Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 118

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.

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope is the most powerful observatory ever built and was recently launched on December 25, 2021.

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is slated to be the successor to the famous Hubble Space Telescope. The Hubble Space Telescope currently orbits the Earth, but the JWST has a much further destination planned out. NASA and accompanying space agencies have sent the JWST to a special place in the solar system known as the second Lagrange point (L2). This point in space is 930,000 miles away from Earth in the opposite direction of the Sun and has been selected due to balanced gravity in the area.

Gravity from the Sun and Earth is balanced in the five Lagrange points, which means the observatory will stay in a fixed position while using a very small amount of energy. Once Webb reaches this location, it will be locked into orbit with Earth. NASA recently stated that Webb has completed just over 91% of its journey to L2 and is currently 23 days into a 29-day trip. NASA expects the observatory to arrive at L2 on January 23.

The new research comes from Leiden University, which received a grant from the Netherlands Trade Union Convention (FNV).

Following a series of behavioral experiments simulating three different forms of social security, the researchers concluded that basic income would not necessarily mean that people would work less. The researchers also found indications that individuals with a basic income are more likely to find a job that is better suited to them.

They found that basic income did not reduce a participant's willingness to work nor increase their salary expectations. They found the conditional benefits system to have a negative effect on work-seeking behaviors, as losing benefits upon finding work is demotivating, in a phenomenon known as the benefit trap.

A new study on the satellites' impact has been published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Astronomers are concerned about the effect that SpaceX's Starlink satellite constellation could have on their scientific observations as the constellation grows in size. Currently standing at almost 1,800 satellites orbiting at an altitude of roughly 550 kilometers (341 miles), SpaceX plans to expand the constellation to 10,000 satellites by 2027.

A team of researchers analyzed archival images taken by the National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF), operating out of Caltech's Palomar Observatory, which scans the entirety of the night sky every two days, cataloging changes. In images taken between November 2019 and September 2021, researchers identified 5,301 satellite streaks. They are most apparent during twilight observations taken at dawn or dusk, the most critical time in finding near-Earth asteroids.

The rare 555.55-carat black diamond is dubbed "The Enigma" and is believed to have originated in outer space.

The auction house Sotheby's Dubai will be auctioning off the 55-faceted diamond in London in February. It expects the diamond will be sold for at least 5 million British pounds ($6.8 million), and they intend to accept cryptocurrency as a possible payment.

Black diamonds are also known as carbonado and are found naturally only in Brazil and Central Africa. Their origin is unknown, and six different hypotheses have been proposed, two of which refer to cosmic origins. They may have formed inside a giant star that then became a supernova, flinging the material toward Earth. They may also have come from asteroids, either directly or due to a collision with another interstellar object.

The projection comes as part of the Third UK Climate Change Risk Assessment (CCRA3) submitted to the UK Parliament.

The CCRA3 is required by the Climate Change Act 2008 and is partly based on an independent Technical Report produced by a team of over 600 researchers, led by the University of Exeter and Met Office. The Technical Report concludes that global warming increases risks to the UK's natural environment, human health, communities, infrastructure, businesses, security, migration, and supply chains.

All of the risks associated with global warming are expected to increase in severity with a rise of 2°C and even more so with a 4°C increase. The report involved more than two years of work, conducting new research and incorporating the work of many previous scientific papers. It also relies on independent advice from the Climate Change Committee (CCC). Work for the next CCRA is already underway by many of the same researchers that contributed to the CCRA3.

The work is headed by the Earth BioGenome Project (EBP), with a new paper describing its goals, next steps, and current achievements being published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences.

After launching in November 2018, the EBP is moving from its initial pilot projects to full-scale production sequencing. The goal of the EBP is to catalog complete DNA sequences for all 1.8 million named plant, animal, fungi species, and single-celled eukaryotes.

The project networks other efforts to sequence the DNA of life on Earth from other nations worldwide, such as the California Conservation Genome Project (U.S.), Darwin Tree of Life Project (Great Britain and Ireland), the Vertebrate Genome Project, and the 10,000 Bird Genomes Project. With the Earth forecasted to lose half of its biodiversity by the end of the century if nothing is done to stop climate change, the project serves to archive life on Earth as we know it and help protect our ecosystems and help prevent biodiversity loss.

On January 15, an underwater volcano several miles off the coast of Tonga erupted, causing the islands to be blanked in toxic volcanic ash.

An underwater volcano located 40 miles north of the capital of Tonga erupted, causing a massive plume of toxic smoke to be shot up into the atmosphere, reaching an altitude of 12 miles. The eruption immediately spawned a four-foot tsunami that hit the capital of Tonga. Additionally, the eruption knocked out most means of communications with the outside world as an underwater cable has been severed, which may take a week to restore.

Australia and New Zealand have sent surveillance flights over to Tonga to assess the damage, and reports indicate that there isn't mass causalities but significant damage to houses and resorts. On top of the physical damage from the tsunami, volcanic ash is blanketing the region and contaminating drinking water. Most residents aren't aware that the ash is toxic, which poses as a major health concern for many, said Tonga's deputy head of mission in Australia, Curtis Tu'ihalangingie.

A team of researchers detected radio signals coming from the center of the Milky Way, and then they mysteriously disappeared.

