Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 100

A study on the leaking substance titled "Primordial Helium-3 Exchange Between Earth's Core and Mantle" has been published in the journal Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems.

Helium exists in two stable forms on Earth, the helium-4 isotope and helium-3 isotope. The former contains two protons and two neutrons and accounts for approximately 99.99986 percent of all helium on Earth. Helium-3 consists of two protons and one neutron and accounts for approximately 0.000137 percent of all helium on Earth.

Helium-4 primarily comes from the radioactive decay of heavier elements, while most helium-3 remains from the Big Bang, hence primordial. Helium-3 has been detected leaking out from the Earth's core into the crust at a rate of roughly two kilograms (4.4 pounds) per year. The detection of primordial gases escaping the core provides clues about the conditions of Earth's formation. When the Earth formed, it did so inside a solar nebula, the same molecular cloud that birthed our Sun.

A study on the new message titled "A Beacon in the Galaxy: Updated Arecibo Message for Potential FAST and SETI Projects" published in the journal Galaxies.

The new message is a successor to the famous Arecibo Message, a METI (Messaging to Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) signal broadcast on November 16th, 1974. Researchers have devised a new signal dubbed the Beacon in the Galaxy (BITG) message, which combines elements of the Arecibo Message and other METI attempts.

The BITG message consists of 13 parts, adding up to approximately 204,000 effective binary digits, or 25,500 bytes. Using the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST) in China and the SETI Institute's Allen Telescope Array in northern California, the research team chose a target to broadcast the signal to situated 4 kiloparsecs (~13,000 light-years) from the galactic center.

A study on the use of UV titled "A UV-LED module that is highly effective at inactivating human coronaviruses and HIV-1" has been published in the Virology Journal.

Researchers from the University of Toronto Scarborough found that UV-LED lights that can alternate between emitting white and ultraviolet (UV) light, of the same form factors used in offices and public spaces, could effectively decontaminate surfaces. The lights can be cheaply retrofitted, allowing easy implementation to make areas safer and help curb the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic more quickly.

A pre-print study on the Venus experiment titled "Cloud Continents: Terraforming Venus Efficiently by Means of a Floating Artificial Surface" has been accepted for publication in The Journal of the British Interplanetary Society.

NASA researcher Alex R. Howe has proposed a terraforming method for Venus to make it habitable, covering the entire planet's atmosphere in a plan the Daily Beast described as "absolutely bonkers." The project would likely take at least 200 years and centers on Venus as a terraforming target owing to its similar bulk properties to Earth, such as size, mass, and composition.

Howe's proposal suggests creating an artificial surface in the upper regions of the planet's atmosphere, where the temperature and pressure are more similar to Earth's. Previous proposals to terraform Venus have considered removing its carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere and replacing it with a more habitable environment.

A ceremony aboard the International Space Station (ISS) on March 29th saw the change of command between Russian cosmonauts and NASA astronauts.

Livestreamed on the NASA Live website and elsewhere, Russian cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov handed NASA astronaut Thomas Marshburn "the keys" to the ISS. The physical key is a symbol in possession of the current commander of the ISS. Shkaplerov is returning to Earth on March 30th alongside the cosmonaut Pyotr Dubrov and NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei.

NASA's database indicates that a space rock will be approaching Earth in the coming days, and it is traveling nearly 30,000 mph.

The space rock is the asteroid labeled as 2007 FF1, and according to astronomers that have been tracking the asteroid, it's estimated to be between 360 and 656 feet in diameter. On March 24, the Virtual Telescope Project snapped an image of the asteroid when it was 7.2 million miles away from Earth, and with that image, astronomers were able to confirm that 2007 FF1 was going to make its closest approach with Earth yet.

The asteroid is officially classified by NASA as "potentially hazardous" because its diameter is 500 feet or greater, and its orbit brings it within 4.6 million miles of Earth, or about 19.5 times the distance to the moon. 2007 FF1 was first discovered back in 2007, and its last closest approach with Earth was in August 2020, when it came within 10.8 million of Earth. The next time 2007 FF1 is scheduled for its closest approach is on April 2, 2037, when it will come within 927,000 miles of Earth.

Individuals have been left shocked at the remains of a what is being described as an "alien-like" creature washing up on a beach in Australia.

Alex Tan found the remains of the unidentified creature on Maroochydore Beach, on the Sunshine Coast, located about 63 miles from Brisbane. Tan took to Instagram to post a video of the creature saying into the camera that "he has found something weird" and describing what he found as "one of those things you see when people claim they've found aliens." From the images and the video, all that can be depicted so far is that the creature features four limbs, a tail, and has a reptile-like skull.

