Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 126

NASA has just hired 24 theologists, who will be assessing how the human race would react to the discovery of alien life on other planets... and how it would impact religion, our gods, our creation, the fabric of our existence would change. We wouldn't be alone.

The US space agency is hiring 24 theologists who will join their program at the Center for Theological Inquiry (CTI) at Princeton University in New Jersey, where NASA awarded them a $1.1 million grant back in 2014. The CTI describes itself as building "bridges of under understanding by convening theologians, scientists, scholars, and policymakers to think together - and inform public thinking - on global concerns".

The group will be tasked with some of the most impossible -- and sought after -- questions of our existence. What does it mean for humans? What do we consider the differences between aliens and humans, depending on the aliens we discover as they will all be different? What about possibly sentient life in other places, possibly even here on Earth.

Marc del Pozo Puig of the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) has created a new 'smart ink' for use in 4D printing.

4D printing uses 3D printing to create objects capable of rearranging themselves in response to environmental stimuli. Given that they change with time, the fourth dimension in 4D printing is time. Printing with a material that changes in response to its environment has been done before to create some objects that can grow or shrink, open and close or twist.

To reverse these changes, the objects needed to be placed underwater. The new ink developed by del Pozo will make reversible change possible in normal conditions. The ink itself is made with liquid crystals instead of the previously used shape-memory polymers or hydrogels. Shape-memory polymers cannot reverse their form changes, and hydrogels can only reverse their changes underwater.

Researchers from the University of Oldenburg have successfully fabricated tiny metal objects with their new 3D printing technique.

In collaboration with researchers from ETH Zurich in Switzerland and Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, the research team has published a new study in Nano Letters detailing the technique. The electrochemical method used makes objects out of copper as small as 25 nanometers, around 3000 times thinner than a human hair.

The method is similar to electroplating, which involves depositing positively-charged metal ions onto a negatively-charged electrode, forming a neutral, solid metal layer. The team used a solution of positively-charged copper ions in a pipette which passed them through a print nozzle with an opening of as small as 1.6 nanometers, which only allows two copper ions through simultaneously onto a negatively charged substrate.

After surpassing recent technical issues, only the weather can stop the launch now.

Scheduled for December 25th, 2021, the highly anticipated James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) launch has moved one step closer to being realized as it has made its way to the launch pad located at the Arianespace ELA-3 launch complex at Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.

Loaded atop Arianespace's Ariane 5 rocket, the telescope and rocket were moved out of the Arianespace's final assembly building at 11 a.m. EST (16:00 UTC), arriving at the launch pad by 1 p.m. EST (18:00 UTC). Teams will conduct electrical diagnostics and aliveness tests to ensure all systems are fully operational before liftoff. Now the only obstacle is the weather, which already delayed the launch from Christmas Eve to Christmas Day.

As Comet Leonard makes its way through our solar system, a Chinese satellite has spotted it through an aurora.

Yangwang 1 is a small Chinese satellite owned by Origin Space, launched in June 2021, and is searching the universe around our planet for near-Earth asteroids. It is looking for asteroids that could be mined for resources, with Origin Space hoping to capture a small asteroid in 2025.

Since beginning its orbit, the satellite has captured many images of auroras and meteors, now capturing this year's brightest comet, Comet Leonard (formally known as C/2021 A1). Comet Leonard made its closest approach to Earth on December 12th and will make its closest pass by the Sun on January 3rd, 2022, before disappearing for the next 80,000 years.

Researchers from the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) have made the world's thinnest Christmas tree using graphene.

The Christmas tree measures only one-third of a nanometer thick and 14 centimeters long. It is made of graphene, consisting of a one-atom-thick layer of carbon atoms. The tree was cut out of a 10-meter long roll of graphene and transferred in one piece, demonstrating the capability for continuous quality control in graphene production.

Using terahertz radiation (high-frequency radio waves), the team could control the electrical quality of graphene to ensure a stable transfer from the copper roll on which it is "grown." The colored images above show how the graphene absorbed the terahertz radiation, where better absorption indicates more electrically conductive graphene.

Two explorers have embarked upon a 2,268-mile (3,650 kilometers) journey across Antarctica, and NASA is watching closely.

The duo comprises British explorers Justin Packshaw and Jamie Facer Childs, undergoing an 80-day trek across Antarctica as part of the Chasing the Light mission. The mission aims to give space agencies insight into the impact living in similarly harsh conditions on other planets like Mars might have on people's psychology and physiology.

