Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 204

NASA has announced that its experiemental supersonic X-59 jet has been approved for assembly. This jet could pave the way forward for commercial supersonic air travel.

The shape of the X-59 is to reduce the loudness of a sonic boom when the craft reaches those speeds. The idea of behind the design is to take that 'boom' and convert it more into a gentle thump, no louder than a car door being closed. According to NASA's website, the X-59 will be flown over US communities to generate data from both sensors and people on the ground. With this data, regulators will be able to create new guidelines for commercial air travel.

The X-59 Quiet SuperSonic Technology or QueSST for short is designed by Lockheed Martin in partnership with NASA. The first test flights for the craft could take place as soon as 2021. For those wondering what 'supersonic' speed is - the speed range of an aircraft travelling faster than Mach 1.3. For reference, Mach 1 is the speed of sound (343 m / s or 767 mph).

Looking into the center of the Milky Way can reveal some quite perplexing clues about how our universe began, and the events that have eventually brought us to what we now call the present.

Astronomers do this on a very regular occasion, and just recently, the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope or VLT for short, located in Chile's Atacama Desert managed to catch something amazing. Astronomers created a high-resolution image of our galaxy's center, and from the observations, they have learned of a new star formation burst that occurred in the early days of the Milky Way.

This burst of stars led to more than 100,000 supernovas, or more simply put, exploding stars. According to Rainer Schodel, a researcher with the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA) in Granada, Spain that led the study "Our unprecedented survey of a large part of the Galactic center has given us detailed insights into the formation process of stars in this region of the Milky Way. Contrary to what had been accepted up to now, we found that the formation of stars has not been continuous." It was found that about 80% of the stars located near the core of the Milky Way were formed anywhere between 8 billion and 13.5 billion years ago.

Astronomers have been on the hunt for habitable exoplanets since the first one was discovered. But since that discovery, astronomers have been finding out more and more reasons that complicate the possible existence of life on other planets.

Many exoplanets fall into what astronomers call the "habitable zone" which is a zone in space relative to their star where planets are able to maintain liquid water on their surface. These planets in the "habitable zone" are deemed the most likely to harbor forms of life. However, a recent study has found that not all exoplanets in this zone are prime candidates.

The study found that some exoplanets are subjected to radiation bursts from their neighboring star, and depending on the exoplanet, these radiation bursts could have significant impacts on the planet's atmosphere and, therefore, the chance of life. The study, which was published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters took into account the power of the solar bursts, the exoplanets' magnetic fields, and the atmospheric shielding. For more information on these findings, check out this link here.

Astronomers have, for the first time, mapped the surface of an extremely dense collapsed star, we call neutron stars. The new way of looking at the star raises some questions that are puzzling astronomers.

Aboard the International Space Station, the Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer, or NICER for short examines X-rays that are emitted from space. NICER observes these astronomical objects called pulsars (neutron stars), and researchers used NICER to observe the J0030+0451, or J0030 for short. From these observations, researchers at the University of Amsterdam and the University of Maryland managed to map the pulsar's surface and measure its mass.

The team managed to measure the neutron star in at 1.3 and 1.4 times the mass of the Sun. Funnily enough, the neutron star is only about 16 miles wide, while our Sun, on the other hand, is 864,000 miles wide. Originally, astronomers believed that the neutron star had two hotspots -- one at the top its magnetic pole and one at its bottom. What the astronomers found when mapping J0030 is that it has two or perhaps even three hotspots that are all located in its southern hemisphere. Astronomers didn't expect these results, but they believe that NICER is on the way to explaining what is truly going on with neutron stars.

Sometimes when you are observing space you run into things that you just don't expect, NASA recently experienced this when they pointed one of their satellites a comet.

NASA pointed their Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or better known as TESS at comet 46P/Wirtanen in an effort to merely test their systems. To their surprise the comet ejected an estimated 2.2 million pounds of materials (ice, dust and gas) in what looks very similar to that of a 'burp'. Scientists said that the 'burp' lasted for about one hour and occurred on September 26th, 2018.

