Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 112

A blast from the Sun that caused a geomagnetic storm has killed numerous of SpaceX's Starlink satellites, according to an announcement from the company.

According to SpaceX, the batch of Starlink satellites that was launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on February 3 have suffered from a geomagnetic storm in low-Earth orbit will result in 40 of the 49 satellites failing to make it to their intended destination. SpaceX writes that a geomagnetic storm occurring on the February 4 "significantly impacted" the satellites by causing "atmospheric drag".

The company writes that the Starlink satellites were commanded to dodge the geomagnetic storm by turning sideways, or "edge-on", but unfortunately, the maneuver never reached the satellites. SpaceX has designed the Starlink satellites to disintegrate upon re-entry into Earth's atmosphere, which will mean that none of the satellites will pose a risk to anyone on the Earth's surface.

Four years ago this week, SpaceX needed a test payload for its Falcon Heavy launch vehicle, and what better option than Elon Musk's own Tesla Roadster?

The red Tesla Roadster wasn't the only thing that was launched off the surface of Earth, as the SpaceX team placed a mannequin called "Starman" in the driver's seat where he still should be today. The Falcon Heavy took off from Florida, flying high into the Earth's atmosphere, where it released the payload.

According to Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, who spoke to CNN, the Roadster is likely still in one piece but may have suffered some damage from small meteoroids that could have caused some dents in the cars shell. As of Wednesday, February 8, the Tesla Roadster is 234,000,000 from Earth and is moving away from the planet at a speed of 3,682 miles per hour.

NASA has taken to its Hubble Twitter account to share a classic image of a stunning spiral galaxy called M81.

NASA's famous Hubble Space Telescope, which has been operating for more than 30 years, now snapped the image of the large "grand design" spiral galaxy M81, and the space agency released the image on May 28, 2007. NASA describes the image as the "sharpest image ever taken" of M81 as it showcases the galaxy's oblique angle and gorgeous spiral structure that is similar to the Milky Way galaxy.

M81 is located approximately 11.6 million light-years away from Earth, and with Hubble's incredibly sharp image quality, researchers are able to locate independent stars within the "arms" of the spiral galaxy. NASA explains that the stars seen winding down the spiral arms are young and have a blueish hue, meaning they formed within the last few million years.

Previous reports indicate that an out-of-control decommissioned SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will collide into the Moon in early March.

Bill Gray, known for the Project Pluto software, which is used to track near-Earth objects such as asteroids/comets, called upon fellow astronomers to acquire data on what is believed to be a spent upper stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Astronomers pieced together the obtained data and estimated that the spent rocket stage will collide with the far side of the Moon, close to the equator, on March 4.

Now, the founder of the Virtual Telescope project, Gianluca Masi, who is equipped with several high-powered telescopes, captured the Falcon 9 booster on video and posted the footage to the Virtual Telescope Twitter account. Masi also captured a still image of the spent rocket stage, and while the quality of the video/image is lackluster, it's still very impressive when considering an amateur astronomer captured it.

NASA's newest Mars rover named Perseverance is a very sophisticated piece of technology and is currently collecting rock samples for a long journey back to Earth.

Unfortunately, Perseverance isn't able to send back Mars samples, but NASA has a plan, and it involves a rocket being launched from the surface of Mars. NASA has dubbed the mission "Mars Sample Return Program," and according to the space agency's recent announcement, it has tapped Lockheed Martin to construct the first rocket to do a round-trip mission to Mars to pick up samples.

Lockheed Martin will construct the Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV), which is a small, lightweight rocket that will launch from the surface of Mars. NASA's plan is for the Sample Retrieval Lander (SRL) to take the Mars Ascent Vehicle to the Red Planet's surface, where it will land relatively close to Perseverance. The SRL will act as a launch platform for the small MAV rocket, which will be shot up into orbit and the payload caught by the European Space Agency's Earth Return Orbiter.

A new study has found a lost range of "supermountains" that played a big role in the evolution of Earth into what it is today.

A new study published in the journal Earth and planetary Science Letters details an extremely large and ancient mountain range that is believed to be as tall as the Himalayas and extending more than three or four times the current distance of around 1,500 miles.

According to postdoctoral student and lead author of the new study, Ziyi Zhu, mountain ranges such as the ones described in the study don't exist today, but when they did, they likely played a major role in two fundamental periods of Earth's history; the appearance of complex cells around 2 billion years ago and large quantities of marine life that emerged around 541 million years ago.

A new article on the waning glaciers has been published in the journal Nature Geoscience.

