Science, Space, Health & Robotics News - Page 154

NASA's database that logs near-Earth objects has listed an asteroid that could be up to 2,560 feet in diameter.

The asteroid is dubbed 2008 AG33 and is estimated to be anywhere between 1,150 and 2,560 feet in diameter. NASA's database indicates that the large asteroid that may be twice the size of the Empire State Building will safely pass Earth at a distance of about 2 million miles on April 28. Furthermore, the space rock will zoom past our planet at a ridiculous speed of 23,264 miles per hour.

Notably, the moon is approximately 240,000 miles away from Earth, which really puts into perspective how far away 2008 AG33's close approach is from Earth. However, two million miles is a very short distance when discussing celestial objects, as some stars and planets are located millions of light-years away. 2008 AG33 will pass Earth every seven years as it proceeds through its orbit around the sun.

China's National Health Commission (NHC) confirmed the first known instance of the H3N8 strain of avian flu in a human patient.

A four-year-old boy from the Henan province was hospitalized earlier in April with a fever and other symptoms and has since tested positive for the H3N8 strain. H3N8 first emerged in the North American waterfowl in 2002 and has been known to infect horses, dogs, and seals.

According to the NHC, the case is a "one-off cross-species transmission, and the risk of large-scale transmission is low." However, it has issued warnings to the public to stay away from sick or dead birds and seek immediate treatment for fevers or respiratory symptoms.

Private space company Launcher demonstrated its E-2 rocket engine's capabilities on April 21st, 2022.

The E-2 is a "closed cycle 3D-printed, high-performance liquid rocket engine" that Launcher has developed for its Launcher Light launch vehicle, which has its inaugural launch scheduled for 2024. The Launcher Light will reach low-Earth orbit using only one E-2 engine while carrying a payload of 150 kilograms (330 pounds).

The successful test-fire of the engine was conducted at the NASA Stennis Space Center, producing ten metric tons of thrust (22,046 lbf, or pounds of force) and 100 bar (1,450 psi) of combustion pressure. The engine uses liquid oxygen (LOX) and kerosene fuel in a 2.62:1 ratio.

Four planets aligned with the moon in the night sky on April 23rd, and now two space stations have joined the club.

Both the International Space Station and China's Tianhe-1 station joined Jupiter, Venus, Mars, and Saturn, in the night sky only four days later, on April 27th in a photograph taken by Italian astrophysicist Gianluca Masi. Masi left his home in Rome at 4 a.m. to capture images of the aligned planets, with the moon visible and each of the space stations, which he knew would cross the same region of the sky within about fifteen minutes of each other.

"I ended-up bringing with me two Canon 5D mIV DSLR bodies, two tripods and two very different lenses: a wide field Canon EF 16-35mm f/4L IS USM and a Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM. The former to capture the entire planetary parade plus Rome, the latter to capture the Jupiter, Venus and Moon meeting," Masi wrote on the Virtual Telescope Project website.

NASA's Ingenuity helicopter on Mars has returned to the scene of Perseverance's landing on the Red Planet just over a year ago.

The panoramic view shows the backshell of NASA's Perseverance rover to the left of the image center. The supersonic parachute used to carry the rover down to the planet's surface is visible on the far right. When Perseverance landed on February 18th, 2021, it jettisoned both the backshell and parachute at an altitude of 1.3 miles (2.1 kilometers).

The backshell and parachute impacted the surface at about 78 miles (126 kilometers) per hour. Images of the components were requested by engineers working on the Mars Sample Return program to help inform them of the components' performance throughout Perseverance's entry, descent, and landing.

On April 22, NASA took to its blog and social channels to showcase an image captured by its Juno spacecraft orbiting Jupiter.

The photograph was captured on February 25, 2022, and features a large oval-shaped shadow on the left-hand side. This shadow is being created by Jupiter's largest of four moons, Ganymede, that is passing between the sun and Jupiter. NASA explains that Ganymede orbits Jupiter at an approximate distance of 666,000 miles and that the Juno spacecraft orbits the large gas giant at a distance of 44,000 miles, which is about 15 times closer than Ganymede.

Furthermore, the space agency explains that Jupiter's four moons frequently pass between the planet and the sun, resulting in shadows such as these being cast. Over the course of seven days, Jupiter's largest moon will pass once, Europa will pass twice, and IO four times, according to NASA. The above image was captured with Juno's "JunoCam". For more information on this story, check out this link here.

Elon Musk only recently purchased Twitter earlier this week and is now already talking about the next big company he is planning on buying.

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO has taken to his personal Twitter account to announce that the next company he will be buying is Coca-Cola, as he wants to "put the cocaine back in". Musk posted the tweet on April 28 and was asked by his followers if he could purchase Fox to create another season of Firefly that ended on 2003. Musk replied to the question by saying that it would be great if there was "Some sci-fi that actually features sci-fi", followed by calling Battlestar Galactica a "great show!".

From the tone of how the tweet is read, I think it's safe to assume that Musk doesn't actually intend to purchase Coca-Cola to put the cocaine back in the drink, as he has previously stated during interviews that he isn't a drug user and the entire idea being overall illegal/preposterous. The SpaceX and Tesla CEO just made a public joke, nothing more, nothing less.

Elon Musk has officially acquired Twitter in a deal that -- money aside -- has bluechecks losing their minds. But that could be temporary, as their minds can be calmed with a brain-computer interface (BCI) thanks to Neuralink.

Musk is going to do something with all of that data that is housed in Twitter's servers and algorithms, which could be fed into Neuralink... the perfect data set. Everything the world has typed into 140-character tweets since its inception, with an AI learning it all... and then the BCI (brain-computer interface) being inserted, quite literally, into your head.

If you thought the SpaceX and Tesla CEO was spending acquiring Twitter for $44 billion, and was just going to reinstate President Trump's account -- he's not coming back, he said so -- you'd be wrong. $44,000,000,000 is a lot of money, with so many 0s and 1s that could be used with Neuralink in the future.

A study on the vessels titled "Composition of trace residues from the contents of 11th-12th century sphero-conical vessels from Jerusalem" has published in the journal PLoS One.

The ancient ceramic vessels originated from Jerusalem sometime around the 11th and 12th centuries, and new analysis indicates they may have been used as a form of medieval hand grenade. Researchers found similar vessels often contained scented oils, medicines, and various materials, but the vessels they analyzed appear to have been used to hold flammable and potentially explosive material.

Similar vessels have been reported as being used during the time of the Crusades and were known for "producing loud noises and bright flashes of light." The material inside the vessels analyzed indicates it was a unique, locally produced explosive, not black powder.

Rocket Lab has completed a test run of its next mission by capturing a dummy rocket booster using a helicopter.

Rocket Lab will be using a customized Sikorsky S-92 helicopter to retrieve a falling first-stage rocket booster from the sky in its upcoming "There and Back Again" mission. The mission is scheduled for April 28th if the weather allows, and if successful, it will mark a first-of-its-kind rocket booster retrieval of the company's Electron rocket.

In preparation for the mission, the company has conducted numerous test flights, the latest of which has involved a dummy rocket booster parachuting through the sky as the real thing will, before being collected by the incoming helicopter and its custom grappling hook.