Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 102

NASA has announced it has discovered 5,000 exoplanets, which are planets orbiting stars beyond our own solar system.

The news was announced via a blog update on NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory website, where the space agency explained for more than 30 years it has been on a journey of discovering what lies beyond our solar system. On March 21, the latest batch of now exoplanet data was received, adding 65 new exoplanets to the total that has now reached over 5,000.

The 5,000 confirmed exoplanets come in various shapes and forms as some include small, rocky worlds similar to Earth, while some others are gas giants like Jupiter and even "super-Earths", which are planets like Earth but much larger. Additionally, NASA writes that included in the 5,000 total are some exoplanets that orbit two stars at once and planets that are even orbiting the dead corpses of stars.

A series of "particularly dangerous" forest fires have broken out around the abandoned nuclear power plant Chernobyl.

According to a statement from Ukraine's parliament, at least seven forest fires have broken out around Chernobyl and have been spotted by satellites operated by the European Space Agency (ESA). The statement from the Ukrainian government blames the "armed aggression of the Russian Federation" for the fires, but doesn't specify what they were caused by.

Ukraine claims that fires such as the ones recently spotted at "particularly dangerous" within a 6.2 miles of the nuclear site, and that Ukrainian firefighters are unable to put the fires out due to the presence of Russian troops that took control of Chernobyl close to the beginning of the invasion. Additionally, Ukrainian officials have warned that Russia's invasion has interrupted attempts at monitoring the radiation levels in the failed reactor.

SpaceX is currently developing the world's most powerful and advanced rocket, and the company's CEO said when it will perform its first orbital test flight.

In response to a CNBC post on Twitter, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk replied by posting a series of tweets that were all updates on the Starship rocket and the Super Heavy booster. Musk took to Twitter on Monday and wrote that SpaceX will have 39 flight-worthy Raptor engines built by next month, and it will take another month to integrate those engines into the Super Heavy Booster.

For those that don't know, Starship, when equipped with a Super Heavy booster, stands at nearly 400 feet tall, making it the tallest and most powerful launch vehicle ever created. Starship is designed to be a reusable rocket that is capable of taking lots of cargo and people to the moon and even to Mars. SpaceX has already completed some high-altitude tests with Starship, but it hasn't reached space yet. According to Musk, Starship will attempt to reach space in May.

After suffering heavy losses Russia has turned towards upgrading its firepower, according to reports from Bloomberg and the Institute for the Study of War.

A recent assessment posted by the Institute for the Study of War revealed that Russian troops have begun to dig in its heels around cities such as Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa and more as the Russian military underestimated the level of Ukraine's defense. With heavy losses Russia has seemingly switched tactics by increasing its firepower which will likely mean more artillery strikes and missile strikes that will no doubt cause more civilian causalities.

Over the weekend Russia's Ministry of Defense announce the country had used Kh-47M2 Kinzhal, or dagger missiles which are a Russian nuclear-capable hypersonic aero-ballistic air-to-surface missile. Each missile has a range of more than 1,200 miles, reaches Mach 10, and is able to perform evasive manuevers throughout its flight towards its target. Russia followed up with another announcement on Sunday that stated it had used Kinzhal missiles to destroy a fuel depot in the Mykolaiv region.

NASA's Juno spacecraft has been orbiting Jupiter since 2016 and has recently completed its 39th close flyby of the planet.

Juno only recently completed its approach with Jupiter as the spacecraft passed by on January 12 at approximately 38,000 miles away from the top of Jupiter's clouds. During its approach, Juno snapped several images of the southern hemisphere of Jupiter, with two moons to the right of the frame. NASA shared the image on March 16 and explained that by zooming in on the image, you can see Io on the left and Europa on the right.

On NASA's blog post, it wrote that Jupiter's moon Io is the most volcanic body in our solar system and that Europa is an icy moon surface that has an ocean of liquid water deep beneath its surface. NASA researchers have previously suggested that Europa's subsurface ocean may house some form of life. Juno will be making "the closest flyby of the enigmatic moon in decades," where it will be able to get a closer look at its surface with several of its scientific instruments.

Since Russia began its invasion into Ukraine and the West retaliated with heavy sanctions, the tension between the United States and the Kremlin rose, spilling over to the space program and the International Space Station.

The relationship between Russia's space agency, Roscosmos and NASA begun being strained when Roscosmos' chief Dmitry Rogozin started publishing subtle threats on Twitter towards the ISS, causing many to be concerned about the safety of the astronauts aboard the station. Rogozin posted videos of the ISS crashing, threatened to decouple the Russian segment of the station, and let the station crash into the United States.