This isn't the very first time astronomers have spotted a comet ejecting materials, but it is the first time that a satellite has observed the entire thing like TESS has done. According to the paper's lead author, astronomer Tony Farnham of the University of Maryland, "We can't predict when comet outbursts will happen. But even if we somehow had the opportunity to schedule these observations, we couldn't have done any better in terms of timing. The outburst happened mere days after the observations started."

I don't know about you, but when I was kid I had boxes and boxes of LEGO that my parents bought me to keep me out of their hair. This LEGO wasn't sorted in the slightest, in fact it probably couldn't of been more jumbled if you tried.

That's when I needed Daniel West's creation, or what he called the "Universal LEGO Sorting Machine". Let's call it the ULSM for sort. The ULSM is comprised of over 10,000 individual pieces of LEGO (yes, that does means LEGO is sorting LEGO) and uses AI to sort LEGO into one of 18 different buckets at a rate of about "about one brick every two seconds".

So how does it work? West explains in his video (above) that he trained the AI to sort bricks by feeding it realistic 3D images of LEGO parts, and then programmed it to learn which bucket to drop the observed brick into. This AI technique is called a convolutional neural network, and since this technique was used the machine is able to detect any LEGO piece ever created and even ones that it hasn't seen before.

Scientists assume that one of the main building blocks of life is water, which is why astronomers and scientists alike have been searching planets for it.

The main searches are in the "goldilocks zone" which is the area around a star where the temperatures are close that of Earth's or fall under the potentially habitable category. A team of scientists from the University of Cambridge looked into the atmospheric observation data of nineteen exoplanets in an attempt to try and figure out if their atmospheres could lead to the planet containing water.

The exoplanets ranged hugely in size, some being as big as six-hundred Earth masses on the higher side, and some being around ten Earth masses on the lower side. What was found was that water is much more common on these exoplanets than previously thought, but not in high quantities. Dr. Nikku Madhusudhan, who led the research, said, "We are seeing the first signs of chemical patterns in extra-terrestrial worlds, and we're seeing just how diverse they can be in terms of their chemical compositions. It is incredible to see such low water abundances in the atmospheres of a broad range of planets orbiting a variety of stars."

Earth is starting to have a really big problem when it comes to space junk, and the European Space Agency has noticed and is taking action. Prepare the space kamikaze garbage-collecting robots!

The low-Earth orbit zone measures in at about 1,200 miles in altitude, and located in this zone is about 3,000 broken satellites along with ten million-plus pieces of debris. While these pieces of satellite are small in comparison to the Earth and don't take up that much 'room' they still pose as an issue as they are traveling at tens of thousands of miles per hour.

If this 'space junk' collides with a working satellite, it can critically damage it and then create more space junk. Following this domino effect, you can probably see why we want as little of this in our atmosphere as possible. So what's the fix? The European Space Agency (ESA) are announcing plans to launch little robots that use their four arms to hug the debris and then drag it into Earth's atmosphere where it will burn up. At the moment, there are about 2,000 working satellites in Earth's orbit and 3,000 failed ones.

Just recently, NASA's Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft that is orbiting the red planet spotted some promising signs that Mars could contain fossils that could lead to life.

The Orbiter located NASA's Mars 2020 rover landing location called the Jezero Crater. Inside this crater, the spacecraft identified that hydrated silica, which is a mineral that is extremely good at persevering the previous contents of life. This means that when NASA's rover lands on Mars next year that it already has a spot to examine preserved signs of life.

It should be noted that silica is a crystal composed of silicon and oxygen and is commonly found in materials such as quartz, glass, and sand. Why are NASA and scientists after this mineral in particular? Because hydrated silica can hold water within its crystallized structure and on Earth, it can be formed in many different environments such as volcanic glass and on the ocean floor. Scientists also note that hydrated silica is one of the most robust materials we know of as it resists environmental decomposition from wind and water.

NASA announced this past Monday that they had completed the massive rocket that will be taking US astronauts back to the Moon sometime in 2024.

NASA's huge rocket called the Space Launch System is the tallest rocket ever built, measuring in at 212 feet or 65 meters tall. That's equivalent to a 20-story building. NASA's administrator Jim Bridenstine stood in front of the humongous rocket and officially announced that the core stage had been completed by engineers. Here's what he had to say, "[Today is a]very important day. When we get to announce core stage complete for in fact the SLS rocket."

