Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 146

McDonald's is rolling out its new plant-based burger in 8 restaurants across the US starting on November 3, with the limited-time trial testing the taste buds of customers to see if it is a success or not.

The company is using a patty made using plant-based meat from Beyond Meat, which has been working with other companies on plant-based meat. But the deal between Beyond Meat and McDonald's is different because McDonald's co-developed the plant-based meat used in the McPlant with Beyond Meat, instead of Beyond Meat providing the plant-based meat to other fast-food chains.

McDonald's first announced its plant-based burger back in November 2020, where at the time McDonald's international president Ian Borden explained during an investor meeting: "In the future, McPlant could extend across a line of plant-based products including burgers, chicken-substitutes and breakfast sandwiches". McDonald's added that the McPlant burger "delivers our iconic taste in a sink-your-teeth-in (and wipe-your-mouth) kind of sandwich. It's made with a juicy, plant-based patty and served on a warm, sesame seed bun with all the classic toppings".

NASA has explained via a press release that a new study is exploring how possible it is to build a Wi-Fi network on the lunar surface.

NASA's Compass Lab conducted the study, and researchers behind it compared the inadequate internet access in some areas in Cleveland to the lunar surface in an effort to solve two problems; giving those people in areas without a connection a sustained connection and the construction of a Wi-Fi network on the Moon. According to the National Digital Alliance, around 31% of Cleveland households aren't connected to the internet.

The researchers behind the study compared the lunar surface area with an area around Cleveland to discover technical challenges within the local area. The study found that if Wi-Fi routers were attached to around 20,000 lampposts or other poles around Cleveland, all residents in the local area would have an available connection at any given time. With routers placed no more than 100 yards apart, the researchers estimated that a family of four would be able to get a 7.5 megabits per second download speed.

The first film crew to ever shoot footage that will be used in a feature film has safely returned back down to Earth, marking a milestone moment in the world film industry.

After training for just four months, filmmaker Klim Shipenko, actress Yulia Peresild, and cosmonaut Oleg Novitsky took off from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to the International Space Station for twelve days. The space film crew shot scenes for an upcoming movie about a doctor that is sent into orbit to perform surgery on a cosmonaut that is in need of medical attention.

The space film crew safely touched down in the Kazakhstan steppes, and right after leaving the capsule, the landing site quickly became a film set for one of the film's closing scenes. Actress Yulia Peresild is the first actress in space and described her experience to RT, saying, "While you're in low gravity, you feel like a feather, so everything's very heavy now - my head's very heavy, my arms, my legs... Everything's a little dizzy." The mission was a joint effort between Russia's television Channel 1 and the Russian Space Agency.

For the first time, researchers have captured the sounds of a solar storm from the Sun impacting Earth's magnetic field.

The sounds were released by the European Space Agency (ESA) back in 2019, and according to the press release, the song comes from waves that are generated in Earth's magnetic field when charged particles from the Sun slammed into it. Lucile Turc, a former ESA research fellow, led a team on the research and used data from the Cluster Science Archive, which consists of four spacecrafts that orbit Earth-observing our planet's magnetic field.

The orbit of these spacecrafts takes them through what is known as "foreshock", which is the first layer of Earth's magnetic field. Between 2001 and 2005, the spacecrafts flew through six solar storm collisions and recorded the waves of the impact. Researchers then converted these frequencies to audio, and the result is somewhat eerie sci-fi sound that is commonly used in movies. For more information on this story, check out this link here.

NASA's asteroid trackers are indicating that multiple asteroids will approach Earth in the next few weeks, some close to the size of the Great Pyramid of Giza located in Egypt.

For reference, the Great Pyramid of Giza has a diameter of 756 feet, and according to NASA's Center for Near-Earth Object Studies, Asteroid 2021 SM3 with a diameter of 525 feet passed by Earth just this Friday at a distance of 3.5 million miles. This asteroid was only first discovered a few weeks ago, according to CBS News. For those that don't know, a near-Earth object (NEO) are comets and asteroids that have been pushed into Earth's neighborhood by the gravity of other large-mass celestial body's such as nearby planets.

NASA researchers believe that NEOs hold the secrets for the evolution of our solar system as they formed from untouched debris when the solar system was first developing 4.6 billion years ago. NASA's Center for Near-Earth Object Studies said, "If we wish to know the composition of the primordial mixture from which the planets formed, then we must determine the chemical constituents of the leftover debris from this formation process - the comets and asteroids."

