Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 145

Videos have emerged of a volcano located in the United States spewing out bubbling lava in every direction it can.

The footage is of Hawaii's Kilauea volcano and was captured on October 12. The footage showcases the volcano spewing out lava from the west vent at the summit crater. According to the United States Geological Survey Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, the vent has a spatter cone around the opening that stretches some 100 feet high. This splatter cone is protecting the area around it from eruptions. However, some larger bursts of lava have exceeded the height of the cone, spilling out onto the area around it.

At the base of the splatter cone, a small opening can be seen. This opening is feeding the lava lake below it, and according to officials, as of October 8, it's estimated that the eruption has spilled out 4.2 billion gallons of eruption volume. As for sulfur dioxide emissions, it's estimated that the volcano is releasing 2,700 tonnes per day. As for the lava lake at the base of the summit, its level has increased by 148 feet since the eruption began on September 29. All lava is confined to the summit crater.

NASA has published a new image taken by the famous Hubble Space Telescope. This time around, Hubble has snapped a photo of a distant "starburst galaxy".

NASA and the European Space Agency's Hubble Space Telescope has been in operation for multiple decades now, and despite its age, the space telescope still manages to take phenomenal images of the universe. The above image is of a distant spiral galaxy named NGC 4666, located around 80 million light-years from Earth within the constellation Virgo. NASA explains that this galaxy is currently going through an "intense episode of star formation".

Additionally, the space agency explains in its post that astronomers refer to galaxies undergoing intense episodes of star formation as "starburst galaxies". The galaxy's "starburst formation" can be attributed to its gravitation interactions with its neighbors, "including the nearby galaxy NGC 4668 and a dwarf galaxy, which is a small galaxy made up of a few billion stars." If you are interested in learning more about this truly awesome spiral galaxy, check out this link here.

NASA has posted a new video to the "NASA Goddard" YouTube channel that details ten mysteries of Venus that NASA researchers are still trying to work out.

In the video, the narrator explains that the surface of Venus is completely inhospitable for life, with an atmosphere at around 90 times the pressure of Earth's and a surface temperature is over 900 degrees Fahrenheit - hot enough to melt lead. But it may not have always been like that, and the space agency plans on finding out if that's true with its Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging (DAVINCI) mission that is set to explore our strange sister planet.

Other mysteries that surround Venus are that its size is very similar to that of Earth's, but it's clear both planets took a very different route when it came to their evolution into what we see today. NASA's DAVINCI probe and its Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectroscopy (VERITAS) probe are expected to answer many of the mysteries outlined in the video, and with the results from the mission, researchers will understand the evolution of our sister planet, which will add to the ever-growing collection of knowledge about how planets form.

Officials are currently tracking a "monster" cyclone that is expected to bring heavy rainfall to certain areas across the United States.

Reports indicate that this "bomb cyclone" is expected to bring heavy rainfall and snow across the West Coast over the weekend. It's expected that this series of storms could bring as much as a foot of rainfall as well as up to three feet of snow in Sierra Nevada. Additionally, the storms have been supercharged by an atmospheric river pattern, which could lead to flash flooding and the spreading of debris from regions that have been subjected to wildfires.

According to Marty Ralph, director of the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes at UC San Diego, "An atmospheric river marked as a category 4 or a 5 is capable of producing remarkable rainfall totals over three or more days, likely to exceed 10-15% of a typical year's precipitation in some locations." As for the categorization of a "bomb cyclone", the National Ocean Service explains that the name comes from meteorologists who observe a "midlatitude cyclone rapidly intensifies, dropping at least 24 millibars [atmospheric pressure] over 24 hours." Typically, a range in millibar change is around 10 to 15 in 24 hours.

The American Meteor Society (AMS) has received more than 80 reports about a fireball sighting in the night sky over some US states.

According to the American Meteor Society, the sighting has been confirmed that a fireball was spotted in the night sky by people as far south as Tennessee and as far north as Michigan. The AMS confirmed the sighting to be around 12:43 a.m EDT but didn't know what the object was. It was later discovered that the fireball was the failed Russian spy satellite named Kosmos-2551.

Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer and satellite tracker that is based at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said via Twitter that the "The fireball network confirms that the event seen in Michigan was at 0443 UTC (1243EDT) which is the exact predicted time Kosmos-2551 passed over the region, and within the re-entry time uncertainty window given by Space Force." Adding, "So I conclude that the ID with Kosmos-2551 is solid."

A new video has appeared on NASA's official YouTube channel that is essentially a trailer showcasing the space agency's next-generation spacesuits.

Through the video, NASA has announced that it will partner with the private space industry to construct brand new next-generation spacesuits that will be used for future astronauts in a plethora of missions. According to the video's description, the spacesuits will be "personalized" and will come with revolutionary upgrades in the forms of technology upgrades, better fits for astronauts, a larger range of sizes, better protection against the harsh environment of space.

Additionally, these spacesuits will enable the astronauts better mobility, allowing them to be "more nimble than ever before". The space agency says that these spacesuits will be used by astronauts aboard the International Space Station, future Artemis missions that will take humans back to the surface of the Moon, and will, most importantly, prepare NASA for "humanity's next giant leap - sending astronauts to Mars."

A study published in the journal Nature Geoscience has detailed the largest underwater eruption to ever occur gave birth to a skyscraper-sized volcano.

The study was published in Nature Geoscience back in late August, and details a "new" volcano that was discovered off the in the western Indian Ocean, off Madagascar. The underwater volcano emerged from the seafloor following a series of earthquakes that were detected in the region. The study looked at data from a 2014 underwater survey of the region and compared it to a 2019 survey and found that between those two dates, a volcano rose to a height of 8,465 feet below sea level.

The researchers collected geological data and found that this volcano draws magma from the deepest reservoirs ever recorded by scientists - about 34 miles underground. Nathalie Feuillet, a marine geoscientist at the Paris Institute of Earth Physics (IPGP), University of Paris, and lead author on the study, said, "The source of the magma, the reservoir, is very deep. This is the first time in volcanology that we can see such a deep reservoir at the base of the lithosphere."

Last month Sony posted a video to its official YouTube channel that may have slipped under the radar when looking at its number of views.

The above video was posted on September 3 and showcased the finished product of collaborative work between Sony designers and science fiction writers. The goal of the collaboration was to come up with ideas of what life, working, senses and well-being would be like in Tokyo in 2050. The team's joint effort came up with a series of design prototypes, and one of them was the Floating Habitat that predicts humans will be living on the ocean in floating houses.

As stated in the above video, these floating habitats located in a bay are paired with solar panels located in the water. These solar panels generate electricity for the habitats and store them in autonomous energy tanks that detect when one is running low on power. They then connect to the habitat to replenish its supply. Additionally, multiple of these floating homes can be connected together to form a large structure that Sony says will reduce the impact of large waves.

Reports indicate that an asteroid has made a relatively close approach to Earth, passing between our planet and the Moon.

According to Space.com, an asteroid named 2021 TG14 that has a diameter between 17.7 - 39.3 feet passed between the Earth and the Moon on Sunday, October 17. According to NASA's asteroid database, the space rock passed at a distance of 155,000 miles, and while that seems like quite a distance here on Earth, when talking in space terms, that is quite close to our small blue planet. For reference, the Moon is around 239,000 miles from Earth.

For those that don't know, an asteroid is an ancient piece of the early solar system when our cosmic neighborhood was just a collection of rock, ice, and debris before planets formed. For these reasons, astronomers see asteroids as valuable prospects for scientific research as they can contain information about the solar system's past and thus provide insightful information about its future. If you are interested in reading more about this story, check out this link here.

A swarm of earthquakes has impacted a volcano in the United States. Officials have recorded 33 earthquakes in just 24 hours.

The US Geological Survey's (USGS) Cascades Volcano Observatory (CVO) has detected a new swarm of earthquakes impacting Oregon's Mount Hood volcano. According to officials, Mount Hood is classified as a "very high threat potential". However, the earthquakes it recently experienced are not abnormal and have not caused a change in the volcano alert level nor the aviation color code. The USGS wrote, "Several tens of small earthquakes have occurred near the summit of Mount Hood. This is not a volcanic event."

The USGS continued in its statement and said that the earthquakes began on October 17 and that the largest was an M2.5 at a depth of 1.8 - 3.1 miles below the surface. Additionally, none of the earthquakes were felt, and that swarms of earthquakes hitting the volcano are deemed "common" and "do not indicate a change in the volcanic hazard. Past swarms have lasted several days to a couple of weeks." If you are interested in reading more about the reported activity, check out this link here.