While facing freezing temperatures and katabatic winds potentially up to 200 miles per hour (320 kilometers per hour), the pair will first travel 1,342 miles (2,159 kilometers) from Novolazarevskaya to the geographic South Pole, followed by a 926 mile (1,490 kilometers) journey past Hercules Inlet to Union Glacier Camp.

The new image comes from research published in Nature Astronomy, showing radio emissions from the supermassive black hole.

Centaurus A is a nearby radio galaxy, home to Earth's closest active supermassive black hole, roughly 12 million light-years away. The black hole feeds on in-falling gas and violently ejects material at almost light-speed, creating massive bubbles of radio emissions that grow for hundreds of millions of years and can reach up to a million light-years away.

The eruption extends through eight degrees of the sky when viewed from Earth, equivalent to sixteen full moons side by side. The image was captured using the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) telescope in Western Australia. Researchers suggest the new study's findings corroborate a theory known as 'Chaotic Cold Accretion' (CCA).

Telescopes at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) have observed the largest group of rogue planets ever discovered.

Rogue planets are exoplanets similar in size to planets found in our Solar System but are found with no host star to orbit. Relatively few have been discovered until recently when telescopes from the ESO and other facilities observed at least 70 new rogue planets in our galaxy, and potentially up to 170, the largest group ever discovered.

The planets are generally difficult to observe as they have no light from nearby stars illuminating them. Nuria Miret-Roig, the lead author of a recently published study in Nature Astronomy, used data spanning twenty years from various telescopes to observe the planets' glow from the heat following their formation, that would have shone for a few million years.

Researchers from the Harbin Institute of Technology in China, the Harbin Institute, and Northumbria University have developed new technology to make bionic eyes more efficient.

The team developed a new method for controlling the artificial synapses in bionic retinas, improving electrical conductivity, and reducing power consumption. They achieved this by injecting indium, a soft metal element, into a two-dimensional molybdenum disulfide material. When tested within an electronic retina, the artificial optical synapses produced the high-quality images required for a bionic eye.

Bionic eyes work within existing eye structures and connections to the brain and are designed to return visual function to the patient instead of purely cosmetic replacements. Some bionic eye implants are available currently but are only suitable for cases of blindness resulting from certain eye diseases.

After 18 years, the telescope has gone up for sale on Craigslist for a cool ten million dollars.

NASA's Space Shuttle Columbia launched on December 2nd, 1990, from Cape Canaveral, equipped with four different telescopes. Three of the telescopes detected ultraviolet light, while the fourth detected light in the X-ray portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. Once back on Earth, three were put on display at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C.

The fourth telescope, named the Broad Band X-Ray Telescope (BBXRT), was bought at an auction hosted by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in 2003. Now, almost two decades later, it's been listed on Craigslist for $10 million.

A new study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth has found a way to use tsunamis' magnetic fields to detect them sooner.

Magnetic fields are generated as tsunamis move conductive seawater throughout the Earth's magnetic field. Researchers had already predicted that detectable changes in the magnetic field would arrive before a change in sea level but had yet to measure simultaneous data on both parameters to observe the phenomenon.

The new study uses data from two tsunamis, one in 2009 in Samoa and one in 2010 in Chile, which have data relating to their magnetic fields and seafloor pressure. The research shows the magnitude of the magnetic field can be used to estimate the height of the tsunami wave.

A new study, published in iScience, has used the embryo to shed light on the link between dinosaurs and modern birds.

Digital reconstruction of the embryo (Credit: Lida Xing).

The embryo is between 66 and 72 million years old and is dubbed Baby Yingliang. The fossilized dinosaur egg it belongs to was found in the Late Cretaceous rocks of Ganzhou in southern China. The embryo is that of an oviraptorosaur.

Antarctica is home to some gigantic ice masses, including the Doomsday Glacier, and its time is running out.

The Thwaites Glacier, otherwise known as the Doomsday Glacier, is approximately the size of Florida. It is the widest glacier on Earth, spanning roughly 80 miles (120 kilometers) and extending down between 2,600-3,900 feet (800-1,200 meters) to its grounding line (where the glacier transitions from being primarily land-attached to free-floating in the ocean).

