Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 130

Published in The Astrophysical Journal, new research shows that the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy creates astrophysical jets after consuming a large mass.

The black hole appears to have a vestigial jet dating back thousands of years. NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has not captured an image of the jet but has helped find evidence suggesting it is propelling a vast hydrogen cloud.

Black holes attract material into their orbit, joining the accretion disk, though the strong magnetic fields cause some material to be captured by the out-flowing jets. These jets also spew out large amounts of ionizing radiation, and periodically the black hole will become more active and refill these jets.

On December 12, Comet Leonard will be making its closest approach to Earth, and it's teed up to be the brightest and best comet of 2021.

As Leonard makes its way closer and closer to the Sun, astrophotographers around the world are pointing their cameras to the skies to capture the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Leonard will be making its pass by Earth at a stunning speed of 158,084 miles per hour, and after it has passed through our solar system, it will be ejected out for millions of years.

For sky-watchers looking to catch a glimpse at the rare comet, Earth Sky reports that it will be difficult to see with an unaided eye, and that an amateur telescope or a decent pair of binoculars would yield better results. Additionally, if you are interested in checking out Leonard, it can be found traveling below the Big Dipper constellation and the star Arcturus. The image above is from photographer James Billings in the United Kingdom, and the one below is from Will Leverett from Llano County, Texas.

A stellar system located multiple light-years away may have just given researchers a clue into what could happen with our Sun in the future.

In a new paper published in the journal Nature Astronomy, researchers investigate the phenomenon known as "coronal mass ejections" or CMEs. Using our Sun as an example, the study explains that CME are eruptions of extremely hot particles or plasma that are thrown out into space at speeds of millions of miles per hour. CMEs can be dangerous as well, as they can cause geomagnetic storms that can cause communication problems with satellites, or even knock out electricity grids.

The researchers were observing a Sun-like star called EK Draconis, which is the same type of star as our Sun, but at just 100 million years old. The researchers observed Ek Draconis eject a CME ten times bigger than the largest CME researchers have ever recorded.

Seeing Comet Leonard is quite literally a once-in-a-lifetime experience as it won't be returning to our solar system for tens of thousands of years.

As I previously report, Comet Leonard will be making its closest approach to Earth on December 12, 2021, where it will be 22 million miles away from Earth, which is about 90 times the distance between Earth and the Moon. As December 12 approaches Comet Leonard is moving closer to the Sun, which usually means that it will appear brighter to observers as the Sun's rays are melting the ice ball more intensely, which then creates more vapor. However, Leonard isn't doing that.

According to a report from Space.com, researchers noticed in late November that Leonard wasn't getting brighter, it was actually dimming. The publication reports that based on what astronomers know after studying past comets, there are multiple answers to why its dimming, the first being the comet has broken a part and is splitting up as it journeying closer to the Sun. Ultimately, researchers aren't sure why Leonard is dimming, but hypotheses are flying!

NASA newest space telescope that will be the instrument the agency uses to hunt for violent celestial explosion has launched.

The new telescope is called the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) and has officially launched on the back of SpaceX's workhorse launch vehicle the Falcon 9 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The new observatory is X-ray focussed, and is a collaborative effort between NASA and the Italian Space Agency.

IXPE will be used by the agencies and astrophysicists to observe the magentic fields of celestial objects such as black holes and neutron stars. The data that will be acquired by the IXPE mission will pave the way forward for a deeper understanding of the environments around dangerous objects such as black holes, which will in turn allow researchers to understand the past and future of these objects.

Hydras are a group of small aquatic animals capable of regenerating their heads, the mechanism for which has been uncovered in a new paper published in Genome Biology and Evolution.

Hydras come from the same family of animals consisting of roughly ten thousand species that fall into two major groups, Anthozoa and Medusozoa. Anthozoa comprises sea anemones, corals, and sea pens, while Medusozoa comprises sea wasps, jellyfish, and hydra. Hydras live in temperate, tropical environments, and their stem cells have the capacity for unlimited self-renewal, lending them biological immortality.

Researchers have found multiple genes associated with head regeneration for hydra but have yet to understand the regulatory networks responsible for regeneration in hydras and other regenerating species. Researchers found that epigenetics, changes in gene expression in response to environmental changes, were responsible for regeneration.

A new study published in the journal Developmental Cell has revealed how a cell nucleus can repair itself when ruptured to prevent DNA spilling out into the rest of the cell.

