Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 109

The European Space Agency's (ESA) Solar Orbiter (SolO) witnessed the giant solar prominence on February 15th, 2022.

According to the ESA, solar prominences are "large structures of tangled magnetic field lines that keep dense concentrations of solar plasma suspended above the Sun's surface." They are commonly associated with coronal mass ejections (CMEs), which can disrupt technology and life on Earth if directed towards us.

The CME from the February 15th event is traveling in the opposite direction to Earth, originating on the side of the Sun facing away from Earth. While the Solar Orbiter did not witness the eruption on the Sun's surface, its Full Sun Imager (FSI) and Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) instruments allowed it to capture the solar prominence as it extended millions of kilometers beyond the Sun in the satellites field of view.

A new study on space-related brain changes has been published in the journal Frontiers in Neural Circuits.

The European Space Agency (ESA), Roscosmos, and researchers from the University of Antwerp in Belgium have collaborated to explore how cosmonauts' brains were affected by spaceflight and living aboard the International Space Station (ISS). The research studied twelve male cosmonauts who, on average, spent 172 days (five and a half months) in space, examining their brains shortly before leaving Earth, soon after returning, and again seven months after returning.

The Hunga Tonga volcano eruption occurred on January 15th, 2022.

Two weather satellites in a geostationary orbit overhead witnessed the eruption; the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration's (NOAA) GOES-17 and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency's (JAXA) Himawari-8. According to NASA, the event was the largest volcanic eruption since satellites have been monitoring Earth.

Scientists from NASA's Langley Research Center analyzed the data from these two satellites and determined the plume of volcanic ash from the eruption reached 58 kilometers (36 miles) at its highest point. The plume reached into the mesosphere, the third layer of Earth's atmosphere, and reached its peak height around 30 minutes after the eruption. A secondary plume followed the first and reached more than 50 kilometers (31 miles) high.

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (HST) has captured a beautiful shot of the galactic merger IC 2431.

IC 2431 is found 681 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Cancer and appears to be a triple galaxy merger in progress, though a thick cloud of dust somewhat obstructs the view of the center. The image was taken by Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) and targeted the IC 2431 merger identified by the Galaxy Zoo citizen science project.

The original Galaxy Zoo project consisted of more than 100,000 volunteers and classified 900,000 unexamined galaxies and was the largest galaxy census ever conducted. The project achieved a year's worth of work for a professional astronomer in 175 days and has since led to a consistent stream of similar astronomical citizen science projects.

A study on the newly discovered species has been published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

The new dinosaur species is called Guemesia ochoai and was discovered in the Los Blanquitos Formation near Amblayo, in the north of Argentina, through the finding of a partially complete skull. It is the first species to be identified for the Guemesia genus. The fossils were found in rocks between 65 and 75 million years old, meaning G. ochoai lived just before the mass extinction that marked the end of the Cretaceous period.

G. ochoai is an abelisaurid dinosaur belonging to the Abelisauridae family, a clade of carnivorous dinosaurs that lived in what is now Africa, South America, and India. These abelisaurids had front limbs even smaller than the Tyrannosaurus rex and were effectively useless.

A new study published in the journal Nature models future outcomes for the Earth's climate.

Researchers from the University of California, Davis (UC Davis) have created computer simulations of a hundred thousand different futures with various outcomes of climate change. The models incorporate social and political factors that help and hinder progress in combating climate change, not just technical, environmental, and economic factors.

A paper describing the android child has been published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology.

Researchers from Japan's RIKEN institute created the android child, named Nikola, as part of the Guardian Robot Project. The android could successfully replicate six emotions: anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise. The research team assessed the quality of facial expression by seeing how easily volunteers could determine the emotion the android was attempting to express.

The android's face contains 29 pneumatic actuators, used to drive the movement of its artificial muscles, with six more actuators that move its head and eyes. The actuators are air-powered to enable quieter and smoother operation for a more realistic experience. Using an existing system known as the Facial Action Coding System (FACS), the research team placed the actuators in the most appropriate places to recreate facial expressions.

Researchers from New Zealand's National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) were responsible for the finding the specimen.

