Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 160

Humans are constantly searching for other forms of life out in the cosmos, and most of the areas we are searching the hardest are on Earth-like.

It makes sense to search the cosmos for planets that are similar to Earth as that is the only planet we know of to host life. However, the universe is extremely diverse in the types of planets that it has produced, which means life could be elsewhere, but we just haven't checked. A new study by researchers from the Institute of Astronomy at the University of Cambridge in England has honed in on one type of planet, "hycean" planets, or "super-Earths."

These planets are around 2.5 times larger than Earth, have hydrogen-rich atmospheres, and are mostly covered in large oceans of liquid water, which researchers believe could contain microbial life much as we see here on Earth. On Earth, we have observed microbial life surviving in extreme environments such as miles beneath the Earth's crust and deep within oceans. This form of life has been categorized as "extremophiles".

Are wormholes real, and is it possible for humans to construct one to travel through spacetime? Theoretically, yes, but we are missing a specific ingredient.

Joao Rosa, a physicist at Aveiro University in Portugal, spoke to Live Science and said that she is attempting to "build" a virtual wormhole, but there are few problems that are needed to be overcome first. A wormhole is a theoretical passage between two points in space, however, with our current understanding of physics, wormholes are located beyond the event horizon of a black hole, and if an individual passed the event horizon, they would never be able to leave due to the extreme gravitational pull.

Additionally, the tunnel between the two points in space would likely collapse due to how unstable it is. In order to create a wormhole that doesn't trap the traveler, Rosa is proposing a form of matter that has negative energy or negative mass. The only problem is that researchers haven't yet observed negative mass in the observable universe, however at the quantum level, physicists have observed negative energy, but the observations have been limited to the microscopic scales.

In the 1980's a man stumbled across what he believed to be a leather football while he was working an operation to collect peat, or soil.

Andy Moul was working his operation in Wilmslow in Cheshire England when he came across a decapitated head of what was later believed to be a woman that was murdered in the area 20 years prior. However, carbon dating of the head found that it was over 1,600 years old. In the same location Mould later found toe tails that eventuated into the discovery of a leg that was later carbon dated to around 2,000 years old.

What was strange about the head and body part was how well preserved they were, as the head still had skin, hair and an eyeball still intact. How were these bodies parts so well-preserved? It has to do with the soils contents, as the bog where they were found contains acids that are extremely good at preserving bodies. An example of this is the famous Lindow man that was discovered in the peat bog near Manchester, England, who was found still wearing a hat on his chin, and had whiskers on his chin.

An exoplanet satellite hunter has stumbled across an unexpected exoplanet that is being described as not having an equivalent.

The exoplanet satellite hunter named the CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite (CHEOPS), a space telescope from the European Space Agency, which is designed to determine the size of extrasolar planets. The space telescope spotted the mysterious planet when it passed in front of its star, a common way researchers discover celestial objects.

The study has recently been published in the journal Nature Astronomy and details that the star Nu2 Lupi, which is located only 50 light-years from Earth. First author on the study, Laetitia Delrez, and a researcher at the University of Liege said, "Transiting systems such as Nu2 Lupi are of great importance in our understanding of how planets form and evolve, because we can compare several planets around the same bright star in detail."

NASA recently said that it was facing delays for its Artemis program that would land humans back on the moon by 2024, but the space agency's administrator is remaining optimistic about the timeline.

Despite the delays caused by the legal matters between Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin, Elon Musk's SpaceX, and NASA, NASA's Administrator Bill Nelson has said that the space agency isn't going to back down from the initial time frame. NASA is facing delays not only with the lunar dispute between SpaceX and Blue Origin but also with the astronaut spacesuits which the space agency said won't be ready in time.

Nelson spoke on August 24 at the Space Symposium and said, "Our human landing system demo award has been held up by delays and by litigation. The spacesuits, which, for the first time, were built by our commercial partners, have been technically challenging. And COVID-19 has caused unprecedented disruptions in the supply chain. But remember back to what [President John F.] Kennedy said. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard."