At first, Tan thought what he found was a possum, but after a closer inspection, he ruled doesn't believe that to be the case. "It was just after we had all that stuff washed up on beaches from the floods. Its hands were really weird. I'm just calling it an alien," said Tan.

In the solar system, there are thousands of near-Earth asteroids, and sometimes one will have a close approach with Earth.

Krisztian Sarneczky, a Hungarian astronomer at the Konkoly Observatory, managed to identify an asteroid just hours before it was due to make its closest approach with Earth during the night on March 24/25. The asteroid, now labeled as Sar2594, soared past Earth at a safe distance of about 5,400 miles from the surface, which, to put into perspective, the International Space Station's altitude is about 250 miles, and the moon is about 238,900 miles away.

During its approach with Earth, the asteroid sped past at a ridiculous speed of 40,265 miles per hour. It was estimated to have a diameter of anywhere between 6.6 to 14 feet, making it a contender for the smallest asteroid ever found, which is approximately 6 feet in diameter. Due to its close approach with Earth, Sar2594's orbit has now changed forever, as showcased by Sarneczky in the below tweet.

A physics undergraduate and talented astrophotographer, Vincent Ledvina, has taken a stunning 8K video of the northern lights.

Ledvina recently went on a camping adventure to Fort Yukon, Alaska, where he spent three weeks above the arctic circle capturing auroras across several clear-skied nights. The astrophotographer is currently majoring in physics at the University of North Dakota with plans on becoming a space weather forecaster.

During Ledvina's time at the Fort Yukon Long Range Radar Site, his mission was to test a theory on how pulsating or flashing auroras are created. "The design of the mission was to have the sounding rocket launch into the aurora from the city of Fairbanks on a northward trajectory while high-speed cameras captured the pulsating aurora in two locations, Venetie and Fort Yukon," Ledvina explains.

NASA has observed multiple solar eruptions on the surface of the Sun, which have resulted in coronal mass ejections being sent toward Earth.

The solar flares are coming from the sunspot AR2975, which has been extremely active within the past two days by releasing at least 17 solar eruptions since March 28. The flares have sent coronal mass ejections (CME) in multiple directions, with some of the charged particles due to impact Earth and cause moderate to low geomagnetic storms.

According to both NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, there are at least two CMEs heading towards Earth, with there being a possibility of a third on the way as well. Reports from SpaceWeather.com indicate that the first CME is due to arrive on Thursday, March 31, and the second on Friday, April 1. As previously mentioned, officials expect that the Sun blasts will cause G2/G3 geomagnetic storms that result in an increased chance of auroras.

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) documents from 1963 and 1964 have been released for a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by the Government Attic website.

The request resulted in three CIA reports investigating the Soviet Union's apparent usage of extra-sensory perception (ESP) and attempts to develop "cybernetic telepathy." The reports describe conversations between a CIA agent and Soviet cybernetics researcher, and a visiting foreign exchange student.

D.A. Kerminov, the Soviet scientist, told the agent about an experiment where researchers recorded the central nervous signals of a person playing piano and broadcast those signals to another person who had never played the piano. According to Kerminov, "that person would then be enabled to play difficult music, but also would retain some of this skill as permanent learning."

The time a NASA astronaut can spend in space is limited by their exposure to ionizing radiation over their career.

While on Earth, Earth's magnetosphere and atmosphere protect us from ionizing radiation coming from space, primarily from the Sun. The International Space Station (ISS) doesn't receive the same protection from the atmosphere but is still shielded from some ionizing radiation thanks to the magnetosphere. This means astronauts receive higher doses of radiation than those who never leave Earth, about 300 mSv per year on the ISS compared to 3.6 mSv on Earth.

Associated with the higher levels of radiation exposure are increased risks of radiation sickness and cancer. To mitigate this, NASA's current limit for radiation exposure, set in 1989, allows for a maximum of 3% lifetime excess risk of cancer mortality. Both sex and age impact this limit, creating a range of limits from as low as 180 millisieverts (mSv) of radiation for a 30-year-old woman and as high as 700 mSv for a 60-year-old man.

The "cosmically young" rings still have life left, but their time is finite.

We still don't know exactly how Saturn's rings formed, though they are estimated to be between 10 and 100 million years old, narrowing down the possible theories. One theory suggests that the rings could have been formed by one of Saturn's moons coming too close to the planet and being shredded apart.

With every passing year, the planetary ring is losing material due to "ring rain." The term refers to incoming micrometeorites and solar radiation, which strike the particles in the ring, electrifying them and aligning them with Saturn's magnetic field lines. This sets the particles on a course for Saturn's atmosphere, where gravity pulls them in until they are vaporized.

Waydoo is launching its new, portable underwater scooter through a Kickstarter campaign.

