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SESAME sheds light on Mideast science and politics

SESAME tour
SESAME scientific director Giorgio Paolucci points out one of the magnetic devices used to accelerate electrons around the synchrotron’s ring at the facility in Jordan. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle)

GeekWire’s Alan Boyle reports on a $90 million science project with a diplomatic twist in Jordan, one of the stops on this summer’s Middle East science tour. 

ALLAN, Jordan — For Israeli researchers, SESAME could open up a path for finding out exactly what the frankincense mentioned in the Bible was made of.

For Arab researchers, SESAME could reveal how the awe-inspiring structures built thousands of years ago at Jordan’s Petra archaeological site were decorated.

And what’s nearly as awesome as the potential discoveries is the fact that Israelis and Arabs are working together at SESAME to make them.

So what is SESAME?

On the literal level, it’s an acronym for “Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East.” That reflects the scientific purpose of the facility in Allan, about an hour’s drive from Amman, Jordan’s capital.

Researchers use the 436-foot-round synchrotron ring to whip up electrons and send them speeding through a magnetic obstacle course that generates brilliant flashes of light. When those light beams hit the atoms in samples of material — including bits of frankincense from the place where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found, or rock carvings borrowed from Petra — they can reveal their chemical composition in stunning detail.

“Basically, a synchrotron is a really, really big light bulb,” said Tel Aviv University biophysicist Roy Beck-Barkai, who represents Israel on SESAME’s governing council.

But there’s another level on which to see SESAME.

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Jerusalem dig finds traces of biblical conquest

Shimon Gibson
Shimon Gibson, co-director of the Mount Zion Archaeological Project, sets the scene at the Jerusalem site. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle)

One month after offering up archaeological evidence to back up a contested claim about the First Crusade, researchers say they’ve found traces of the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem in a deeper layer of their excavation on Mount Zion.

The newly reported find demonstrates how the site, just outside the walls of the Old City’s Tower of David citadel, serves as a “time machine” documenting the twists and turns of Jerusalem’s history.

The Babylonian conquest, which dates to the year 587 or 586 BCE, is one of the major moments of Jewish history. As detailed in the biblical Book of Kings, the Babylonians laid siege to Jerusalem for months, eventually broke through the walls and burned “all the houses of Jerusalem,” including Solomon’s Temple.

After the fall of Jerusalem, the Jewish people were sent into exile – an event that Jews commemorate with mourning and fasting every year on the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av. This year’s Tisha B’Av observance began at sundown tonight.

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Archaeologists resolve a Crusader controversy

Shimon Gibson
Shimon Gibson, an archaeologist working in Jerusalem as a professor of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, points out the ruins of a road from the Byzantine era that ran through the heart of the city. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle)

GeekWire aerospace and science editor Alan Boyle reports on a significant archaeological find during his Middle East science tour. 

JERUSALEM — Exactly 920 years after Jerusalem fell in the First Crusade, archaeologists say they’ve found the first on-the-ground evidence to back up a key twist in the Crusaders’ account of their victory.

A glittering piece of Fatimid Muslim jewelry plays a role in the find. And so does a later chapter in Jerusalem’s history that has overtones of “Game of Thrones.”

The discovery serves as another coup for the Mount Zion Archaeological Project, a decades-long excavation effort that’s being conducted by an international team under the aegis of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. UNC Charlotte’s many-layered dig takes up a wedge of land sandwiched between Jerusalem’s Tower of David citadel and a busy Israeli thoroughfare.

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Lunar orbiter spots Israeli lander’s crash site

Beresheet lander crash site
A processed image from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, taken on April 22, highlights the dark smudge and impact halo left behind by the Beresheet lander’s impact (NASA / GSFC / ASU Photo)

The Israeli-built Beresheet moon lander made history when it went into lunar orbitand descended to the surface — and although it didn’t survive its crash landing, it did leave a mark that’s likely to endure for millennia.

Weeks after the April 11 smashup, NASA has released imagery from its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter showing the dark blast site and spray of debris that Beresheet kicked up.

The orbiter was over the horizon when the lander fell to the surface due to a last-minute programming glitch and engine shutdown. But it was in a good position to snap a picture of the crash site on April 22 from a height of 56 miles (90 kilometers).

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Did a bad command cause moon lander’s crash?

Moon view from Beresheet
Team SpaceIL says this was the last picture taken by the Beresheet lunar lander, at a distance of 15 kilometers (9 miles) from the lunar surface. (SpaceIL Photo)

A manually entered command apparently set off a chain reaction of events that led to last week’s crash of an Israeli-built lunar lander during its attempt to touch down on the moon, the mission’s managers said today.

