Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 148

The International Space Station (ISS) is an incredible vantage point to observe Earth, and sometimes astronauts aboard the ISS take images of the surface.

The ISS is essentially a floating laboratory, and due to its altitude, it's quite useful at spotting things down on Earth's surface. Recently, ISS astronaut Thomas Pesquet snapped an image of a "very rare" glow that was happening above Europe, more on that story here. Now, fellow ISS astronaut Megan McArthur has snapped a picture of Earth's surface, and to her surprise, she was able to spot an airplane soaring through the skies over Alberta, Canada.

McArthur posted the awesome image to her personal Twitter account, where she said that she "laughed out loud" when she spotted the airplane. Due to the ISS's altitude of 253 miles, astronauts aboard the floating laboratory rarely see any human activity on the surface, so it's quite an event when they do. According to Twitter users who used McArthur's timestamp and location from the image, the flight was Atlas Air 5Y8052/GTI8052 that was going from Anchorage, Alaska to Miami, Florida.

Observing objects out in space with telescopes has its challenges, and sometimes astronomers come across that are much further away than anticipated through a phenomenon called gravitational lensing.

Gravitational lensing ocurrs when a large object such as galaxy is between Earth and an object much further away. Due to the immense gravity of the object, spacetime is warped, and when astronomers peer out into the void to observe the distant object, the warped spacetime acts as a magnifying glass, allowing researchers to see much further than what they originally would be able to.

While gravitational lensing can certainly be useful for researchers, it can sometimes raise more questions about what's being observed rather than answers. For example, back in 2013, astronomers used NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to observe two objects that appeared to be perfectly mirrored. According to astronomer Timothy Hamilton of Shawnee State University, who spotted the two objects, "We were really stumped".

A new study has been published in Nature Geoscience, and it details Earth's oxygen levels eventually running out, causing most life on the planet to suffocate.

Around 2.4 billion years ago, Earth underwent the Great Oxidation Event, which was when Earth's shallow ocean and Earth's atmosphere first began experiencing a rise in oxygen levels. According to the researchers behind the paper, Earth's atmosphere will eventually run out of oxygen and essentially revert back to what it was before the Great Oxidation Event.

Additionally, the researchers say that atmospheric oxygen is unlikely a permanent feature of any habitable worlds, which throws a wrench into human civilizations' search for life outside of Earth. The researchers expect that this drop in oxygen levels throughout the atmosphere will occur after about one billion years or so, and while that is definitely an extremely long way away, when the change in the atmosphere's oxygen levels happens, it will happen relatively quickly.

The Sun is entering the most intense part of its 11-year cycle, which means we can expect much more activity from our star.

Activity from the Sun can come in various ways, and it's very important that researchers keep a close watch on our star for any dangerous charged particles heading our way. On October 10, researchers observed an M-class solar flare that caused the eruption of a coronal magnetic ejection (CME) that's headed towards Earth. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) researchers have forecasted the arrival of the CME for October 11.

According to Spaceweather.com and SpaceWeatherNews.com, the CME that is on its way to Earth is expected to spark G1 to G2-class geomagnetic storms. Additionally, reports indicate that if a moderately strong G2-storm happens, residents in the United States may see auroras as far south as a line connecting New York to Oregon. It should be noted that this CME has an extremely low chance of affecting electricity grids on a global scale. On top of that, this is CME is classified as a "halo CME" as CMEs heading directly for Earth cause a 360-degree halo around the Sun.

A civilian astronaut that was aboard SpaceX's Inspiration4 mission has talked about her experience being in space for three days.

Dr. Sian Proctor was joined by three other crew members for a three-day mission in space, marking the very first all-civilian trip to space. The Inspiration4 mission consisted of zero astronauts, and according to Dr. Proctor, who spoke to National Geographic, the first two days of the trip, she felt quite sick. Dr. Proctor said, "Space sickness is one of those things that a lot of people suffer from. You're just not on your game." So, what causes "space sickness"?

Humans are very well adjusted to the Earth's gravity, but when venturing off-planet with no gravity, you experience weightlessness, which can lead to variable levels of motion sickness. This is quite common, according to Dr. Proctor. Luckily, this feeling is usually temporary as the astronaut starts to adapt and adjust to the new environment. "But man, I woke up the third day, and I was humming, and everything was perfect. I had adapted, I was good, and I was like, 'What? I have to come home?! No, no, no!'" said Dr. Proctor.

