Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 120

The size of NASA's astronaut corps is its smallest since the 1970s.

As NASA expands its space endeavors beyond the International Space Station (ISS), NASA could need more astronauts to fulfill those missions. At present, all of its astronauts only fly to the ISS, aboard SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsules and Russia's Soyuz vehicles. With the Artemis program set to take humanity back to the moon, NASA needs astronauts trained for that mission and other new ones on the horizon.

The dwindling corps size is partly due to more astronauts retiring every year following the grounding of NASA's space shuttles in 2011. The report discusses NASA's management of its astronaut corps. It suggests that the size of the corps will become a constraint on its ability to conduct future missions if it is not addressed appropriately. The report suggests that alongside factors such as budgets, spacesuit supply, and rocket manufacturing, "these factors could potentially result in disruptive crew reorganizations, extended training periods, or mission delays."

On Tuesday, an asteroid that is approximately the size of a house safely flew past Earth, and while it was passing by, it was photographed.

On January 11 at 12:19 am ET, an asteroid dubbed 2022 AC4 that measures anywhere between 14 and 31 feet in diameter cruised past Earth at 18,700 mph. NASA's database that tracks all Near-Earth-Objects (NEO), the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) indicates that the asteroid came within 58,000 miles from Earth, and while this sounds like a large distance, the moon is 221,500 miles away from Earth.

Additionally, NASA's database states that 2022 AC4 was the closest asteroid to approach Earth in the last two months. During its fly-by, Gianluca Masi, the manager of the Virtual Telescope Project in Italy, tracked the asteroid in the sky and took a 120-second-long exposure shot that can be seen above. While asteroid 2022 AC4 was quite close to Earth, NASA doesn't classify the object as a "potentially hazardous asteroid (PHA)" as the agency only considers asteroids PHA's if they come within 4.6 million miles of Earth and are greater than 500 feet in diameter.

There are numerous asteroids floating about in space, and one in particular that is reasonably large will be making its approach with Earth soon.

All Near-Earth-Objects (NEO) are tracked by the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS), which is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory located in California. According to the database, an asteroid named 7482 (1994 PC1) will be making its closest approach with Earth next week on January 18 2022 at 4.51 p.m ET. The 3,400-foot-wide object will safely pass by Earth at five times the distance between Earth and the Moon (1.2 million miles).

1994 PC1 will be passing Earth at a ridiculous speed of 47,000 mph, and according to EarthSky, this safe passing of the asteroid will be its closest approach for the next 200 years. It should be noted that NASA considers any asteroid or comet that comes within 120.9 million miles as a Near-Earth-Object, per a mandate from Congress that required the agency to locate all NEOs 460 feet and larger by the end of 2020.

A restaurant chain has announced that it's the world's first "member's only private dining club", where members are required to own an NFT from the chains collection.

VRC Group, founded by media mogul Gary Vaynerchuck has announced "Flyfish Club", a new take on the restaurant industry that focuses on a private dining experience for Flyfish Club members who have purchased an NFT. The announcement states that Flyfish Club is the world's first member's only private dining club where membership is purchased on the blockchain.

So, how does it work? There are two tokens at Flyfish Club, a "Flyfish token" and a "Flyfish omakase token", the former will grant members access to the cocktail room, restaurant, and an outdoor space that features "iconic views of New York City." The Flyfish omakase token grants individuals access to everything that the Flyfish token gives access to, plus an omakase experience that is conducted by one of the best sushi masters in the United States.

The new study has been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal.

All galaxies contain a black hole at their center, including Milky Way. Stars will orbit around these black orbits, but on occasion, they can stray too close and will be pulled into the black hole and consumed, undergoing a process known as spaghettification. The consumption of the star by the black hole is known as a tidal disruption event (TDE).

Researchers from Caltech used radio telescope observations to identify the second TDE ever discovered using radio waves; the first was found in 2020 by Marin Anderson from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Researchers from the University of Toronto had also uncovered the same TDE, now dubbed J1533+2727, so the two research teams worked together to publish their findings.

The new study was published in the journal Nature Astronomy on December 30th, 2021.

The researchers suggest that the rings of dust that may have existed around the sun, similar to those around Saturn, would have prevented Earth from becoming a "super-Earth." A super-Earth, according to NASA, is a type of planet about twice the size of Earth but up to ten times the mass, many of which have been found orbiting around thirty percent of the sun-like stars elsewhere in our galaxy.

To determine why our solar system doesn't have one, given their relatively common occurrence, the research team from Rice University in Houston, Texas, created simulated the formation of our solar system with computers. The simulations showed there were likely high-pressure regions of gas and dust, dubbed pressure "bumps," that would have surrounded the sun, creating three distinct zones where matter could accumulate.

The new study was published in the Journals of the American College of Cardiology on January 10, 2022.

