Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 178

A new bombshell report has come out of CBS News "60 Minutes" segment where former U.S. Military officials revealed that the U.S. government is well-aware of unidentified flying objects (UFO).

Next month the U.S. military will be presenting Congress an unclassified report regarding UFOs, and the 60 Minutes segment has certainly increased anticipation for the U.S. military's report. According to Former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, who said in the interview that the report will shock people because "frankly, there are a lot more sightings than have been made public."

The 60 Minutes segment featured many jaw-dropping statements U.S. Military officials, and some of the best quotes from the segment are provided in there entirely below. According to Lue Elizondo, former U.S. Military official that led the U.S. government's effort to investigate UFO's, "Imagine a technology that can do 600-to-700 g-forces, that can fly at 13,000 miles an hour, that can evade radar and that can fly through air and water and possibly space."

If you have never seen a black hole devour a star, you are in for a treat, as what you are about to witness is a violent but super interesting process called "spaghettification".

700 million light-years away, a star began to be torn apart by a black hole that it passed too close to. The black hole was estimated to be around 5 million times the mass of the Sun, and when the star passed too close to the black hole, it got caught in its gravitation pull which led to it being torn apart into long, thin, thread-like strands of material that resemble a spaghetti noodle.

Back in April 2019, the Zwicky Transient Facility, which observes the skies for any cosmic-level events, found an event such as the one described above. The event was later named AT2019dsg, and in the above video, you will find an animation of what that event would have looked like. It turned out that AT2019dsg was unique in some ways, and if you would like to find out how and why check out this link here.

The Hubble Space Telescope is famous for the incredible pictures it takes of our solar system and surrounding galaxies.

NASA has recently taken to the Hubble Twitter account to post an incredible image of what is called a "cosmic cloud". NASA goes on to explain that this "cosmic cloud" or actually called an "emissions nebula", which is a bright "diffuse clouds of ionized gas that emit their own light." NASA states that the emission nebula seen in the above image is called NGC 2313.

In the image, we can see in the center a bright star. This star is named V565 and shows a "silvery, fan-shaped veil of gas and dust". The right-hand side of the image is dull, and this dullness is caused by a dense cloud of dust. If you are interested in reading more about this story, check out the NASA website here. As for other space news, Hubble recently dropped some stunning images of Jupiter that showcases a hellish planet.

If you didn't know, spacecrafts of any kind are meticulously built in rooms that are sterile so organisms that could potentially contaminate an object or planet can't be transported there.

Even though spacecrafts such as NASA's Perseverance rover are built with such precision and cleanliness, they could still be carrying microbes that may potentially contaminate a planet's biosphere. According to Cornell University geneticist Christopher Mason, "It turns out that clean rooms might serve as an evolutionary selection process for the hardiest bugs that then may have a greater chance of surviving a journey to Mars."

Mason goes on to say that some microbes could hitchhike a ride to Mars and then be discovered by researchers, which could "spark misguided research into the universal features of life or Martian life." Additionally, Mason says that researchers should be able to tell where the microbes originated, and that data from these discoveries could eventually lead to therapeutics being created.

Recently we have been hearing more and more about UFO sightings, and now a new video that was taken aboard a US Navy ship has shocked onlookers.

The video, which can be seen above, shows black and white footage of a Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) hovering parallel to the ocean. Navy officers can be heard observing the object, with one of them saying, "Whoa, its getting close!" The object appears to have "flashed" before dropping straight into the ocean. Navy officers can be heard saying "It splashed", "splashed".

According to The New York Post, the video was taken on a mobile phone inside the ship's Combat Information Center, a classified location on the vessel that doesn't allow phones for obvious reasons. The video was taken aboard the USS Omaha back in July 2019, and was uploaded to investigative filmmaker Jeremy Corbell's YouTube channel. Corbell also said to The Post that following the disappearance of the object the US Navy sent a submarine down to search for the object, but nothing was found.

Military forces around the world have adopted drones in their arsenals, and as a result, the US has begun building a weapon that will counter drones if an enemy decides to attack with them.