He continued and said, "We are making significant progress towards achieving that Artemis 3 mission and getting our first woman, and next man to the south pole of the Moon in 2024." NASA's Artemis 1 mission is planned to launch an uncrewed flight in June 2020, but as delays are expected with these kinds of things, it's hard to know any specifics until the date is closer.

Amazon is going after President Trump over losing the $10 billion government contract to the Pentagon over JEDI, the huge Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure contract.

Microsoft secured the $10 billion contract over Amazon Web Services (AWS) and now the retail, cloud, and everything giant is mad -- so mad, it is suing the US government. Amazon believes Donald Trump was personally involved in Amazon losing the contract, with the company arguing the Defense Department "departed from the rules of procurement and complied - consciously or subconsciously - with its Commander in Chief's expressed desire to reject AWS's superior bid".

Amazon's complaint argues that the Defense Department made "obvious errors" in giving Microsoft the contract over AWS, adding that President Trump is "obsessed" with Bezos. Amazon also adds that President Trump, earlier this year, said he had heard "tremendous complaints about the contract with the Pentagon and with Amazon" and would have the Defense Department look "very closely" at the $10 billion JEDI contract.

The University of California just made a breakthrough in harnessing the most powerful light in the universe, which could lead to the creation of gamma-ray lasers.

Firstly, gamma rays are electromagnetic radiation that is emitted from the radioactive decay of atomic nuclei. Usually, these rays are extremely brief and very, very bright, meaning they harbor the most photon energy. Scientists at the University of California have figured out a way to make stable positronium atoms, which is the stepping stone to creating gamma-ray lasers that could lead to massive technological upgrades.

So how is this done? Scientists take a hydrogen-like atom that combines a mixture of both matter and antimatter (electrons and their antiparticles positrons) and collide them together - the collision results in gamma-ray photons being produced. So, to create gamma-ray lasers, scientists were required to find a way to stabilize the production process of gamma-ray photons by keeping the positronium atoms in the same quantum state. This was done through the use of helium, or, more precisely, liquid helium.

A team of researchers in China has successfully mixed DNA cells of a monkey with a pig embryo, creating the first every 'pig-monkey'.

In a new report by NewScientists, scientists and researchers from State Key Laboratory of Stem Cell and Reproductive Biology located in Beijing have created the very first pig-monkey chimera. If you aren't sure what a 'chimera' is, it's an organism that contains living cells of another organism. A natural example of this would be a human fetus absorbing its twin in the womb.

A not so natural example of a chimera is pig monkeys. The team of researchers took cells of a monkey and combined them with pig embryo's; they then placed those embryo's in female pigs and observed their growth. Out of the 4,000 embryos that were being tested, only ten pigs managed to be successfully grown and birthed. Out of those ten pigs that were birthed, only two of them were actually chimeras, and those two died just a week later. Scientists haven't yet determined their cause of death.

Firstly, yes, you did read that headline correctly, and that headline isn't a typo. The Hubble Space Telescope has taken an image of what is known as Hoag's object.

Hoag's object had perplexed astronomers since its discovery by Arthur Hoag back in 1950. Descriptions of the object are that it measures in at about 100,000 light-years across - larger than our Milky Way - and is located about 600 million light-years from our blue planet. The Hubble Space Telescope recent captured an image of the strange galaxy, and the image was processed by geophysicist Benoit Blanco.

Above, we can see the image which shows a ring of billions of blue stars that form a circle around another smaller ring of denser redder stars. Inside the dark space between the two circles is another galaxy that is located much farther away than the two previously mentioned. So, what's going on here? At the moment, astronomers can't quite put their finger on what has caused this phenomenon. Hoag himself said that the galaxy's strange rings could just be an optical illusion caused by gravitational lensing.

NASA has got the results back from their Parker Solar Probe flyby, and they have shined a new light on how space weather works.