A cell's nucleus has a nuclear envelope encompassing the DNA within to separate it from the rest of the cell. The nuclear envelope is a phospholipid membrane, which interacts with the cell's cytoskeleton, a network of fibers that help stabilize the structure of the cell. However, the cytoskeleton can sometimes exert excess pressure on a cell's nucleus, leading to a rupture.

A series of 3D images of this one thousand-year-old supernova have been captured, unveiling details about the elements ejected from a star when it explodes.

The supernova is SNR 0540-69.3 and was the subject of a new study led by Josefin Larsson of the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, collaborating with researchers from Stockholm University, the University of Warwick, and the European Southern Observatory (ESO). Using data from the Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) and X-shooter at ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT), they could glean new insight into how a star self-destructs.

Now, they have uncovered a large ring of oxygen surrounding the innermost regions of the supernova's remains, a clump of hydrogen unlike anything seen in other supernova remnants. The researchers were able to map the distribution of the elements ejected from the supernova in three dimensions, allowing them to test theoretical models of the progenitor star's explosion to understand its mechanism.

Methane is more than 25 times a potent atmospheric heat trapper than carbon dioxide, so researchers have developed a new technology to convert it into more valuable products to curb its impact on climate change.

Methane is also the second most abundant greenhouse gas behind carbon dioxide, so it is critical to find a way to deal with methane emissions when attempting to combat global warming. Trying to convert methane to other chemical products is generally either expensive and potentially dangerous given the reactants or inefficient and leads to carbon dioxide production, not necessarily a desirable outcome.

Yue Wu and colleagues from the Iowa State University have developed and tested a catalyst technology that consists of one or two layers of platinum, each only an atom thick. The layers are deposited onto "MXenes," two-dimensional metal carbide structures. The thin layers of platinum allowed all platinum atoms to act as catalysts without being deactivated by residue formation. Also, the carbide structure was extremely active and able to absorb molecules when carbide materials are typically relatively inert.

The reusable Neutron rocket has its inaugural launch scheduled for 2024 and builds on the experience gained from Rocket Lab's currently flying Electron rocket.

Electron is one of the most frequently launched American rockets since 2019, which made its first flight in 2017. It is a two-stage rocket capable of launching payloads up to 300 kg (661 lbs). Since then, Rocket Lab has experimented with retrieving the first-stage booster of the Electron to begin introducing reusable components into its rockets.

The Neutron reusable rocket, first unveiled on March 1st, 2021, was revealed to be a two-stage reusable rocket that can carry 8,000 kg (17,600 lbs) to Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) and 1,500 kg (3,300 lbs) to Mars or Venus. Now, in Rocket Lab's most recent video, Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck explains the updated design accommodates a maximum payload of up to 15,000 kg (33,070 lbs) to LEO. It will also be the first carbon composite large launch vehicle and use the new Archimedes rocket engine.

Reddit has jumped into the world of cryptocurrency with a new optional program called "Community Points", which is currently being run on the Ethereum blockchain.

Reddit has announced a wait-list for the upcoming expansion, which will entail Redditors gaining Community Points for participating in their respective communities. Points can be gained by uploading content that is deemed valuable by the community or volunteering to moderate the community. The new program is currently running on the Rinkeby testnet version of the Ethereum blockchain, but there are plans to migrate it over to the Ethereum mainnet eventually.

Any subreddit that chooses to participate in the program will get "Special Memberships" enabled, which can then be purchased with Community Points by users. Special Memberships include unlocks such as badges, GIFs, animated emojis, and more. Additionally, the program includes a "weighted polls" feature that will enable devoted community members with high Community Points to have a larger voice in the subreddit.

About 72% of Earth's surface is covered in liquid water, but are we the only planet in the universe to have an abundance of water, or are there others?

A new video a part of NASA's "We Asked an Expert" YouTube series explores the question of "Are There Oceans on Other Worlds?". In this week's episode, NASA Planetary Scientist Lucas Paganini explains that Earth isn't the only planet to have water and that there is actually an abundance of planets that researchers have identified as having water.

Additionally, Paganini explains that you don't have to go very far from Earth to find planets or even moons with water, as some are in our solar system. Paganini says that moons such as Jupiters moon Europa and Saturn's moon Enceladus may be hosting liquid oceans under their icy crusts. The planetary scientists explains that ocean worlds are a focus of researchers because water is a building block of life, which means that worlds that harbor water potentially have life.

Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan had pledged billions of dollars towards analyzing any biological processes of the human body.