Last week it was announced that Star Trek's Captain Kirk, played by actor William Shatner will be going to suborbital space with Blue Origin.

The announcement from Shatner and Blue Origin came after the bombshell news that Blue Origin employees reported the work environment at Blue Origin was "toxic" and uncomfortable for women. Shatner will be joined by Blue Origin vice president of mission and flight operations Audrey Powers, but unfortunately, the launch has now been officially delayed due to bad weather.

The launch was scheduled for October 12, but according to Blue Origin representatives, the launch will be pushed back by 24 hours due to unfavorable winds. When Blue Origin launches Shatner and the other crew members into suborbital space aboard the New Shepard vehicle, Shatner will hold the crown for the oldest person to ever go into suborbital space. The new launch date has been scheduled for 9:30 a.m. EDT (1330 GMT) on Wednesday.

NASA has posted a new article to its website that details a dangerous dance between two galaxies that are slowly colliding.

According to the NASA post, the galaxies are located 100 million light-years away from Earth, and according to NASA, both the galaxies are spiral galaxies. The galaxy at the bottom of the image is labeled NGC 5953, and the one above it is called NGC 5954. Since the two galaxies are interacting so much that they have been given a collective name - Arp 91.

Additionally, NASA says that NGC 5953 is clearly "tugging" at NGC 5954, which is a result of the immense gravitational attraction between the two galaxies. Astronomers speculate that on a long enough timeline, the galaxies will eventually collide with each other to form a new type of galaxy called an elliptical galaxy. If you are interested in reading more about these galaxies, check out this link here.

As you can probably imagine, astronauts aboard the International Space Station have an awesome view of the planet from their position, and sometimes they spot things that are strange.

Astronaut Thomas Pesquet recently spotted something of this nature and posted the image to Twitter, explaining the strange phenomenon that was seen over Europe. According to Pesquet, what was spotted was called a "transient luminous event" in the upper atmosphere, and according to the astronaut, it's a "very rare occurrence".

So what is it? Pesquet says that this phenomenon happens when there's lightning in the upper atmosphere that is occurring at higher altitudes than it normally does. Pesquet wrote on Flickr, "What is fascinating about this lightning is that just a few decades ago they had been observed anecdotally by pilots and scientists were not convinced they actually existed". Jokingly, Pesquet added, "Fast forward a few years and we can confirm elves, and sprites are very real and could be influencing our climate too!"

The volcano located on Spain's Canary Islands has been erupting for weeks, and a satellite has snapped an incredible photo of it from space.

The eruption of the volcano on La Palma started on September 19 and has continued for weeks now, marking the first time an eruption has happened out of this volcano in more than 50 years. On October 1, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) that is equipped on NASA's Aqua satellite snapped a crazy image of the clouds above the volcano as it passed overhead. The image shows concentric cloud rings that look very much like a bulls-eye.

According to NASA's Earth Observatory, the concentric clouds that can be seen in the image are a result of a rising column of superheated ash and gases, which is described as an "eruption column". Additionally, NASA explains that "The buoyant column of water vapor and other gases rose rapidly upward until colliding with a drier, warmer layer of air at roughly 5.3 kilometers (3.3 miles) altitude. The unusually warm air above-a temperature inversion-functioned like a lid, preventing the volcanic plume from rising any higher. Instead, it flattened out and spread horizontally."

NASA is already planning on what kind of structures human colonists will live in when they arrive on Mars, and inflatable pods may be a viable choice.

NASA selected a design from Hassell Studio, an architectural firm, and Eckersley O'Callaghan, an engineering design team, and it's unlike any other proposed design for living quarters on the Red Planet. The design concept was posted to the Hassell YouTube channel back in March 2019, and it details a concept that concentrates on protecting the astronauts that live in it from the main dangers of Mars; dust storms, high amounts of radiation, low temperatures, and an unlivable atmosphere.

