Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 158

Researchers have been attempting to answer the question of "is our solar system a rare one?" for quite some time.

Researchers have discovered that planetary systems are scattered throughout the universe, but not all of them are as calm as the one we live in.

Lorenzo Spina, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Italian National Institute for Astrophysics, and formerly Research Fellow, Monash University, wrote in The Conversation that a new study from him and his team of researchers explores the possibility of being able to narrow down the search for possible habitable worlds by identifying solar systems that have a similar peaceful past to our solar system.

Humans are closing in touching down on Mars and beginning the colonizing process, but can humans survive on Mars with all of its particle radiation?

A new paper has been put forward by an international group of scientists who explored that question. Due to Mars' atmosphere being much thinner than Earth's, human explorers will be subjected to high dosages of particle radiation from the Sun, distant galaxies, and stars. However, humans can withstand this exposure to this radiation, but only for a period of time before it becomes too dangerous to the body.

According to the paper, Mars explorers' maximum mission duration shouldn't be longer than four years as the astronaut will be exposed to dangerously high levels of radiation that could significantly reduce life expectancy. The researchers published the new study in Space Weather and found that most of the radiation astronauts would be exposed to over a four-year mission would come from celestial objects outside of our solar system.

Space satellites aren't just used for communication purposes, some are used to take images of the Earth to document natural events such as hurricane Ida, or a volcanic eruption.

Mount Etna has erupted for the 50th time in 2021, spewing out plumes of gas, ash, and lava. The 50th eruption occurred on August 30 and was documented by the European Sentinel 2 satellite with an overhead image. Volcanologists had known that Mount Etna was unstable when it began releasing clouds of ash and gas in late 2020.

According to volcanologist Boris Behncke from the National Institute for Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV), "Etna was building up for something big (we feared an eruption from the flank) with intense seismic activity, ground deformation, and degassing. On 16 February the real series of paroxysms [eruptions] started, seismicity stopped, ground deformation reversed to deflation."

At the moment, our solar system has eight known planets, but what if there is a ninth planet lurking in our solar system that we are yet to observe.

The overall chances of that being the case are in favor of Planet Nine not existing, however, a new study has put forward evidence that suggests that there is "something" out there causing a gravitational phenomenon. Astronomers have observed Kuiper belt objects (KBOs) and noticed that instead of being in random motion, they are in clusters, regardless of the objects classifications.

This observation of the clustering of KBOs leads researchers to believe there is an undiscovered celestial body with significant mass causing a gravitational anomaly. In 2016, researchers came to that very conclusion when they released a study that calculated the undiscovered celestial body to have a mass of around five Earth's and be around 10 times the distance between Neptune and the Sun. However, astronomers searched for this Planet Nine it couldn't be found.

Amazon recently urged the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to deny SpaceX the approval needed to launch its second-generation Starlink satellites.

SpaceX is currently deploying its first-generation Starlink satellites that are providing users around the United States with internet service. Ahead of the second-generation launch for Starlink, Amazon has asked the FCC to deny SpaceX launch approval, citing that SpaceX violated regulatory rules by offering two separate configurations for its Starlink internet.

SpaceX has now fired back at Amazon by filing a response with the FCC that claims Amazon is purposely trying to delay the launch of Starlink because it is unable to compete. SpaceX claims that Amazon's tactic is to "The Commission should recognize this delay tactic for what it is-a continuation of efforts by the Amazon family of companies to hinder competitors to compensate for Amazon's failure to make progress of its own."

The space race is certainly heating up, and now that there are lawsuits on the table and some companies are upset with decisions made, we are starting to see words fly from the higher-ups.

The context for the feud that is currently occurring between SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and Blue Origin CEO Jeff Bezos is that NASA awarded SpaceX with a $2.9 billion contract to build the next lunar lander for NASA's Artemis program that has scheduled a human return to the moon by 2024. NASA originally said it was going to award two companies the contract but later decided to award just SpaceX due to budgeting problems.