The researchers analyzed 60,582 women and 31,801 men from the Nurses' Health Study and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study, free of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and cancer at the study baseline in 1990. A questionnaire was used every four years over the following 28 years to assess diet, asking how often they consumed specific foods and types and brands of fats and oils.

Compared to the participants who rarely or never consumed olive oil, the participants with the highest consumption had a 19% lower risk of cardiovascular mortality, 17% lower risk of cancer mortality, 29% lower risk of neurodegenerative mortality, and 18% lower risk of respiratory mortality. Substituting 10 grams per day of other fats (e.g., margarine, butter, mayonnaise, and dairy fat) with olive oil was associated with an 8-34% lower risk of total and cause-specific mortality.

The study was published in the Advances in Atmospheric Sciences journal on January 11th, 2022.

Twenty-three researchers from fourteen institutes summarized two international datasets relating to ocean heat content from the 1950s onward in their new report, one from the Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IAP) at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and the other from the National Centers for Environmental Information of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

The researchers found that in 2021, the upper 2,000 meters of all oceans absorbed 14 more Zettajoules than in 2020, equivalent to 145 times the electricity generated globally in 2020. The increased heat absorbed makes 2021 the sixth straight year of record-breaking temperatures. For context, human energy consumption only uses about half a Zettajoule each year.

The findings were published in the Journal of Global Antimicrobial Resistance.

The gene that was identified is the MCR-9 gene, which allows bacteria to become resistant to colistin, one of the world's most important antibiotics. The gene was detected in sewer water in Georgia collected by researchers from the University of Georgia's Center for Food Safety (CFS). MCR-9 was found in the first sample they took in urban Georgia, surprising the research team.

The gene was found with the bacteria Morganella morgani, further concerning the lead scientist Issmat Kassem. It is the first time the gene has been identified in this bacteria. The M. morganii bacteria is not often studied, so there is potential for the gene to have spread to more species of bacteria than first thought.

NASA has taken to its Solar System Exploration website to detail 10 incredible missions to watch out for during 2022.

One of the projects is already making headlines around the world, and that is the launch and successful deployment of the James Webb Space Telescope. If you haven't heard already, NASA recently launched the JWST on Christmas Day, and since then, the observatory has been traveling to its distant destination, completing the major parts of its unfolding process during its commute.

NASA launched its Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) in November 2021, and it's the very first planetary defense mission designed to test a kinetic impact on an asteroid. The mission hopes to prove that slamming a spacecraft into an asteroid at 15,000 mph can change its orbit. NASA has slated the impact date for the DART spacecraft on September 26, 2022. There are many more exciting NASA missions to watch out for in 2022, and they can be found listed below.

NASA's Parker Solar Probe recently "touched" the Sun as it made its approach towards our host star, but why didn't the spacecraft melt?

NASA has answered this question and many others regarding the Parker Solar Probe on its NASA Goddard YouTube channel, where the agency explains that the Parker Solar Probe is outfitted with a white heat shield that reflects light and is made out of a variety of materials that keep the spacecraft. Additionally, NASA engineers explain that the heat shield has to automatically sense if it's in the correct position to provide maximum protection for the sensitive instruments onboard the probe.

The spacecraft is equipped with solar limb sensors that, when illuminated, notify the Parker Solar Probe, and in turn, the heat shield to correct itself. The Parker Solar Probe is also equipped with a cooling system that circulates water behind the solar cells where it's warmed. The water is then pushed down into the radiators, where it is then cooled. If you are interested in learning more about the Parker Solar Probe, check out this link here.

NASA has confirmed via its database that tracks all Near-Earth Objects (NEO) that an asteroid that is roughly half the size of the Empire State Building has approached Earth.

As the NASA database states, asteroid 2013 YD48 is anywhere between 260 - 600 feet in diameter has made its closest approach with Earth on January 11. The asteroid was in no way a danger to the planet and made a safe fly-ball of Earth at a distance of 3,477,476 miles. To paint a picture of how far away 2013 YD48 was from Earth, the moon is only 238,855 miles away from Earth, which means that the asteroid was 14 times the distance between the Earth and the moon.

NASA considers any object that flies within 120 million miles of Earth's orbit to be a "NEO", and while an asteroid approaching Earth may seem concerning, the space agency has stated that Earth is safe from any catastrophic asteroid impacts for the next 100 years. Earth will still experience smaller asteroid impacts that are capable of reaching the surface, but the impact would have very little effect compared to the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs.

A clip has been shared onto Twitter that shows astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) being chased around by a gorilla.

The footage was shared onto Twitter by screenwriter and filmmaker Todd Spence, where he wrote that astronaut Mark Kelly smuggled a full-sized gorilla costume onto the ISS back in 2016. Spence got a few things wrong in his caption on the video which has since been retweeted more than 43,000 times.

