Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 117

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists hasn't moved the hands of the Doomsday Clock for another year.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists was founded in 1945 by scientists that worked on the Manhattan Project, including Albert Einstein and J. Robert Oppenheimer. In 1947, they introduced the Doomsday Clock to symbolize the world's proximity to catastrophe. Now, on the 75th anniversary of the clock's unveiling, the position of its hands stays unchanged from 2020, when they were moved to 100 seconds to midnight.

Axiom Space has been contracted to build the new orbital film studio.

It will be the first space-based "multipurpose entertainment and content studio," attached to the International Space Station (ISS) as a new commercial segment. Based out of the United Kingdom, Space Entertainment Enterprise (SEE) contracted Axiom Space to build the SEE-1, an inflatable module that will serve as the new segment.

Three new studies published today in the journal Nature show independent achievements of highly reliable and robust quantum computing.

A team from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) achieved a 1-qubit operation fidelity of up to 99.95 percent and a 2-qubit fidelity of 99.37 percent. Their approach used silicon embedded with phosphorus atoms via ion implantation, a method used in producing all existing silicon computer chips, allowing their quantum breakthrough to be "compatible with the broader semiconductor industry."

NASA's Artemis 1 moon mission will soon be another step closer to launching for real.

Artemis 1 intends to launch an uncrewed spacecraft toward the moon later this year and has an upcoming "wet dress rehearsal" scheduled for late February. A simulated countdown will ensure the Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System (SLS) rocket are working as expected. The Orion spacecraft has flown only once before, and the Artemis 1 launch will mark the SLS rocket's first flight.

Since the new year, engineering tasks have readied the spacecraft, with the crew access arm for the Orion spacecraft being tested successfully on January 11th. The SLS also completed core stage engineering tests by January 14th, after replacing one of its four RS-25 engine controllers.

The Shiyan 13 test satellite has a currently unknown mission.

The satellite was launched from the northern Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center (TSLC) on January 17th at 10:35 a.m. local time (02:35 UTC) aboard a Long March 2D rocket. The launch site temperature was recorded at -37 degrees Celsius (-35 degrees Fahrenheit), requiring the launch team to add "product sealing measures" to the rocket to ensure a successful launch.

"The Experiment No. 13 satellite is mainly used to carry out space environment detection and related technology experiments," the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) wrote in a statement.

The new study was published in the Geological Society of America's journal Geology.

The study focuses on the eruption of the Taal Volcano in the Philippines, which began a series of eruptions starting in January 2020, 43 years after its last eruption. The plume of volcanic ash rising led to thousands of land-to-ground lightning strikes occurring over several hours.

The electrical activity arises after the plume rises high enough in the atmosphere to freeze. Radio waves produced by lightning can be detected with remote sensing tools quickly, allowing scientists to collect data quickly. Along with lots of social media posts with pictures and videos of the event, scientists identified a "highly electrified region at the base of the umbrella cloud."

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

The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observed the dwarf starburst galaxy Henize 2-10, found 30 million light-years away in the constellation Pyxis. Hubble saw a gas outflow from the black hole at the center of the galaxy reaching into a star-forming region 230 light-years away andfostering the growth of stars, rather than suppressing it.

In a recent article published in The Conversation, Gareth Dorrian, a Post Doctoral Research Fellow in Space Science, University of Birmingham, explains how the recent volcanic eruption was detected in space.

On January 15, an underwater volcano located 40 miles north of the Tongan capital erupted with the power equivalent to 10 megatons of TNT exploding, or more than 500 times as powerful as the nuclear bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima. The eruption spawned a tsunami that has devastated Tongan islands, wiping out most houses and structures, the event has been caused an "unprecedented disaster" by the Tongan government.

Dorrian explains in the article that the eruption has generated "atmospheric gravity waves" that were detected by a NASA satellite. These waves that were detected will allow Dorrian and fellow researchers to better understand the top layers of Earth's atmosphere from events happening on Earth, and how volcanic eruptions can impact space, as opposed to the alternative perspective of how space impacts the top layer of Earth's atmosphere.

A large underwater volcano eruption recently rocked tonga, and now the power of that eruption has been calculated by NASA researchers.

