Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 189

NASA has had its eyes on Mars for quite some time, and as a result the space agency has put satellites around the planet to observe its beauty.

One of the satellites is the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), and its equipped its with incredible cameras that capture the true nature of the Red Planet. Since NASA's missions are funded with public money, the results of the missions are available for the public to view and download. Today, we have a bunch of gorgeous photos of the surface of Mars, and each are full resolution for you to download.

NASA announced on August 12th it was celebrating the Mars Reconnaise Orbiter's 15th anniversary by publishing the below selection of images. The images include impact craters from meteors, sand, smoke, and more. If you are interested in reading more about this topic, check out this link here.

NASA has used the famous Hubble Space Telescope to do science that will one day be used as a means of detecting alien life on other planets.

According to a recent blog post from NASA, and the above video, NASA took advantage of the lunar eclipse by using Hubble and the Moon to observe the light reflecting through Earth's atmosphere. As the video explains, NASA used Hubble to observe the light reflecting off the surface of the Moon and beamed back into Earth's atmosphere, and by observing the wavelengths of light, NASA was able to detect Earth's ozone.

So, why is this important? By NASA successfully doing this experiment with Earth, they have proven they could use the same technique with other high-power telescopes that are tasked with finding and examining exoplanets. Here's what NASA said, "Hubble did not look at Earth directly. Instead, the astronomers used the Moon as a mirror to reflect sunlight, which had passed through Earth's atmosphere, and then reflected back towards Hubble."

SpaceX has said that its satellite internet service Starlink, has received "extraordinary demand" throughout the United States, so much so that it has forced them to have further talks with the FCC to increase the authorized user terminals from 1 million to 5 million.

The US space agency was forced to file a request with the Federal Communications Commission on Friday, where the Elon Musk founded SpaceX asked the FXX to increase the number of authorized user terminals from 1 million, to 5 million.

This is how large the "extraordinary demand" for Starlink has been.

If you happened to miss what could be considered the biggest news for human space travel in a while, here's a quick update:

SpaceX successfully completed its round mission of taking NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the International Space Station. This mission was historic, as the last time an American crewed space capsule launched and splashed down off the US coast was in 1975 from the Apollo-Soyuz joint U.S.-Soviet Union space mission. Overall, things went quite smoothly, but there were a few hiccups in retrieving both astronauts.

Those hiccups weren't technical, but more so, social, as what seems to be a dozen or so boaters came to check out the landing site for Crew Dragon. While everyone can probably understand a certain level of curiosity is justified, but to approach the craft itself is something else entirely. Things that arrive from space aren't automatically safe because they are back on Earth, and an example of that is the Crew Dragon capsule as the recovery team detected nitrous tetroxide, which is used as a propellant for the Dragon's maneuvering rockets and is also toxic when inhaled.

Elon Musk is undoubtedly jumping up and down in excitement as SpaceX has marked its first successful astronaut mission for NASA.

Back at the start of June, SpaceX launched the Crew Dragon capsule that had aboard NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley. The destination was the International Space Station (ISS), and both astronauts, along with the Crew Dragon capsule, arrived there safely. Now, the end part of SpaceX's historic Demo-2 mission has come to fruition - landing both astronauts back on Earth safely.

Crew Dragon departed from the ISS and began its descent back down to planet Earth, and at precisely 2:48 p.m. EDT on August 2nd, SpaceX's capsule splashed down off the coast of Pensacola, Florida. SpaceX's Crew Dragon splashing down marked the first commercially built and operated spacecraft to carry humans to and from orbit, and also marked the first splashdown by U.S astronauts in 45 years.

Elon Musk is a man of scienec, but he's also a man of memes. Tesla Motors stock is pumping like an all-night party and it's only 4:20AM, and now Musk tweets that aliens built the pyramids.

Musk tweeted it a few hours ago, saying: "Aliens built the pyramids obv" out of nowhere.

The billionaire entrepreneur and real-life Elon Musk isn't shy of tweeting out what some people would think is ridiculous, but "aliens built the pyramids" is a pretty big thing to say when you're the founder of companies like SpaceX and Tesla.

NASA has formally announced when the launch window for the Mars 2020 mission will be, and when we can expect to see Perseverance sent off to the distant red planet.

According to NASA, the launch window will be at 7:50 EDT, and it will be open for two hours. Throughout this time, NASA will be working out any potential problems that could hinder the launch, and then once checks are made, they will be buckling up with the rest of us as the Atlas 5 rocket from United Launch Alliance will begin its launch from Cape Canaveral.

NASA will be landing its latest-and-greatest rover, Perseverance, on the Martian surface on February 18th, 2021. The primary goal of the mission is to land the rover in jezero crater successfully. This is where the rover will be conducting numerous experiments in an attempt to discover whether life ever existed on Mars. Above you will find a link to the NASA YouTube Channel where they will be streaming the historic launch.