Russian state-owned media recently published a spliced video that showcased Russian cosmonauts abandoning NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei, which was later followed up by a statement from Roscosmos that pledged it wouldn't leave behind the astronaut and that it has never "let anybody doubt its reliability as a partner." Now, French astronaut Thomas Pesquet has spoken out about the future of the ISS, marking one of the first active astronauts to comment on the overall situation with Russia, Ukraine, and the ISS.

Two new studies of a solution to the paradox titled "Quantum hair and black hole information" and "Quantum Hair from Gravity" have been published in the journals Physics Letters B and Physical Review Letters, respectively.

Stephen Hawking proposed in 1976 that as black holes evaporate, they destroy the information about what formed them. This contradicts a fundamental law of quantum mechanics, which dictates any process in physics can be mathematically reversed. Black holes' lack of observable features aside from their total mass, spin, and charge led physicist John Archibald Wheeler in the 1960s to state "black holes have no hair," resulting in the no-hair theorem.

The first study now demonstrates that black holes have gravitational fields which contain information about their formation. When matter collapses into a black hole, an imprint is left behind in its gravitational field, referred to as a "quantum hair." The quantum hairs allow information about the black holes' formation to be retained, solving Hawking's Black Hole Information Paradox.

It is the first time a Soyuz spacecraft has delivered only Russian cosmonauts to the International Space Station (ISS).

The Soyuz MS-21 contained cosmonauts Oleg Artemyev, Denis Matveev, and Sergey Korsakov, who launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 15:55 UTC on March 18th, 2022. The spacecraft is also the first to dock with the new Prichal module on the ISS, which was launched in November, 2021. They are the last crew members to join Expedition 66 and will transition into Expedition 67 when the remaining crew from Expedition 65 return to Earth.

Historically, Soyuz spacecraft headed to the ISS have always had at least one astronaut from outside Russia or another spaceflight participant. Another interesting twist to this recent arrival is the cosmonauts' spacesuits, primarily bright yellow with blue accents. Blue and yellow are the colors of Ukraine's flag and are a curious choice given Russia's current invasion of Ukraine.

The $75,000 robot dog is the infamous Spot, created by Boston Dynamics.

The New York City Fire Department (FDNY) is the first fire department in the U.S. to have acquired the robot dog, but not the first emergency department to do so, nor the first in New York City. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) previously acquired some in 2021 but has since canceled its contract with Boston Dynamics after poor public reception.

The FDNY plans to use 70-pound (32 kilograms) Spot to assist in difficult search-and-rescue operations in a much less controversial application than the NYPD's use of them during raids. Captain Michael Leo of the FDNY's robotics team suggests that Hollywood has also contributed to the public's mistrust of robots.

A new study on the characteristics of such boring people titled "Boring People: Stereotype Characteristics, Interpersonal Attributions, and Social Reactions" has been published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

Research by the University of Essex examined over five hundred people across five experiments, identifying the blandest jobs, hobbies, and places to live. They determined that the most boring person possible exists at the intersection of the most boring of all of those categories; a religious data entry worker who likes to watch TV and lives in a town.

The launch of the joint European-Russian mission had already been delayed from 2018, rescheduled for September 2022.

The Rosalind Franklin rover was built in collaboration between the European Space Agency (ESA) and Roscosmos, to be launched to Mars for the ExoMars mission. However, a March 15th meeting of the ESA's 22 member states has resulted in suspending the scheduled launch aboard a Russian proton rocket. The move fits into the broader sanctions imposed on Russia by the EU following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The threat of nuclear weapons has reared its ugly head recently, with Russian President Vladimir Putin announcing his country's nuclear forces were placed on "high alert," but who else has them?

According to the Arms Control Association, the world has nine nuclear states: China, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. It is estimated there are about 13,000 nuclear warheads in total, though this number is based only on publicly available information.

A new study on the evolutionary force titled "Global urban environmental change drives adaptation in white clover" in the journal Science.

The Global Urban Evolution Project (GLUE) has analyzed data from 160 cities across 26 countries from samples of white clover plants found in those cities and rural areas. The researchers behind the project found that humans in general, particularly cities, are a dominant force driving evolution globally. They found the white clover to be frequently evolving in response to environmental changes in its urban surroundings.

NASA has uploaded a new blog post addressing frequently asked questions about the International Space Station (ISS).

The blog post describes all the countries and their respective space agencies involved in the operation of the ISS. It also describes the ISS's interdependencies, highlighting a long list of examples of essential capabilities controlled or enabled by Russian technology on board. For example, all of the space station's propulsion is handled by the Russian Segment of the ISS, with the propellant supplied by the Russian Progress cargo spacecraft.

A team of archaeologists and physicists have been received approval from the Egyptian government to scan the Great Pyramid of Giza.

