Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 11

An astronaut aboard the International Space Station (ISS) phoned home to report a mysterious sound coming from Boeing's Starliner capsule.

NASA astronaut Barry (Butch) Wilmore contacted NASA's ground crew on Saturday, informing them of a strange sound that was presumably coming from the Boeing's Starliner, which NASA recently deemed too dangerous to ferry the NASA astronauts it transported to the ISS back in June. Starliner arrived at the ISS in June with some leaks, which later turned into even more leaks and then the eventual ruling out by NASA as the designated method of transportation back to the surface of Earth.

Most importantly, the two astronauts initially intended to stay aboard the ISS for a week, but their stay will now span more than 200 days. Wilmore informed NASA that it was hearing a repeated sound that was described by a member of NASA's ground team as "almost like a sonar ping." Given the location of space, the mysterious sound has a somewhat automatic ominous nature, but unfortunately, the explanation will more likely than not be disappointingly ordinary.

A new study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters details a hole that was created in Earth's atmosphere following the Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly (RUD) of SpaceX's Starship rocket during it second orbital test flight.

The study was published in the scientific journal on August 26, and claims SpaceX created a hole in Earth's ionosphere, which is located between 50 and 400 miles above Earth's surface. This region of Earth's atmosphere is where gasses are stripped of electrons and turned into plasma, but following the explosion of SpaceX's Starship rocket researchers detected a first-of-its-kind disturbance.

According to the study multiple ground-based instruments and satellites detected the disturbance in the region of the atmosphere where the rocket exploded, with it lasting for anywhere between 30 to 40 minutes before fully recovering. The team explained the ionospheric holes aren't particularly new with chemical rockets exploding, as researchers know that carbon dioxide and water vapor can result in ionized oxygen atoms reforming into normal oxygen atom. The region this occurs in causes a "hole" to form in the plasma sea that is the ionosphere.

It was only last week we heard about Neuralink's second human patient using the company's new brain-computer interface (BCI) called "Link" to play Counter-Strike 2, and now we have an update from Nolan Arbaugh, the Neuralink's first human patient.

Arbaugh's success with the first BCI implant has truly been remarkable as the 29-year-old paraplegic has demonstrate competent control over a computer cursor through simply thinking where he wants the cursor to move.

In a nutshell, the BCI implant within both of the Neuralink patients' heads measure electrical signals within the brain and coverts them into readable input data for a computer to process in real-time. The device gives patients such as Arbaugh the ability to play Mario Kart, and even describe his skill within first-person-shooter games as unfair as he has "an aimbot". But more importantly, it changes the life for someone like Arbaugh as he is now able to interact with the world in a way that without Neuralink wasn't possible.

It was back in May we last heard about NASA launching its Advanced Composite Solar Sail System, which if successful could revolutionize space travel in the solar system and perhaps even further out into the seemingly endlessness of the universe.

NASA launched a tiny CubeSat on the back of Rocket Lab's Electron rocket on April 23, and reported the next-generation technology was successfully placed 600 miles above the surface of Earth in a Sun-synchronous orbit. The CubeSat was then ready to move onto the next part of its mission, the lengthy unfurling process that will eventually result in the sail appearing as a square that's approximately 860 square feet, or about half the size of a tennis court.

NASA has now provided an update on the mission, writing the solar sail is "now fully deployed in space after a successful test of its sail-hosting boom system." The space agency goes on to explain aboard the solar sail are four cameras that captured panoramic views of the reflective saily and supporting composite booms. NASA states on September 4 images from these cameras will be published to showcase the achievement.

NASA has Boeing have officially announced when the Starliner capsule that transported NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the International Space Station (ISS) in June for what was meant to be a week-long stay, will leave the ISS for its return journey back to Earth.

The Starliner capsule has a tumultuous existence to say the least as Boeing has endured numerous delays with the initial development, costing the company exorbitant amounts of money, only to now be faced with new problems that will likely amount to even more money in brand damage. In short, Boeing's Starliner spacecraft had a few leaks prior to launch but was cleared by NASA and Boeing.

Upon arrival at the ISS additional leaks were detected and after a lengthy investigation that has spanned several months, NASA has determined along with the guidance of Boeing that Starliner doesn't meet the safety requirements to transport the two NASA astronauts back to Earth. NASA and Boeing have downplayed the way the situation is being described, saying the astronauts aren't technically stranded as there are viable methods of transportation docked at the ISS, and the ISS carries enough resources to support the astronauts' stay.