The US military is currently developing a high-powered microwave weapon that has been dubbed as Tactical High Power Operational Responder or THOR. The weapon is designed to defend against aerial drone attacks that could otherwise cause military bases a hard time if an enemy decided to use them in an attack. THOR doesn't use any bullets or rockets. Instead, it uses high-power microwaves that can cause the electronics to fry in the drones.

The US military imagined a swarm of attack drones were flying towards a military base. Deploying THOR on these drones would cause many of them to be impaired in a variety of different ways. Some drones would have their electronics fried, others would fall to the ground, and others would stop moving altogether. What is most impressive is that all of this happens immediately and completely silently. If you are interested in reading more about THOR, check out this link here.

NASA is upgrading its data transfer speeds next month, which will allow researchers to transmit data between Earth and space.

NASA will soon be launching its Laser Communications Relay Demonstrations (LCRD) that is teed up to replace radio frequency communications that NASA has been using since the 1950s. NASA has decided to upgrade its data transfer speeds because space missions are now requiring things such as 4K video capturing, which has a much larger file size.

For example, with current radio frequency systems, it would take around nine weeks to send a complete map of Mars back to Earth. With NASA's new laser technology, that same map of Mars would only take about nine days to get back to Earth. NASA has said that this new laser communications technology will allow for 10 to 100 times more data to be transmitted back to Earth. For more information on this story, check out this link here.

NASA has dropped a very cool video on its Perseverance Mars Rover Twitter page that shows a close-up of the surface of Mars.

NASA has taken to the personal Twitter page for Perseverance, the most recent rover to land on Mars. The Twitter account for Perseverance tweets from the first-person perspective, which is a neat and kind of comical personification that I believe NASA does to also include children in space exploration - not just adults.

According to the tweet, Perseverance blasted the rock with its laser and then used its robotic arm to get a nice close-up of it. A Twitter user asked Perseverance 'what's the scale of images', Perseverance replied by saying, "The main rock in the wider shot is around 20 in / 50 cm wide; the darker section I focused in on is about the size of a thumbprint." If you were wondering if the laser makes a cool sound when it blasted the rock, you can actually listen to it on the NASA website, check out this link here.

According to reports, on Friday, May 14, China will be attempting to successfully land on Mars with a lander and rover.

Back in July 2020, China launched a spacecraft carrying the Tianwen-1 lander and rover towards Mars. If China can pull this off, it will be the first nation to successfully send a spacecraft into Mars' orbit, drop a lander down, followed by a rover all in the same mission. The orbiting spacecraft is currently preparing for the capsule's release that will carry both the lander and the rover.

Once preparation is complete, it will drop the capsule that will fall through the atmosphere and deploy a parachute to carry it safely to the Red Planet's surface. The lander will fire its thrusters downwards to gently lower itself to the surface. From there, the lander will deploy a ramp for China's rover to exit onto the Martian ground.

The United States Customs and Border Protection agency made a very surprising announcement on Monday regarding cow poo and traveling.

According to the announcement Customs agents located cow dung in a travelers luggage, and now the agency is publicly telling all travelers to stop packing cow dung into luggage because of the health risks that come with it. Just last month Customs agents found two cow dung patties in a suitcase that was accidentally left behind by a Air India flight traveler. So, why cow dung?

There is a seemingly growing belief that cow dung offers some health benefits, and some of those beliefs stretch as far as cow dung offering protection against COVID-19, hence the the dung being placed in the travel luggage. It should be noted that Customs has prohibited cow dung transportation from India to the US because of the risk it poses to transmitting Foot and Mouth Disease to livestock. Foot and Mouth Disease has been wiped out of the US since 1929.

It won't be long now until the famous Hubble Space Telescope is replaced with the long-awaited James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).

The Hubble Space Telescope was launched back in 1990, and the development for its replacement began in 1996. Since then, the JWST has gone through multiple delays caused by cost overruns and major redesigns, but now we are finally nearing the end of its development. The JWST opened its primary mirror for the last time on Earth before its launch scheduled for October 31, 2021.

