Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 122

A study regarding the monumental discovery was published in The Astrophysical Journal.

Astronomers used two Hawaiian telescopes, based at the University of Hawai'i Institute for Astronomy Pan-STARRS on Haleakala, Maui and the W. M. Keck Observatory on Maunakea, Hawai'i Island, to observe the last 130 days of a red supergiant's life.

The research team observed the star's collapse into a Type II supernova while conducting the Young Supernova Experiment (YSE) transient survey, the first observation of its kind. The Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) detected the star in mid-2020, and a few months later, a supernova had taken its place, designated supernova 2020tlf, or SN 2020tlf.

NASA's famous Hubble Space Telescope has passed an incredible milestone that only further engraves its place in the space telescope hall of fame.

Phys.org reports that NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has officially passed the 1 billion second mark over the 31 years it has been operating. During that time, the famous telescope, named after astronomer Edwin Hubble, has been serviced by astronauts five times and is the only space telescope that is designed to be serviced by astronauts. The servicing missions include astronauts replacing core components that have malfunctioned over prolonged use.

For context of this "use", Hubble has made more than 1.5 million scientific observations over its operational time, and that number is still growing today. During its operation time, researchers have used Hubble to unlock deeper understandings of the universe and how it works, with its instruments leading to breakthroughs in astrophysics such as a more precise estimation of the expansion of the universe, black holes, and more.

Following yesterday's report confirming that a failed Russian rocket piece was hurdling uncontrollably back down to Earth, new reports state that the rocket piece has entered Earth's atmosphere.

The rocket part that has crashed back down to Earth is the upper stage of the Russian Angara A5 rocket tested on December 2021. The rocket was uncrewed and was also carrying a satellite. NBC reported that its engine malfunctioned shortly after the rocket was launched, causing it to remain stuck in low-Earth orbit before eventually falling back down to the surface.

On Wednesday, the four tons of material plummeted back down to Earth, entering Earth's atmosphere somewhere over the Pacific Ocean and landing in an unknown area. Jonathan McDowell, a Harvard astronomer, warned that four tons of material entering the atmosphere could pose a risk as not all of the material will burn up, some pieces may make it to the surface. However, McDowell noted that the majority of the planet is covered in ocean and that it's more likely that it would hit the sea than land, which it seems to have done.

NASA's next-generation space telescope dubbed the James Webb Space Telescope departed from Earth on Christmas Day, and the below video is probably the last time humanity will ever see the observatory ever again.

NASA has taken to its blog to explain why the James Webb Space Telescope isn't equipped with a series of cameras that can relay footage of the unfolding process back to headquarters for engineers and public viewing. The space agency explains that there are a plethora of problems that arise if Webb was equipped with cameras, the first being that the space telescope is very shiny, so any cameras directed at Webb's sun-facing side would be subject to extreme glare.

Cameras equipped to the side of the observatory that's in the shade would require a light source. NASA notes that infrared cameras could have solved the lighting problem, but would present "harnessing disadvantages". The space agency writes that engineers considered adding cameras and proceeded to draw up mock designs with cameras equipped, but ultimately decided that "that deployment surveillance cameras would not add significant information of value for engineering teams commanding the spacecraft from the ground."

Researchers from the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of Massachusetts Amherst were responsible for the breakthrough.

The two-millimeter wide, self-powered aqueous robots, dubbed 'liquibots,' can deliver chemicals while partially submerged in a solution. They can potentially be used for drug delivery in pharmaceutical applications or as part of an automated chemical synthesis framework.

Previous liquibots have been made but could only carry out an autonomous task once, only able to continue indefinitely with electricity. These new liquibots can harvest the energy they need to continue working from the chemicals in their environment.

KFC will collaborate with Beyond Meat to bring plant-based meat alternatives to its U.S. stores.

The addition will begin nationwide on Monday, January 10th, 2022, but won't hang around forever. Yum! Brands, KFC's parent company, previously worked with Beyond Meat to sell out a plant-based chicken product at a KFC restaurant in Atlanta in under five hours in August 2019.

It's not the first instance of psychedelics being studied for potential medical applications.

N,N-Dimethyltryptamine, or DMT, is a hallucinogenic compound that has recently joined some other psychedelic compounds, including LSD, MDMA, ketamine, and psilocybin mushrooms, in a new wave of research into their use for potential therapies. The various compounds have shown promise for treatment of mental illnesses such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression, particularly in traditionally treatment-resistant varieties.

