Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 121

Researchers are on a quest to link quantum gravity with the world we live in, and have suggested the universe, or spacetime, consists of individual "pixels".

A new press blurb outlines a team of researchers coming together to conduct a new experiment that will attempt to link the conventional laws of general relativity established by Albert Einstein with the world of quantum physics. These two realms of physics are yet to be unified in one cohesive theory, and Rana Adhikari, professor of physics at Caltech, and fellow colleagues believe that the universe is made of incredible small units described as a "spacetime pixel".

"A spacetime pixel is so small that if you were to enlarge things so that it becomes the size of a grain of sand, then atoms would be as large as galaxies," explains Adhikari. The researchers believe that discovering these "pixels" would allow for the unification of the two theories and answer the big question of whether gravity and spacetime can be broken down into individual components when observed on the smallest scales.

A team of researchers has captured the most comprehensive image of an erupting black hole yet, according to a new study published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Astronomy.

The team of researchers pointed the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) telescope in Western Australia at the galaxy Centaurus A, which contains the closest actively feeding supermassive black hole to Earth. The black hole located at the center of Centaurus A is currently engulfing large amounts of gas, which results in material being ejected out at high speeds.

This process and ejection of material cause what is described as "radio bubbles" that are then detected by MWA and interpreted by researchers. The researchers estimated the observed black hole has the mass of about 55 million suns and that the jets of material ejected out of it stretch as far as 1.8 million light-years. Due to Centaurs A's close proximity to Earth, researchers can accurately observe the black hole, leading them to believe that much can be learned from its near presence.

A study that looked at the urban air pollution levels for 2.5 billion people found that 86% of people living in cities around the world are exposed to unhealthy levels of pollution that can contribute to death.

The new study was published in The Lancet Planetary Health and looked at the levels of PM2.5, a particulate matter with a diameter of 2.5 micrometers or less. Researchers behind the study wrote in their background notes that inhaling PM2.5 can lead to death from cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease, lung cancer, and respiratory infection.

The study included 13,000 cities from around the world and looked at the PM2.5 concentrations of each from 2000 to 2019. The researchers found that the average population-weighted PM2.5 concentration globally was 35 micrograms per cubic meter in 2019, which is seven times the World Health Organization's 2021 guidelines. Additionally, the team estimated that in 2019, 61 in every 100,000 deaths can be attributed to an unhealthy consumption of PM2.5.

Reports have surfaced regarding an announcement from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, which stated that water has been detected under the Moon's surface.

According to a new study published in Science Advances on Friday, data acquired by China's Chang'e 5 lunar lander indicates the presence of water under the surface of the Moon. The rover used its mineralogical spectrometer to analyze the chemical composition of rocks and soil at the landing site.

The analysis resulted in the detection of water molecules at a concentration of less than 120 parts per million, or around 120 grams of water in one tonne of lunar soil. Additionally, the study looked at the water concentration in rocks and found it was 180 parts per million and wrote that the discrepancy between the water concentration in the soil and rock is due to the rock likely originating from deeper in the lunar surface.

In December 2021, an affiliated Chinese media channel called "Our Space" reported on China's Yutu 2 rover spotting what was described as a "house" or "hut" on the far side of the moon.

China's Yutu 2 rover landed on the far side of the moon back in January 2019, and since then, it has been exploring the surface of the Von Karman crater, which is where it spotted the strange object on the horizon. The image seen above was sent back to the China National Space Administration (CNSA), and since then, the small Yutu 2 rover has been driving towards the object.

Now, reports indicate that the mysterious object has been renamed to the "moon cube" and that the CNSA has driven the rover 262 feet to reach the object. Initial reports indicated that it would take two or three months to reach the cube, but only after a few weeks, the rover was in range to identify the object. According to an update from Our Space, the object is a rock shaped like a rabbit, hence the new name for the object "Jade Rabbit".

NASA has announced that its Perseverance rover and operating team are facing a challenge that they have never faced before.

The space agency took to its blog and social channels to announce that Perseverance recently captured its sixth Mars sample, but during the "Coring Bit Dropoff", the transferring period of the bit that contains the sample to the rover's storage section, the rover sensors detected an anomaly. According to NASA's blog post, as soon as the rover detected the anomaly, it halted all proceeding until further instructions from its team were provided.

After acquiring all relevant data on the anomaly, NASA's Perseverance team identified the problem by taking images of inside the rover's carousel. The images showed a few pieces of pebble-sized debris that the Perseverance team is confident came the most recently sampled Mars rock sample. NASA writes that these debris fell out of the sample tube at the time of the Coring Bit Dropoff, which is now preventing the sample from being correctly placed in the carousel.

NASA has been rolling out the public updates for the development of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), and now the space agency has released another.

