Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 15

Spaceflight history has been made after samples from the dark side of the Moon landed back on Earth, marking a massive milestone for global space exploration.

The honors of the achievement have been earned by the China National Space Agency (CNSA) with its Chang'e mission, which returned the samples back to Earth's surface on Tuesday at 2:07 am EDT. The far side of the Moon samples touched down in China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and consists of approximately 4.4 pounds of lunar material that was acquired by the CNSA's Chang'e 6 lander located on the far side of the Moon.

The journey back to Earth began around June 21, and while space agencies in the past have returned lunar samples back to Earth, none have been from the far side of the Moon. Earth's closest neighbor is tidally locked to the planet, meaning only one side of the Moon is facing Earth, while the other is in perpetual darkness. With the darkness due to a lack of sunlight comes extremely cold temperatures and other challenges that make its exploration more difficult than the Earth-facing side.

In early March, a man from Naples, Florida, took to X to report an object crashed through the roof of his house, splintering through two floors and almost hitting his son, who was home at the time of impact.

An investigation was launched into the object, and it was later confirmed to be a piece of space debris that had been jettisoned from the International Space Station (ISS). The homeowner is Alejandro Otero, and on March 8, the two-pound object smashed through his roof. The object was recovered, and NASA launched an investigation into its origins, eventually tracing it back to old batteries being launched from the ISS into an uncontrolled orbit on March 11, 2021 - three years ago.

The object was taken to NASA's Kennedy Space, where it was confirmed to be a piece of the EP-9 support equipment that was used to mount batteries, as shown above. At the time, NASA expected the debris to "harmlessly" burn up in Earth's atmosphere as it made its reentry, with it beginning as more than 2.6 metric tons, or 5,800-pound refrigerator-sized pallet, and eventuating into what was discovered in Otero's living room.

A team of scientists created a new gene-editing tool that they claim is more accurate than the industry standard, CRISPR.

Researchers from the University of Sydney, Australia, developed what is called SeekRNA, a new gene-editing tool that uses a programmable ribonucleic acid (RNA) strand capable of identifying and inserting itself into specific sites in genetic sequences. The team behind the project is being led by Dr. Sandro Ataide in the School of Life and Environmental Sciences, and their findings have already been published in Nature Communications.

The team explained that while CRISPR is the industry standard when it comes to genetic engineering, having revolutionized multiple industries such as medicine, agriculture, and biotechnology, it doesn't come without any problems. According to Dr. Ataide, SeekRNA differentiates itself from CRISPR in various ways, such as by not requiring any extra components to be cut and pasted into genetic sequences. SeekRNA is a stand-alone cut-and-paste tool that has higher accuracy.

A team of scientists have penned a new article in Nature Reviews Materials outlining the challenges of creating an edible robot, and it appears we aren't necessarily too far away at all.

Technology developments move in leaps and bounds, making it very hard to predict what the next big thing will be that is mass-adopted. Edible robots may not be at the top of everyone's prediction list, but they could be for some doctors who are looking to give extremely precise care to a patient through accurate assessment of areas of the body or performing internal general tests.

An edible robot isn't completely out of the question, and RoboFood researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL) explored the idea in a new report that says it doesn't have all the necessary parts for an edible robot, but some main components have been crossed off the list. For example, the team created a working battery out of food items, which could be used to power an edible robot.

NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office, which is tasked with the agency's ongoing mission of finding, tracking, and defending Earth from asteroids and comets, has published a report that found NASA doesn't currently have the infrastructure in place to defend Earth from an asteroid impact adequately.

The report explains an internal exercise conducted by NASA on a proposed scenario for an asteroid impact. The proposed scenario was as follows: 72% chance of an asteroid impact in 14 years on July 12, 2038, and requirements for preventing its impact are unknown. The asteroid is between 196 and 2624 feet in diameter but is more likely to be between 328 and 1049 feet.

There is a 45% chance its impact will affect no one, a 47% chance more than 1,000 people will be affected, a 28% chance of 100,000, an 8% chance of more than 1 million people, and a 0.04% chance 10 million will be affected. The impact area was across multiple populated regions such as Mexico, the United States, Portugal, Spain, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia.

Scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and UC Berkeley have created what they're calling "microcapacitors," which integrate energy storage directly into the microchip itself, solving the challenge of working on smaller and more power-efficient devices.

By doing this, it heavily minimizes the energy loss that happens when power is being transferred between different components, with the sceitnsits engineering thin films of hafnium oxide and zirconium oxide. These capacitors use materials and fabrication techniques that are commonly used during the chip manufacturing process, but what makes this different is that they can store significant amounts of energy when compared to regular capacitors, all thanks to the use of negative capacitance materials.

One of the basic components of electrical circuits is capacitors, which store energy in an electric field made between two metallic plates that are separated by a dielectric material (a non-metallic substance). Capacitors can deliver power quickly, with a longer lifespan than regular batteries, which store energy in electrochemical reactions.

Rolls-Royce has come out of nowhere to announce its new Micro-Reactor, with a post on X and a detailed video rundown of how the nuclear-powered Micro-Reactor works. Check it out:

The company posted a rundown of its Micro-Reactor on its website, stating that both Micro-Reactors and Small Modular Reactors (SMR) use nuclear technology and are part of the "Rollse-Royce nuclear portfolio", they use different technologies and would be used to power different things.

Rolls-Royce's new Micro-Reactors is capable of providing 1-10 megawatts of power, and in its more compact size, the UK-based company says it "makes it a transportable source of power". A transportable, next-generation nuclear-powered Micro-Reactor. The company compared its Micro-Reactor to a Small Modular Reactor, with an SMR powering 0.5 gigawatts and operate from a static site that is approximately the size of two football pitches.

A rocket made an uncontrolled landing on land instilling fear into onlookers in the area that were caught on video running away from the booster.

The rocket was China's Long March 2C rocket reports indicate was launched from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in China's Sichuan province. The satellite the rocket was carrying was created out of a collaboration with the China National Space Administration (CNSA) and the French Space Agency (CNES), spawning what is officially called the Space Variable Objects Monitor (SVOM). The payload of the rocket was 992 pounds, making the total weight of the Long March 2C rocket 2,050 pounds.

The Long March 2C is powered by four Chinese YF-21C rocket engines that use dinitrogen tetroxide and hydrazine as rocket fuel and oxidizer, which is what we see in the video leaking out of the rocket as it plummets back down toward Earth's surface. This isn't the first time China has been seemingly liberal with the fallout from its rocket launches, with the nation even garnering criticism in the past for having out-of-control rocket debris crash landing back on Earth in random locations.

A team of researchers has been awarded $1 million to construct a "quantum laser" for the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

According to reports, DARPA has awarded Jung-Tsung Shen, associate professor in the Preston M. Green Department of Electrical & Systems Engineering, with a two-year $1 million grant to construct what is officially called a "quantum photonic-dimer laser." The new quantum laser will be capable of creating a powerful and concentrated beam of light that can be tailored to specific types of atmospheric environments, such as fog.

Traditional forms of lasers would otherwise struggle in fog, but using the power of quantum entanglement, the new laser could be used for military applications such as surveillance and secure communications in unfavorable environments. So, how does it work? Quantum entanglement is the correlation between photons or light particles. When a photon travels through the atmosphere it damages them, but when they are entangled with another photon, they are able to protect each other more efficiently and thus retaining vital information.

Neuralink's very first human patient to receive the company brain-computer interface (BCI) has sat down for an interview with Joe Rogan, where he explained the whole process of receiving a brain chip and his experience with it so far.

29-year-old Nolan Arbaugh became Neuralink's first patient to receive a BCI, and the extraordinary technology has enabled the individual who became paralyzed from the neck down following a diving accident to control digital devices with his thoughts. Arbaugh has already been shown controlling a computer cursor, playing Mario Kart, and more. However, the BCI procedure wasn't without its problems.

At the beginning of May, Neuralink posted an update on Arbaugh explaining that a malfunction occurred within the first weeks after the procedure. The company gave a somewhat detailed response on the issue, but now Arbaugh has explained himself. On the Joe Rogan Experience, Arbaugh explained there are 64 "threads" thinner than a human hair implanted into his brain with 16 electrodes on them each (1,024 electrodes total), and over the course of a month, "a lot of the threads retracted."