AccuWeather has reported that a "beast of a bomb cyclone" is on its way towards the United States and that it may rival some of the hurricanes that have been seen throughout the Atlantic Ocean.

According to the report from AccuWeather, the monstrous cyclone storm will usher in dangerous amounts of rainfall up and down the West Coast of the United States. The report states that satellite imagery has shown that moisture has been transported all the way from India and other parts of southeast Asia across the northern Pacific and is now headed towards the West Coast of the US. AccuWeather Meteorologist Randy Adkins says that Tropical Storm Namtheun will combine with the non-tropical system in the Pacific on Wednesday.

Officials from the National Weather Service Weather Prediction Center have warned that the incoming storm will bring "heavy rain totals, worrisome for burn scars, and high elevation mountain snow". Adding, "The heaviest precipitation looks to come in two waves, one Thursday and another Sunday into Monday." Forecasters recommend keeping up to date on the movements of the storm if you are in the affected areas as with most storms, things can change quite rapidly. For more information on this story, check out this link here.

On October 9, the Sun blasted out a slew of charged particles directly at Earth. The result was a low-to-moderate geomagnetic storm taking place on our planet.

Earth has a protective shield against the fury of the Sun, and this protective shield is called our magnetosphere. When the Sun shoots out a coronal mass ejection (CME) - which is a significant release of plasma from the Sun - and it collides with our planet's magnetosphere, it can cause some considerable effects. Depending on how powerful the solar wind is from the blast, the CME can cause power outages, internet disruptions, satellite issues, and more.

Luckily, the event of October 9 didn't cause much damage at all since the blast was only relatively small in scale. However, the effects of the blast were seen across the globe in the form of auroras in the sky. Auroras happen when the charged particles from the solar wind get trapped in Earth's magnetic field and travel to the geomagnetic poles of the planet. The result is the stunning colors we see in the sky. The European Space Agency put together a video that is comprised of an image taken every 60 seconds throughout the duration of the solar storm. The video can be found above.

NASA's Perseverance rover is designed for precision, and to achieve that, the rover must move incredibly slow - painfully slow.

NASA's Perseverance rover has a top speed on flat ground of a little less than 0.1 miles per hour. But, the space agency has released a new sped-up video of the rover traversing the Martian surface. The video is sped up by about 200 times, and in-between each frame of the video is about 30 seconds. "In total, the rover drove 574 feet (175 meters). The first 26 feet (8 meters) were based on commands sent up earlier by rover drivers, allowing Perseverance to build a 3D map of the terrain under and around it", wrote NASA.

The footage has been released onto the official Perseverance Twitter account and shows the rover taking the surface of the Red Planet head-on. Recently, NASA's Perseverance rover captured a panorama of the Martian surface that shows it in incredible detail. The image is a mosaic piece that is comprised of 84 separate images. If you are interested in checking out that image, click this link here.

The idea of advanced aliens being out there somewhere in the cosmos has been an idea much speculated by everyday people as well as scientists.

There are people on both sides of the metaphorical fence that claim aliens are somewhere out there in the void and others who claim we are the first since we haven't detected them yet. Perhaps the problem isn't that they are real or not, perhaps, the problem is a limitation in our technology to detect them (if they are there). A new study has appeared on a preprint server that details the possibility of China's new radio telescope being capable of detecting alien probes within and beyond our solar system.

The paper explains through calculations that China's Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST) could be able to detect alien probes within its radio spectral band that is a key feature of the telescope. The idea behind the telescope being able to detect alien probes is that these probes would emit some kind of radiation that China's new instrument could then detect. If you are interested in reading more about this story, check out this link here.

Researchers have analyzed limestone samples and have discovered that Earth tipped millions of years ago while dinosaurs were still walking around.

The new study has been published in Nature Communications and details an analysis of limestone samples from Italy that date back 65.5 to 100.5 million years ago during the Late Cretaceous period. The researchers were looking for evidence of a shift in Earth's magnetic record that would indicate True Polar Wander (TPW), which can cause whole planets and moons to tilt.