Preliminary results of an investigation into the crash indicate that the manual command was entered into the spacecraft’s computer, which caused the main engine to switch off and stay off during the Beresheet lander’s descent.

The Jerusalem Post reported that problems started with a malfunction in an inertial measurement unit that kept track of the spacecraft’s orientation and motion.

“There was no incident like this since the mission began,” the Post quoted SpaceIL CEO Ido Anteby as saying. “After it occurred, an activation command was sent to [the inertial measurement unit], causing a chain of events in which the main engine stopped and was unable to return to continuous operation.”

All attempts to restart the engine failed. That led to the failure of the nearly $100 million lunar mission, which took its name from the Hebrew words for “In the Beginning.”

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Israeli-built lander crashes on moon

Beresheet view of moon
One of the last pictures sent back by the Beresheet lander shows the lunar surface. (SpaceIL Photo)

An Israeli-built lander crashed onto the moon today during its final descent, bringing an unfortunate end to the first privately funded lunar mission.

“We had a failure on the spacecraft,” Opher Doron, general manager of Israel Aerospace Industries’ space division, said during a live webcast of the spacecraft’s landing attempt. “We unfortunately have not managed to land successfully.”

The crash was traced to an apparent engine malfunction. It came a month and a half after the dishwasher-sized lander was sent into space by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with a pre-launch logistical assist from Seattle-based Spaceflight.

The Beresheet lander, which took its name from the Hebrew phrase for “In the Beginning,” was funded with nearly $100 million in private money, led by Israeli billionaire Morris Kahn’s $40 million contribution. Las Vegas casino magnate Sheldon Adelson provided another $24 million for the effort.

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Israel’s lunar lander goes from Earth to moon orbit

Beresheet lunar lander
Israel’s Beresheet lunar lander has executed a crucial step in its journey to the moon. (SpaceIL Illustration)

The Israeli-built Beresheet lander successfully started orbiting the moon today, marking a crucial step toward next week’s scheduled lunar touchdown.

Today’s maneuver changed the orbit for Beresheet (Hebrew for “In the Beginning”) from a highly elliptical Earth orbit to a highly elliptical lunar orbit. As a result, Israel became the seventh space effort to send a probe circling the moon, and the first such effort backed by private funding. (For what it’s worth, the other space programs include NASA, Russia, China, India, Japan and the European Space Agency.)

Seattle-based Spaceflight and SpaceX played supporting roles in arranging Beresheet’s pre-launch logistics and its delivery to orbit. But the project’s main drivers are SpaceIL, a privately funded engineering team that competed in the Google Lunar X Prize; and state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries.

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Israeli lunar lander looks back at Earth

Beresheet selfie
An image captured by the Beresheet lunar lander shows a plaque with the Israeli flag in the foreground, and Earth in the background. (Beresheet / SpaceIL Photo)

An Israeli lunar lander gets photobombed by Earth in a selfie released today by SpaceIL’s Beresheet mission team.

The selfie was captured from a distance of more than 23,000 miles (37,600 kilometers) as the Beresheet lander went through maneuvers aimed at getting it to a lunar landing next month.

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Israeli lunar lander passes pre-launch tests

Israeli lunar lander
SpaceIL’s Beresheet lunar lander is suspended at a payload processing facility in Florida. (SpaceIL Photo via Twitter)

The managers of Israel’s first mission to the moon say their lunar lander has passed a crucial set of tests in preparation for February’s launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, with an assist from a Seattle space company.

SpaceIL’s lander — which has been dubbed Beresheet, the Hebrew word for “In the Beginning” — is scheduled for liftoff from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida no earlier than Feb. 18.

Mission success would make Israel the fourth nation to execute a soft landing on the moon, following in the footsteps of the United States, Russia and China.

Spaceflight, the launch logistics subsidiary of Seattle-based Spaceflight Industries, brokered Beresheet’s inclusion as a secondary payload on a mission that will send Indonesia’s PSN-6 telecommunications satellite, also known as Nusantara Satu, toward geostationary orbit.

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Israelis say their lander will soon fly to the moon

SpaceIL lander
SpaceIL’s lander is on display in a clean room. (SpaceIL Photo / Eliran Avital)

SpaceIL, an Israeli team that was once a competitor in the now-defunct Google Lunar X Prize, says it will have its lander launched toward the moon in December. The lander will be a secondary payload on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket taking off from Florida, the team said today in a news release. The plan calls for the lander to execute a series of in-space maneuvers, then touch down on the lunar surface next February to transmit imagery and measure the moon’s magnetic field. SpaceIL says about $88 million has been invested in the project to date, mostly from private donors.

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