China has big plans for space, and according to recent reports, the country is moving to build a very large spacecraft while in orbit.

A proposal from the National Natural Science Foundation of China states that an analysis should be conducted on the mechanics and logistics of constructing an "ultra-large spacecraft spanning kilometers" - a miles-long spacecraft. The proposal states that spacecraft will be constructed in orbit and will require multiple launches to piece together modules.

The outline by the National Natural Science Foundation of China states that the team behind the project will face many tough challenges as costs of the project need to meet China's budget and that construction needs to be timely as the modules orbiting the planet in space will need to be kept under control, so they don't drift or start spinning. With this in mind, China plans on creating spacecraft with as few launches as possible.

Have astronomers found the most distant object in space? Well, astronomers have located what they believe to be the most distant object detected so far.

The universe is 13.77 billion years old, and rewinding time back to the moment the universe began, you would see a massive explosion scientists refer to as the Big Bang. From that event is us, and all of the glorious stars and galaxies we are observing today. One galaxy in particular astronomers have come across is GN-z11 and the reason for its importance as it is believed to be the most distant object we have ever found - 13.4 billion light-years from Earth.

What about stars? Astronomers from the University of California-Berkeley believe they have honed in on a very distant star that could take the crown for the most distant star ever discovered. The star is titled MACS J1149 Lensed Star 1, or Icarus, located 9 billion light-years from Earth. Observing these planets and galaxies is quite literally looking back in time, and we have barely scratched the surface of what is to be found in the observable universe.

The United States military is currently debating over revealing a highly classified space weapon through a public demonstration.

The news is sourced from the publication Breaking Defense, and according to the report, a number of military leaders have been discussing for more than a year about unveiling the US's secret space weapon. The report goes on to say that weapon was created under the "Special Access Program", which is slapped with a "highly classified" stamp.

The debate between the senior military leaders is on whether to reveal the weapon by demonstrating its capabilities, according to the report. This isn't the first time the US government has thought about revealing the weapon, as the Trump administration was planning on an unveiling in 2020, but the event was canceled due to COVID-19. Additionally, the report says the weapon could be revealed at the 2021 Space Symposium, where there could be a public display.

Researchers have used advanced technology that has indicated that the previous historical age of Machu Picchu is slightly inaccurate.

In conjunction with other researchers, a new study by Richard Burger, an archaeologist at Yale University, took advantage of accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS), an advanced form of radiocarbon dating. The researchers looked at human remains, and according to the results presented in the journal Antiquity, the ancient Inca city Machu Picchu was active from around 1420 to A.D 1530, making the wonder of the world 20 years older than previously thought.

The researchers state that 1530 was close to the time of the Spanish conquest and that most of the historical accounts about Machu Picchu come from Spaniards. Furthermore, the AMS results from analyzing 26 human samples sourced from four cemeteries at Machu Picchu suggest that the accounts that were the basis of common understanding about the ancient city may not be entirely accurate and are in need of revision.

The University of California is spearheading a mission that will send two satellites to Mars, and these satellites are named "Blue" and "Red".

NASA announced the mission last week and said that it has been authorized for launch in October 2024. The mission is titled the Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (ESCAPADE), and the core idea of the mission is to show that a spacecraft can be built, tested, integrated and launched for less than $80 million.

The speed and cost of the entire process is the main exploration point for scientists and NASA as it will mean the agency will be able to create a craft and launch towards planets in a short amount of time. Usually, a planned launch towards a planet requires years of planning, sometimes even ranging up to decades. Not to mention that costs are extremely expensive, often ranging in the billions of dollars.

Back in 1896, geologist John Wesley Powell noticed that there was a large portion of missing rock from the Grand Canyon. This later became known as the "Great Unconformity" mystery of the Grand Canyon.