The coronavirus pandemic has taken the wind out of many people's sails, but luckily NASA has still found a way to get its historic mission underway. Finally, news that isn't COVID-19 related.

NASA has officially penned the launch date for the Mars 2020 mission, which will take the space agency's brand new rover and helicopter to our distant red planetary neighbor. The coronavirus, along with other technical delays, caused the space agency to have to delay the launch, but now things seem to be set in order, and as a result, a launch window has been set.

The Perseverance rover will be launched from Cape Canaveral aboard the Atlas 5 rocket from United Launch Alliance. NASA says that it will take a matter of months for Perseverance to reach Mars, and has said that it will arrive on February 18th, 2021. Perseverance will be taking the latest and greatest scientific instruments to the red planet to conduct scientific experiments on Mars' surface in an attempt to discover if the red planet was ever home to some form of ancient life. The mission launch window opens at 7:50 a.m. EDT, this Thursday.

The commercialization of space is fantastic news for everyone, and with space travel being opened up, many companies are stepping forward with designs for new spacecraft.

One of the companies that have been in the race for quite some time is Boeing, but unfortunately, the company has proven somewhat disappointing with their Starliner program. Back in December, Boeing had to abort its unmanned test flight due to a glitch in the system that really threw things up into the air. NASA has since decided to do an independent analysis of the Starliner program and returned with numerous "recommendations" NASA wants to see before Starliner attempts another launch.

SpaceFlightNow is reporting that NASA is still skeptical, and even concerned about how Boeing is going to address these issues and if they will be able to conquer them fast and efficiently. Donald McErlean, a member of NASA's Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, recently said, "However, despite this progress, which is definite and in fact measurable, the panel continues to be concerned about quality control problems that seemingly have plagued the Boeing commercial crew program."

If you didn't know who Tricare was before this article, they are the insurance company that handles the US military and its health care systems.

Tricare recently sent out an email to over 600,000 beneficiaries informing them that they had tested positive to coronavirus, requesting blood plasma donations from these 600,000 survivors of COVID-19. Military.com reported about the email, saying that it went out to 600,000 members of the US military across 31 US states in Tricare's East Region.

At the time of writing, roughly 31,000 people throughout the Department of Defense -- this includes service members, family members, civilian employees and contractors, have been tested positive for COVID-19. So another 600,000 would be over 20 times that number, and is a gigantic mistake on Tricare's behalf.

It's common practice to send telescopes to space via rockets, but maybe that won't be the future of space travel, or at least when it comes to putting new telescopes in Earth's orbit.

NASA is trying out something a little different this time around, as the space agency has come up with a new plan for getting its new ASTHROS observatory in Earth's orbit. Firstly, 'ASTHROS' stands for Astrophysics Stratospheric Telescope for High Spectral Resolution Observations at Submillimeter wavelengths, and this new telescope is equipped with some of the best bleeding-edge technology for observing the vastness of space.

So, how is NASA going to get the new telescope out into Earth's orbit if they aren't using a rocket? Well, that can be simply answered, the space agency will be using a very, very, very large balloon. The balloon measures in at about 400 feet wide, which is roughly the size of a standard football stadium. The strategy is that the balloon will carry the new observatory to an altitude of nearly 25 miles (130,000 feet), which as NASA describes, is right where it needs to be to "observe light wavelengths blocked by Earth's atmosphere."

COVID-19 has struck the world almost like an asteroid, with Americans being in a position where they don't even know the extent of the damage yet -- which is where stimulus checks have been helping millions of Americans around the US.

But now the Trump administration are stamping their seal of approval on a new round of $1200 stimulus checks, explained White House economic advisor Larry Kudlow on a recent interview with CNN.

Kudlow explained: "The check is there, the reemployment bonus is there, the retention bonus is there. There will be breaks, tax credits for small businesses and restaurants. It's a very well-rounded package. It's a very well-targeted package".

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope is still one of the leading instruments humans have for capturing the beauty of space.

Recently, NASA worked used some of Hubble's magic to their advantage and captured a stunning image of one of the planets in our solar system. Above you can see the image that was captured, and if you couldn't pick which planet we are looking at from the image, I'm happy to tell you that it's Saturn.

From the image we can see Saturn's iconic rings, which NASA describes "Hubble's sharp view resolves the finely etched concentric ring structure. Ranging from tiny grains to giant boulders." Images such as these allow planetary sciences to observe the ever-changing atmosphere on the gas giant. Amy Simon, a planetary scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, said in a statement, "It's amazing that even over a few years, we're seeing seasonal changes on Saturn."

