Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 117

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.

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.

Bronson clarified that the hands not moving closer to midnight is not an indication that the threats facing humanity have stabilized. Instead, they remain as close to midnight as ever because the world "remains stuck in an extremely dangerous moment."

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.

Axiom Space currently has a $140 million contract with NASA to send at least one module to the ISS, forming a commercial segment as part of the space station. The first module from Axiom Space is expected to arrive as early as 2024. When the ISS is inevitably decommissioned, the Axiom Space modules will detach to help form a new, independent space station.

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."

A team from the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands achieved 1-qubit and 2-qubit fidelities of 99.87 percent and 99.65 percent, respectively. A team from RIKEN in Japan achieved 1-qubit and 2-qubit fidelities of 99.84 percent and 99.51 percent, respectively. The 99 percent threshold is considered the barrier for building fault-tolerant computers and marks a significant breakthrough in quantum computing.

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.

The gas outflow travels at a relatively low velocity of around one million miles per hour into the dense gas cloud of the star-forming region. The slower flow from a less massive black hole in a dwarf galaxy, compared to the supermassive black holes of other galaxies, allows this gas flow to fuel star growth along its path. Outflow from a larger black hole would heat the gas clouds in this path beyond their ability to cool and form stars.

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.

The other incentive challenge is the NASA Air-athon Challenge, which seeks air-quality monitoring solutions, in the face of growing levels of air pollution and climate change. There is currently no single system that provides high-quality data on-demand regarding surface-level air pollutants, so NASA and HeroX have launched DrivenData.

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.

Novel entities include an estimated 350,000 different types of chemicals being manufactured globally, including plastics, which contain over 10,000 different chemicals. The team reports that plastic production has increased by 79% between 2000 and 2015, with the total plastic mass worldwide more than doubling the mass of all living mammals. Roughly eighty percent of all plastics ever produced stay in the environment.