Powell was later able to date the rocks and found that some rocks dated between 1.4 - 1.8 billion years ago, and that more than a billion years of rocks were missing. Geologists in a new study propose that they have found out the reason why there are missing rocks from the Grand Canyon, with the researchers saying that the Grand Canyon is much more complex than researchers have previously anticipated.

The researchers used new methods to come to this conclusion, most of which rely on thermochronology, which is a chemical analysis of the rock that reveals how much heat is stored within the rock when it formed. The heat signature also corresponds to the amount of geological pressure it was under when parts of the canyon were shifting over millions of years. The researchers presented data that suggests the Grand Canyon experienced some small faulting events that can account for the gaps in the overall geological record.

NASA's Curiosity rover may not be the center of attention on the Red Planet, but it's still out there roaming around conducting significant science.

Curiosity recently climbed Mount Sharp on the Red Planet, which is a five-mile tall mountain that is within the 96 mile wide Gale Crater basin where Curiosity is stationed. Curiosity used its Mast Camera to capture a stunning panoramic view of the entire landscape, showing off layers of the mount that researchers back on Earth will use as information to attempt to derive the age of the rock formations. NASA describes the image as Curiosity findings a "changing landscape".

Curiosity also took a rock sample with its drill and then used its robotic arm to crush the rock into a powder so it can be placed into its chassis for examination. Once the now-powder rock is inside the chassis Curiosity proceeds to use its instruments to find out which chemicals and minerals are present in the sample. All of the data acquired from this process is added to the pile of information is being used to answer the question "Did Mars once have the conditions to support life?".

NASA has just taken a few steps towards the launch of a spacecraft that is designed to collide with an asteroid.

NASA is calling it the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART for short. The mission is to see if NASA is capable of designing a spacecraft that's purpose is to collide with an asteroid to knock it off course. NASA isn't alone in working on asteroid-deflecting technologies, and for good reason, if an asteroid lines its trajectory up with Earth it could be a potentially catastrophic event. As for DART, NASA will be launching it into space, and it will collide with an asteroid 6.8 million miles away that is of no danger to Earth - at 15,000 mph.

As the launch of DART approaches, NASA is revealing the technology the spacecraft will be sporting. Engineers are close to completing the installation of the internal imaging device called Didymos Reconnaissance and Asteroid Camera for Optical (DRACO), which will be used to capture images of the asteroid along with the very last seconds of its imminent collision into the asteroid. This installation moves the spacecraft one more step closer to launch. For more information on this story, check out this link here.

Researchers have known that Mars has ice on it for some time, but what they don't know is how much of this ice is water and how much of it is dust.

Using data acquired by NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, planetary scientists Aditya Khuller and Philip Christensen of Arizona State University partnered with Stephen Warren, an Earth ice and snow expert from the University of Washington, set out to determine just how much dust is contained in Martian ice using computer simulations. The researchers found that the ice dug up by the Phoenix Mars lander formed from dusty snowfall that occurred sometime within the last million years.

The researchers also found that the ice found on the surface of Mars could be from dusty snowfall, according to Khuller, who said, "There is a chance that this dusty and dark ice might melt a few centimeters down. And any subsurface liquid water produced from melting will be protected from evaporating in Mars' wispy atmosphere by the overlying blanket of ice."

Astronomers are constantly looking out into the void of space, attempting to discover something that they haven't before.

Now, a team of astronomers believe they have located what should be considered as the fastest-orbiting asteroid in our solar system, asteroid 2021 PH27's. Astronomers discovered that this asteroid had the shortest orbital lap of the sun of just 113 days, the shortest known orbital lap of any object in our solar besides Mercury, which takes just 88 days.

The asteroid was first discovered on August 13 by astronomers that were using the Dark Energy Camera (DEC). Astronomers estimate that the asteroid is around 0.6 miles in diameter and that the asteroid originally came from the asteroid belt that is located between Mars and Jupiter. Additionally, researchers believe that it's likely the asteroid will collide with either Mars or Venus in the next few million years.