The team has proposed using cosmic-ray technology involving telescopes that focus on muons, which are elementary particles produced when cosmic rays interact with Earth's atmosphere. In an interview with Live Science, Fermi National Laboratory scientist Alan Bross explained that muon observations had been used to scan the pyramids in the past, with the first scanning taking place in the late 1960s and the second being between 2015 and 2017.

The team of researchers has much more sensitive telescopes than the ones that were used between 2015 and 2017, with the scientists estimating "upwards of 100 times the sensitivity". The telescopes will be placed at each of the four corners of the pyramid and scan it from "nearly all angles," which the team anticipates will produce a "true tomographic image of such a large structure."

An astronomer has spotted an asteroid close to the size of a refrigerator only hours before it entered Earth's atmosphere.

Above is an image taken by an astronomer who spotted an asteroid just two hours before impact it entered Earth's atmosphere in January 21, 1999.

The asteroid has been dubbed 2022 EB5 and was discovered by Hungarian astronomer Krisztian Sarneczky located at the Piszkesteto Mountain Station that's joined onto the Konkoly Observatory located close to Budapest, Hungry's capital. According to reports, the asteroid is estimated to be around 10 feet in diameter and entered Earth's atmosphere at 21:22 UTC on March 11 over north Iceland.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has given a new update on when he thinks the human race will land on the Red Planet, Mars.

Elon Musk has famously discussed the future of humans landing on the Red Planet and has taken steps towards making that future a reality by constructing SpaceX's newest launch system, Starship. Musk's Starship launch vehicle is expected to help humanity return to the Moon and travel to Mars and beyond. With that in mind, Starship completed its first successful landing after launch back in May 2021, and Musk has teased that Starship could make its first orbital flight later this year.

A recent tweet from Space Hub asked Musk when he thinks humans will land on Mars in the 21st century, Musk replied to the tweet and wrote "2029". This new estimation from Musk is different from the prediction he gave in a piece by Time Magazine where he said that he would be surprised humans aren't "landing on Mars within five years". Musk added that the next great step will be constructing a base on Mars that's self-sustaining, which was described by Musk as "a futuristic Noah's ark".

The chief for Russia's space agency, Roscosmos, has dropped yet another passive-aggressive tweet, suggesting that Russian cosmonauts are "in a fighting mood".

Dmitry Rogozin is the head of Roscosmos, and since the US imposed sanctions on Russia following its invasion into Ukraine, Roscosmos' chief has been publishing passive-aggressive threats interpreted by many as threats to the safety of the astronauts aboard the ISS. Rogozin has threatened to crash the ISS into the United States, abandon NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei, and completely decouple the Russian segment of the station in a bizarre video released by state-owned Russian media.

Now Rogozin has tweeted, "The State Commission at Baikonur approved the main and backup crews of the Soyuz MS-21 manned spacecraft," adding, "The boys are in a fighting mood." The choice of words from Rogozin is certainly something to wonder at, as it would certainly be a tragic event if a physical altercation broke out aboard the ISS. At the moment, there are four NASA astronauts, one German astronaut, and two Russian cosmonauts. An additional three cosmonauts are expected to arrive at the station later this week as they are launching from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan tomorrow.

The head of NASA has commented on the now strained relationship between the U.S. and Russia amid subtle threats from Russia's space agency head.

Dmitry Rogozin, the chief of Russia's space agency, Roscosmos, has published a flurry of subtle threats on his Twitter account that threaten the safety of NASA astronauts working on the International Space Station (ISS). Rogozin has recently suggested that Russia could allow the ISS to crash into the United States and demonstrated abandoning NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei on the station, who recently broke the record for the longest single stay in space for a NASA astronaut.

These nefarious suggestions from Rogozin came after the U.S. imposed heavy sanctions on Russia following the nation's invasion into Ukraine. The comments from Russia's space agency chief have caused tensions to heighten between the two countries and have now sparked comments from NASA Administrator Bill Nelson who pledged to be committed to all astronauts aboard the ISS. Adding that the U.S. space agency "remains committed" to all seven astronauts and cosmonauts and is "continuing to work with all our international partners to continue safe operation of the ISS."

The Hubble Space Telescope has photographed a distant spiral galaxy that is located many million light-years away from Earth.

The spiral galaxy is NGC 1097, that's located 48 million light-years from Earth and resides in the constellation Fornax. At the center of the above image, you can see what the European Space Agency (ESA) describes as an "eye", or the heart of the galaxy. ESA officials said in a statement that this picture showcases the "intricacy of the web of stars and dust at NGC 1097's center, with the long tendrils of dust picked out in a dark red hue".

The image was captured with Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 and the Advanced Camera for Surveys, which allows astronomers to capture both light that humans can see and infrared light the human eye can't detect. ESA officials explain that after the galaxy is captured in several different wavelengths of light, the image is colorized for public viewing. If you are interested in reading more about galaxy NGC 1097, check out this recent release by the ESA here.