On Tuesday, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) announced that it intends to "observe, measure, and analyze any biological process throughout the human body - across spatial scales and in real-time." To achieve its goal of curing and preventing biological diseases, the organization will be donating $3.4 billion towards developing a variety of new institutions, as well as new research and technologies. The venture will span over 10 years.

A spokesperson for CZI, Jeff MacGregor, said that the organization will be giving $500 million over the next 15 years to develop a new artificial intelligence-focussed institution at Harvard University. This new institution will be named after Zuckerberg's mother, Karen Kempner Zuckerberg.

In the last days of 2021, three asteroids will be approaching Earth, according to NASA's Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS).

The first of the three asteroids that will be approaching Earth has been dubbed 2016 TR54, and according to NASA's database, it will pass by Earth on December 24, at 6:30 a.m. UTC. The asteroid is estimated to be anywhere between 328 and 754 feet in diameter and will be passing Earth at a speed of 34,700 miles per hour at a distance of four million miles, or around 17 times the distance between the Earth and the Moon.

The next asteroid that will pass by Earth is called 2018 AH, and is estimated to be slightly smaller than 2016 TR54 at a diameter of anywhere between 254 and 623 feet. 2018 AH is expected to have its closest approach on December 27 at 2:40 p.m. UTC (9:40 a.m. ET) at a speed of 28,400 miles per hour, at a distance of 622,800 miles, which is just over double the distance between the Earth and the Moon.

Many people missed out on the only total solar eclipse for 2021, but an observatory located one million miles out in deep space certainly didn't.

The only total solar eclipse for 2021 was only visible to those that were in Antarctica or in the Southern Ocean on Saturday, December 4. If you were located anywhere else you would have only seen a partial solar eclipse, or nothing at all. The remote locations to see the totallity of the solar eclipse didn't stop some resaerchers and photographers, who ventured out to the Union Glacier to take these photographs.

The photographers stationed on Union Glacier weren't the only cameras involved in the event, as NOAA's Deep Space Climate Observatory (DISCOVR) that's located 950,000 miles away from Earth in deep space had its camera pointed at the planet. The observatory was tracking the shadow of the solar eclipse as it passed over Earth and snapped an image using the Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) built by NASA.

A team of astronomers has located a planet in a star system that previously wasn't thought to be able to host stars.

The two-star system is located approximately 325 light-years away from Earth within the constellation Centaurus. The system is called b Centauri and measures in at six times the mass of our Sun, which makes it the largest star system to have a planet orbiting it. Up until now, astronomers only found planets orbiting stars that were maximum three times the mass of our Sun. The discovery of this planet has expanded astronomers' knowledge of where its possible planets can form.

In a new study published in the journal Chem, researchers have modified crystalline structures to make them stretchy.

Chenfeng Ke, Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Dartmouth College, and his research team have designed carbon-based, porous crystals that can stretch to more than double their length.

NASA will be live-streaming the launch of two Japanese private citizens accompanied by a veteran Russian cosmonaut to the International Space Station (ISS) on December 8th, 2021.

A Soyuz MS-20 will carry the Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin and private citizens Yusaku Maezawa and Yozo Hirano from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, launching at 12:38 p.m. local time (07:38 UTC). Maezawa is a billionaire entrepreneur joined by his production assistant Hirano, both going for an eleven-day visit to the ISS.

The flight will take six hours, with NASA's covering the launch and the docking sequence. On NASA TV, launch coverage begins at 2 a.m. EST, docking coverage at 8 a.m. EST, and hatch opening and welcoming remarks at 10:15 a.m. EST.

With the most powerful radio antenna on Earth, researchers from the University of Queensland have detected radio signals from distant stars.

Dr. Benjamin Pope of the University of Queensland and colleagues from the Dutch national observatory ASTRON have been using the Low-Frequency Array (LOFAR) in the Netherlands to observe radio waves emanating from distant stars. These waves suggest the existence of unknown planets orbiting these stars.

NASA has developed a new near-Earth asteroid impact monitoring algorithm dubbed Sentry-II to help defend Earth against future asteroid threats.

Survey telescopes have identified nearly 28,000 near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) to date, with additional NEAs expected to be discovered and added at a rate of roughly 3,000 per year. With advances in survey telescope technology, this rate will likely increase. In response to the potential threat posed by these asteroids to Earth, NASA has developed Sentry-II, an asteroid impact monitoring algorithm that has just gone online.

The Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS), managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California, calculates the orbit of every known NEA, creating impact hazard assessments for NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO). To do so, CNEOS has used Sentry software developed by JPL in 2002.