So, how much better is the JWST going to be compared to Hubble? Well, the JWST has a far larger mirror than Hubble and also sports a sun shield the size of a tennis court that basically acts as a beach umbrella to keep it cool. Astrophysicist Blake Bullock, who is a director at Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems, the contractor on the project, said, "It is the biggest, most powerful telescope ever to be put in space. There are big telescopes on the ground but nothing of this nature and complexity in space. Hands down, it's the most powerful thing out there."

Located in the Republic of Tuva is an archaeological site of ancient nomadic warriors buried with their horses.

The burial site is of Scythians, who were a nomadic people that built a very impactful empire in Eurasia between the 9th and 2nd centuries BC. Now, the Defence Minister of Russia, and a very close ally to President Vladamir Putin, has hinted towards using the DNA samples gathered from the 3,000-year-old corpses to build human clones.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said, "Of course, we would like very much to find the organic matter. I believe you understand what would follow that. It would be possible to make something of it, if not Dolly the Sheep." For those that don't know, Dolly the Sheep is the first mammal cloned from an adult somatic cell, or more simply put a clone. Shoigu is clearly hinting at attempting to clone these ancient warriors using DNA samples.

Brand new images have been posted online by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope of Jupiter. The new images showcase the planet in three different types of light.

The images, which can be found above, are detailed on the NOIRLab website, where it's stated that Jupiter has been captured in the three following types of light; infrared, visible, and ultraviolet. These three separate views allow researchers to have a different perspective of the planet's atmospheric features, such as the "Great Red Spot, superstorms, and gargantuan cyclones".

Not only does Hubble take incredible images of space by itself, it also works with on-ground satellites such as Gemini North in Hawaii. The visible and ultraviolet images of Jupiter were captured with Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3, and the infrared image was captured using Gemini North's Near-InfraRed Imager (NIRI) instrument. If you are interested in reading more about this story or would like to learn more about Jupiter and its atmosphere, check out this link here.

Los Angeles and Las Vegas residents have taken to social media to report a very odd string of lights appearing in the night sky.

It was only last week when similar reports came from residents in Washington. Some of those residents deemed the lights to be UFO "sightings". However, the lights that were seen over Los Angeles and Las Vegas weren't UFOs but actually were SpaceX's Starlink satellites. The launch of sixty SpaceX Starlink satellites coincides with these "strange light sightings" posted all over social media.

The Starlink satellites take several weeks to spread out and form a line. Once they are position in the atmosphere, SpaceX proceeds to spread them out further so they can eventually synchronize and link up with the larger Starlink grid. Onlookers of the night sky that aren't aware of SpaceX's Starlink satellites are understandably confused at what they are witnessing unfold above them. However, it isn't UFOs of any kind, but just man-made magic.

NASA is smashing out "very first" achievements with its Ingenuity helicopter and Perseverance rover that are currently exploring Mars.

It wasn't long ago that the small helicopter Ingenuity successfully took off from the Red Planet's surface, marking the very first flight of a spacecraft on another planet. Since then, Ingenuity has continued to push the boundaries of its distance and time in flight records. On April 30, Ingenuity commenced an 872-foot round trip. Audio and video was captured by Perseverance's SuperCam microphone.

NASA has since released the audio of Ingenuity's first flight, marking the first time the sound of another spacecraft hovering on Mars has been heard. At the start of the above video, you can hear the quiet hum of the helicopter's propellers as it prepares to take off. The video has been released on the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory YouTube Channel and states that "sound adds a new dimension to space exploration". For more information on this story, check out this link here.

A new report has surfaced that has revealed that the infamous Chernobyl nuclear facility has seen a steady increase in neutron emissions, concerned scientists gravely.

Back in 1986, the Chernobyl nuclear facility went into meltdown, causing one of the world's greatest disasters that has ever occurred. The meltdown was caused by a flawed reactor design combined with personal that weren't fully trained, as well as human incompetence. If you are interested in learning more about how and why Chernobyl happened, I highly recommend you watch the series "Chernobyl" on HBO.