The gorilla costume wasn't smuggled onto the ISS or worn by Mark Kelly, it was actually worn by his twin brother Scott Kelly, who can be seen in the above video chasing around astronauts. The costume was sent to Scott by Mark and ended up staying onboard the floating laboratory for an entire year. Even in space humans find ways to prank other humans in a soul effort to bring a smile to everyone's face. I think if that was the mission Scott had in mind, it was certainly achieved.

A "supermassive" black hole has been discovered by astronomers who were observing a dwarf galaxy with NASA instruments.

The discovery was announced during a virtual meeting of the American Astronomical Society on Monday, and according to the announcement, the astronomers have discovered a black hole that has a mass of around 200,000 times the mass of the Sun. Astronomers used NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory to observe eight dwarf galaxies and found that within the galaxy named Mrk 462 contained a supermassive black hole that's actively feeding.

According to a report by RT, the discovery is one of the first times that researchers have been able to observe an "obscured" black hole within a galaxy that only has a few hundred million stars. Researchers detected the X-ray signature from the black hole within Mrk 462, and based on the acquired data, astronomers believe the black hole is "heavily obscured" by gas and clouds of dust.

The European Space Agency (ESA) has posted to its blog about a new planet that was recently discovered and how it has taken a strange shape.

Artists impression of WASP-103b.

The blog post found on the European Space Agency website states that the agency's exoplanet mission dubbed Cheops has discovered a planet called WASP-103b. The planet was discovered in the constellation Hercules, and due to gravitational forces between the planet and the host star, WASP-103b is a deformed planet that resembles the shape of an NFL football.

A new article published in the Journal of Transport Geography has examined the correlation between cycling and socioeconomic factors.

Dr. Ansgar Hudde from the University of Cologne's Institute for Sociology and Social Psychology (ISS) analyzed data spanning 1996 to 2018 from the German Mobility Panel (MOP) and the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), including over 55,000 people and totaling over 800,000 journeys.

The data shows that German city dwellers who had attained Abitur (completion of secondary education) cycled twice as much in 2018 on average compared to 1996, reaching 70 minutes per week. Citizens without Abitur living in less urbanized areas didn't have a marked change recorded over the same period, resulting in more highly-educated city dwellers cycling roughly three times as long comparatively.

The latest assessment comes from the European Union's (EU) Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S).

In its annual assessment, the C3S reported that 2021 adds to a now seven-year hot streak since 2015 of the hottest years globally on record. 2016 and 2020 were the hottest years, followed by 2019 and 2017, with 2021 coming in slightly hotter than 2015 and 2018. Accurate measurements are available from the mid-19th century onwards.

The C3S said the average annual temperature was between 1.1 to 1.2 degrees Celsius greater than pre-industrial temperatures, as measured between 1850 and 1900. It also observed significantly increasing greenhouse gas concentrations and growth rates. Methane reached an annual record of 1,876 parts per billion (ppb), and it was added to the atmosphere at rates of 14.6 ppb per year and 16.3 ppb per year for 2020 and 2021, respectively. These rates are more than double the average annual growth rate for the previous 17 years.

A new study published in Nature Physics describes the physics of Jupiter's enormous cyclones.

Oceanographers have used the images taken by NASA and Lockheed Martin's Juno spacecraft orbiting Jupiter to understand the physical forces driving the massive cyclones covering the planet's surface. Lia Siegelman of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego noticed similarities between ocean vortices and the cyclones at Jupiter's poles.

Siegelman and her colleagues have now provided evidence to support the hypothesis that moist convection (hotter, less dense air rising) drives the cyclones, using images from Juno and principles of geophysical fluid dynamics. Infrared views allowed the researchers to determine the wind speed and directions of clouds, as well as their thickness. The data allowed them to tell how energetic the systems were, and they ascertained that the rising air within clouds acted as an energy source to produce larger-scale cyclones.

A new article published in Nature Food examines the impact of more plant-based diets globally on the climate.

Researchers from Leiden University state that 98.3 billion tons of carbon dioxide could be removed from the atmosphere by the end of the century if high-income countries switch to plant-based diets. The removal would result from land used for agriculture returning to its natural state, allowing for carbon capture, resulting in a carbon profit worth 14 years of agricultural emissions.

Around 80% percent of agricultural land, or 35 percent of the total habitable land on Earth is taken up by animals and the feed being grown for them. The research team led by Leiden University suggests that 54 high-income nations transitioning to the EAT-Lancet 'planetary diet' would reduce annual agricultural production emissions by 61%.

The discovery was published in a recent paper in Nature Communications.

Researchers from the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) studied cells undergoing pyroptosis (cell death usually due to infections, resulting in excess inflammation throughout the body). They found that the process could be halted and controlled when it was previously thought to be irreversible.

This discovery will allow scientists to study diseases associated with malfunctioning cell death processes, such as some cancers. Pyroptosis is a process that utilizes a protein known as gasdermin to open pores in a cell membrane and subsequently destabilize the cell. The researchers engineered their own "optogenetic" gasdermin, which responds to light, allowing them to observe the pyroptosis in action.