA. When can we expect word on what will be in 1.5 and/or the next DLC? Oh, right... Soon!TM, sometime after 1.4.5 drops

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6 hours ago, SQUAD said:

We are now in an exciting new era of astronomy where we can study objects not just in electromagnetic radiation, but in the other particles they emit too. Incredible!

Agreed!

Take your time polishing this patch. My 1.4.3 modded career playthrough is going strong! I'll move to 1.4.5 if all my mods stay compatible...

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11 hours ago, SQUAD said:

Meanwhile, the devs had also their good share of work. For instance, the version checking system has been fully established. This versioning system will trigger a warning dialog whenever there’s a problem with a save, craft or mission file due to incompatibility. Users will be able to load their files anyways, but at their own risk of course.

This one will save more grievance than any other part of the patch, I guess.

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15 hours ago, Zhetaan said:

In the interests of polish, perhaps @SQUAD would like to consider adding a 'Don't Show Again' checkbox to the science collection warning dialogue from Mystery Goo and Science Jr. modules?

+1

That warning gets very repetitive.  

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On 7/14/2018 at 8:01 PM, Dark Lion said:

*Groans*
I don't like the idea of ghost particle news (its old news to me) being immediately followed by non-descript development news.

@SQUAD wouldn't send out a "ghost patch" though, right? :huh:
MOAR DETAILS PLEASE! 

Well said! Well Said! How Ironic!

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