NASA has released a new image captured by its Mars rover named Perseverance, showing off an incredible view of an area in the Jezero Crater.

The image is a brand new panorama of the South Seitah area located in the Jezero Crater, where Perseverance is currently exploring. Researchers selected the Jezero Crater for its potential to contain evidence of past life on the planet as well as its geological potential as it contains some of the oldest rocks that will allow researchers to understand more about Mars' past when studied.

The image is a mosaic piece that is comprised of 84 separate images that were taken with Perseverance's Mastcam-Z instrument. According to NASA, the images were taken on September 12 when Perseverance was parked on an elevated overlook that is located just outside of its entry point into South Seitah. To view a full resolution version of the panoramic image, check out this link here.

Astronomers have been observing Jupiter and its most notable attraction - the Great Red Spot for hundreds of years.

Jupiter's Great Red Spot is the largest storm in the solar system, stretching at one point 25,000 miles in diameter, or three times the diameter of Earth. The storm is located 22 degrees south of Jupiter's equator and is producing wind speeds of up to 268 miles per hour. Astronomers have been using NASA and the European Space Agency's Hubble Space Telescope to observe Jupiter's main attraction for more than a decade and have discovered that the wind speed on the outer edges of the Great Red Spot is increasing.

Between 2009 and 2020, the wind speed of the outer edges, described by researchers as the high-speed ring, has increased its speed by eight percent. According to Michael Wong of the University of California, Berkeley, who led the analysis, "When I initially saw the results, I asked, 'Does this make sense?' No one has ever seen this before. But this is something only Hubble can do. Hubble's longevity and ongoing observations make this revelation possible."

A volcano on one of Spain's islands is spewing rivers of lava out in all directions. Shocking footage has captured the lava coating the surface of the island.

The volcano is Spain's Cumbre Vieja volcano located on La Palma island. The volcano began erupting on September 19 and has continued erupting for four weeks. NBC News reports that authorities expect the lava flow to advance northwest beyond the designated evacuation zone. Authorities have stated that the temperature of the lava can reach up to 2,264 degrees Fahrenheit and that there is nothing that can be done to stop it.

Residents in the area have evacuated the affected area, but the lava is moving very quickly, covering between 1,640 to 2,300 feet per hour. So far, the eruption and the rivers of lava have destroyed more than 1,186 buildings in the area and have covered around two square miles of land. Many videos of the rivers of lava have been captured by the press, researchers, and residents in the area. If you are interested in watching a video for yourself, check out this link here.

Astronomers back in 1974 decided to sketch what they thought the lunar mountain named Mons "Pico" would look like if they were standing in front of it.

Mons Pico is a solitary lunar mountain that is located in the northern part of the Mare Imbrium basin. The mountain is very reflective and is known as a bright lunar object. The peak comes in at the height of 7,874 feet, and when blasted with sunlight, it can cause massive shadows across the lunar surface. Astronomers in 1874 were able to view the mountain but weren't able to get an idea of what it looked like if they were standing on the lunar surface looking at it.

So, they decided to draw it. Above is a sketch of Pico, with the caption stating, "An ideal sketch of "Pico," an isolated lunar mountain 8,000 feet high, as it would probably appear if seen by a spectator located on the Moon." Unfortunately, to the astronomers/artists that drew this sketch, their assumptions about the mountain weren't accurate. Below is an image of what Pico looks like today, and as you can see, the two images are very different. While the sketch from 1874 isn't accurate, the measurement for the height of the mountain is, which is certainly something to commend for the times it was estimated.

Last week, a large amount of solar material erupted from our star's surface, which then traveled through space, reaching Earth a few days later.

For those that are unaware of this event, the eruption happened on October 9, 2021, causing a coronal mass ejection (CME) blast to hit Earth on October 12. So, what does this mean exactly? Researchers measure the disturbance in Earth's magnetic field by solar wind using the Kp index metric. The levels range from 0, which is considered "quiet," to 9, which is regarded as "intense". The CME that arrived last week elevated the Kp index to a 6, which is considered mild-moderate.

The CME blast was associated with a solar flare that happened from Active Region 2882 that peaked on October 9 at 6:38 UTC. The solar flare was categorized as an M-class, and much like the Richter scale used to measure earthquakes, M-class solar flares are a tenth the size and intensity of the X-class flares. For example, M2 flares are twice as powerful as an M1. NASA's space instruments measured the speed of the solar wind from the eruption to be 610 miles per second, according to NASA's Moon to Mars Space Weather Operations Office.