NASA has taken to its blog and social channels to announce that at 1:17 on EST, January 8, 2022, the James Webb Space Telescope completed all of its large-scale deployments. The space agency writes that the primary mirror, secondary mirror tripod, and both primary mirror wings for the space observatory have successfully been deployed, meaning that the space telescope is "structurally fully deployed".

NASA's official James Webb Space Telescope Twitter account states that the Webb team has successfully completed 50 major deployments of the observatory, bringing 20+ years of painstaking work to fruition. So, now that the observatory's structure has been fully deployed, what's next for the Webb team? NASA writes that it will be beginning the three-month process of aligning all of Webb's telescope optics into a "precise system".

The team that found the fossils published their findings in the Science Advances journal.

Led by Dr. Matthew McCurry and Dr. Michael Frese, the team identified a new fossil site in New South Wales, Australia, named McGraths Flat. It is located in the Central Tablelands, NSW, near the town of Gulong. The site joins a limited group of fossil sites across Australia classified as a 'Lagerstatte' (a site that contains exceptionally well-preserved fossils).

In the last three years, researchers have excavated thousands of specimens that likely formed between 11 and 16 million years ago, including those of rainforest plants, insects, spiders, fish, and a bird feather. The fossils indicate the area was once a temperate, mesic rainforest. Many of the fossils are so well preserved that they can see some of the individual cells and subcellular structures. Examples of species' interaction can be seen in fish fossils with their stomach contents preserved or pollen on the bodies of some insects.

Researchers from the University of Glasgow reported their findings in a new study published in the Computers in Human Behaviour journal.

They found that celebrities and famous individuals are considered more "attractive," which, compared to ordinary people, elicits a more protective response from others when they experience abuse online. The public perception of increased attractiveness meant that any abuse they received was perceived as more socially unacceptable. The researchers suggest this "protective 'halo'" bestowed upon celebrities online is due to the "'what is beautiful is good' phenomenon."

The study highlights key points such as celebrities being victim-blamed less often than a layperson in instances of cyber abuse, incidents involving celebrity targets were considered more severe than layperson targets, and celebrities are seen as more socially, physically, and task-attractive than laypersons. The researchers found victim attractiveness and status predicted victim-blaming and perceptions of severity.

Researchers from Ajou University in South Korea have created an amazing new robotic hand.

A new article published in Nature Communications describes the device, named the ILDA hand, which weighs just under 2.5 pounds (1.1 kilograms) and measures almost 8.6 inches (21.8 centimeters). The hand is made from steel and aluminum and has twenty joints, a fingertip force of 34 newtons, and can complete various everyday tasks when mounted on a commercial robotic arm.

The team says the hand can hold eggs without crushing them, lift dumbbells, crush cans and pour drinks. The hand was able to grasp various objects, adjusting its fingers accordingly. It demonstrated its ability to use tools with precision, handling scissors to cut paper and manipulating tweezers to pick up and place a microchip on a circuit board.

Researchers from Paragraf and the Queen Mary University of London have published a new study in the journal Advanced Optical Materials on the potential replacement.

The researchers successfully fabricated an Organic Light-Emitting Diode (OLED), where the indium tin oxide (ITO) anode normally used was replaced with a mono-layer graphene anode. Indium is a rare earth metal, one of the nine rarest elements in the Earth's crust, making the European Union's list of critical raw materials. Many smartphone and television screens now come with OLED technology, but indium is also found in a large number of other consumer electronics.

The new technology demonstrates graphene's potential to serve as a viable replacement. Graphene is made from carbon atoms alone and can be sustainably produced, whereas indium's comparative scarcity makes it more expensive and unsustainable. Until now, graphene has had big expectations but hasn't been able to have them fully realized.

Researchers from the University of California San Francisco have published a new study in the Alzheimer's & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer's Association which examines the link between exercise and brain health.

Their study found that more active older adults had higher quantities of a class of proteins that enhance connections between neurons to maintain healthy cognition. The protective impact of these proteins was observed even in the brains of patients with Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative diseases when their brains, which have higher concentrations of toxic proteins like amyloid and tau, were studied after death.

The researchers followed the activity levels of elderly subjects who agreed to donate their brains after death. They found higher concentrations of proteins that facilitate information exchange between neurons, allowing the subjects to retain better cognition later in their lives. The beneficial effects extended beyond the hippocampus, responsible for memory functions, to other areas of the brain associated with cognitive function.

As NASA continues the unfolding process of the James Webb Space Telescope that was launched on Christmas Day, many members of the public are wondering why the observatory doesn't have its own cameras.

NASA recently took to its blog and social media channels to explain why the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) isn't equipped with its own cameras. According to the space agency, there were several problems engineers faced when drawing up JWST designs that included cameras, such as harnessing problems, combating the extreme glare the camera would experience if it was positioned on the Sun-facing side, and the lack of lighting the camera would have on the side shrouded in darkness.