SpaceX has now shipped over 100,000 of its Starlink terminals, giving people across the planet satellite broadband access with some users reporting in with impressive speeds.

The news broke from SpaceX founder himself Elon Musk, where he hip-fired a simple tweet that reads: "100k terminals shipped!" and that's it. SpaceX has officially shipped 100,000 of its Starlink terminals, offering 50-150Mbps of internet with latencies between 20-40ms across the planet.

SpaceX has been pushing to offer half the population of the planet with its Starlink internet service, but with huge demand for Starlink the availability of the internet service has been pushed back into 2023. We might be a few years out before Starlink can fulfill its own promises, for the end of 2021... a couple of years from now.

Blue Origin has been fighting tooth and nail since NASA decided it was going to award SpaceX with a $2.9 billion dollar contract for the construction of a new lunar lander.

Originally, NASA was planning on awarding two separate contracts, but according to the space agency, it only received a fraction of the budget it requested for the Artemis lunar landings, which resulted in only one contract being available. Blue Origin formally protested the decision, and the contract was paused for 95 days while the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) reviewed NASA's decision, eventually resulting in the GAO dismissing it.

After having its protest dismissed, Blue Origin has now filed a complaint against NASA with the US Court of Federal Claims, saying the lawsuit was "an attempt to remedy the flaws in the acquisition process found in NASA's Human Landing System." Now, NASA has agreed to halt all construction to do with the contract with SpaceX, according to Reuters.

Two doctors are setting out to create one real-life "impulse engine," which appears in the legendary sci-fi TV show Star Trek.

Star Trek is no stranger to inspiring individuals to push the realm of real-world technological possibilities, and now two scientists are settings out to create a piece of technology that was used to break out of the orbit of a planet quickly called an "impulse engine". According to a Nerdist article, Dr. Hal Fearn and Dr. Jim Woodward have teamed up to create the "impulse engine" using some controversial physics that are explained quite clearly in the above video.

Woodward has been working on this question of using the universe's gravitation field as a means of movement for more than thirty years, and now NASA has officially funded a study for the experiment to be replicated by the US Naval Research Laboratory. As outlined in the video, Fearn, Woodward, and a representative for the Naval Research Laboratory have said that the idea is very fringe and has yet to be proven. The main issue is that it's challenging for everyone involved to prove, which is a problem for all new ideas in science.

A relatively new study has been able to predict the exact date for asteroid Bennu's highest chance of impacting Earth.

NASA created the Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO) back in 2016 with the goal of having a team of individuals monitoring any asteroids that may be potentially dangerous to Earth. Additionally, the team is also tasked with finding prevention methods if an asteroid is found to be dangerous. Asteroid Bennu is categorized as potentially dangerous as its orbits will come within 125,000 miles.

At the moment, Bennu is located about 200 million miles away, but according to Freethink.com, it was discovered that in the year 2135 the asteroid that's anywhere between 0.31 miles and 6.2 miles in diameter, will pass within 125,000 miles of Earth, or about half the distance between Earth and the moon. PDCO Director Lindley Johnson spoke to the New York Times and said, "[A] half-kilometer-sized object is going to create a crater that's at least five kilometers in diameter, and it can be as much as 10 kilometers in diameter."

A self-healing "blob" that is extremely bizarre will soon be making its way to Earth after spending some time aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

The International Space Station (ISS) is home to many strange and exotic experiments as the researchers aboard the floating laboratory test the impact of microgravity. NASA launched the strange blob on the Cygnus cargo trip to the ISS last month, and the blob is actually formally named "Physarum polycephalum" - a single cell slime mold. So, why is NASA sending slime mold to the ISS?

The strange yellow mold is headed back down to Earth so science students aged between 8 and 17 can perform experiments on it. The mold is capable of self-healing and can survive dormancy through dehydration. The idea behind the tests will be to compare mold that has been experimented on in space for about a week to the mold back on Earth. Students and teachers will be looking for behavioral changes in the mold.