The team at Hassell proposes sending several robots to the surface of Mars before the astronauts arrive. These robots will be programmed to find a viable location for an outer shell made out of Mars regolith, or loose rock, to be 3D printed. This outer shell, constructed with Mars soil, will protect the astronauts from the elements of Mars and will essentially be a roof over the inflatable pods that will arrive with the astronauts. Once the shell is complete, and the astronauts arrive, the inflation process for the pods begins.

Researchers have published a new study that confirms that the Jezero Crater was once home to large amounts of liquid water and a river.

The study was published in Science, and according to the researchers, the images taken by NASA's Perseverance of cliffs show strong evidence of layers within the cliffs that are similar to Earth's river deltas. According to the researchers, the images show a presence and a steady flow of water, which caused the formation of the cliff/crater floor. Additionally, researchers inferred that Mars was once "warm and humid enough to support a hydrologic cycle" around 3.7 billion years ago.

The findings from the Mars rover and the analysis provided by the researchers will assist NASA in guiding Perseverance to the location that has the highest chance of containing "bio-signatures" of ancient microbial life. NASA astrobiologist Amy Williams and her team, who found similarities between the cliff formation, crater floor, and Earth's river deltas, said, "From orbital images, we knew it had to be water that formed the delta. But having these images is like reading a bo/ok instead of just looking at the cover."

NASA's Perseverance rover that's stationed on Mars in the Jezero Crater has been spotted from above by a passing satellite.

Perseverance landed in the Jezero Crater back in February earlier this year, and since its landing, it has been exploring the area that surrounds it along with its helicopter companion Ingenuity. Perseverance is on the Red Planet to collect samples of rock and dirt to eventually transport them back to Earth for researchers to analyze.

Ultimately, Perseverance has been sent to Mars to hunt for signs of ancient microbial life, and recently studies confirmed that the location where Perseverance is stationed was once a large lake and a river. NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter passed over Perseverance exploring the Jezero Crater and managed to snap a birds-eye-view of the rover, the image is located above. Communication between NASA, the rover, and its companion has temporarily been paused as Earth and Mars move to opposite sides of the Sun.

China's Chang'e 5 mission collected 3.8 pounds of lunar material from a region on the Moon that was once a large plain of molten lava.

The first paper detailing the results of the samples being analyzed has recently been published in Science, and according to the findings, the volcanic rock located in the landing site is much younger than what researchers first anticipated. According to the paper, lunar volcanoes were erupting as early as 2 billion years ago, which means that researchers' current model of the Moon's history now needs to be adjusted to fit in the new data.

Study co-author Brad Jolliff, a planetary scientist, and mineralogist at Washington University in St. Louis, said, "So we got the stuff less than a billion, and the stuff older than 3 billion, [but] there's this big gap of 2 billion years - from 1 to 3 billion years ago - that we had no actually calibrated surfaces. And so this result now gives us that age - and it's right in the middle!"

With images acquired by NASA's Perseverance rover, the space agency has confirmed that the Jezero Crater was once a large lake.

NASA landed the Perseverance rover in the Jezero Crater back in February this year with the goal of developing a deeper understanding of Mars' history and identifying any potential signs of past life. Now, a new study published in the journal Science has confirmed through an analysis of images taken by Perseverance of outcropping rocks inside the crater that the crater was once a lake bed fed by a small river 3.7 billion years ago.

The researchers confirmed the existence of the lake and river by looking at the sedimentary layers in the outcrop and found that the river provided the lake with a steady flow of liquid water until a dramatic shift in climate caused mass flooding that was near the end of the lake's lifespan. Now that it has been confirmed that the Jezero Crater was once a lake, researchers hope to find traces of ancient aqueous life in the sediments. Perseverance will acquire sediment samples that will eventually be transported back to Earth to be scanned for Martian biosignatures.

NASA has locked in a launch date for the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), which is a mission that will collide a spacecraft with an asteroid at 15,000 mph.

The idea behind the DART mission is to see if it's possible to collide a spacecraft with an asteroid to knock it off course. The DART mission is a part of the agency's asteroid defense program and will be exploring the possibility of a potentially lethal asteroid lining its trajectory up with Earth. The asteroid that the DART spacecraft will be colliding with isn't lethal to Earth, but the results from the mission will allow NASA to know if direct impacts on an asteroid are a viable solution for diverting a dangerous asteroid in the future.