A distinguished Harvard professor has speculated that the Milky Way universe could have been created in a lab by an advanced alien species.

Abraham (Avi) Loeb is a best-selling author and former head of Harvard's astronomy department and is known for theories such as alien civilizations not being able to reply to our messages for 3,000 years and Oumuamua possibly being an alien spacecraft. Loeb is more than qualified to speculate these wild theories, and recently he published an op-ed in Scientific American that explores the possibility of the universe merely being a lab experiment by an "advanced technological civilization."

According to Loeb, "Since our universe has a flat geometry with a zero net energy, an advanced civilization could have developed a technology that created a baby universe out of nothing through quantum tunneling." Adding, "This possible origin story unifies the religious notion of a creator with the secular notion of quantum gravity. We do not possess a predictive theory that combines the two pillars of modern physics: quantum mechanics and gravity. But a more advanced civilization might have accomplished this feat and mastered the technology of creating baby universes."

A new study has detailed the possible discovery of four new alien worlds located 160 light-years from Earth.

The new study explains that researchers detected shimmering radio flashes of auroras in each of those planets' atmospheres. So what is an aurora? An aurora occurs when solar wind, which is charged particles from the Sun, collides with a planet's magnetic shield. Earth experiences auroras at its poles and in other locations when it's blasted with solar wind.

The researchers behind the study detected bright flashes of radio signals from the auroras on the supposed planets' atmospheres, which could confirm the existence of four new planets with more research. The astronomers discovered these radio signals using the Low Frequency Array radio telescope located in the Netherlands while observing Red Dwarf stars. Out of the nineteen Red Dwarf stars that were observed, four of them seemed strange as they shined bright with radio signals.

Solar eclipses are a thing of beauty that every human should witness at least once during their life as it's one of the many spectacles that the universe we live in offers.

Back in 2017, the Great American Eclipse occurred over North America, leaving millions of onlookers in awe as the Moon completely blocked out the Sun for a small period of time. So, when is the next one going to happen? According to AccuWeather, the next solar eclipse will happen on October 14, 2023, but it won't be a total solar eclipse.

The difference between a total solar eclipse and an annular solar eclipse is that the Moon doesn't completely block out the Sun on an annular solar eclipse, it leaves a "ring" around the outside of the Moon, hence the recently adopted name "ring of fire" eclipse. AccuWeather reports that the solar eclipse in 2023 will be an "appetizer" for the main event that will occur on April 8, 2024, when the Moon will completely black out the Sun - a total solar eclipse.

Since late September, the La Palma volcano has been erupting and judging by reports, the rivers of lava don't seem to be slowing down anytime soon.

The eruption began on September 19, and since then, lava has been spewing out of the volcano, causing residents in the area to evacuate. The temperature of the lava is up to 2,264 degrees Fahrenheit and is destroying everything in its path. At the moment, officials are saying that the lava is moving at 1,640 feet to 2,300 feet per hour, and so far, it has destroyed more than 1,186 buildings in the area - covering nearly two square miles of land.

On Sunday, the northern region of the conical crater collapsed, causing new lava streams to form downhill towards the ocean. The volcanic company Involcan posted a video of the lava moving through the industrial park on October 10. The video shows a beautiful yet haunting example of how the lava is moving through parts of the island, destroying everything in its path. If you are interested in reading more about the La Palma volcano eruption, check out the links below.

New reports are indicating that a coronal mass ejection (CME) is heading relatively close to Earth, which may result in an impact.

The report comes from SpaceWeather.com, which states a magnetic filament connected to the sunspot AR2882 erupted on October 12, and that the debris from that eruption are expected to near-miss Earth. Now, this CME isn't like the one that happened earlier this week where Earth took the impact head-on that resulted in minor-moderate geomagnetic storms. This new CME is much less severe, and may not cause any impact at all due to its position.

The publication states that the near-miss CME that's expected to pass close to Earth on October 15 may cause Arctic auroras, with minimal chance of a geomagnetic storm. As for the CME that caused a geomagnetic storm on October 12, the impact caused Northern Light-like auroras across select regions of the planet. If you are interested in checking out images of those auroras, or would like to learn more about CMEs, check out the below links.

