Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 131

After being put in safe mode to protect the scientific instruments aboard, the Hubble Space Telescope returns to full scientific operations.

On December 6th, NASA recovered the final instrument aboard Hubble, the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph. The previous instrument to be recovered was the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph on November 28th, and before that the Wide Field Camera 3 and Advanced Camera for Surveys on November 22rd and November 7th respectively.

Hubble initially went into safe mode on October 25th in response to the loss of internal synchronization messages. As NASA has worked to bring the scientific instruments back online, no synchronization message issues have been detected since November 1st.

A rover exploring the surface of the Moon has snapped an image of what appears to be a mysterious "house", or "hut" object.

The image comes from an affiliated Chinese media channel called "Our Space", that details the rover Yutu 2 that first landed on the far side of the Moon back in January 2019. According to the post, the Yutu 2 rover spotted the object on the horizon while it was driving across the Von Karman crater last month, and sent back images of the object to the China National Space Administration (CNSA).

Space.com reports that the name "mystery hut" or "house" is currently being used as a placeholder name until the rover can identify what the object is. Additionally, the publication also points out that the object is most likely not a hut of any kind, and is more likely to be a large boulder that has been created from an impact event such as an asteroid. Yutu 2 is only 262 feet away from the object and will make its way over to inspect it over the next two to three months.

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has said during an interview that global birthrates could threaten human civilization.

Musk, who is a father of six, spoke at Wall Street Journal's annual CEO Council and said brought up birthrates being a possible threat towards the existence of human civilization, saying that there is "not enough people" and called for people to have more children. The Tesla CEO went on to say that there is "smart people" who believe that there is too many people, and that Earth is overpopulated, but according to Musk this isn't the case, "It's completely the opposite".

NASA is currently gearing up for the launch of its new telescope that will be used to find the most violent objects in the universe.

The new telescope is called the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) spacecraft and will be used by the agency and astrophysicists to observe the magnetic field of cosmic objects such as neutron stars and black holes. IXPE will be able to read the polarization between different X-rays that come from the environments of violent celestial objects (black holes, neutron stars). These readings will be able to teach researchers about the environment in the past and future of these objects.

NASA is planning on launching the IXPE spacecraft on the back of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Thursday after 1 a.m. EDT. As always, the event will be live-streamed by NASA on its website and social media channels, with the livestream beginning on Wednesday at 11:30 a.m. If you are interested in reading more about this new telescope, check out this link here.

The only solar eclipse to happen for 2021 recently occurred, but unfortunately, the totality was only visible in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean.

The extreme conditions of Antarctica didn't stop some photographers and scientists that were determined to see the total solar eclipse, and to everyone else's enjoyment, they have shared video footage of the event. The footage, which is about 1 minute in length, showcases a stunning time-lapse view of the Sun reappearing and disappearing, with only a few seconds of totality. If you find the video too fast, you can slow in down in the settings, which can be found in the bottom right-hand corner of the video.

The video was captured from Union Glacier on Saturday, December 4, by the JM Pasachoff Antarctic Expedition, who also live-streamed the event. The reason the total solar eclipse was only visible at certain locations on Earth is due to the Moon's shadow being very narrow. Antarctica was the best viewing angle of the total solar eclipse, while places such as Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, and South Africa could only see a partial eclipse.

The International Space Station (ISS) is a fantastic vantage point for observing Earth, and recently astronauts aboard the station were left in awe at 2021's only total solar eclipse.

NASA has posted images to its "NASA Astronauts" Twitter account with a caption explaining that the Expedition 55 crew was able to view the total solar eclipse that happened on Saturday, December 4 at 2 a.m. EST (0700 GMT). Seven astronauts squeezed into the cupola, a large glass panoramic viewing dome, to see the phenomenon. NASA astronauts Kayla Barron described the event as "an incredible sight to behold."

A total solar eclipse happens when the Moon passes directly in front of the Sun from a viewer's perspective. The recent solar eclipse wasn't viewable for most people as the best angle to view its totality was in Antarctica, and while this didn't stop some photographers and scientists, it did mean most people missed it. The next total solar eclipse isn't expected to happen until April 20, 2023, and will be mostly viewable over Asia.

NASA recently extended its existing contract with SpaceX to include additional missions to send astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS).

SpaceX already has six crewed flights to the ISS using its Crew Dragon system planned as part of its contract with NASA. Now up to three more flights have been added to the contract. NASA solicited other companies before extending SpaceX's contract, but none met NASA's requirements.

NASA has launched a sounding rocket from Norway to help understand the dense region of the upper atmosphere on Earth's sun-facing side.