The researchers responsible for the experiment published a study in the Behavioural Brain Research journal.

The team of researchers from the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev built a fish-operated vehicle (FOV) to test if the goldfish were able to translate their navigational skills into a new environment, similar to how rats have done in previous research that involved them using little cars to get themselves to a destination.

They taught the goldfish to navigate a room by swimming inside its water tank, mounted above the FOV. A downward-facing camera, computer, and LIDAR system overhead tracked the fish and its orientation as it moved within the tank. The computer then used this to inform the movement of the FOV below.

Lockheed Martin has integrated Amazon's Alexa and Cisco's Webex into its new Callisto technology riding aboard the Artemis 1 moon mission.

Callisto is a new far-field technology demonstration, incorporating artificial intelligence with Alexa and video conferencing capabilities from a custom build of Webex. The technology has been created by Lockheed Martin, the prime contractor for NASA's Orion spacecraft, which will fly to the moon as part of the Artemis 1 mission.

Using NASA's Deep Space Network, Callisto will test Alexa's ability to run without an internet connection and the viability of Webex. Alexa will provide information about the spacecraft, such as telemetry data, orientation, water supply levels, battery voltage, and more. Alexa will also be able to control some onboard settings like temperature or the color of the lights.

Researchers have penned a new study that details the Southern Ocean that is located around Antarctica, putting previous studies into question.

The new study published in the journal Science found that the waters in the Southern Ocean are absorbing around 0.53 petagrams or 530 million metric tons of carbon than they were releasing each year. Additionally, the researchers found that there was a stronger summertime uptake of carbon and less wintertime outgassing.

Previously researchers weren't sure about the exact impacts of the Southern Ocean and how much the waters were absorbing atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2). The recently published study has now confirmed for researchers that the Southern Ocean is a substantial carbon sink and will assist in reducing overall CO2 levels caused by humans. If you are interested in reading a more in-depth explanation for this new research, check out this link here.

NASA has released a new phenomenal image taken by an astronaut aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

NASA's Earth Observatory published the photograph taken by an unnamed member of the Expedition 66 crew currently stationed on the floating laboratory. The crew of seven includes astronauts from NASA, the European Space Agency, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, and Russia's State Space Corporation, Rocosmos. The image was snapped using a digital camera while the ISS was flying over the Pacific Ocean at the height of 262 miles.

Looking at the image, we can see a beautiful range of colors that LiveScience reports are representative of the first four layers of Earth's atmosphere: "the troposphere, between zero and 7.5 miles (12 km); the stratosphere, between 7.5 and 31 miles (50 km); the mesosphere, between 31 and 50 miles (80 km); and the thermosphere, between 50 and 440 miles (700 km)". If you are interested in reading more about this image or would like to learn more about Earth's atmosphere and how it influences the colors humans see, check out this link here.

A team of MIT researchers has designed a new rover that can use the electric field of a celestial body to levitate.

The researchers have designed a small disk-shaped craft that resembles what a typical "UFO" would look like. This craft is about the size of the palm of a human hand and weighs about as much as a chicken egg, but it's equipped with small thrusters that produce enough repulsive electrostatic force to cause the craft to levitate. Celestial bodies such as the moon and asteroids don't have air, which rules out any previously designed craft that requires air to function (planes, helicopters, etc.)

According to the researchers behind the new UFO-style craft, the design hinges on the discovery of the amount of electrostatic force that can be generated when charging the surface. The researchers equipped the craft with thrusters to give the surface the required amplification and found that their current design was able to levitate 2-lb on either the surface of the moon or an asteroid. An expansion of the initial concept into larger craft designs would yield similar results, meaning larger crafts would also levitate.

NASA has dropped another update for the development of the highly anticipated James Webb Space Telescope.

The space agency has taken to its blog to announce that the James Webb Space Telescope team has successfully deployed the observatory's secondary mirror support structure. NASA explains that when the observatory is operational, observed light will hit Webb's large honeycomb-shaped mirrors, reflect off, and then hit the secondary mirror that will reflect the light into the observatory's sensitive instruments.

NASA writes that the deployment process for the secondary mirror began at 9:52 am EST, and by 11:51 am, engineers were reporting that the support structure was successfully locked into place. Bill Ochs, Webb project manager at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, congratulated the achievement, saying, "Another banner day for JWST!". Ochs also marveled at the idea that humans have constructed a telescope that we are operating 600,000 miles away from Earth.

