Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 112

A team of researchers has penned a newly published paper about the biggest comet that has ever been observed by a human.

The new paper has been published in Astronomy and Astrophysics Letters and details Comet 2014 UN271, or Bernardinelli-Bernstein, which was first observed back in 2014 when astronomers spotted it out as far away as Neptune. As the comet came closer to Earth, astronomers estimated that it could have a diameter as large as 230 miles, but according to the newly published paper, that estimation may be slightly off.

An international team of astronomers measured the amount of micro radiation that wasn't being emitted by dust coming off the surface of the comet and found that for the comet to be emitting as much light as it currently is, it would have to have a diameter of 85 miles. Notably, the estimation from the newly published paper (85 miles) falls incredibly short of the previous estimation (230 miles), but the 85-mile measurement still makes comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein the largest comet ever observed by a human.

A new study published in the journal PLOS Medicine explores how diet impacts life expectancy.

The research uses findings from meta-analyses and data from the Global Burden of Disease study (2019) to model how life expectancy changes with sustained changes in dietary intake of various food sources. These food sources included fruits, vegetables, whole grains, refined grains, nuts, legumes, fish, eggs, milk/dairy, red meat, processed meat, and sugar-sweetened beverages.

The authors found that by shifting from a typical western diet to a more optimal diet, a 20-year old individual could increase their life expectancy by more than ten years. For a 60-year old individual, life expectancy could increase by eight years, and for an 80-year old, it could increase by about three and a half years. Their in-between diet model to accommodate those with difficulty making drastic diet alterations could still see a six to seven-year increase in life expectancy for a 20-year old.

A new study on Saturn's aurorae has been published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

Aurorae on Earth and other planets are formed by powerful currents flowing into the atmosphere from the surrounding magnetosphere. Charged particles from the Sun drive this interaction on Earth, and volcanic material on orbiting moons enable them on Jupiter and Saturn. Uniquely, Saturn's winds within its atmosphere have now been directly contributing to aurorae formation.

The discovery sheds new light on one of Saturn's mysteries first discovered by NASA's Cassini probe when it arrived in Saturn's orbit in 2004: why is it so difficult to determine the length of a day on the planet? Astronomers found many of the typical measurements used to determine day length for a planet fluctuated over time, making Saturn's actual day length uncertain.

The Curiosity rover has snapped some images showing the state of its wheels.

NASA's Curiosity rover has spanned 3381 Martian sols and counting, or nine and a half Earth years, and it hasn't all been smooth sailing. Large chunks have been taken out of the six aluminum wheels the rover is equipped with, but NASA is confident that Curiosity still has plenty of tread left on the tires, so to speak.

While exploring the Gale Crater on the surface of Mars, the rover has covered 16.86 miles (27.14 kilometers) to date, across rough terrain. Early on in its mission, the rover's handlers began assigning more easy-going routes to mitigate the rover accumulating excessive damage. Updates since have also given Curiosity tools such as traction control software to adjust its speed according to the terrain it is traversing.

The Perseverance rover set a new record for the longest distance traveled on Mars by rovers in a day.

A day on Mars is longer than a day on Earth by about forty minutes and is called a "sol." On February 4th, 2022, the Perseverance rover traveled 245.76 meters (806.3 feet), a new record for the longest trek by a rover on Mars in one sol, after setting a new record in the preceding days with a 243.3-meter journey.

The previous record was held by NASA's Opportunity rover, which traveled 214 meters (702 feet) in one sol in 2015. The new records came after the rover recovered from a blockage caused by Martian rock samples it had collected. Now, it is undertaking a multi-kilometer drive to a nearby delta.

A new study exploring the impact of these masks has been published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology Letters.

The improper disposal of surgical masks, which have seen a drastic increase in usage owing to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, is a source of serious microplastic pollution. Researchers from the City University of Hong Kong (CityU) estimate they contribute to seriously polluting more than 54,800 Olympic-sized swimming pools worth of seawater annually.

Global demand for surgical masks reached an estimated 129 billion per month by 2020, and it has been estimated that 1.56 billion masks made their way into the ocean in 2020. The team determined that a mask weighing about three grams releases approximately 3,000 microplastics in simulated seawater conditions over nine days. They estimate the complete decomposition of a mask would release between 0.88 million and 1.17 million microplastics.

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.

The data collected by the TanDEM-X and COSMO-SkyMed satellites is being analyzed by scientists from NASA, the German Aerospace Center (DLR), and the Italian Space Agency (ASI), in addition to those from UH and the University of California Irvine. The measurements of the Pope, Smith, and Kohler glaciers show "rapid and unprecedented retreat." Milillo notes that "if all ice above flotation in Antarctica would melt, the sea level would go up on average by 58 meters (190 feet)."

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 low-density plastic known as polyolefin, used for packaging consumer electronics, is a polymer that researchers could strip hydrogen atoms from selectively to create a higher-value plastic known as an ionomer. A popular example of an ionomer is Dow's SURLYN, widely used in food packaging.

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.