Named the Subnado, it is the world's smallest and lightest portable underwater scooter, weighing only 1.4 kilograms (~3.1 pounds) and is 38 centimeters (~15 inches) in length. The cylindrical aluminum body is six centimeters (~2.3 inches) in diameter, extending to seven centimeters (~2.8 inches) wide at the propeller guard.

Its profile allows it easily fit within a backpack and comes equipped with a 98Wh lithium-ion battery that will enable it to run for up to 56 minutes on a single charge. Compared to another underwater scooter, the Sublue Tini, the Subnado is 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds) lighter and can run continuously for 11 more minutes. With its 100W PD fast charger, the Subnado takes 1.2 hours to charge.

The flying paramedics are from the UK-based charity, the Great North Air Ambulance Service (GNAAS).

In September 2020, the organization announced it was testing a jet-pack-equipped suit for the paramedics but had to suspend testing due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. One of the members has since completed training with the jet-pack, with more members due to begin their training soon. The next stage of trials will begin this summer.

A spacecraft that is orbiting the Sun has snapped what is now officially the highest resolution image of the Sun's corona, its outermost atmosphere.

The image was snapped by the European Space Agency's Solar Orbiter that used its Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) to take 25 images with each at different angles. Each of the images was taken with 10 minutes of exposure and were stitched together to create an image that 9,148 by 9,112 pixels, which equates to 83 million pixels, or as the ESA writes, "a resolution that is ten times better than what a 4K TV screen can display."

Due to the insane resolution, viewers can zoom into different locations of the Sun and see the Sun's corona and solar 'prominences' that can throw "huge quantities of coronal gas into space and creating 'space weather' storms." The images were captured on March 7 at a distance of 46.6 million miles, which is about half of the distance between Earth's and its average orbit around the Sun. Over its lifetime, the ESA's Solar Orbiter will continue to monitor the Sun's solar wind and take incredible images.

NASA has released a new image snapped by the famous Hubble Space Telescope, and it is nothing short of breathtaking.

The new image is a cosmic portrait of the spiral galaxy called NGC 4571, located approximately 60 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation Coma Berenices, named after an Egyptian queen who lived about 2,200 years ago. The image was snapped using Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 and multiple observations from Hubble and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA).

The data from ALMA allowed researchers to distinguish the clouds of cool interstellar dust that are the birthplace of new stars. NGC 4571 is part of the Virgo cluster, which NASA writes contains more than 1,000 individual galaxies. If you are interested in reading more about NGC 4571, check out NASA's blog post on the spiral galaxy here.

SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk have said that Russia or China targeted Starlink satellites, they would have a tough time destroying them all.

Musk was interviewed by Mathias Dopfner, the CEO of Axel Springer, where he was asked his thoughts on Russia's invasion into Ukraine, Starlink satellites, space travel, and more. During the interview, Musk was asked if Russia targeted the Starlink satellites that he sent to assist Ukraine could they bring down the entire operation. Musk replied by saying that Russia would have a lot of trouble taking out Starlink due to how many individual satellites there are. "If you attempt to take out Starlink, this is not easy because there are 2,000 satellites," said Musk.

"That means a lot of anti-satellite missiles. I hope we do not have to put this to a test, but I think we can launch satellites faster than they can launch anti-satellite missiles." Musk also touched on Russia performing an anti-satellite missile test a few months ago that threatened the safety of NASA astronauts and cosmonauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

NASA is nearing the end of fine-tuning the James Webb Space Telescope as calibrations are expected to wrap up by the end of June.

The space agency has gone through more than 1,000 potential research proposals from astronomers from all around the world and has compiled a year-long list of targets Webb will be pointed at. The world's most powerful telescope will observe the light from the first stars and galaxies that formed only a hundred million years after the Big Bang - it will be the furthest humans have ever looked back in time.

Webb cost more than $10 billion and won't just be studying light from stars and galaxies, it will also observe exoplanets which are planets that are orbiting stars that aren't our sun. Webb will monitor these exoplanets and attempt to analyze their atmosphere for any potential signs of life. So, what will the first images released from Webb?

The ice shelf collapsed in East Antarctica, a mass of ice the size of New York City,

Scientists had previously considered East Antarctica to be relatively stable in the face of climate change, with global warming seeming to impact the smaller western side of Antarctica more noticeably. The collapse is the first of its kind captured in the eastern region of Antarctica, owing to a rise in temperatures by more than 70 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius) above the normal range in the area,

The collapsed ice shelf spanned approximately 460 square miles wide (1200 square kilometers), acting as a barrier between the Conger and Glenzer glaciers and warmer waters. It collapsed between March 14th and 16th, 2022, and was captured by satellite imagery.