Blue Origin moved to contest the decision with the US Government Accountability Office (GAO), pausing SpaceX's construction of the lunar lander until the GAO made a decision. Recently, Blue Origin is moving to sue NASA for the decision, which has further delayed SpaceX's construction of the lander, and as a result, there is now concern about the likelihood of NASA being able to put humans back on the moon in 2024.

A new report claims that eight Virgin Galactic officials that are "knowledgeable about the program" have leaked information about Richard Branson's flight to space aboard the VSS Unity.

The eight Virgin Galactic officials decided to remain anonymous when they spoke to The New Yorker and said that the pilots aboard the VSS Unity experienced two warning lights flashing throughout the flight. The officials state that after around one minute of the VSS Unity's engine burn, the pilots were alerted to a yellow warning light that indicated the spaceplane was veering off its designated course and outside of its mandated airspace.

The New Yorker report reads, "The light was a warning to the pilots that their flight path was too shallow and the nose of the ship was insufficiently vertical. If they didn't fix it, they risked a perilous emergency landing in the desert on their descent." Additionally, the officials stated that the pilots experienced a red light which represented an "entry glide cone warning", referring to the trajectory of the cone throughout its descent.

Richard Branson was deemed the first billionaire to make it space with a company that he founded. While the mission was an overall success, in some areas, it didn't go as planned as previously thought.

On July 11, Richard Branson boarded his company Virgin Galactic's spaceplane called VSS Unity. Branson and the passengers aboard the VSS Unity eventually climbed to an altitude of 50,000 feet with the assistance of the aircraft called WhiteKnightTwo. The VSS Unity reached an altitude of 53 miles, and the crew aboard the plane were able to experience weightlessness for around 4 minutes before they began their descent.

Now, reports are surfacing regarding some of the problems the pilots faced while operating the VSS Unity. The New Yorker talked to eight anonymous Virgin Galactic officials and reported that close to one minute in the VSS Unity's powered flight, the pilots noticed a yellow warning light that was alerting the pilots that the craft was veering off its routed course. The report from the New Yorker states, "The light was a warning to the pilots that their flight path was too shallow and the nose of the ship was insufficiently vertical. If they didn't fix it, they risked a perilous emergency landing in the desert on their descent."

Hurricane Ida is currently causing havoc across many southern U.S. states, bringing incredibly high forced winds and torrential rainfall.

The tropical storm is rolling throughout the country, causing mass damage wherever it goes, and according to Al Jazeera, it has caused $18 billion in damages in Louisiana that will have to be paid out by insurers. NASA has used the GOES-East satellite that is partner-operated by the space agency and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to photograph the storm from above.

Ida reached U.S. soil on August 29 and was deemed a Category 4 hurricane, and from the above image, you can understand that categorization is certainly not an understatement of hurricanes power. NOAA representatives said on Tuesday, "Imagery from this morning is compared to August 9, and shows a significant drop in nighttime lights around New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Slidell, and Hammond, LA." If you are interested in reading more about this story, check out this link here.

If you have never heard of the US Space Force's secret X-37B space plane, then the Space Force has achieved what it set out to do - keeping the planes a secret as much as possible.

Publicly, we know of two space planes that are currently in use by the United States Space Force, however, the missions of these planes have been kept under wraps since they begun flying secret missions in 2010. So far, there have been six Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV) missions for X-37B space planes; in April 2010, March 2011, December 2012, May 2015 and September 2017, per Space.com.

While the missions and the plane itself have been kept relatively under wraps, there are some known facts about it. Below I have outlined ten known facts about the space planes.

Fifteen buildings were just demolished simultaneously, and the destruction was caught on video from multiple angles.

The demolition was a controlled one, and according to Taiwan news, the buildings that met their end were included in the Liyang Star City Phase II project, which was originally conceived back in 2011. The project has experienced several delays due to changes in the planning over the years, with it only resuming progress late last year.