Researchers from the University of Houston (UH) are studying three glaciers at the South Pole with a new, advanced remote imaging system known as synthetic aperture radar interferometry. The use of radar allows satellite observations to be taken in any weather conditions, through clouds, and without the need for sunlight.

A study describing the new recycling method has been published in the journal Science.

Researchers from the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill have discovered a method of breaking down plastics to create new materials that are tougher and stronger than the original material. Plastics are traditionally difficult to recycle due to the strength of their carbon-hydrogen chemical bonds, but UNC chemists identified a new reagent to help them break these bonds.

A new study on the technology has been published in the journal Nature Medicine.

Scientists implanted sixteen-electrode devices into the epidural space between the vertebrae and spinal cord membrane of three men's spines, all of whom were paralyzed due to severe spinal cord injuries. Pacemakers implanted under the skin in their abdomens could deliver electrical currents to the electrodes, allowing trunk and leg muscles to be stimulated.

The system can be controlled wireless with a computer, and the men were all able to take steps on a treadmill on the day following the surgery. Physical therapy and training over three to four months were necessary to complete tasks like climbing stairs or walking for 500 meters independently.

The new video was uploaded by the European Space Agency (ESA).

The problematic piece of equipment aboard the International Space Station (ISS) being repaired is the Water On-Off Valve 8 (WOOV-8) behind EXPRESS-Rack 3. WOOV-8, along with WOOV-6 and WOOV-7, determines whether cooling water from Europe's Columbus module enters or bypasses the heat exchange system responsible for transferring waste heat to downstream cooling circuits outside the ISS.

It was previously replaced in October 2021 by ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet. Nevertheless, ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer has since tested a reserve valve to see if an unplanned conversion was possible due to continuing issues. In December 2021, the repair operation was completed, and the latest video posted shows the repair in progress.

Elon Musk announced the upcoming Starship presentation in a reply on Twitter.

The update will be given on Thursday, February 10th, 2022, at 9 p.m. EST (02:00 UTC on February 11th). The last in-depth update regarding Starship and its eventual journey to Mars was in September 2019, when Musk announced plans for the vehicle to be used for space tourist trips around the Moon, to Mars, and other destinations. Yusaku Maezawa, who recently visited the International Space Station for a tourist trip, already has a tourist trip aboard Starship booked.

SpaceX is currently awaiting completion of a programmatic environmental assessment (PEA) conducted by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) before it can conduct its first orbital test flight of Starship from Starbase, SpaceX's South Texas launch site.

NASA has announced a new timeline update for its $800 million-dollar InSight lander that has recently experienced a decently large Mars dust storm.

NASA explains that on January 7, the InSight lander went into safe mode as a regional dust storm rolled into the area its stationed within. On January 10, the InSight team was able to reconnect with the lander and found its power was holding steady but was quite low. Even before the most recent dust storm, martian dust has been accumulating on the lander's solar panels, reducing the overall power supply of the lander.

Dust storms can cause issues in two ways; dust accumulation on the solar panels, and reducing the amount of sunlight that can reach the solar panels. According to the Mars InSight mission website, the InSight team devised a way to reduce the amount of dust on the solar panels, and it involved using the landers robotic arm to scoop up dust and drop it upwind of the solar arrays.

Multiple videos have been captured of is suspected to be a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket re-entering Earth and turning into an epic fireball as it plummets closer to the surface.

Residents in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico that looked up at the night sky witnessed a light show that rarely many get the pleasure to see. Reports indicate that many people were initially confused about what was causing the fireball to erupt in the sky, but now many people suspect that the fireball was an old second-stage SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that was launched in March 2017.

At the time of writing this article, SpaceX hasn't confirmed whether or not the debris was a Falcon 9 rocket stage, but regardless of whether it was, the onlookers that saw the event were able to witness something that some people go their entire lives without seeing. In other SpaceX news, another Falcon 9 rocket stage is expected to crash into the Moon. If you want to read more on that story, check out this link here.

A billion-year-old black rock will be going up for auction and is expected to be purchased for more than $6 million.

The extremely expensive rock is a 555.5-carat black diamond that belonged to its owner for more than twenty years. According to the BBC, the black diamond is called "The Enigma" and is expected to be purchased for more than $6 million at a Sotheby's auction in London by the time the online bidding closes at the end of this week. Notably, black diamonds are some of the toughest forms of diamond and are usually anywhere between 2.6 to 3.2 billion years old.

The Enigma is a carbonado, which is an extremely rare gem that has only been discovered in Brazil and the Central African Republic. As for the origins of black diamonds, geologists haven't yet garnered a unanimous theory about where they come from. So far, geologists know that black diamonds contain osbornite, a mineral that is only found in meteorites, which leads some geologists to believe that they could form at impacts sites where a large asteroid has struck Earth.