The glacier is known as the Doomsday Glacier because it could trigger a cascade of glacial collapse in Antarctica with its collapse. During a briefing on December 13th during the American Geophysical Union's (AGU) annual meeting, researchers have warned that it is at risk of collapse within the next three years. The ice mass is large enough to raise sea levels by more than two feet.

Comet Leonard is due to pass by the Sun early next year, and two spacecraft have observed it on its way.

The comet will make its closest pass ever by the Sun on January 3rd, 2022. One of the two Sun-observing spacecraft, watching the comet since early November, is NASA's Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory-A. The SECCHI/HI-2 telescope aboard observed the ion tail, the trail of ionized gases coming off the comets body, becoming longer and brighter, which you can see here.

The ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter spacecraft also spotted the comet and will continue to observe it until it leaves its field of view on December 22nd, 2021. Captured between December 17th and 19th, the Solar Orbiter Heliospheric Imager (SoloHI) shows Comet Leonard against the backdrop of the Milky Way, with Venus and Mercury also visible in the top right.

Once again, the launch of the new James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has been met with delays.

After being rescheduled to Christmas Eve, the launch of the JWST is now due for the morning of Christmas Day. Poor weather has been forecasted at the Guiana Space Center in South America, where the telescope will launch from, hence the delay.

The launch window opens at 7:20 a.m. EST (12:20 UTC) and lasts for 32 minutes. Initially slated for 7:20 a.m. EST on Friday, the delay extends the long-awaited launch by another 24 hours. Rain is not generally a concern for the Ariane 5 launch, but the possibility of high-altitude winds and increased risk of lightning gave cause for pause.

The United Nations met with governments of the world to talk about autonomous weapons systems -- also known as "killer robots" or in pop culture, we refer to Terminator or The Matrix -- but the talks didn't end well.

Negotiations on an international treaty that would govern the use of killer robots, but opposition from manufacturing states stopped that. Fully-autonomous weapons with no humans operating the "kill switch" are different from semi-autonomous weapons that include drones, which means the decision at the time of strike is left to sensors, software, and AI.

The industry needs regulation -- obviously -- with a UN panel report from March 2021 saying the first autonomous drone strike might have taken place in Libya. Earlier this week, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres encouraged the 125 parties to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) to design an "ambitious plan" on new rules for "killer robots".

Yusaku Maezawa, Yozo Hirano, and Alexander Misurkin have safely landed on Earth after their brief stint aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

Spending twelve days aboard the ISS, the fashion tycoon Maezawa, his producer Hirano and their cosmonaut companion Misurkin have safely returned home, making a soft landing with their Russian Soyuz capsule. They landed in Kazakhstan roughly 150 kilometers (90 miles) southeast of the city of Zhezkazgan at 10:13 p.m. EST Sunday (03:13 UTC).

Helicopters could not reach the landing site quickly due to weather conditions, so two all-terrain vehicles were dispatched to collect the crew. All of the crew reported feeling fine, and they were later flown to the Star City space flight preparation facility outside of Moscow to continue the post-flight assessment.

SpaceX will be carrying out another resupply mission for NASA, heading to the International Space Station (ISS).

Launching from Cape Canaveral in Florida, SpaceX's Cargo Dragon spacecraft will make its way to the ISS as part of the CRS-24 mission. The rocket will be carrying more than 6,500 pounds (2,948 kilograms), resupplying the station and its astronauts, as well as delivering new scientific projects. The launch is scheduled for 5:06 a.m. EST (10:06 UTC) on Tuesday, December 21st, 2021.

The Falcon 9 rocket will use the first-stage B1069-1, a brand new booster. The last brand new booster to be used by SpaceX was for the CRS-22 resupply mission in June 2021, using the B1067 booster. If the B1069-1 successfully lands on SpaceX's Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ship (ASDS) 'Just Read The Instructions' roughly nine minutes after lift-off, it will mark SpaceX's 100th successful landing on a Falcon rocket booster.

NASA's upcoming Artemis 1 moon mission has been delayed thanks to an issue in its Space Launch System (SLS) rocket.

A communications glitch in the avionics experienced during pre-flight testing means NASA will need to replace an engine controller aboard the SLS rocket. Boeing is the rocket's primary contractor for the project, which has suffered years of delays and exceeded its original budget by billions of dollars.

NASA was previously targeting February 12th, 2022, for the flight of the SLS, but it is now being pushed back to March or April. The flight will be the first in the Artemis program, which hopes to return astronauts to the moon's surface before the decade's end.