In a series of tweets by NASA's official James Webb Telescope Twitter account, the space agency outlines more problems engineers faced, such as power, temperature, and complexity. Ultimately, Webb's engineers decided that "deployment surveillance cameras would not add significant information of value for engineering teams commanding the spacecraft from the ground." If you are interested in reading more about the James Webb Space Telescope, check out the below links!

Astronomers observing asteroids can predict their orbits around the Sun and therefore predict when the observed asteroid will make its closest approach to Earth.

One asteroid, in particular, will be making a close approach with Earth in the future, and when it was first discovered back in 2004, astronomers briefly believed that it might pose a risk to Earth. However, in 2021 researchers ruled out any possibility for asteroid 99942 Apophis being a danger to Earth, but it will pass close to our planet, and that's a good thing.

A new study from Brazilian astronomers details an opportunity for researchers to learn more about the surface of the asteroid when it makes it closest approach. The researchers write that asteroid 99942 Apophis is estimated to be around 1115 feet wide, and after performing a simulation with the acquired data, the researchers discovered the asteroid's shape isn't circular and is irregular.

NASA and the European Space Agency are currently moving towards preparing the James Webb Space Telescope for operations.

While both space agencies work together to make sure the unfolding of the James Webb Space Telescope goes as smoothly as possible, some physicists are already getting excited about the science questions Webb will be able to solve once it's operational. Carnegie Mellon University, Associate Professor of Physics Matthew Walker, has expressed his excitement about Webb and the data that it will be able to acquire about the universe.

Walker says that "The top-level science goal is to learn about the nature of dark matter", which has never been directly observed. Due to it never being directly observed, many theories have come out attempting to explain its existence, some even saying that the form dark matter takes is in clumps called "halos" - this is the cold matter theory. Walker and his team are planning on using the data acquired by Webb to search the universe for evidence of dark matter.

NASA recently announced that the James Webb Space Telescope has almost reached its destination, but why is it traveling to that specific point in space?

The European Space Agency (ESA) that partnered with NASA for the construction of the James Webb Space Telescope announced via its Webb Telescope Twitter account that Webb has crossed the "1 million km mark", or 621,371 miles, and has "now completed 2/3 of the distance."

Webb is on its way to Lagrange Point 2, or L2, which is a specific point in space where the gravitational pull from the Sun, planets, and the motion of Webb orbiting combine to create an equilibrium. NASA and the ESA are sending Webb to L2 because once it's in location, it will require very little energy to maintain orbiting on that plane. Additionally, once Webb is in position, it will stay in line with Earth as our planet orbits the Sun.

A new study published in the journal Communications Earth and Environment models the climate's unsettling trajectory.

The researchers used historical emissions data and pledges to cut emissions by the world's top five emitters (China, the United States, the European Union, India, and Russia) at the COP26 climate summit to predict regional warming by 2030.

Their model predicts that 92 percent of the 165 countries studied will experience extremely hot annual temperatures every two years. They define these extremely hot years as what would have been a once-in-a-century hot year in the pre-industrial era.

A new article published in the Science journal explores how this defies the previous norm.

In 1974, the first lab-modified virus capable of replicating was produced. Since then, the scientific consensus has been that too many modifications to the virus' genome will make it too unstable to release into an uncontrolled environment safely.

Consequently, lab-modified viral vaccines have been made with their ability to spread from the host individual to others removed or significantly diminished. Successful vaccines include the polio vaccine for humans or rabies vaccines for wild animals.

SpaceX made its first orbital launch of 2022 with a new group of Starlink satellites.

The launch was dubbed the Starlink Group 4-5 mission and contained 49 Starlink v1.5 satellites, taking off from the Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A). The Falcon 9 launch vehicle carrying the Starlink payload was launched southeastward from the pad to a 210 x 339 km low-Earth orbit (LEO) with a 53.22-degree inclination.

Using the southeast launch corridor, which follows the coast of the Bahamas, breaks decades of the precedent set by launches that typically follow the northeast launch corridor along the eastern seaboard of the United States and Canada. This trajectory meant the rocket would perform a dogleg maneuver and was the reason for fewer Starlink satellites being launched in this batch than previous launches with the v1.5 satellites.

A new article examining the correlation was published in Geophysical Research Letters.

A correlation was found between the fraction of organic matter found buried in sediments across Earth with changes in the occurrence of nearby exploding stars, known as supernovae. The article, authored by senior researcher Dr. Henrik Svensmark of DTU Space, explains a potential cause for the observed correlation is the influence of supernovae on Earth's climate.

More supernovae result in cold climates with significant temperature differences between the poles and the equator, leading to strong winds and ocean mixing, which helps increase nutrient concentrations in biological systems, increasing their productivity and leaving more biological material in sediment with time. Fewer supernovae result in warmer climates with weaker winds and less ocean mixing, decreasing nutrient supplies, lower bioproductivity, and, therefore, less organic matter found in sediment.