Jeff Bezos' $450 million superyacht is going to cause a historic World War II steel bridge to be dismantled so it can get out to sea.

According to a report from The Guardian, the historic steel frame bridge in the Dutch port city of Rotterdam is to be partially dismantled in order to let a 417 foot-long superyacht called "Y721", constructed for Jeff Bezos, to pass out into the sea. The superyacht costs $485 million and is too large to get past the Koningshaven Bridge that was built in 1927, and rebuilt after the Nazis bombed it during World War II. The bridge operated until 1994, where it was then declared a national monument, with the city stating that it would never be dismantled again.

However, that doesn't seem to be the case, with the mayor of the city now pointing towards the economic benefits created by the construction of the superyacht. Additionally, the local council reassured individuals in the Netherlands angered by the decision to partly dismantle the bridge that it would be rebuilt exactly how it was before Bezos' superyacht began construction. For more information on this story, check out this link here.

A team of researchers has identified evidence that suggests a comet only narrowly missed Earth, but still managed to make a devastating impact on the surface of the planet.

A new study published in Scientific Reports hones in on a comet that passed Earth sometime during 252 and 383 BC. Researchers believe that the comet passed close enough to Earth that debris entered Earth's atmosphere and was observed by several different civilizations at the time, including Chinese astronomers, the Miami tribe, and the Shawnee tribe. The debris from the comet exploded over the Ohio River Valley region. The event was described differently by each civilization, but all fit the description of comet debris.

The team of researchers found evidence for the event at 11 sites that belong to the indigenous Ohio Hopewell culture as 9,200 square miles would have been set on fire and leveled from the explosion. In 1908 comet debris exploded over a Russian forest and wiped out 830 square miles of forest, this was called the Tunguska event. The comet debris that exploded over the Ohio River Valley impacted ten times the area and would have caused widespread suffering for people living in the affected area.

A new study has found that SpaceX's Starlink satellites are causing an increasing number of problems for astronomers.

The new study was published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters and claims that SpaceX's Starlink satellites are causing streaks of reflected sunlight to appear in a growing number of astronomers' photographs. Currently, SpaceX has around 1,900 of its Starlink satellites in orbit, and the US Federal Communications Commission has approved the use of 12,000 satellites.

The researchers behind the study found that in Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) images that were taken during the night, there was a 35-fold increase in the number of sunlight streaks caused by Starlink satellites. Comparatively, in late 2019 less than 0.5% of ZTF images contained Starlink streaks, and as of August 2021, 18% of the images were found to be contaminated with streaks.

SpaceX recently launched the COSMO-SkyMed Earth observation satellite, and incredible footage of the rocket separating during the flight has been captured and published for the public to enjoy.

The above video has been posted onto the SpaceX YouTube channel and showcases the company's workhorse launch vehicle, the Falcon 9. The footage shows the Falcon 9 using its first-stage booster to push the rocket's payload higher into Earth's atmosphere at the ridiculous speed of more than 3,700 miles per hour. After the first stage has completed its burn, it separates from the rocket and makes its way back down to Earth.

During its descent, the rocket orientates itself to safely land so it can be reused, saving millions in manufacturing. After the first stage separates, the second stage ignites its Merlin boosters to continue the rest of the journey. Notably, the video showcases the payload firing, which is the "shell" of the rocket separating, allowing the payload to be dropped off at the requested altitude.

The Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) system can now survey the entire night sky.

The ATLAS system is funded by NASA and run by the University of Hawai'i and initially comprised two telescopes that became fully operational in 2017. The telescopes were based in two different locations in Hawai'i, Haleakala, and Maunaloa, and were able to scan the night sky for asteroids every 24 hours. However, they are limited to only observing the night sky visible from the northern hemisphere.

Now, NASA funding has resulted in the completion of two more telescopes, both located in the southern hemisphere. The first was built in South Africa by the South African Astronomical Observatory. The second was built in Chile, supported by a collaboration between the Millennium Institute for Astrophysics and the private company Obstech.

A new paper published in the journal Nature Energy describes the novel technology.

Engineers from the University of Delaware (UD) captured 99% of carbon dioxide in the air when using their novel hydrogen-powered electrochemical system. The team responsible has been attempting to improve fuel cell technology for over fifteen years, searching for a workaround to the reduced efficiency hydroxide exchange membrane (HEM) fuel cells experience when absorbing carbon dioxide.

They realized that the sensitivity of the fuel cell to carbon dioxide, while detrimental to its efficiency in converting the chemical energy in fuel to electricity, meant it could be used as an effective tool for capturing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.