Asteroids are windows into the ancient history of the galaxy and our solar system, making them one of the most valuable astronomical objects to observe.

The process of asteroid formation is dust particles slamming into each other over and over again until they form a bigger mass. This mass is floating around a larger mass object, such as our Sun or a large planet. The constant collisions with more particles eventually form what we now call an asteroid, and from those asteroids colliding with other asteroids around a local star, we get planets.

Now, researchers from Johns Hopkins University announced on June 10, 2024 they captured evidence of a massive asteroid collision within the Beta Pictoris star system located approximately 63 light-years away from Earth - which is the equivalent of how far away next door is in terms of galactic scale. The discovery was made using data obtained by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, the world's most powerful space telescope, and data from Spitzer.

A new study published in the Geophysical Researchers Letters by researchers from the University of California examined the impact that satellites in Earth's orbit have on the ozone layer when they plummet to their demise.

According to the satellite tracking website Orbiting Now, there are approximately 9,900 satellites in Earth's various orbits, and that number is growing every day as Earth becomes more reliant on technology and space becomes more accessible. When a satellite has ceased all of its operations and been deemed out of commission, it's typically disposed of by being forced to reenter Earth's atmosphere, where it burns up. But what impact do satellite fumes have on Earth's upper atmosphere?

The team behind the study looked at the small particles given off by a satellite burning up and found Starlink, along with many other satellites, release aluminum oxides upon reentry. Between 2016 and 2022 the number of oxides in Earth's atmosphere increased by eight, and these oxides negatively impact the ozone layer.

NASA has approved a $19.5 million mission to put an artificial star in Earth's orbit that will enable scientists to unlock a deeper understanding of the universe.

Astronomers typically observe extremely large objects that are very far away, but that is about to change as a portion of researchers will soon be turning their gaze to an artificial star in Earth's orbit. NASA has approved the nearly $20 million Landolt Space Mission that involves launching a mini satellite, approximately the size of a bread box, into Earth's orbit where it will act as an artificial star.

Here's how it works. The mini-satellite, officially a CubeSat, will be placed exactly 22,236 miles away from Earth in a region of space that puts it in geosynchronous orbit, meaning its orbit matches the speed of Earth's spin. The reason for getting the CubeSat into geosynchronous orbit is so the CubeSat always appears in the night sky in the exact same location. Once that has been achieved, the CubeSat called Landolt will fire lasers with a specific number of light particles directly at ground-based telescopes operated by astronomers.

Elon Musk has officially teased Starlink. MINI is coming, an ultra-portable Starlink satellite dish that fits in your backpack, streams multiple 4K videos simultaneously, and for gamers, you'll enjoy the 23ms latency.

Oleg Kutkov posted some photos of the new Starlink MINI dish and the new built-in router in a new post on X. Kutkov said that Starlink MINI measures 28.9 x 24.8cm (11.4" x 9.8") and has built-in Wi-Fi. He also confirmed that the router supports 2.4GHz and 5GHz Wi-Fi with 802.11ax and 3x3 MIMO.

Elon Musk chimed in, confirming that he's already using the Starlink MINI dish. The SpaceX and Tesla CEO shared a speed test showing Starlink MINI pumping out 100Mbps down and 11.5Mbps upload, with 23ms latency. That's damn good over a small, ultra-portable, fits-in-your-backpack Starlink MINI dish with a built-in Wi-Fi router.

A former Neuralink employee has filed a lawsuit against Elon Musk's brain implant company following an incident with a monkey that was carrying Herpes.

Lindsay Short claims she was fired from Neuralink after she informed her superiors that she was pregnant. More specifically, Short described a hostile work environment that was plagued with "blame, shame, and impossible deadlines". Additionally, the former Neuralink employee said she was scratched through a glove by a monkey that was carrying the Herpes B virus. Short said she was never provided the appropriate protective equipment to work with Neuralink's test animals.

The lawsuit also states that her superiors threatened her with "severe repercussions" if she were to insist medical treatment again from the scratch. Furthermore, Short said she was fired from the company a day after she informed staff that she was pregnant but was promoted just two months earlier. It should be noted that Neuralink has undergone some public scrutiny regarding its testing methods, and treatment of its test animals.