As for the demolished buildings, they weren't finished, and the foundations for each of the buildings were exposed to rainwater and beyond repair, hence the decision to bring them down. Engineers used 4.6 tons of explosives for the controlled demolition, and the blast from the buildings coming down covered approximately 5.38 million square feet. If you are interested in reading more about this story, check out this link here.

According to an announcement from the National National Weather Service's Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC), a solar blast is on its way towards Earth.

The solar blast was caused by an eruption of the sunspot area 2859 on the Sun, which resulted in a coronal-magnetic-ejection (CME) and the triggering of a "solar tsunami". How can there be tsunami's on the Sun? Well, the tsunami that occurs on the Sun is not an ocean of water, it's instead an ocean of hot plasma and magnetism that can reach incredible heights of 62,000 miles and can travel at 560,000 mph.

The Space Weather Prediction Center has issued a G2 geomagnetic storm warning for 01, and 02 September, 2021 as two CMEs are headed towards Earth. The Prediction Center states, "Should these CMEs materialize, combined effects from the two transients have the potential to result in G1-G2 storm conditions. Forecast confidence is low, however, due to the nature of these faint and somewhat ambiguous CMEs."

The space tourism industry is only just taking its first steps into existence as companies such as Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic, and SpaceX are on the precipice of a whole new meaning to the word "tourism".

All of the aforementioned companies specialize on transporting humans to space via rockets, but that isn't the only way "space tourism" can happen. Japanese researchers are currently working on a new form of space tourism that was demonstrated aboard the International Space Station (ISS) in November last year. The "Space Avatar Project" is a conjoined effort between avatarin Inc. and Japanese space agency JAXA.

November last year, a publicly accessible avatar was selected and was used to communicate with astronauts aboard the ISS. Since the success of the demonstration, the two companies have said that further development with the new form of communication technology will enable "remote space travel, remote work assistance, and remote space-themed experiences." So, how does it work? Users would select an avatar that is "remotely controlled from Earth", but is capable "to move freely within the [ISS] space facility."

In our solar system, there are four gas giants, and considering that they are gas and not solid, would it be possible for humans to send a space probe through one?

NASA has posed the question to themselves in the past with the perishing of Galileo and Cassini, two space probes sent to monitor Jupiter and Saturn, respectively. Galileo was close to the end of its mission when NASA intentionally sent it to its doom inside Jupiter's atmosphere, and it plummeted for about an hour before NASA lost signal at around 93 miles inside gas giants atmosphere.

So, would it be possible to fly a specifically designed space probe through a gas giant? According to Leigh Fletcher, who's an associate professor of planetary science at the University of Leicester, UK, "no" and for a few reasons. Fletcher explains that the pressure close to Jupiter's center is around 10x the pressure recorded at the bottom of Earth's Mariana Trench. Additionally, Jupiter's temperatures are extreme, reaching tens of thousands of Kelvins.

Black holes are certainly one of the most incredible creations of the universe, perplexing scientists and our general understanding of how physics works.

However, humans have come a long way in our understanding of black holes and the general way the universe functions, but now we are at the point where we have gathered enough data to create simulations of these celestial phenomena. Claude-Andre Faucher-Giguere, a physicist at Northwestern University and the lead author on a new paper that has simulated a black hole, said, "The reason supermassive black holes are so difficult to explain is that forming them requires cramming a huge amount of matter into a tiny space."

Adding, "How does the universe manage to do that? Until now, theorists developed explanations relying on patching together different ideas for how matter in galaxies gets crammed into the innermost one millionth of a galaxy's size." In the above video, you will be able to see a supermassive black hole at the center of a galaxy called NGC 1566 and how all of the gas is consumed by the massive structure.

Despite being more than 30 years old, the Hubble Space Telescope is still one of the leading telescopes in the world for the incredible images it can produce.

