Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 201

A new solar telescope has done its job better than expected, as it has released the most detailed images ever of the Sun's surface.

National Science Foundation's Inouye Solar Telescope has revealed an incredibly high detailed image of the Sun's surface. Above, you can see what seems to be like a messy yellow jigsaw puzzle. Instead, it's the highest resolution image of the Sun's surface humans have ever captured. The image shows the activity that is currently occurring on the Sun's surface, and it appears to be pattern-like, but it's actually "boiling" plasma in motion.

Each of the cells you can see above is about the size of Texas, and move extremely violently, much like a pot of water that has been brought the boiling point. Each of these cells rises and falls as heat from the inner core of the Sun expands outwards, eventuating into the solar weather that we experience here on Earth. The new Inouye Solar Telescope will be able to give scientists a new understanding of the Sun, as the telescope will be able to map its magnetics and ultimately allow us to predict solar storms better.

You would have to be living under a rock right now to not be hearing about the coronavirus outbreak in China that is slowly spreading throughout the world, but it is now affecting Apple.

Apple CEO Tim Cook has said that the on-going coronavirus outbreak in China is affecting Apple's operations in the country, so it has restricted employee travel and even closed an Apple Store in China over the outbreak. Tim Cook explained to CNBC: "We're restricting travel to business critical travel. For employees that are in the Wuhan area, we are providing care kits and supplying them across our employee population in China as well".

The company has "some suppliers" in the Wuhan area according to Cook, who told Apple investors on Tuesday that some of its manufacturing facilities in China will be closed until February 10. The Chinese government has put forward these recommendations, with Cook also adding that some of its channel partners have closed their retail stores which will have a (small) impact on sales. Cook added: "Retail traffic has also been impacted outside of the city over the last few days".

Neil deGrasse Tyson, one of the most famous astrophysicists alive, has taken to his personal Twitter account to give everyone a friendly reminder about our solar system.

In the above Tweet, we can see an image of what appears to be our solar system, but something is strangely inaccurate. Earth appears to be a flat disk instead of a sphere like the rest of the planets? This is a depiction of what flat earth conspiracy theorists believe is the proper shape of Earth, instead of what established scientists have confirmed for years -- a sphere.

Tyson states that flat Earthers (flat earth conspiracy theorists) biggest fear is the "sphere itself". Here's the full statement: "It's well known: What flat-Earthers fear most is Sphere itself". Of course, this is just a friendly poke at a group of people's beliefs, but there is a string of truth to it. If the Earth happened to be flat, it would contradict all knowledge that we have of other planets being spherical shape. It would also put a lot established physics into question as well.

The telescope we are talking about here is none other than the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which is expected to launch in March next year.

According to the latest report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), which does audits on government-funded programs, the JWST only has a 12% chance of hitting its March 2021 launch date. The GAO did an analysis back in October on those participants who are working on the project, they evaluated the current progress and came to the conclusion that NASA should figure out a new release date in Spring this year.

Here's a little history about the JWST. The telescope idea was first created back in the 1990's and was originally estimated to cost anywhere between $1 billion and $3.5 billion. Back then, scientists expected that it would have been completed and launched between 2007 and 2010. Unfortunately, that hasn't happened, and costs have gone up exponentially (95%), and the launch date has moved further down the yearly timeline.

NASA has announced via a new press release that Axiom Space out of Houston will be the first company to provide NASA with a commercial destination module for the International Space Station (ISS).

NASA is fast approaching its goal to commercialize the ISS and enable private astronauts to visit the floating laboratory in low-Earth orbit. The press release reveals that NASA has selected Axiom Space as the first company to provide NASA with a module that will attach to the ISS's Node 2 forward port. This is an important milestone for both NASA and the coming low-Earth orbit economy.

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, said "Axiom's work to develop a commercial destination in space is a critical step for NASA to meet its long-term needs for astronaut training, scientific research, and technology demonstrations in low-Earth orbit. We are transforming the way NASA works with industry to benefit the global economy and advance space exploration. It is a similar partnership that this year will return the capability of American astronauts to launch to the space station on American rockets from American soil."

SpaceX is in full preparation to launch 60 more Starlink satellites into Earth's atmosphere. Unfortunately, due to weather conditions, the launch has been delayed.