Boeing's Starliner spacecraft transported two NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the International Space Station (ISS) on June 5 with the goal of returning them a week later. However, that didn't go to plan.

Prior to launch and upon arrival NASA and Boeing detected helium leaks on the Starliner spacecraft. Some leaks were detected before launch but were cleared by both NASA and Boeing, while additional leaks were detected throughout the journey and confirmed upon arrival. Since then NASA and Boeing have been gathering data on the Starliner situation and determining an attack plan to return Wilmore and Williams back to Earth.

After a lengthy analysis period NASA has determined there isn't enough concrete evidence to give the agency enough confidence to sign off on Starliner meeting all of the agency's rigorous safety and performance requirements that are designed to make astronauts as safe as possible during flight. Essentially, Starliner is too broken to fly and isn't a safe transportation method for the NASA astronauts.

Researchers have used data acquired by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory to detail a supermassive black hole's last meal, and how many times it will snack on it before its completely consumed.

The supermassive black hole was originally discovered in 2018 and is called AT2018fyk, and it has a mass approximately 50 million times more than the Sun. When the supermassive black hole was first discovered researchers noticed a brief spike in the brightness of the system, which when observing black holes typically means the celestial vacuum cleaner has consumed material. The scientists calculated if it was an object orbiting the black hole it would pass by again in August 2023.

The waiting was worth it, as researchers detected the object again on August 13. Researchers determined the object was a star that is orbiting the black hole at a distance that only causes chunks of its material to be torn off and sucked into the black hole. The orbit of the star has put it a bit of a pickle as its too far away to be completely consumed by the black hole (yet), but is still close enough for the extreme gravitational pull of the black hole to tear material off its surface.

Water will be a critical ingredient needed for humans have to prolonged stays on the surface of the moon, and water is quite heavy, which means transporting it will prove by expensive and inefficient. This means researchers need to look to other methods of producing or finding water on the surface of the moon.

A new report from Reuters states lunar soil samples acquired by China's Chang'e-5 mission and delivered to Earth in 2020 marked the first time in 44 years since humans got their hands on samples from Earth's closest neighbor. With these samples, researchers have been performing many forms of testing and analysis, and one team out of the state-run Chinese Academy of Sciences discovered the minerals within the lunar soil samples are rich in hydrogen.

The "brand-new method" involves heating the hydrogen, which then reacts with other elements to produce water vapor. According to the team, one tonne of lunar soil could produce as much as 51 - 76 kg of water, or about a hundred 500ml bottles of drinkable water, or the daily consumption of water by 50 people. The creation of a new method of producing water on the surface of the moon ties directly into China's plans to construct a lunar base by 2035, which will have the goal of permanent human residence.

A team of researchers from the University of Arizona have penned a new study detailing the creation of a microscope capable of capturing the speed of a electron.

The new research has been published in the Science Advances journal and details the creation of an attosecond electron microscope, or a microscope that instead of using typical camera sensors that capture visible light use direct beams of electrons that pass through whatever the target object is. Researchers transmit these electrons in pulses and the faster a pulse moves through an object, the greater the resolution. Additionally, camera sensors capture the interaction between the electrons and the target sample.

All of the aforementioned data is used to create the end result images. However, ultrafast electron microscopes work by releasing a train of electrons in at a few attoseconds, which is one quintillionth of a second. It's best to think of each of these electron pulses as frames per second (FPS) in a movie or a video game. Until now, researchers were unable to capture the reaction of the electron when passing through the sample when its between each of the FPS, which restricted the total possible resolution.

The second patient of Neuralink's new brain-computer interface (BCI) chip otherwise known as a "Link" has been playing Counter-Strike 2 on his laptop using just his thoughts.

Elon Musk's exciting startup had his Neuralink implant (Link) installed last month, with the surgery taking place at the Barrow Neurological Institute, with Alex discharged the following day, and Neuralink saying "his recovery has been smooth".

With the Link installed, Alex has been improving his ability to play video games, and has started learning how to use computer-aided design (CAD) software to design 3D objects using his thoughts. Neuralink says that this "marks another significant step" towards providing a high-performance interface that will enhance the control of digital devices for people with quadriplegia to help restore their autonomy.