The NIWA researchers found the chimaera, known as "ghost sharks," near New Zealand's South Island. The chimaera is a neonate, meanly newly hatched, about 1200 meters (4,000 feet) deep on the Chatham Rise while surveying the area to estimate the local populations of Hoki, another fish. They are cartilaginous relatives of sharks and rays, meaning fish with skeletons made of cartilage and not bone.

Chimaeras lay their embryos on the seafloor, where they feed on the yolk within their egg capsule before hatching. The team will be conducting further tests and genetic analyses to determine which chimera species the catch belongs to, as there are currently fifty-two known species living in the deep ocean.

A study on the new atomic clock breakthrough has been published in the journal Nature.

Researchers from JILA have measured an aspect of Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity using two atomic clocks, separated by only a millimeter. They measured the clocks ticking at different rates, which can be attributed to time dilation due to gravity, which Einstein's theory predicted. Atomic clocks at different elevations in a gravitational field tick at different rates, moving more slowly the stronger the gravity, in this case, closer to Earth.

In 2010, NIST physicists demonstrated the effect for two independent atomic clocks where one was positioned 33 centimeters above the other. Now, JILA researchers have measured a reduction in the frequency of radiation, or redshift, in atomic clocks comprising strontium atoms in an optical lattice.

A new paper describing the galaxy's discovery has been accepted for publication in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

Researchers from Leiden University have discovered the largest known radio galaxy ever, about 16.3 million light-years in length, or about five megaparsecs. The giant plumes of plasma visible in the photo, visible in bright orange, glow with radio light and are likely the result of a supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy. The black holes at the center of a galaxy can create two jet streams, ejecting material out of the galaxy and emitting radio waves, creating scenes like those seen here.

These kinds of astronomical observations are only viewed from Earth, and hence they do not contain any depth information. Therefore, it is difficult to know how far the galaxy's sphere of influence expands in the third dimension. Still, at more than 16 million light-years across, the radio galaxy is comparable to one hundred Milky Ways in a row.

A study on the new conversion process has been published in the journal Nature Communications.

Researchers from Lund University in Sweden have used a material known as a covalent organic framework (COF), which is porous and can absorb sunlight very efficiently. With the addition of a catalytic complex to the COF, the researchers could use the COF to convert carbon dioxide to carbon monoxide without the need for additional energy to complete the conversion.

A new study on the protective effects of caffeine has been published in the journal Nature Communications.

Previous studies have shown a reduced risk of death from cardiovascular disease among habitual caffeine-consuming adults, equivalent to 400-600 milligrams of caffeine (roughly two or three cups of coffee) daily. Until now, a biochemical explanation hadn't been found by scientists.

Canadian researchers have identified how caffeine initiates a cascade effect to reduce LDL cholesterol levels in the bloodstream. High levels of LDL cholesterol are correlated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease. The researchers found that caffeine consumption was associated with decreased PCSK9 levels in the bloodstream. PCSK9 is a protein that inhibits the liver's ability to process excess LDL cholesterol. Therefore, caffeine's ability to reduce PCSK9 allows the liver to remove more LDL cholesterol from the bloodstream.

NASA's Imaging X-Ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) has captured its first images following its launch last year.

Initially launching on December 9th, 2021, the IXPE has since completed its month-long commissioning phase and confirmed all instruments are in working order. The first object of IXPE's attention is Cassiopeia A, a supernova remnant left behind by a star that exploded sometime in the seventeenth century. The saturation of the magenta color in the above image corresponds to the intensity of X-ray light observed by IXPE, overlayed with high-energy X-ray data, shown in blue, from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory.

A new report from a variety of government agencies has predicted the sea levels across US coastlines for the next 30 years.

The report comes from NASA along with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and states that sea levels across US coastlines are expected to rise by a foot (10 - 12 inches), which means in the next 30 years, the ocean levels will rise as much as they have in the last 100 years. According to NOAA administration Rich Spinrad, who spoke during a news conference on February 15, this newly released report is the "most up-to-date, long term sea-level rise projections of all of the United States and Territories", adding "what we're reporting out today is historic."

