Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 116

A new study clarifying the origin of the apparent groundwater has been published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

Researchers from the University of Texas at Austin have determined that what was previously thought to be liquid water at the Martian south pole was likely a mirage. In 2018, scientists observed bright radar reflections under the polar cap, but now researchers conclude the observation is likely volcanic rock buried under ice.

Following up on yesterday's article about NASA planning on performing a correctional burn for the James Webb Space Telescope, the space agency has announced good news - the burn is complete and Webb has reached its destination.

NASA took to its blog and social media channels to announce that at 2 p.m EST Webb fired its onboard thrusters for 297 seconds, or nearly five minutes. This burn was the final post-launch course correction to Webb's overall trajectory, and pushed the observatory into its final destination - the second Sun-Earth Lagrange point (L2) located nearly 1 million miles away from Earth.

Despite the thrusters burning for nearly 5 minutes, Webb only increased in speed by 3.6 miles per hour, but that was all that was required to get the space telescope in its designated position. Now that Webb has arrived in its final location, engineers will begin the sophisticated three-month process of aligning all of Webb's optics, while also simultaneously waiting for its instruments to cool down for optimal use.

What was once believed a dream is coming to reality, or at least it kind of is with the upcoming release of the Jetson ONE.

A Swedish electric vertical take-off and landing vehicles (eVTOL) startup is planning on releasing an ultralight hoverbike inspired by the hoverbikes seen in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. In October last year, Jetson released an incredible promotional video for the Jetson ONE, the company's first all-electric aircraft that it plans on bringing to market. The video showcases the aircraft that looks similar to a large drone that can be sat in, flying across a desert landscape that was deliberately chosen to create that sci-fi atmosphere for the viewer.

The Jetson ONE doesn't require the driver to hold a pilot's license as it falls under the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) category of being an ultra-light vehicle which is defined by the vehicle being less than 254 pounds and a maximum speed of 63 mph. However, Jetson co-founder Peter Ternstrom told the BBC that he wants the first people that use the Jetson ONE to have currently or previously held a pilots license.

The organizer for NASA's first tourism mission to the International Space Station (ISS) has announced the mission is delayed.

According to Axiom Space, the Ax-1 mission that will be the first-ever private astronaut mission to the ISS will now be targeting a new launch date. Originally, Axiom Space planned on launching three amateur astronauts to the ISS sometime at the end of February, but now NASA and Axiom are targeting a launch window at the end of March.

The reason for the delay is for "additional spacecraft preparations and space station traffic," which, as Digital Trends reports, suggests that there is going to be some other spacecraft traveling to the ISS at the end of February causing "traffic". The three amateur astronauts traveling to the ISS will be Canadian investor and philanthropist Mark Pathy, American entrepreneur Larry Connor, and former Israeli Air Force pilot Eytan Stibbe.

Tonga was recently devastated by an underwater volcano erupting 40 miles north of the main island, and now NASA has estimated the power of the explosion.

The underwater volcano that erupted was the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano, and upon eruption, it shot plumes of debris 25 miles into the atmosphere while also spawning a tsunami that flattened most houses and structures across two Tongan islands. Additionally, the eruption spewed volcanic high up into the air that eventually blanketed islands, contaminating running water and making it difficult for neighboring countries to provide aid by air.

The NASA Earth Observatory has estimated that the amount of energy that was released by the eruption was equivalent to somewhere between five to 30 megatons of TNT. If that estimate is correct, it would mean the eruption was hundreds of times more powerful than the atomic bomb that was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima in 1945, which NASA estimates to be around 15 kilotons of TNT.

One of NASA's satellites orbiting Mars captured a stunning view of a Martian crater that serves as more than just a spectacle.

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is equipped with a giant camera called the High-Resolution Imaging Experiment (HiRISE) that is capable of photographing the surface of Mars in fantastic detail. The above image was snapped by HiRISE on 27 October 2021 and of the crater called Airy-0 (zero). While the image is certainly a spectacle, it also showcases the exact point of zero longitude on Mars.

Notably, the larger crater that the Airy-0 (zero) sits within, dubbed the Airy Crater, originally defined the zero longitude point on Mars, but as higher resolution imaging became available to researchers, the Airy-0 (zero) was selected as a smaller point was required. The University of Arizona writes that "everything is still defined to keep zero longitude centered on this crater", and that longitude can also be measured "using radio tracking of landers such as InSight".

The James Webb Space Telescope launched off the surface of Earth on December 25, 2021, and since then, it has been closing in on its destination at the second Lagrange point.

During its journey, Webb has completed the majority of its complicated deployment work that has unfolded the observatory out from a narrow configuration that fit inside of an Ariane 5 rocket to an extremely expensive and powerful space telescope that will be used to attempt to answer some of the biggest questions about the universe.