According to the study results, the researchers were able to identify evidence of a tilt occurring with bacteria fossils trapped within the limestone. These bacteria fossils provide evidence that during the aforementioned periods, the Earth's surface, which is made up of mantle and crust, tipped by 12 degrees around 84 million years ago and then corrected itself within about 5 million years.

A group of researchers has proposed a new method of planetary defense that would explode a potentially life-threatening asteroid that was on track to impact Earth.

The technical paper has been published in the journal Advances in Space Research on the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) Experimental Cosmology Group website and details what are described as "penetrator rods". These rods would be launched on the back of the rocket and directed straight for the asteroid that was on its way towards Earth.

The rods are between 6 and 10 feet long and equipped with explosives that could potentially be nuclear. The idea behind this strategy is that the rods would enter the asteroid surface and explode, which would cause the asteroid to shatter into small pieces. The researchers state in the paper that the damage caused by the smaller pieces of the asteroid wouldn't even be close to the amount of damage a larger asteroid would do.

NASA recently launched its spacecraft that is scheduled to inspect ancient asteroids located near the largest planet in our solar system - Jupiter.

NASA's Lucy spacecraft took off on Saturday, October 16, aboard the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket, and while the launch was deemed an overall success, the space agency has announced the spacecraft has experienced a slight problem with one of its solar panels. The two solar panels Lucy is equipped with are crucial components of the spacecraft's very ambitious mission to visit the ancient Trojan asteroids as they give the spacecraft power.

According to the announcement from NASA's associate administrator for science who wrote on Twitter, Lucy is "safe and stable". However, "The two solar arrays have deployed, but one may not be fully latched." Adding, "The team is analyzing data to determine next steps. This team has overcome many challenges already and I am confident they will prevail here as well." NASA gave its own statement on the matter, saying, "Lucy's two solar arrays have deployed, and both are producing power and the battery is charging. While one of the arrays has latched, indications are that the second array may not be fully latched."

Astronomers used one of NASA's satellites to observe a white dwarf star seemingly switching "on and off" for the first time.

The research has been published in the journal Nature Astronomy. It details a first-time discovery of astronomers from Durham University, UK, using NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) to look at a white dwarf star around 1,400 light-years. The astronomers' new observations detail the white dwarf losing brightness in just 30 minutes, which is something that was only previously observed over a period of several days to months.

So, why did this happen? According to Phys.org, the brightness of a white dwarf star is affected by the amount of material surrounding it that it can potentially feed on. When the white dwarf is bright, it's feeding off the accretion disk of its companion star, and when dull, it's not "eating" as much. From the results, the researchers suspect that there was an interference of some sort with the star's food supply which led to the dramatic rise and fall of its brightness.

NASA has recorded what it sounds like on Mars with two microphones aboard its Perseverance rover that's currently exploring the Red Planet.

In a new video released on NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory YouTube channel, NASA imaging scientist Justin Maka at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Nina Lanza, a scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), explain how the Perseverance rover captured the sounds of Mars and the importance of being able to hear what it's like on the Red Planet.

The two microphones that Perseverance is equipped with are two commercial off-the-shelf microphones. Having microphones on Perseverance allows researchers to understand how sound works in Mars' atmosphere, such as the Red Planet's atmosphere is vastly different compared to Earth's. Additionally, researchers can listen to the rover performing analysis as well as the sounds the rover makes, which allows engineers to better understand the current health of the rover better. To listen to the sounds of Mars, check out the above video.

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station have an incredible vantage point to see Earth and some of its strange, yet beautiful phenomena.

The International Space Station (ISS) is orbiting Earth at an altitude of about 250 miles, and from that height astronauts aboard the floating laboratory are able to capture stunning images of Earth. NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough recently took to his personal Twitter account to post an image of a beautiful green aurora appearing in Earth's atmosphere. Here's what he said, "I caught this aurora just as orbital sunrise was beginning. Breathtaking!"

An aurora occurs when charged particles from the Sun collide with Earth's atmosphere. These charged particles are called solar wind and come from solar flares and coronal mass ejections. The interaction between the solar wind and Earth's magnetic field lines creates the beautiful auroras we see in the sky. The Sun is entering in a new solar cycle which means we can expect more solar activity such as solar flares and coronal mass ejections to take place.