The European Space Agency (ESA) released a new image taken with Hubble's Wield Field Camera 3, and it shows what appears to look like a massive cosmic "sword" stabbing through a "heart". The image is actually showcasing two twin jets of ionized gas being propelled out in two separate jets from the poles of a newborn star. The star is named IRAS 05491+0247, and it's located 1,300 light-years from Earth within the constellation we refer to as Orion.

The ESA wrote on the post the following, "Herbig-Haro objects actually release a lot of light at optical wavelengths, but they are difficult to observe because their surrounding dust and gas absorb much of the visible light. Therefore, the WFC3's ability to observe at infrared wavelengths - where observations are not as affected by gas and dust - is crucial to observing [Herbig]-Haro objects successfully." Hubble will soon be replaced with the James Webb Space Telescope, the world's most powerful space telescope. To find out more about the James Webb Space Telescope, check out this link here.

A senior space official reported on August 30 that new cracks have been found on the Zarya module of the International Space Station.

The report comes from a Russian cosmonaut who said that the situation is "bad" and that the cracks could eventually spread and cause fissures over time. As for the history of the Zarya module, it was the first module of the International Space Station ever launched on November 20, 1998.

Vladimir Solovyov, a chief engineer of rocket and space corporation Energia, said, "Superficial fissures have been found in some places on the Zarya module." Adding, "This is bad and suggests that the fissures will begin to spread over time." Solovyov has previously said that the ISS is beginning to appear aged and that after 2025 he expects there will be an "avalanche" of broken equipment. For more information on this story, check out this link here.

A company has received the first-ever check from NASA to commence mining on the moon. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson presented the check to Lunar Outpost.

The company that has been awarded the check is Lunar Outpost, a Colorado-based space startup company were awarded the check under the space resource contract that was announced on August 23 during the 36th annual Space Symposium. Lunar Outpost CEO Justin Cyrus has presented the check by NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.

Nelson explained why the check is so little, "We had contractual terms with them when they produce their first element. We would give them 10% of their contract award. I am happy to present a check for 10% of their bid. Justin, here's a check for 10 cents." While the amount that was awarded to the company is somewhat humorous, Cyrus explains, "This sets a legal and procedural framework that will be utilized for generations and decades to come for companies like ours and many others to go out and collect resources from the lunar surface from other planetary bodies and make them basically useful for humanity."

Sometimes science can be humorous, and a team of researchers from Australia, Canada, and the United States who were observing octopuses may have stumbled across one of those times.

In a new paper that has appeared on the bioRxiv preprint server, which means the paper is yet to be peer-reviewed, a team of researchers observed female octopuses engaged in object-throwing more times than previously anticipated. The researchers traveled to Jervis Bay, Sydney, Australia, and saw that female octopuses throw shells, silt, and other objects at males attempting to mate with them.

Not only do the female octopuses throw the material at the males, but they also hide the material under their body after they have gathered it, concealing it until the time is right to throw it. The researchers observed one female octopus throwing sea material at a male ten times. Additionally, researchers saw males attempt to duck the material and were recorded to be successful half of the time. For more information on this story, check out this link here.

The CEO of SpaceX, Elon Musk has said that his company will be attempting to catch the largest flying object ever with robot chopsticks.

Musk has taken to his Twitter account to announce the news, and if you think that there is no chance that Musk or SpaceX can pull this off, it's not the first time the concept has been discussed. The idea was originally proposed by a startup company called Small Stars, who released a video to its YouTube channel that poses the question - Can SpaceX Really Catch Starships? The video can be found below if you wish to understand the concept in its entirety.

Back in April, Musk tweeted that "Starship booster, largest flying object ever designed, will be caught out of sky by launch tower. Big step forward, as reflight can be done in under an hour." Now, Musk has said that "SpaceX will try to catch largest ever flying object with robot chopsticks. Success is not guaranteed, but excitement is!" Musk followed up with a time frame by saying that the first catch will be attempted with Booster 5, Starships booster.