Webb is now nearing the end of its nearly one million-mile journey to Lagrange point 2, and as NASA explains in a recent blog post, the observatory will perform a correctional burn that will put it into orbit around the Sun. NASA writes that the Webb team have selected Monday, January 24 at 2 pm to fire Webb's thrusters, and to mark the milestone moment in Webb's overall deployment, NASA will be hosting a broadcast and news conference.

NASA has taken to its blog to showcase a spiral galaxy that features a sea of glistening stars blanketed across the galaxy's "face".

NASA explains that the above spiral galaxy is called NGC 3318 and is located approximately 115 million light-years away from Earth within the constellation Vela. The space agency gives a history lesson on the naming of the constellation Vela, writing that Vela was originally part of a much larger constellation previously called Argo Navis, after the fabled ship in Greek mythology built by gods and the hero Jason to take himself and his Argonauts to Colchis to steal the Golden Fleece.

Due to its immense size and nature Argos Navis, it proved to be "impractically large", and was split into three separate parts referred to as Carina (central line of the hull), Puppis (poop deck), and Vela (sail) - each named after a part of the Argo ship. The renaming of the constellation certainly kept its nautical theme, and as NASA points out, the outer edges of the above galaxy "almost resemble a ship's sails billowing in a gentle breeze."

Last week NASA outlined its plan for removing the unwanted debris detected during a failed transfer of a Mars sample to the bit carousel.

Now, the space agency has given an update regarding its recovery process, announcing it has recently claimed two successes. Deputy Project Manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Rick Welch writes on the NASA Mars website that the upper two pebbles located in the bit carousel that are believed to have prevented the transfer of the sample have been successfully ejected, and that "most - if not all" of the cored Mars rock from Sample Tube 261.

As with most steps that are taken by Mars rovers they are documented not only for engineers and researchers back on Earth, but for public viewing as well. One of Perseverance's many cameras captured before and after images of the carousel performing rotational tests which caused the rock fragments to be ejected out. Lastly, Perseverance's Mastcam-Z instrument captured a video of the contents within Sample Tube 261 being released onto the surface of Mars.

Saturn's moon Mimas has whacked with an asteroid that has left an 80-mile wide crater to dominate its surface.

The crater has given Mimas a similar look to the iconic planet-destroying weapon called "Death Star" seen throughout the Star Wars franchise. While Mimas certainly isn't a planet-destroying weapon created by Star Wars villains, it has shown signs of having an engine beneath its surface, which has surprised researchers as it was believed the moon was just a frozen chunk of ice and rock.

Planetary scientists published a new study in the journal Icarus that explored the relationship between tidal heating, a process caused by gravity when a moon or planet orbits another celestial body, and Mimas' wobble. Mimas' orbit is very eccentric and only takes 22 hours and 36 minutes to complete one orbit of Saturn. Researchers proposed that tidal heating may have caused the interior of Mimas to heat up, causing ice to melt and form an ocean deep beneath the surface. This ocean could then cause the wobble in Mimas' orbit.

Known as Big Slider, the Atlas V rocket was launched on January 21st, 2022.

The Atlas V rocket launched from the Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, with liftoff occurring at 2 p.m. EST (19:00 UTC). The rocket is the United Launch Alliance's (ULA's) only Atlas V to fly with the "511" configuration, referring to its five-meter fairing and single solid rocket motor. It is known as the "Big Slider" because it power-slides off the pad, owing to the asymmetric torque produced by the motor.

The Big Slider carried two satellites into a near geosynchronous orbit for the USSF-8 mission for the United States Space Force. The satellites launched will operate as part of the Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program and are designated GSSAP-5 and GSSAP-6. Their objective is to watch for optimal satellite positioning and enhance navigation while also looking for space objects that threaten satellites so that the USSF can warn other space-faring nations.

The detection is detailed in a new study published in the journal Physical Review Letters.

Immediately following the Big Bang, the universe was an extremely hot, concentrated plasma of elementary particles known as quarks and gluons, the precursor particles to protons and neutrons, which make up all matter as we know it. In the first split second of existence before the universe expanded, these quarks and gluons briefly joined in various combinations known as "X" particles of unknown structures and properties.

Physicists have theorized their creation would be possible in particle accelerators, and now physicists from MIT's Laboratory for Nuclear Science have found evidence of X particles in experiments conducted at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, based near Geneva, Switzerland. From 13 billion heavy ion collisions, the team identified about 100 X particles, known as the X (3872) type, with 3872 referring to the particle's estimated mass.

NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) passed the five thousand mark for TESS Objects of Interest (TOIs).

TESS's mission began in 2018, and its most recent addition to the TOI catalog comes mostly from the Faint Star Search, led by MIT postdoc Michelle Kunimoto. The objects of interest are exoplanets candidates, potential planets found outside of our solar system. After TESS identifies these candidates, astronomers will confirm whether or not they are real exoplanets. So far, 175 have been confirmed from the TESS TOI catalog.

A new study on the discovery was published in the journal Physical Review Fluids.