NASA has released a new incredible image of a supernova remnant that looks an awful lot like a cosmic Pac-Man munching its way across the galaxy.

The supernova remnant is called N 63 A, and its located in the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy. While the image certainly does look like the iconic video game character Pac-Man, it's actually the remains of a violent supernova explosion that happened when a star's life came to a tragic end. The remains of the star are located some 163,000 light-years away from the Milky Way galaxy and inside what is referred to as a stellar nursery (a region in space that contains large amounts of gases that condense into baby stars).

NASA explains that when N 63 A went supernova, it appears to have stalled star formation for other stars in its region, which is the opposite of what usually happens when a supernova occurs. However, NASA says that N 63 A is relatively young, and once it begins to settle, it will likely start to trigger its own star-forming region in space. For more information on this story, check out this link here.

NASA researchers have detected the presence of persistent water vapor on one of Jupiter's icy moons using the Hubble Space Telescope.

Jupiter has many moons, and NASA is planning on exploring them as they could hold secrets about the evolution of Jupiter and Jupiter-like exoplanets that may be found in other parts of the Milky Way. According to a new post by NASA, Hubble's observations from 1999 to 2015 have led researchers to believe that one of Jupiter's moons, Europa, is showing signs of water vapor being present in the moon's atmosphere, which is only one-billionth the surface pressure of Earth's atmosphere.

Europa is scared by cracks and fissures and averages -275 degrees Fahrenheit, but researchers believe that life could be present in a vast ocean beneath its icy crust. Hubble previously observed 60 mile-high plumes of water vapor being shot into the atmosphere, which is very similar to a geyser on Earth. These results suggest a "long-term presence of a water vapor atmosphere only in Europa's trailing hemisphere," writes NASA. The results from these observations will assist NASA in its upcoming mission to Europa called the Europa Clipper mission.

Earlier this year astronomers detected what could be the largest comet ever discovered, and it's the first comet on an incoming path with our solar system.

The comet is named Bernardinelli-Bernstein after the astronomers that detected it, Pedro Bernardinelli and Gary Bernstein, from the University of Pennsylvania. The comet was originally thought to be a dwarf planet due to its immense diameter of 62 - 124 miles, but after further analysis researchers found that it wasn't a dwarf planet, but a large comet travelling from the Oort Cloud.

The researchers performed heavy analysis on the newly discovered comet with data sets from multiple observations. What the researchers found was the comet made its previous closest approach to the Sun around 3.5 million years ago, coming in at a distance of 18 AU (1 AU = the distance between Earth and the Sun - 93 million miles.) Additionally, the researchers were able to predict when the comet will make its closest approach to Earth, and according to the results, Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein will approach the Sun in 2031.

NASA is working towards getting humans on multiple planets in an effort to protect the species from extinction and expand our knowledge. But when will this happen?

According to a team of NASA scientists who published a paper on the pre-print server arXiv, humanity entered a "window of peril" when the first nuclear weapons were developed and deployed close to the end of World War II. The paper states that this "window of peril" will not be closed "until robust off-world colonies become a reality." The paper explores the timeline of when humans will be able to get off Earth and spread out amongst the stars.

The team of researchers concentrated their efforts on predicting the future of advanced computing power, which would be a major factor in allowing humans to reach far into space and colonize other planets. According to the results of the paper, NASA researchers estimate that humans could land the first humans on Mars by 2038. Additionally, the researchers predict that humans could reach the Asteroid Belt sometime around the year 2064. Lastly, humans could venture to the nearest neighboring star, Proxima Centauri, by 2254.

A close call is an understatement to 66-year-old Golden, British Columbia resident Ruth Hamilton, who experienced a terrifying ordeal on October 4 that nearly killed her.

Hamilton was asleep in her bed for hours when she was awoken by her dog barking, which was followed by a loud "explosion" sound. Following the loud "explosion" sound, Hamilton jumped out of bed and ran over to turn the light on. Only moments later, a large chunk of rock smashed through her ceiling. Hamilton flipped back her pillow and found a decent size rock laying in between her pillows, only inches away from where her head once was a few seconds ago.

The rock was initially thought to be from a construction site nearby that conducts blasting. However, it was quickly confirmed from multiple sources that a meteorite was seen exploding that same night. The meteorite weighed in at about two pounds, and according to Hamilton, she plans on keeping it after Western astronomy professor Peter Brown and his team finish analyzing it.