Tesla is currently hiring people to wear motion-capture suits and VR headsets, to train its Optimus AI robot, and paying up to $48 an hour. Check out the latest on Optimus below, and apply for the job here (you'll need to live near Palo Alto, California).

If you're accepted into the position of a "Data Collection Operator, Tesla Bot" then you'll need to walk a pre-determined test route daily for data collection into Optimus, while wearing a motion capture suit and a VR headset, performing designated movements and actions, based on the project requirements.

You'll need to start/stop recording devices and perform minor equipment and software debugging, while providing feedback on the performance of the equipment, and then analyzing and reporting on that data during your shift. You'll need to upload data collected and write daily reports detailing your observations and issues, while ensuring equipment is in proper and safe working condition and safely transported to various collection sites.

The International Space Station (ISS) is a floating laboratory that is manned by astronauts conducting vital science in microgravity.

At an altitude of approximately 250 miles and a moving speed of 17,500 mph, the ISS completes one orbit of Earth approximately every 93 minutes, which is 15.5 orbits every day. Given its position the ISS is certainly disconnected from many of the pleasures found on Earth's surface, and one of these pleasures is the joyous experience of eating fresh fruit. Up there fresh fruit is considered a delicacy.

However, a Russian cargo spacecraft arrived at the ISS over the weekend and delivered close to three tons of supplies, and included in those supplies was a small amount of fresh fruit. The moment was so monumental that it was captured on video and posted to ISS astronaut Matthew Dominick's X account. The short video showed a piece of an orange being pushed toward Dominick in microgravity, resulting in a floating piece of orange that was consumed mid-air by the astronaut.

In April, Earth was hit by a huge solar storm that caused auroras to light up the night sky as far south as Arizona.

Auroras are caused by solar particles interacting with Earth's magnetic field in the upper atmosphere, and now NASA has revealed some more spectacular than incredible colors that occurred during the event. According to the NASA Sun & Space X account, for a brief period of time, a "two-way highway" formed between the Sun and Earth. This rare anomaly was caused by the Sun's coronal mass ejection (CME), a blast of solar particles traveling slower than waves called Alfvén waves.

Typically, the opposite occurs, but during the April 24 event, NASA's Magnetospheric Multiscale spacecraft recorded the CME traveling slower than the Alfvén waves moving through solar plasma. Bow shocks are shockwaves created when the solar wind blows on a planet's magnetic field, and during the April 24 event, the bow shock temporarily disappeared, causing charged particles to spew back at the Sun for approximately two hours.

A team of researchers have used NASA and the European Space Agency's James Webb Space Telescope, the world's most powerful space telescope, to attempt to uncover the mystery surrounding how fast the universe is expanding.

Scientists have been battling to solve what is widely referred to as the "Hubble tension," which is the conflicting answer between the two methods that can be used to measure the expansion rate of the universe. Observations of distant supernovae suggest a lower rate of expansion, while measurements of cosmic objects closer indicate a higher rate of expansion.

The lack of a unified result causes the "Hubble tension," which refers to the astronomer Edwin Hubble, who discovered distant objects appear to be moving away from Earth faster than closer objects. For example, when measuring the Cosmic Microwave Background, the signature leftover after the Big Bang, astronomers land on a Hubble constant of 67.4 kilometers per second per megaparsec while measuring the brightness of nearby galaxies, the number jumps up to 74 kilometers per second per megaparsec.

A team of scientists at the University of California have created a brain-computer interface (BCI) that is capable of restoring a form of speech for a man suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or Lou Gehrig's disease.

The 45-year-old man named Casey Harrel suffers from ALS, which causes a loss of muscle control that can severely impact the clarity of speech. Harrel is now able to communicate his thoughts through the BCI, which converts his brain signals into words that are then "read" by the computer and spoken out loud in real time. Moreover, Harrel's BCI is designed to sound like his own voice before the disease influence how it sounded.

How does it work? The BCI was implanted into the region of the brain that is responsible for speech, and with its 256 electrodes, it is capable of analyzing brain activity sent to that region of the brain and then converting it into readable data for the computer to interpret. More specifically, the BCI converts brain activity into what is called a "phoneme" or a "syllable or the unit of speech."