During the same news conference, NASA administrator Bill Nelson backed up the report by stating that "the science is very clear" and urged that now is the time to take action against the "climate crisis." Nelson went on to explain that the rapid increase in sea levels rising is generated by humans, and that the "science of the last 20 years has settled the question of human behavior that is driving this climate change."

A "very large" telescope was used to snap the below image of a galaxy researchers call Messier 77 or NGC 1068.

The European Space Observatory's Very Large Telescope located in Chile was used to snap an image of Messier 77, which is located around 47 million light-years from Earth within the constellation Cetus. The image, according to the ESO, has shed new light on galaxies that harbor an active core. At the center, Messier 77 is a supermassive black hole that has an immense gravitational pull. Galaxies that have an active nucleus are fueled by surrounding gas and dust being sucked into the center of the black hole.

Messier 77's supermassive black hole is shrouded in cosmic dust that completely conceals the spiral galaxy's core. However, the Multi Aperture Mid-Infrared Spectroscopic Experiment (MATISSE) mounted to the Very Large Telescope can see in a range of wavelengths that allow it to see through the cosmic dust. With the acquired data from multiple observations, researchers developed a new way to view Messier 77, adding to the researchers' observing program of galaxies with an active core.

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) are on a regular schedule of working out, conducting vital experiments, and doing body research.

In a recent update on the events taking place on the ISS, NASA explains that three astronauts were scheduled for eye and vein scans on Tuesday, and throughout the scanning, doctors on Earth observed. The scanning took place in the Columbus laboratory module and used the Ultrasound 2 device that snapped images of the astronauts' neck, shoulder, and leg veins.

NASA flight engineers Mark Vande Hei and Thomas Marshburn and German astronaut Matthias Maurer also had their eyes scanned. So, why scan astronauts aboard the ISS? NASA explains in its blog post that the acquired data will be used to measure the effects of microgravity on the human body, which will no doubt lead to the development of technology that would reduce any negative impact of long-space duration for astronauts.

A new study on psilocybin's effect in the treatment of major depressive disorder has been published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology.

Researchers from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine have previously demonstrated psilocybin's ability to relieve symptoms of major depressive disorder in adults for up to a month. A follow-up study of the same participants has shown "substantial antidepressant effects" that can last for at least a year in some patients after psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy treatment.

A new report issued by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and six other federal agencies describes the expected sea-level rise.

The 111-page report was issued on February 15th, and includes projections for sea-level rises on United States' shores to be 10 to 12 inches (25 to 30 centimeters) higher than current levels by 2050. Parts of Louisiana and Texas are likely to see waters rise by up to a foot and a half (0.45 meters).

Nicole LeBoeuf, director of NOAA's National Ocean Service, warned that the cost of such an increase would be steep, noting that forty percent of the American population and much of the economy is found along the coast. The report's lead author and oceanographer William Sweet notes that the worst of the long-term sea-level rise due to melting ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland isn't likely to kick in until 2100.

Bookings will open through Virgin Galactic's website on Wednesday, February 16th.

Virgin Galactic has announced that it will be reopening its waiting list for customers to book a space tourism flight, requiring a deposit of $150,000 and $450,000 total for the ticket cost. In November 2021, the company reported a pool of about 700 customers awaiting flights, with plans to have a thousand people ready to fly by late 2022, when they plan to begin commercial flights.

It is the third documented case of an individual entering HIV remission.

The previous two cases of HIV remission were males, who were known as the "Berlin patient" and the "London patient," who were Caucasian and Latino, respectively. The Berlin patient was in HIV remission for 12 years, having been deemed cured, before he died of leukemia in September 2020, and the London Patient has been in remission for more than 30 months. They both received stem cell treatments from bone marrow.

Now, a woman has been in HIV remission since receiving a different treatment, transplanting CCR5Δ32/Δ32 cord blood stem cells from an umbilical cord. Before her treatment, she had been on antiretroviral therapy (ART) for four years, making her HIV manageable but still detectable. She received the stem cell treatment in 2017 and, after 100 days, had no detectable HIV. At 37 months following the transplant, she ceased ART, and in the 14 months following ART cessation, no HIV has been detected, except for a trace detection 14 weeks after stopping ART.