There is a gap in Earth's magnetic field in a region known as the polar cusp. This gap allows solar winds from the sun to reach Earth's atmosphere, causes radio and GPS signals to behave strangely, and slows down spacecraft as they pass through this region. The air in this region is denser than elsewhere in spacecrafts' orbits around Earth, but it is not understood how or why.

The Cusp Region Experiment-2 (CREX-2) is funded by NASA and headed by Mark Conde from the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute. The mission aims to understand the dynamics in the cusp, first set to do so in 2019 as part of The Grand Challenge Initiative's Project CUSP. However, it was delayed due to little solar activity, and the Covid-19 pandemic only served to delay the flight further. Now, CREX-2 was finally able to launch on December 1st from a launchpad in Andenes, Norway, at 3:25 a.m. EST.

On December 7th, 2021, NASA plans to launch and test its $320 million high-speed laser communications device.

The experimental device will be launched aboard a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas 5 rocket as part of a US Space Force mission. It is attached to a Space Force STPSat 6 satellite, the primary payload for the Atlas 5 rocket, which is destined for a geosynchronous orbit above Earth.

Lift-off is due for a two-hour launch window opening at 09:04 UTC on Tuesday, December 7th, from Cape Canaveral. Previously scheduled for December 5th, the launch was delayed due to a leak in the launch pad's kerosene fuel storage system.

Researchers have recently used soft X-ray tomography (SXT) to render a high-resolution model of a cell and its internal structures in minutes.

Scanning electron microscopy is often used in cell imaging because it provides high-resolution nanoscale images. However, using scanning electron microscopes takes around a week to scan an individual cell, generating an enormous amount of data to analyze and interpret.

With SXT, scientists can create tomograms of a cell within five to ten minutes. When studying numerous cells, the significantly higher throughput makes SXT a much more practical analysis tool than the more data and time-intensive alternatives.

NASA has signed agreements with three separate U.S. companies to develop private commercial space stations.

Northrop Grumman's space station concept.

Blue Origin, Nanoracks, and Northrop Grumman have all been awarded contracts worth a combined $415.6 million. They come as part of NASA's Commercial Low Earth Orbit Destinations (CLD) program, which seeks to help the development of private space stations that may one day succeed the aging International Space Station (ISS).

Switzerland has officially approved the use of a coffin-shaped suicide machine that allows people to decide to kill themselves.

According to the company behind the machine, Exit International, the machine is called Sarco, which is short for sarcophagus and allows users to lay down in a coffin-shaped capsule that then reduces oxygen levels to fatal levels once the user initiates the process. The process takes less than a minute, and after the minute duration, death occurs through hypoxia and hypocapnia, which the Independent reports, "is intended to allow a person to die relatively peacefully and painlessly."

For those that don't know, assisted suicide is completely legal in Switzerland, as services such as Dignitas and Exit provide users with a digestible liquid drug that puts users in a deep coma that eventually results in death. Now, reports indicate that the Sacro has passed legal review, and according to Dr. Philip Nitschke, the creator of the Sacro, also dubbed "Dr. Death", "there are no legal issues at all" with the product and that discussions are currently underway with the goal to roll out the service to the public next year.

NASA is currently tracking on route to enter Earth's orbit, and it's estimated to be worth more than $5 billion.

The asteroid is dubbed "potentially dangerous," as is any space rock or comet that comes within the 4.65 million miles of Earth. The asteroid is dubbed 4660 Nereus, and while it is categorized as a "potentially hazardous" object, it will safely pass by Earth. The asteroid has a diameter of 1,085 feet and will break into Earth's orbit at a speed of 14,700 mph on Saturday, December 11, marking the closest the asteroid has come to Earth within 20 years.

When 4660 Nereus passes by Earth, it will be at a distance of 2.4 million miles, which is around 10 times the distance between the Earth and the Moon (238,855 miles). While 2.4 million miles sounds like an enormous distance when speaking in astronomical terms, it's quite small. According to the Asterank database that is currently tracking more than 60,000 asteroids, 4660 Nereus is estimated to contain $4.71 billion worth of nickel, iron, and cobalt.

For the entire duration of human existence, we have been trying to make sense of the planet we have been living on, called Earth.

Humans have come quite far in understanding the small blue planet we call home, and the solar system it resides in, but there is still a lot of questions that need answers. Researchers have discovered some quite outrageous facts about Earth throughout their research, and some of these discoveries have broken previously established understandings of our planet.

Below you will find five facts about Earth that aren't common knowledge, and some of them may even break preconceived ideas that teachers established during your early schooling years.

Reports indicate that there has been several eruptions on the surface of the Sun, and that a large magnetic filament has exploded.

Sunspot activity.