SpaceX took to their official Twitter account on January 27 to announced that the weather for today's launch is "50% favorable". The space exploration company was planning on live streaming the whole event, but unfortunately, due to "strong upper-level winds" SpaceX is "standing down today" and will re-schedule the launch to Wednesday, January 29, at 9:06 a.m., 14:06 UTC. Tune into the live stream here.

Back in November, 2019 SpaceX launched 60 Starlink satellites in its effort to establish a global internet connection. Elon Musk, SpaceX CEO and founder expects to have established at least an early version of a global internet connect by late 2020. Musk and SpaceX eventually want to have 42,000 Starlink satellites in Earth's orbit.

The International Space Station is a floating mechanical laboratory, and with almost everything mechanical, sometimes things fall apart. It's just the way things are.

Since things sometimes fall apart, they need to be fixed by humans so they can then be used again. This is exactly what happened on the ISS, as astronauts Andrew Morgan and Luca Parmitano were given the job of going on a spacewalk to fix the coolant pumps on the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer. The cosmic ray detection instrument was out of commission due to the cooling system failing, but since this past Saturday's spacewalk, the instrument might just be ready for use.

After the initial spacewalk, both astronauts decided to double-check the coolant system to make sure their work was 100%. To their surprise, there was actually a leak found in the cooling system, and after discovering this, the leak was repaired. The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer is valued at around $2 billion dollars and is designed to shine some light on what dark matter actually is and how it works. NASA believes that since the repairs have been successful that the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer should work until the end of the ISS's lifespan.

China's Chang'e-4 lunar mission rover has relayed some brand new images of the dark side of the Moon. These images are also high-resolution for viewers' pleasure.

China's Chang'e-4 lunar mission recently completed its first year on the lunar surface, and also earned the achievement of being the first rover to travel the longest distance on the dark side of the Moon. China's lunar rover is called Yutu 2, and it recently relayed a new data set back to officials on the ground. Within this data set was a bunch of new high-resolution images that let us take a great look at the surface of the dark side of the Moon.

The date was released online by the Ground Research and Application System (GRAS) on Monday, January 20th. Some of the locations the rover managed to take pictures of including the Von Karman Crater, which is the same spot the rover soft landed on last year. Doug Ellison, who is the engineering camera team lead for NASA's Curiosity rover mission on Mars, tweeted about the data drop, saying, "Oh my god - the data drop is incredible :O". Ellison created galley of the images, that can be found here.

President Trump has just unveiled the logo for the Six Branch of the US military, with the new United State Space Force logo unveiled below -- and it seems it has had some serious influence from Star Trek, and that's OK with me.

Trump tweeted out "After consultation with our Great Military Leaders, designers, and others, I am pleased to present the new logo for the United States Space Force, the Sixth Branch of our Magnificent Military!" It has been a promise from Trump since 2018 and now we have the US Space Force created and its new logo finally unveiled.

Here's the new US Space Force logo next to the Starfleet logo from Star Trek.

NASA has encountered a slight problem with their Mars rover called Curiosity. The problem isn't a very good one either because Curiosity is refusing to move.

NASA has released a new report that reveals that Curiosity has temporarily stopped moving. So why did this happen? Curiosity is equipped with a series of safety regulations that have been implemented into the rover to ensure its safety when traversing the dangerous landscape of Mars. Curiosity measures the surroundings relative to its body before making a move, and some of these measurements are the current altitude, surrounding rock formation, slope steepness, etc.

Before any movement is made by Curiosity, all of these measurements have to be evaluated and deemed 'safe'. If one of these safety checks are calculated to be 'not safe' then Curiosity won't turn on its motor and remain still, which is exactly what the rover has just done. In the report, NASA says that "Curiosity lost its orientation" because "Some knowledge of its attitude was not quite right, so it couldn't make the essential safety evaluation". Curiosity relayed this information back to NASA, and NASA began forming a plan to inform Curiosity of its surroundings correctly.

DirecTV is now racing to remove a satellite from Earth's orbit because if the company waits too long the satellite could explode and turn into dangerous space junk.