A company that's dedicatedcated to removing space debris currently stuck in Earth's orbit has shared an image that is a stark reminder of a growing problem.

Japan's space agency, JAXA, has selected Tokyo-based Astroscale for its Commercial Removal of Debris Demonstration (CRD2) program. Astroscale is committed to the removal of space debris and part of its plan to destroy space junk is the Active Debris Removal by Astroscale-Japan (ADRAS-J) satellite, which snapped the above image of the upperstage of a rocket a distance of 164 feet.

The upper stage measures approximately 36 feet in length and has been in orbit for 15 years, after it reached orbit with an Earth-observation satellite in 2009. Observing space junk up close like this enables Astroscale to gather data on its movements and orientation before it carries the piece down into Earth's atmosphere where it will burn up.

SpaceX is closing in on the fifth launch of Starship, the world's largest and most powerful rocket that has ever taken to the skies.

The fifth launch of the rocket will mark a monumental milestone in Elon Musk's quest to create a rapidly reusable rocket capable of traveling to Mars, and it will likely be the riskiest flight Starship has undertaken yet. Starship recently completed its fourth test flight, where SpaceX successfully recovered both Starship and its booster, Super Heavy, after they splashed down in the ocean. The next step in reaching Mars is to get Super Heavy to land back on land.

Unlike SpaceX's workhorse Falcon 9 rocket, which can autonomously land back on a launch pad, SpaceX plans on catching Super Heavy with an enormous tower that has arms attached to it. Previously, it was reported that these arms were referred to as "chopsticks" and that they would be used to catch Super Heavy upon its descent to reduce ground impact and increase reusability.

Boeing's Starliner spacecraft made it to the International Space Station (ISS) last week, and now it has been caught in the foreground of a video that captures a stunning aurora appear over Earth.

Last week, the Starliner leaked its way to the ISS, delivering two NASA astronauts safely to the floating laboratory. NASA has since launched an investigation into the leaks that were detected prior, and post-launch. According to the space agency, the Starliner vessel was suffering from leaks that were traced back to its helium tanks, and after a preliminary analysis, NASA has determined there is enough helium, or fuel, in the tanks to make a return trip back to Earth.

Now docked at the ISS, Boeing's Starliner will remain there until June 22, where it will carry out engine tests to further evaluate its performance. ISS astronaut Matthew Dominick has shared videos and images of the newest addition to the floating laboratory, capturing a stunning video of the Starliner floating above a beautiful aurora happening in Earth's upper atmosphere. Dominick notes that you can even see the NASA astronauts within the Starliner lighting up its interior with their flashlights.

NASA has confirmed that it has received a message from a spacecraft located more than 15 billion miles away from Earth.

That spacecraft is none other than Voyager 1, which in 2023 began sending incomplete messages back to NASA headquarters as it continued its long journey through interstellar space. However, the space agency has now said the messages Voyager 1 has sent through are nominal and that scientific operations conducted by its four instruments have returned to stable levels.

More specifically, NASA engineers were required to reprogram the timekeeping software aboard Voyager 1 to ensure the legendary spacecraft executes its commands at the correct times. There is still some work that needs to be done, but it shouldn't be understated how much of a feat this recent correction has been. Voyager 1 is 15 billion miles away from Earth, or 24 billion kilometers. Any engineering at distances such as these is an achievement in itself.

NASA has taken to its official International Space Station X account to confirm it accidentally played panicking audio that made it appear International Space Station (ISS) astronauts were in an emergency.

The space agency admitted in the above post that at 5:28 pm CDT, it accidentally broadcasted audio from an on-ground training simulation on the NASA live stream, and the audio depicted a crew member experiencing effects related to decompression sickness. For those that don't know, decompression sickness happens when dissolved gases form bubbles inside the body's tissue and is commonly known by SCUBA divers.

As for astronauts, particularly the ones aboard the ISS, this emergency could have happened when an astronaut was transferring through an airlock decompression with a suit that wasn't properly sealed. However, all astronauts aboard the ISS are completely fine, and the audio that was heard on the NASA broadcast occurred while they were asleep.