According to Spaceweather.com, the Sun featured eruptive activity on its departing southern limb, with a northern coronal hole passing centrally. The eruptive activity that was seen in the Sun's southern hemisphere that was departing can be attributed to sunspots that caused an M-class flare and plasma ejecta to be launched into space. The charged particles from the sunspot eruptive activity are not on track to collide with Earth.

A company is trying to create a faster and cheaper method of putting satellites in orbit, and the design the company has gone with literally flings satellites.

Most companies that are looking to get satellites into orbit decide to use rockets, which is an extremely expensive and costly environmental process. While the cost of launching a rocket was dramatically reduced with the introduction of reusable rockets, the expense of a launch is still very high. For these aforementioned reasons, California-based spaceflight startup SpinLaunch is currently testing out a different method that involves spinning satellites at very high speeds and releasing them through a small chute towards space.

On October 22, SpinLaunch tested its "suborbital accelerator", which measures in at 165 feet, taller than the Statue of Liberty, by spinning a 10-foot-long projectile to speeds of "many thousands of miles an hour," according to SpinLaunch's CEO Jonathan Yaney. After gaining extreme speeds, the projectile was released out of the barrel and ascended to "tens of thousands of feet." SpinLaunch plans on conducting around thirty more test flights within the next eight months at its suborbital accelerator in New Mexico.

NASA has set a goal of getting a sustainable colony of humans on Mars by 2030, and in the years leading up to 2030 the space agency is collecting any relevant information that will assist them in the pursuit.

A big part of the data collection aspect of the mission is NASA's Mars rovers, Perseverance and Curiosity. Perseverance landed on the Red Planet on February 18, 2021 and has since been inspecting the Jezero Crater for any signs of ancient microbial life. Curiosity landed on Mars on August 6, 2012 and has been studying the geology of Mars for quite some time. Recently, Curiosity snapped an incredible view of the Martian landscape, check it out here.

Since the pursuit of Mars has begun there have been several notable discoveries, and some of them have happened in 2021. Below you will find five recent incredible discoveries about Mars that will assist the human civilization in creating a sustainable presence on Mars.

Nissan has recently unveiled its new lunar exploration vehicle that it has been working on with Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

The new prototype vehicle was unveiled last Thursday at the JAXA headquarters in Yokohama, south of Tokyo, and it features a sharp four-wheel design that has been equipped with motor control and e-4ORCE four-wheel-drive control technology. Since the surface of the Moon is covered in very fine sand, it can be quite difficult for vehicles attempting to drive on the surface to gain traction with the ground underneath them.

In the above video posted to the Nissan YouTube channel, Nissan demonstrates the difference between having its e-4ORCE technology-enabled versus having it disabled. From the video, we can see that the e-4ORCE technology can be a deciding factor when attempting to take a rover through difficult terrain, as it's designed to be a form of all-wheel precision driving that reacts to specific conditions. If you are interested in reading more about this story, check out this link here.

On Saturday, December 4, Mount Semeru, the tallest volcano on the island of Java, began spewing out a large plume of volcanic ash.

The deadly columns of volcanic ash drifted from the summit of the volcano high into the sky, with some of the surrounding villages being blanketed in thick ash. On top of the volcanic eruption, there was also a thunderstorm with heavy rainfall, which, when combined with the falling volcanic ash, creates lahars. The United States Geological Service says lahars are an Indonesian term, and describes them as "a moving lahar looks like a roiling slurry of wet concrete."

AccuWeather reports that at least 56 residents have been injured, at least 14 have died, and up to 60,000 people have been affected by the eruption. Deputy Regent of Lumajang, Indah Amperawati, said, "There were 41 residents who had burns due to hot lava who were evacuated at the Penanggal Health Center. We have also referred them to Bhayangkara Hospital and Suyoto Hospital." Reports indicate that the health center where most of the eruption victims are being transported is being overloaded with patients.

A fun fact about Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is that he once sent a Tesla Roadster into orbit, and it's still flying around out in space.

On December 5, Musk Tweeted out a render of two Starship rockets attached to individual tower arms, stating that SpaceX "will soon make these real". Following up on that Tweet, Musk wrote, "Starships to ♥️ Mars ♥️", to which Pak replied, "Do you ship to Mars?". Musk replied by writing, "You betcha. My car is currently orbiting Mars".

Musk's off-the-cuff comment about his Roadster orbiting Mars was met by criticism from Harvard Professor, Jonathan McDowell, who works at the university's Center for Astrophysics, who wrote, "Well, no. It's orbiting the Sun, and occasionally passes the orbit of Mars. Not the same thing." McDowell followed up by posting a map that displays the orbits of the Roadster, Earth, and Mars around the Sun.