In a report from Space News, DirecTV has asked the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for a temporary rules waiver so the company can bring down the Spaceway-1 satellite. In the FCC filing from DirecTV, the company explains why the spacecraft needs to be taken down immediately, here's a snippet of what was said; "In December, Spaceway-1 suffered a major anomaly that resulted in significant and irreversible thermal damage to its batteries.

The report continued, "Boeing, the spacecraft manufacturer, concluded based on all available data that the batteries' cells cannot be guaranteed to withstand the pressures needed to support safe operation of the spacecraft in eclipse operations; rather, there is a significant risk that these battery cells could burst. The risk of a catastrophic battery failure makes it urgent that Spaceway-1 be fully de-orbited and decommissioned prior to the February 25th start of eclipse season."

The Wuhan virus that is currently sweeping the news has been subjected to a bit of controversy surrounding the topic of what animals caused this virus to spread to humans.

The virus, which is called 2019-nCoV, is a coronavirus, and just yesterday, I reported on a research paper that claimed that the virus' most likely origin was snakes. Now, other scientists have said that the research team has no proof to make the claim that the virus' origin comes from snakes; instead, it should only be able to infect mammals and birds. David Robertson, a virologist at the University of Glasgow, UK, says, "Nothing supports snakes being involved".

Paulo Eduardo Brandao, a virologist at the University of Sao Paulo is currently investigating whether snakes can contract coronavirus says, "They have no evidence snakes can be infected by this new coronavirus and serve as a host for it. There's no consistent evidence of coronaviruses in hosts other than mammals and Aves (birds)." It seems that there is a lot of confusion towards what animal has caused this outbreak, and at the moment, no one really knows which animal it is. Only time will tell. For more information on this topic, check out this article from Nature here.

Google has helped out Janelia Research Campus with its recently released breakthrough in being able to map the brain.

Above is now the largest and most highest-resolution map of brain connectivity we as humans. The video was published on the Janelia website, and showcases a 3D model of 25,000 fruit fly neurons on a range of different cellular structures in various parts of its brain. So how was this done? The research team sliced the fruit fly's brain into extremely thin pieces and imaged those slices using electron streams from an electron microscope.

The team then stitched the image back together and created a brain map of the fruit fly. While this achievement might sound minuscule because the map is of a fruit fly and not a human - the achievement still harbors high levels of recognition as this is still a large step towards understanding the brain. Scientists can now trace individual neurons back to their source of functionality. It should be noted that a fruit fly has 100,000 neurons in its entire brain, while 25,000 is still small when compared to the total, it's still a big step forward.

China is currently under threat by a never-before-seen coronavirus, and as the virus is spreading around the globe, researchers think they have figured out what animal it has come from.

The virus, which is currently spreading in China, is called 2019-nCoV, and its a coronavirus. The virus broke out in the Chinese city of Wuhan at the South China Seafood Wholesale Market. Researchers were quick to understand that the virus came from animals and then was being transferred 'human-to-human'. What they didn't know until now was what animal it came from.

In a new study published in the Journal of Medical Virology, researchers conducted a detailed genetic analysis of the virus and compared it to other known viruses, their origins, and their host species. What was concluded is that 2019-nCoV is a combination of coronavirus found in bats and another coronavirus of unknown origin. The researchers also found that the virus was most likely found in snakes before it made contact with humans.

If you are a science lover and enjoy the likes of space and conducting experiments, then you'd probably know what the floating laboratory is.

The floating laboratory is, of course, the International Space Station (ISS), and while most people might not be able to visit it in person, you can definitely build your own version at home. Your own version won't be life-sized (sorry to crush your dreams), but it will be extremely cool and something to show off to your friends.

Beginning on February 1st, LEGO will be releasing its own model of the ISS, and its absolutely packed to the brim with details that are present in the real-life version. Here's LEGO's official announcement, "Build and display this spectacular LEGO Ideas International Space Station (ISS). Packed with authentic ISS details, including a posable Canadarm2 and two rotating joints that coincide with eight adjustable 'solar panels,' this 864-piece set is a wonderful gift idea for space enthusiasts, adult LEGO fans or any experienced builder."

If you know who Spider-Man is, then you have probably thought about how cool it would be to scale buildings like the web-head. Researchers thought about the same thing and decided to create the first robot that can do exactly that.