Now, a new report in New Scientist details that sub-reactor room 305/2, which is thought to have large amounts of radioactive material, is increasingly producing more neutron emissions. Researchers recorded that room 305/2 has increased its neutron emissions by 40% since early 2016. Researchers are currently evaluating if the surge in the rooms production in neutron emissions will eventually decrease, or if human intervention is required.

A new report has shown the extent of Facebook's user data collection can lead pharmaceutical firms to be able to target directly to people that have health conditions.

The results come from The Markup's Citizen Browser project, a non-profit organization that is exploring how technology is affecting society. The researchers found from looking at 1,200 Facebook user's ad data that many ads for prescription drugs were targeted to users because they expressed "interests" in other topics such as "bourbon" and "oxygen". It was also discovered that Big Pharma companies used the keyword "awareness" to target ads to users that expressed interest in certain illnesses.

An example of this would be Zejula, which is a GlaxoSmithKline drug that is commonly used to treat ovarian cancer was discovered to be targeted to users who were interested in "cancer awareness". Additionally, The Markup estimated that the potential sales could be very large considering that Facebook's ad system states that nearly 203 million people have shown interest in "cancer awareness".

Back in 1977, Voyager 1, a deep space probe, was launched, and since then, the space probe has been traversing the stars, gathering and relaying information back to Earth.

Voyager 1 is humanity's most distant space probe, and recently it detected what has been described as a "hum" from outside of our solar system. At the moment, Voyager 1 is located around fourteen billion miles from Earth, and while the space probe was exploring interstellar space, it detected a "hum" that is suspected to have been caused by plasma or ionized gas.

Stella Koch Ocker, a doctoral student in astronomy at Cornell University, discovered the sound in Voyagers data pool from its Plasma Wave System. The sound is expected to have come from plasma shockwaves and was "very faint and monotone," according to Ocker. While researchers believe that the sound is coming from interstellar gas, it's yet to be confirmed what the source of the sound is.

Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin, alongside SpaceX, Axiom Space, and Virgin Galactic, will soon launch an entirely new industry - space tourism.

This year we could see Blue Origin and SpaceX take civilians to orbit, and while that would certainly be an incredible trip, a journey and multiple-day stay on the International Space Station (ISS) may be more appealing to some. NASA and Axiom Space have agreed that civilians can travel to the ISS, and Axiom's Mission 1 will take four astronauts aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule to the ISS to spend eight days aboard the floating laboratory.

The crew will include a former NASA astronaut and three businessmen, all of which will need to be approved by NASA and its international partners. Kathy Lueders, associate administrator for human exploration and operations at NASA Headquarters, said, "We are excited to see more people have access to spaceflight through this first private astronaut mission to the space station. One of our original goals with the Commercial Crew Program, and again with our Commercial Low-Earth Orbit Development Program, is that our providers have customers other than NASA to grow a commercial economy in low-Earth orbit."

China's Long March 5B rocket recently re-entered Earth's atmosphere, with the majority of the rocket burning up before remnants hit the Indian Ocean.

Now, Chinese media is firing back at the United States and NASA, saying that it's "anti-intellectual" to claim that debris from the out-of-control Long March 5B rocket was "risky". Global Times has published an op-ed that states, "During the nearly 60 years of space activities, the calculated fall of rocket debris has not caused casualties so far. In addition, the risks of falling rocket debris are the same, no matter whose rocket it is. It is seriously anti-intellectual to claim that China's rocket debris is especially risky."

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said that China was tracking the rocket's trajectory and issued public statements on its situation in advance. Additionally, Hua claimed that Beijing was being treated unfairly and pointed towards the debris that fell to Earth in Washington from a SpaceX launch in March. "American media used romantic rhetoric like 'shooting stars lighting up the night sky. But when it comes to the Chinese side, it's a completely different approach", said Hua.