The ASKAP radio telescope located in Australia performed a survey that included 2 million objects, and each of the objects was being classified by a computer and researchers. One object, in particular, wasn't able to be classified by the computer or researchers and became an immediate object of interest as, throughout 2020, the object emitted six radio signals over the course of nine months. The researchers hadn't seen anything like this before.

Scientists attempted to locate the object that was causing the radio signals in infrared, visible, and X-ray wavelengths but were unable to spot anything. Additionally, the object stopped emitting signals for months on end, and then researchers re-detected it around a year after it was first discovered. While the signals aren't officially classified as anything yet, researchers are using the placeholder name "galactic center radio transients" (GCRTs).

Researchers have discovered that Earth's core may be cooling much faster than previously anticipated after performing interesting tests on bridgmanite.

A team of scientists from Carnegie and ETH Zurich decided to perform an experiment on bridgmanite, a miner that is found in large quantities at the boundary between Earth's outer core and its lower mantle. The researchers used a diamond anvil cell and combined it with bridgmanite samples. The diamond anvil cell was then placed in front of a laser to simulate the high pressure and temperature found at the boundary region and then observed the cooling process with an optical absorption system.

The results from the experiment indicated that bridgmanite was much better at conducting heat than previously thought, in fact, it was 1.5 times better. Due to higher heat conductivity, a higher rate of cooling takes place, which means that Earth's core will cool down faster than what was previously estimated. Additionally, once bridgmanite cools, it turns into a mineral dubbed post-perovskite, which as Interesting Engineering reports, "conducts heat at an even faster rate".

Researchers have penned a new study that details an analysis of carbon isotopes in sediment samples taken by NASA's Curiosity rover located in the Gale Crater, Mars.

Curiosity has spent the last nine years roaming the surface of the Gale Crater, and along the way, it has taken samples of rock that have then been analyzed by its instruments. The data from that analysis is then relayed back to researchers on Earth for interpretation. According to a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, analysis on carbon isotopes has uncovered three possible origins for the carbon.

Researchers note that all three of the possible origins of the carbon are "unconventional", and are "unlike processes common on Earth." The researchers explained that carbon has two stable isotopes, carbon 12 and carbon 13. By examining how many of each are in a sample, the researchers can determine, to at least some degree, the specifics of the carbon's origin despite the age of the sample.

Mount Vesuvius is one of the most dangerous volcanoes on Earth, and now an incredible bird-eye view of the volcano has been captured with a NASA satellite.

NASA's Landsat 8 satellite has been used to capture a phenomenal image of one of the few active volcanoes located on Europe's mainland. NASA's Earth Observatory blog post explains that Mount Vesuvius is a "composite stratavolcano" that is comprised of "pyroclastic flows, lava flows and debris". These volcanic debris have accumulated over thousands of years to form the iconic volcanic cone we can see in the above image.

The blog post notes that more than 3 millions people live in Naples, a city in Italy and around 800,000 people live on the slopes of the volcano, making it "one of the most dangerous volcanoes on the planet". Vesuvius has had eight major eruptions in the last 17,000 years and the most famous would have to be an eruption that occurred in A.D 79 when the volcano wiped out the roman city of Pompeii and Herculaneum. The most recent eruption occurred on March 17, 1944 and the volcano destroyed the village of San Sebastiano, Italy.

A powerful underwater volcano located about 40 miles south of Tonga has erupted, spawning a tsunami that has now impacted the mainland.

The eruption happened on January 15 and was captured on film from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) GOES-West Earth-observing satellite. The footage showcases a large mushroom cloud of toxic ash erupting from the ocean and climbing as high as 12 miles in altitude. The eruption caused a sonic boom and a 4-foot tsunami to hit Tonga's capital of Nuku'alofa.

Tongan Olympian, Pita Taufatofua, has announced a GoFundMe page dedicated to providing relief for all Tongans affected by the tsunami. According to the description on the GoFundMe page, the eruption has "devastated Tonga," and that all communications with the island have been cut off.

On January 15, an underwater volcano located in Tonga erupted, and the violent explosion was captured from a satellite in space.

The video posted by Space.com was captured by the GOES West Earth-observing satellite that's currently operated by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The above video showcases an extremely large explosion occurring, followed by a plume of smoke floating up into the atmosphere to an altitude of 12 miles.

The Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha'apai volcanic eruption immediately spawned a four-foot tsunami that hit Tonga's capital of Nuku'alofa that's located around 40 miles south of the volcano. Additionally, tsunami warnings and evacuation orders were issued for neighboring countries. The Associated Press has reported that there have been no injuries following the eruption, but added that Tonga's internet access was interrupted following the explosion.

NASA has its eyes on space and is constantly looking for anything that may pose as a threat to our little blue planet.

The space agency recently confirmed via an entry in its Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) that an asteroid dubbed 7482 (1994 PC1) will be making its closest approach with Earth on January 18, 2022. The space rock is estimated to be around 3,400 feet wide and will safely zoom past Earth at 47,000 mph and at a distance of five times the distance between the Earth and the moon (1.2 million miles).

BusinessInsider reports that the 1994 PC1 is around half a mile wide, which is around the size of the Empire State Building in New York. Due to its size and its "close" approach with Earth, NASA is tracking the whereabouts of the space rock and has recently announced that you can join in on the tracking as well by heading over to the NASA Eyes website. Additionally, the space agency explains that asteroid 1994 PC1 is "very well known and has been studied for decades by planetary our defense experts".