It's always nice to see researchers and technology making progress in the field of renewables, especially in areas that aren't commonly thought of as big contributors to greenhouse gases.

The construction industry isn't the first area that comes to mind when someone mentions greenhouse gases, but perhaps unsurprisingly, it contributes quite a lot. The UN Environment Programme estimates that the buildings and construction sector is by far the largest emitter of greenhouse gases, accounting for a staggering 37% of global emissions.

To reduce global emissions, researchers from the University of Tokyo penned a new process of making renewable concrete bricks out of old building materials and CO2 from the air. The team first revealed the process in 2021, and since then, it has significantly improved. The renewable concrete bricks were made out of demolished school building material, which was grounded down into a fine powerder before it was then mixed with CO2 over three months.

A new study that has been published in the peer-reviewed journal Science has detailed the origins of the asteroid that caused the Chicxulub Crater, or the impact crater left behind by asteroid that ended the rein of the dinosaurs.

The Chicxulub Crater is located off the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico and is believed to be caused by an asteroid 66 million years ago that measured six miles wide. The impact was catastrophic for life on Earth, causing a mass extinction-level event that wiped out the already declining population of dinosaurs. Researchers have penned a new study that has examined the origins of the dino-killing asteroid, tracing back its origin to the far outskirts of the solar system beyond the biggest planet in the solar system, Jupiter.

Mario Fischer-GÜdde, who researches the origin of asteroids and planets at the University of Cologne in Germany, spoke to Mashable and said the dino-killing asteroid was a "C-type asteroid," which means its composition was mostly carbon. Notably, C-type asteroids are the most common variety of asteroid, accounting for 75% of all known asteroids.

A new report from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, a known and reliable Apple insider, has revealed the Cupertino company is planning on releasing a smart home command center sometime in 2026.

Gurman writes that Apple's new project is a tabletop robot that will have a display that's similar in size and design to a large iPad, but this display will be mounted on a "thin robotic arm". The display is capable of being rotated 360º and would be used to control smart devices around the house, FaceTime calls, and a home security monitoring tool. Additionally, the Apple command center will also come with Apple Intelligence and Siri functionality, and would be capable of distinguishing the different voices from each member of the house.

Reports indicate that Apple has thrown the company's VP of technology, Kevin Lynch, on the project, along with several hundred other Apple employees. Gurman writes the release date isn't solid and Apple is aiming for a debut sometime between 2026 and 2027 for a price tag around $1,000. Currently Apple is testing this device with a modified version of the iPadOS, with it remaining unclear if it would get its own dedicated OS or would continue using a modified version of iPadOS.

CNBC published a report on August 12 that claimed Elon Musk's SpaceX knowingly violated environmental regulations by releasing pollutants into nearby bodies of water in Texas.

The report claims the Elon Musk-led company violated wastewater regulations at its Boca Chica, Texas launch site Starbase. The report cites investigative records along with notices from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TQEC). CNBC writes that SpaceX moved quickly to rebuild its destroyed launchpad following the first test flight of Starship, causing some damage to the environment, vehicles, and the in-question launchpad.

To prevent such catastrophic damage SpaceX rebuilt the launchpad with a new deluge system capable of muffling sound, reducing heat, and energy produced by a launch. What the report claims is SpaceX skipped obtaining a permit before going ahead with their next launch. More specifically, the EPA launched an investigation into the wastewater from the new system following SpaceX's full pressure test of in July 2023. Here come the crux of the allegations.

Seismic data acquired by NASA's InSight lander, which has now retired, has revealed the presence of large liquid water reservoirs beneath the surface of Mars.

Researchers have known for some time that Mars was once home to large bodies of liquid water, which formed running river-like delta systems across various regions of the planet. Evidence of liquid water is critical to the quest of identifying any ancient microbial life on the Red Planet, as its an ingredient for life as humans know it. But what if life is still present on Mars, but humans just can't get to it as it is miles beneath the Red Planet's surface?

Data from NASA's InSight lander, which used a seismometer along with other instruments to measure Mars' geological activity, point to massive underground reservoirs of liquid water. These readings informed researchers the reservoir is so large that if it was emptied it would cover the entire planet in about a mile of ocean. Unfortunately, humans won't be able to access it for quite some time as it's located between 7 and 13 miles beneath the planet's surface in the mid-crust region.