Researchers Xin Li and Kaige Shi from Zhejiang University in China have created a wall-climbing robot using a specially designed vacuum suction unit. Until now, climbing surfaces using suction required the surface to be unbroken, such as glass or marble. This was a requirement because the vacuum would leak through the gaps in the texture of the surface, leading to a complete loss of suction.

Scientists have solved this problem by implementing a high-speed rotating water ring that coats the space between the surface and the suction cup. This film of rotating water allows for the vacuum's suction to be unbroken, which means that suction levels are kept at an optimal rate for climbing. Li said, "There are many applications of our design, but we think the wall-climbing robot will be the most useful. Compared to other wall-climbing robots, the robot with our ZPD-based suction unit achieves surprising improvement in performance."

A team of astronomers have managed to figure out how the biggest and brightest explosions in the universe take place and why.

The explosions we are talking about here is gamma-ray bursts that are ejected from a star. These gamma-ray bursts have been recorded numerous times, but now scientists and astronomers have worked out why and how they are so bright and big. Researchers from the University of Warwick in the UK found that tidal effects such as the Moon's position next to Earth can cause this gigantic cosmic explosions.

The team of researchers examined thousands of simulated models of binary star systems, which are solar systems that have two stars caught in each others orbit. The examination led the researchers to believe that the orbiting of these stars can cause gamma-ray bursts to take place. When a star that's ten times bigger than our sun explodes it goes supernova and collapses either into a neutron star or a black hole.

The research which has come out of New York University's Grossman School of Medicine has found that an extremely large number of cases of IQ point theft in children.

The study, which was published in the journal of Molecular and Cellular Endocrinology, measured the effects of children being exposed to different toxins such as lead, mercury, pesticides, and polybrominated diphenyl ethers. The study examined the effects of these toxins in children between 2001 and 2016 and found that lead exposure resulted in a loss of 78 million IQ points. Pesticides followed behind the lead with a loss of 27 million IQ points and finally, mercury with a loss of 2.5 million IQ points.

The study found over 738,000 cases of intellectual disability, with a total loss of 162 million IQ points. So how did the children become exposed to these toxins? Flame retardants, which are polybrominated diphenyl ethers, are found in common household objects such as furniture items, electronics, and children's clothing. Pesticides can be found on fresh produce or picked up at restaurants that have incorrectly washed their produce, and lead can be found in older homes with old paint or even playgrounds.

Microsoft has announced a new climate change imitative that plans on saving the planet from the ever-growing concerns of climate change.

In Microsoft's announce the company states that it plans to be "carbon negative" by the year 2030 and on top of that it plans on removing any carbon its created as a company since its fruition in 1975. The company has said that it will be pledging $1 billion to its "climate innovation fund" to assist its "aggressive program" aiming towards minimalizing climate affects. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said, "The scientific consensus is clear. The world, today, is confronted with an urgent carbon crisis. If we don't curb emissions and the temperatures continue to climb, the science tells us the results will be devastating."

Nadella continues and says, "Each of us is going to need to take action, and that includes businesses. No one company can solve this macro challenge alone, but as a global technology company, we have a particular responsibility to do our part. That's why today we're announcing an ambitious new plan to help address the sustainability of our planet." By Microsoft's "carbon negative" definition, the company plans on removing more carbon that it's emitting per year.

A mystery virus broke out in the Chinese city of Wuhan in the last few days, with cases now being reported in the hundreds, evidence is suggesting that it's being transmitted "human-to-human".

The virus outbreak was reported back in December and was linked to a live-animal market in Wuhan called the South China Seafood Wholesale Market. Researchers who are investigating the origin of the virus confirmed that the virus was a never-before-seen coronavirus, which is in the same family as the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). The researchers suspect that the virus originated in the animals at the market and found viable human hosts, which then eventuated into the now current outbreak.

At the moment, China's state-run media has said that 218 cases of the virus confirmed, while that number seems low it's an important factor to remember is that China controls their media, so this number is likely much higher. According to SARS expert Zhong Nanshan, "Now we can say it is certain that it is a human-to-human transmission phenomenon. We expect the number of infected cases will increase over the Lunar New Year travel period, and we need to prevent the emergence of a super-spreader of the virus".