An article I wrote a couple of days ago got some major attention, with the legendary Joe Rogan himself sharing the article to his social media pages, throwing it in front of the eyes of millions of people -- the subject of UFOs and more specifically "off-world vehicles not made on this Earth".

In the original article I sourced the new article published by The New York Times titled 'No Longer in Shadows, Pentagon's U.F.O. Unit Will Make Some Findings Public' where NYT writers Ralph Blumenthal and Leslie Kean explained that former Democratic senator Harry Reid "pushed for funding the earlier U.F.O. program when he was the majority leader".

But the sentence right after that has been completely edited since my original article, where I'll now provide you with a before an after:

What is the number one thing you can do to keep yourself, your loved ones, and your family safe from contracting COVID-19? Wear a face mask, says Dr. Anthony Fauci.

During a recent virtual event hosted by the US Chamber of Commerce, the top most White House health advisor Dr. Fauci said: "We feel cautiously optimistic that we are on the road - as bleak as it may sound right now - that we're on the road of getting this under control".

Dr. Fauci added: "We will ultimately get back to normal ... Sometimes you get so exasperated and run down by (the news), that you think is never going to end. It will end. It will end through public health measures and science, I can tell you, will come to our rescue".

Dr. Anthony Fauci was recently at the Washington Nationals game on Thursday night, where he threw the first pitch of the game. It was a casual moment in the middle of a pandemic, but it was Dr. Fauci's next act that would make headlines.

The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the advisor to President Trump's own COVID-19 coronavirus task force has been telling every other American to wear a mask... except, he doesn't. After he threw the first pitch, Dr. Fauci went into the stands to sit with his friends.

He was spotted, very clearly I might add, without his mask on -- sitting directly next to two people. So he's not practicing what he preaches -- not wearing a mask (big no no) and not socially distancing (another big no no). But hey, he's Dr. Fauci and he had a perfect excuse.

The topic of UFOs has blown up in the last 24 hours, with The New York Times that many reporters writing headlines about UFOs -- including my own, that Joe Rogan helped blow up by sharing on his social media pages. Hell, there's even reports of a UFO that is 10x the size of Earth chilling by the Sun.

Well, from the same article is something that is just as interesting as hearing about UFOs that are "off-world vehicles not made on this Earth". What is it? It's that the Pentagon's UFO department could be force to provide updates to Americans every 6 months on all-things extraterrestrial.

The Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force has been operating out of the Office of Naval Intelligence -- and will now be forced to talk about what it has found, and share it with the public every 6 months.

We've got UFOs that are 10x the size of Earth chilling next to our Sun, the Pentagon confirming that recovered UFOs are "off-world vehicles not made on this earth". How can it get crazier? Nuclear power plants on the Moon and Mars, that's how.

The U.S. Energy Department has put out formal requests to the private sector on ideas on how to build a fission surface power system -- something that would be capable of powering facilities for humans to live on other planets for long periods of time.

Over in eastern Idaho, the Idaho National Laboratory -- which is a nuclear research facilitiy, will team with the U.S. Energy Department and NASA on developing the new reactor. The U.S. Energy Department explained: "Small nuclear reactors can provide the power capability necessary for space exploration missions of interest to the Federal government".

Dr. Deborah Birx works alongside Dr. Anthony Fauci in the White House coronavirus task force, and has issued one of the scariest warnings yet.

In an update on Wednesday, Dr. Birx said that there are 11 major US cities at risk of a major COVID-19 outbreak. These cities include Baltimore, Cleveland, Columbus, Indianapolis, Las Vegas, Miami, Minneapolis, Nashville, New Orleans, Pittsburgh and St Louis.

She warned that the COVID-19 infections that are hitting the Sunbelt states -- Phoenix and San Antonio, is going to move north. Dr. Birx explained: "What started out very much as a southern and western epidemic is starting to move up the East Coast into Tennessee, Arkansas, up into Missouri, up across Colorado, and obviously we're talking about increases now in Baltimore".

Yet another depressing statistic is emerging out of research including the Helmholtz Center for Infection Research, which says that the outbreak at the Toennies Group slaughterhouse in Rheda-Wiedenbrueck saw 1500 struck down with COVID-19.

Similar incidents of coronavirus outbreaks have been happening a similar plants across the world, becoming a "virus epicenter" reports MSN. Meat plants inside of the US -- and outside of the US in countries like the UK and South America, have seen massive explosions of COVID-19 infections.

Social distancing is hard to do at these plants, but it seems as though the recent COVID-19 outbreak at the Toennies plant stemmed from a single employee. This staffer was in the plant's dismantling area, where it is usually kept at 10C (50F) where the cold air is circulated without change.