The asteroid that NASA is targeting is called Didymos, it's a binary asteroid which means its two space rocks moving in tandem. The larger asteroid measures 2,600 feet in diameter, and the smaller asteroid measures 525 feet in diameter. NASA is planning on colliding the spacecraft with the smaller of the two asteroids. NASA will launch the DART mission from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California aboard SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket.

NASA will soon be launching the first mission to explore two swarms of space "fossils" that may hold the keys to understanding the evolution of our solar system.

NASA's Lucy mission will be the first mission to explore the Jupiter Trojans, which are two swarms of ancient asteroids orbiting on the same plane as Jupiter. NASA describes these asteroids as "fossils" of planet formation, and researchers believe that understanding these mysterious objects will allow them to better understand the evolution of the solar system.

Lucy will be on a 12-year mission, and will visit a total of seven different asteroids. NASA has equipped Lucy with sensitive scientific instruments that will allow the probe to inspect asteroids to find out its geology, age, surface temperature, and composition of the surface. Each of the target asteroids is different from each other as NASA wants to be able to compare the different surfaces properties.

A new study has explored the possibility of having limited time to react to an asteroid that is on course with Earth.

The researchers behind the study performed calculations on what Earth would need to do to save it from impact with an asteroid that's 328 feet in diameter, which is around a fifth the size of the famous asteroid Bennu. The study found that a 1-megaton-yield nuclear bomb would be a "very effective" way of preventing a catastrophic impact. Researchers performed the simulation on five different asteroids and multiple time frames for impact.

According to the researchers, if an asteroid 328 feet in diameter was heading to Earth and we had just two months before its expected arrival, a nuke would be able to reduce the destruction it would cause to 0.1% of what it originally would have caused. Additionally, if a larger asteroid was on its way and Earth had six months to react, a nuke would still be able to reduce its impact mass to just 1%.

World View Enterprises has announced via a press release that it's aiming to dramatically reduce the entry cost of space tourism.

According to the press release, the Tuscon, Arizona firm, is constructing a massive balloon that will carry a capsule containing tourists to the stratosphere. The space tourism industry is just taking its first baby steps, and as with most things that are brand new, the cost of entry is expensive. For context, SpaceX's Inspiration 4 mission, the first all-civilian mission to space, cost $200 million. Virgin Galactic's mission to suborbital space with Richard Branson cost $250 million, and Blue Origin's suborbital trip with Jeff Bezos cost $450 million.

World View Enterprises states that it will be offering trips to the stratosphere via its balloon for a fraction of the price - just $50,000. World View has a goal in mind, and that is to bring humanity closer by allowing as many humans as possible to experience the perspective-changing Overview Effect, "World View's mission is to bring as many people as possible to the edge of space so that at 100,000 feet, they'll see a world without borders or species and come back driven to make the world a better place."

NASA announced on Wednesday that it was reassigning two astronauts to the Crew-5 SpaceX launch scheduled for next year.

According to the press release that has been published on the NASA website, astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada have been reassigned to the Crew-5 SpaceX launch to give Boeing more time to complete the development of Starliner. NASA states in its press release that it decided it was important to make these reassignments to "allow Boeing time to complete the development of Starliner while continuing plans for astronauts to gain spaceflight experience for the future needs of the agency's missions."

Futurism reports that the decision to reassign the astronauts is subtly throwing shade at Boeing for being behind its schedule as the development of Starliner encountered numerous delays that include failed launches, construction problems, and more. As NASA states in the press release, both Mann and Cassada need flight experience to keep the momentum of NASA's commercial flight program going. For more information on this story, check out this here.

A new space probe is currently in the works by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Space Agency, which plans to send it to an asteroid to land on.

The mission includes a spacecraft being launched in 2028 that will travel for around five years to reach its destination of the asteroid belt located between Mars and Jupiter. The spacecraft will slingshot its way around Venus and Earth to gain enough velocity to reach the asteroid belt sometime in 2030.

The exact goal of the mission will be announced sometime next year, but if the UAE is successful, it will join a small group of agencies such as NASA and JAXA, who have achieved a landing on a planetoid. Other UAE projects include the space agency sending a rover to the surface of the Moon sometime in 2022. The rover will have a payload that includes technologies from three private Canadian companies. For more information on this story, check out this link here.