According to a new report by NPR, NASA researchers have estimated that the power generated by the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano was equivalent to 10 megatons of TNT exploding. The eruption occurred 40 miles north of the Tonga capital and immediately spawned a large tsunami that has since wiped out the majority of the houses and structures across two islands.

"We come up with a number that's around 10 megatons of TNT equivalent," said James Garvin, the chief scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, told NPR. If NASA's estimations are correct, it means the eruption was more than 500 times as powerful as the nuclear bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. Michael Poland, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey, said that the blast from the eruption was heard as far away as Alaska, and that it may be the loudest eruption since 1883.

The James Webb Space Telescope is not only nearing the end of its journey to Lagrange 2, it's also closing in on completing its deployment.

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) took off from Earth on Christmas Day, 2021, and has now spent a full month in space. Webb has completed the majority of its complicated deployment work, which has taken the observatory from a narrow configuration that was necessary for launch to an extremely expensive unfolded piece of origami that will hopefully be able to answer some of the biggest questions about the universe.

JWST has 18 primary mirrors, and each is hexagonal and is controlled by seven actuators that give teams back on Earth precise movement capabilities. Teams began deploying each of the mirrors on January 12, and now according to NASA administrator Bill Nelson, all 18 mirror segments are now fully deployed. This doesn't mean that the observatory is operational, as Space.com points out, NASA will need to alter each of the positions of the mirrors, so all of the segments combine to form one giant mirror.

The challenges were created by NASA's Tournament Lab in collaboration with crowdsourcing platform HeroX.

The first challenge, Waste to Base Materials Challenge: Sustainable Reprocessing in Space, is seeking solutions to the problems caused by waste generated in space. Long spaceflights such as those to Mars, which for a round trip would take at least 12 to 18 months, would generate a lot of waste. Each submission for the challenge will be evaluated based on how it handles four categories: trash, fecal waste, foam packaging material, and carbon dioxide processing.

A new review on the technology was published in the journal Science and Technology of Advanced Materials.

Scientists in Taiwan reviewed the latest advances in small dressings that generate electricity, and can accelerate wound healing and tissue regeneration. In the mid-to-late 20th century, scientists found that stimulating tissue with an electric field could improve wound healing. Current research is focused on developing small patches that can achieve this without external electric equipment.

Candidate materials for these technologies are piezoelectric materials, which generate electric currents when exposed to mechanical stress. These include natural materials such as quartz, silk, wood, bone, hair, and rubber. Synthetic materials such as quartz analogs, ceramics, and polymers are also piezoelectric.

A review of the current situation was published in an article in the journal Nature Climate Change by researchers from Concordia University.

The article synthesizes findings from 1,682 articles distilled from over 50,000 scientific documents on adaptations made by humans and society to respond to climate change. It shows that humans are implementing strategies to combat climate change; however, there is insufficient data to ascertain whether any responses reduce the overall climate change risks. So far, no significant transformative change has arisen.

Some of the reviewed articles suggested a link between adaptation and mitigation, but the limited data doesn't show a direct influence on adverse outcomes such as extreme weather events resulting from the risk mitigation strategies currently in place. Lack of transformative adaptations such as moving communities out of high-risk areas or radically changing agricultural practices was a cause of concern for the researchers, who noted only relatively small steps being taken so far.

A new study published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology discusses the updated planetary boundaries framework.

In 2009, nine planetary boundaries were identified by researchers, which describe the relatively stable state of Earth since the dawn of civilization approximately 10,000 years ago. Some of the boundaries have yet to be quantified, but in 2015 scientists concluded that at least four of the boundaries have been breached. The boundary for novel entities is now being breached with significantly increased chemical and plastic production.

ExxonMobil made its pledge on Tuesday, January 18th, 2022.

The pledge covers what is known as "Scope 1" and "Scope 2" emissions, referring to the carbon emissions from ExxonMobil's operations and emissions associated with heating and cooling used at its facilities. "Scope 3" emissions are not covered by the pledge, which refers to those from the products sold, including gasoline purchased by consumers.