Comet Leonard was discovered at the beginning of 2021, and since then, it has been a honing point for astronomers looking to observe comets.

Astronomers were particularly interested in Leonard it's a comet that has traveled from the cold outer zone of the solar system. Researchers mapped the trajectory and orbit of the comet and found that it would be making a relatively close approach to Earth and the Sun. As Leonard made its way towards the inner solar system, it began doing something unexpected, it was dimming. Researchers were puzzled by this as a comet coming towards Earth should appear brighter as the distance between Earth and the comet is reducing.

Additionally, a comet traveling closer to the Sun should be warmed, meaning it would shed more of its material that would then be visible to observers. However, this wasn't the case. As Leonard approached Earth, it stopped brightening, but as it continued to make its way closer to the Sun, Leonard switched its stance again as it was blasted by solar wind from the Sun. Leonard stopped fading in brightness, and its tail changed into twisted ion streamers, as seen in the above image.

A part from a failed Russian rocket is currently being tracked by astronomers who project that it will re-enter Earth very soon.

The rocket part is from the upper stage of the Russian Angara A5 rocket, which is one of the nation's heavy-lift launch vehicles that was tested on December 27, 2021. The rocket test was uncrewed, but it carried a satellite onboard and a dummy. According to NBC, not too long after the rocket was launched, there was an engine malfunction resulting in the booster being stranded in low-Earth orbit.

That part stranded in low-Earth orbit measures 23 feet long, and with the dummy and satellite still onboard, reports indicate that there are about 4 tons of material headed back down to Earth. It should be noted that the majority of the materials that re-enter Earth's atmosphere will burn up, but according to Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, not all of the material will disintegrate, and some may make it to the surface.

The European Southern Observatory (ESO) has released a new video showing images of the Flame Nebula in various spectra.

The Flame Nebula is found in Orion Constellation, which houses other beautiful cosmic objects like the Horsehead Nebula, visible in the picture above. A few years back, Thomas Stanke, a former ESO astronomer, used the SuperCam instrument at the ESO-operated Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) to observe Orion.

Bill Gates' Breakthrough Energy Ventures are helping fund the new rocket by Stoke Space.

Breakthrough Energy Ventures is an organization that falls under the umbrella of Breakthrough Energy, which Bill Gates founded in 2015, and aims to fund sustainable energy technology initiatives. The organization's Series A funding round in December 2021 saw $65 million going to Stoke Space, a rocket company based out of Seattle.

Stoke Space was founded by former Blue Origin and SpaceX employees in 2019. They have since received funding from the National Science Foundation after winning the SBIR Phase 1 grant and raised an additional $9.1 million through seed funding led by the NFX and MaC Ventures. The funds are being put toward developing a fully reusable and environmentally friendly rocket.

A new study examining this magnetar giant flare was published in Nature, described as a "true cosmic monster" by the study's co-author Victor Reglero.

The star, designated GRB2001415, is a magnetar, a kind of neutron star with a magnetic field a thousand times greater in strength than other neutron stars. Magnetars often erupt, spewing out energy and radiation in bright flares unpredictably, ending almost as soon as they begin.

GRB2001415 is found in the Sculptor Galaxy, a spiral galaxy located roughly 13 million light-years from Earth. It was detected by the Atmosphere-Space Interactions Monitor (ASIM) instrument aboard the International Space Station (ISS) when it flared on April 15th, 2020.

The meteor exploded over Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on New Year's Day, 2022.

The bolide, a meteor that explodes in the atmosphere, rattled homes in the area as it exploded just before 11:30 a.m. EST (16:30 UTC) on January 1st. NASA estimates the meteor was traveling at 45,000 miles per hour (72,420 kilometers per hour) and would've been roughly a yard (0.9 meters) in diameter for a weight of around 1000 pounds (454 kilograms). The estimated TNT equivalent of the explosion was 30 tons (27,216 kilograms).

No seismic activity, thunder, or lightning was recorded at the time, so meteorologists determined that a meteor falling through the atmosphere was responsible for the resounding boom felt on the ground. NASA stated that if it were not for cloudy weather, the meteor would have been easily visible during the day, with a brightness a hundred times greater than a full moon.

A new meta-analysis has been published in Journal of Experimental Botany examining the effects.

The study examines three previously published studies where researchers did not fully explore the effects of gravitation for the outcomes. These studies were related to isopod swimming activity, reproductive effort in coral, small shell-less crustaceans, and sunflower seedling growth modulation.