Phase changes in water are well understood by most; heating ice (solid) makes water (liquid), and heating water produces water vapor (gas). Enter the Leidenfrost effect, first described in a 1751 publication, which refers to a phenomenon where a water droplet placed on an aluminum plate heated to at least 150 degrees Celsius (302 degrees Fahrenheit) will not boil.

As the droplet approaches the plate, water vapor will form between it and the plate, cushioning the liquid and preventing it from making direct contact with the plate, allowing it to slide around on the surface in a similar fashion to an air hockey puck. Associate Professor Jonathan Boreyko and graduate fellow Mojtaba Edalatpour sought to investigate if ice would produce a similar effect.

The flare was emitted on January 20th, 2022.

NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) captured images of the solar flare, which peaked at 1:01 a.m. EST (6:01 UTC). The flare was mid-level and is classified as an M5.5 class flare. Solar flares, and the potentially resulting radio blackouts, are classified using a five-level space weather scale by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), found on its website.

The sun is currently in Solar Cycle 25, which refers to the 11-year cycle of solar activity the sun goes through, with 25 referring to the number of cycles scientists have closely tracked so far. NASA estimates that the peak of solar activity for this cycle will occur around 2025, with uptakes in sunspots, solar flares, and coronal mass ejections (CMEs).

On January 17, Crypto.com announced that its exchange had been hacked as many users were reporting "suspicious activity" on their accounts.

The reports from users stated that coins were missing from their wallets, and in response to these user reports, Crypto.com paused all withdrawals across the exchange. The exchange stated that "all funds are safe", and that out of an abundance of caution, it will be enhancing security across all accounts. The exchange required all users to sign back into the app and exchange and also reset their two-factor authentication.

Crypto.com took to its blog on Thursday to publish a security report regarding the aforementioned hack. The report states that the hack affected 483 users, and unauthorized withdrawals totaled 4,836.26 ETH, 443.93 BTC, and around $66,200 in other cryptocurrencies. The current prices of the previously mentioned cryptocurrencies are equivalent to $33.84 million. If you are interested in reading more about this story, check out this link here.

Four years ago, astronomers detected a mysterious object entering our solar system, it marked the first time an interstellar object passing through the solar system has been detected.

Since its detected, 'Oumuamua has puzzled astronomers, and as a result, many theories have surfaced that attempt to explain its origin. The object has a very odd shape, and while researchers can theorize how the object's shape came about, getting a closer look will give the most accurate answer. A team of researchers from the UK-based nonprofit "Initiative for Interstellar Studies" has proposed sending a spacecraft to the object for a close-up inspection.

The team of researchers proposed launching a spacecraft that circles Earth twice, then slingshots around Venus and Jupiter. Each pass of a planet, the spacecraft will gain momentum that will then propel the spacecraft towards the mysterious object. Researchers anticipate that if the spacecraft was launched in 2028, it would take around 26 years for it to reach 'Oumuamua.

A small satellite tagging along on the Artemis 1 moon mission will seek out the asteroid.

The mission's target is 2020 GE, a near-Earth asteroid (NEA) less than 60 feet (18 meters) in size. To investigate it, the Near-Earth Asteroid Scout, or NEA Scout, the satellite will coast toward the satellite using solar sails. It will mark the first use of solar sails by NASA, and the first time an asteroid smaller than 330 feet (100 meters) across will be explored up close.

The camera aboard the NEA Scout has a resolution of fewer than 4 inches (10 centimeters) per pixel and will be used by scientists to determine the asteroid's size, shape, rotation and ascertain whether 2020 GE is solid or a conglomerate of smaller rocks and dust.

The iceberg is named A68A, and it snapped off the Larsen-C Ice Shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula in July, 2017.

The iceberg spanned 5719 square kilometers, one-quarter the size of Wales, making it the largest iceberg on Earth at the time it formed and the sixth-largest ever recorded. It traveled 4,000 kilometers across the Southern Ocean over three and a half years, drifting close to South Georgia at the end of 2020.

It avoided damaging the seafloor near South Georgia by melting sufficiently to reduce its size as it traveled from Antarctica. However, this melting meant it released 152 billion tons of fresh water into the ocean close to the island, potentially compromising the fragile marine ecosystem in the area. Five satellites were involved in tracking changes to A86A: Sentinel-1, Sentinel-3, MODIS, CryoSat-2, and ICESat-2.

NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory is in safe mode to allow the mission team to investigate the issue.

On the evening of January 18th, the Swift observatory temporarily halted its science operations after potentially experiencing a reaction wheel failure. Swift has six reaction wheels, which are used to autonomously orient the telescope towards possible gamma-ray bursts (GRBs).

The suspected wheel has since been powered off by the mission team, with the observatory put into safe mode as a precaution while the team investigates the issue. The rest of the wheels and instruments aboard the observatory are operating as expected, so the team is working to restore science operations with five reaction wheels.