ExxonMobil has also announced other projects that will see more funding put into lower-emissions technologies, such as carbon capture and storage projects. "Detailed roadmaps" will be released by the end of 2022, addressing ninety percent of operations-related greenhouse gas emissions, with the remaining ten percent in 2023.

Mastercard has announced a new partnership with cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase for its upcoming NFT marketplace.

The new partnership with Mastercard is aimed at providing users with a way to make purchases on the NFT marketplace without having to purchase Ethereum or other cryptocurrencies. Mastercard's executive vice president of digital assets, Raj Dhamodharan, said that NFTs will be looked at as "digital goods," and this partnership will allow users to purchase NFTs with a credit card.

Dhamodharan explains that the process of purchasing an NFT with cryptocurrency is fairly simple for someone who is already involved in the space (trading, flipping, etc) but for the majority of people, the process is very new and not simple. Dhamodharan says that the process of purchasing an NFT "should be much easier", and "That will ensure NFTs can be for everyone [...] Getting more people involved safely and securely is perhaps the best way to help the NFT market thrive."

A recent volcanic eruption 40 miles off the coast of Tonga has rocked the nation, as a tsunami has destroyed countless homes, and ash blanketed the main island.

An underwater volcano erupted 40 miles north of the capital of Tonga, spawning a 49-foot tsunami that has almost wiped out all the homes on two islands. Tonga has experienced communication issues since the eruption as an undersea cable was severed. The Tongan government gave its first update on Saturday and announced its second today, describing the event as an "unprecedented disaster" and confirming the deaths of three people.

The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai undersea volcano erupted with an ash cloud that reached the stratosphere (50 miles), covering the 170 islands where around 100,000 people live. The physical damage from the tsunami has caused major damage across most islands, and the volcanic ash is blanketing regions, contaminating drinking water.

NASA has taken to its blog to reveal its plans for removing the unwanted martian pebbles located in a Mars rovers bit carousel (the place where samples are stored).

Jennifer Trosper, the Project Manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, has taken to the NASA Science Mars website to outline the agency's plan for removing the debris. Lopez writes that the team has performed a diligent analysis of the carousel and the ground located directly beneath Perseverance, and has sent commands to the rover on January 12 that instruct Perseverance to point the Tube 261 at the floor and release its contents.

Additionally, Lopez writes that the team has also sent up instructions that will command Perseverance to perform two rotation tests of the bit carousel, both the smaller and the larger test will commence over the weekend. The team has instructed the rover to take under-chassis images and expect that the data from the tests and the images will arrive on Earth by January 18.

The astronaut behind the famous gorilla video on the International Space Station explained how his first attempt smuggle attempt didn't go as planned.

Even in space, humans perform practical jokes on each other, and sometimes that means smuggling different items onto the International Space Station (ISS). Futurism reports that many different items have been smuggled onto the ISS throughout its operational time. Items such as alcohol, cigarettes, and even cremated remains on a famous Star Trek actor. Another item that was once smuggled onto the floating laboratory was a gorilla suit, but the astronaut that was trying to get it on the ISS didn't get it there on his first attempt.

In an interview with People, NASA astronaut Scott Kelly explained that his identical brother Mark Kelly, a retired NASA astronaut, attempted to send his brother Scott, who was on the ISS, a gorilla suit in 2015. However, that suit ended up being destroyed in a massive explosion when a SpaceX Falcon 9 didn't quite make it to the floating lab. Mark didn't give up there. "The next time I was on the phone with my brother, he goes, 'I'm sending you another gorilla suit,'" Scott told People.

An asteroid that is thousands of feet in diameter will be making its closest approach with Earth today, and you can watch it pass by live.

A livestream will be hosted by Italy's Virtual Telescope Project that is located in Rome. The livestream will focus on asteroid 7482 (1994 PC1) as it makes its closest approach with Earth at a safe distance of 1.2 million miles, marking the closest it will come to Earth for the next 200 years.

According to data provided by the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS), which is operated by NASA, asteroid 7482 is estimated to have a diameter of 3,400 feet, or half a mile wide, and is traveling at 47,000 mph. NASA explains that the asteroid is "very well known and has been studied for decades by planetary our defense experts". If you are interested in seeing where the asteroid is in the solar system, check out the NASA Eyes website here.