Surprisingly, the results contradicted some expectations that scientists had regarding how solar winds behave. According to the results, there are flips in the Sun's magnetic field direction called "switchbacks", which can sometimes even point the winds back at the Sun. At the moment, the cause of these "switchbacks" is still unknown to scientists, but through the understanding of them, we could learn a deeper understanding of how stars are born.

Scientists were again shocked at the discovery of solar winds traveling at speeds that are "nearly ten times larger than predicted by the standard models", said Justin Kasper, principal investigator at the University of Michigan. Scientists also discovered that the Sun's radiation vaporizes dust particles at about 3.5 million miles around itself. The Parker Probe is at the moment suffering in terribly hot conditions, but scientists say the information that it is providing them is revolutionary.

SpaceX and NASA like to send some funny things to the International Space Station, but what's more amusing than a 'Robot Hotel' hitching a ride on SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket?

NASA has announced that SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket will be transporting NASA's 'robot hotel', or more formally known as the "Robotic Tool Stowage" unit. So what is this 'hotel'? The unit is designed to protect robots that will be working on the International Space Station when they aren't in use. Basically, this 'hotel' or more like a glorified garage for space robots.

Two robots have already got accommodation booked in NASA's space robot hotel. Both guests are called Robotic External Leak Locators or RELL for short. The name explains exactly what they are used for -- finding leaks on the external hull of the International Space Station. The robots have been previously used and stored inside the ISS, but since space inside the ship is the most optimal spot for storing, its better for work-flow and ease of storing to have them outside the station.

A comet called 2I/Borisov entered our solar system from a distant realm, and as it makes its way through our neighborhood astronomers have snapped some good photos of it.

A team of astronomers from Yale University located in Connecticut managed to capture some photos of Comet 2I/Borisov on Sunday, November 24. These photos were taken with the Keck Observatory in Hawaii and revealed to onlookers that the comet's tail measured in at about 100,000 miles long. To put this distance into perspective, that same distance is more than 40% the distance to the moon.

With a tail being that long, you'd imagine the size of the comet to be substantially large -- alas it isn't. Astronomers estimate 2I/Borisov's nucleus (center) to be just 1 mile in diameter. On December 8th, 2I/Borisov will make its closest pass to our Sun, then three weeks after that it will safely glide past Earth. Yale astronomy professor Greg Laughlin said, "Astronomers are taking advantage of Borisov's visit, using telescopes such as Keck to obtain information about the building blocks of planets in systems other than our own".

Astronomers have stumbled across a black hole that is so damn large that they are perplexed at how it even exists.

Just this past Thursday, astronomers managed to find a black hole that is so big that it challenges our current models of black holes. The black hole called LB-1 is 15,000 light-years from Earth and measures in at a mass of 70 times greater than the Sun. Astronomers have said that this black hole is twice as massive as anything scientists thought to be possible.

According to Liu Jifeng, a National Astronomical Observatory of China professor who led the research, "Black holes of such mass should not even exist in our galaxy, according to most of the current models of stellar evolution". Generally, scientists and astronomers believe there are two types of black holes. First, of which are stellar black holes, these are more common, up to 20 times more massive than the Sun and form when a star collapses in on itself.

Scientists have managed to create the first-ever device that can program either photons or electrons with information.

Harish Bhaskaran's Advanced Nanoscale Engineering research group at the University of Oxford, partnered with other research universities, has conceived the first-of-a-kind electro-optical device. This device paves the way forward for achieving faster and more energy-efficient memories and processors. For some time, humans have been toying with the idea of being able to transfer information at the speed of light, now that idea is within reach.

This device uses light to encode as well as transfer information, which means that the speed of which the information is traveling is that of -- light. So how did the researchers do this? Originally there was a compatibility issue between photons and electrons being used for data storage. So, the researchers reduced the size of the light down into nanoscopic dimensions and combined that with an increase in energy density. For a more detailed explanation, visit this link here.

If you are aboard the International Space Station (ISS) the last thing you want to have to do is to wear an adult diaper to relieve yourself. Unfortunately, that's what astronauts are going to have to do in the near future.

According to the Sputnik Insight Twitter account which tracks all news regarding the ISS, that "All toilets are out of order on the ISS" and that astronauts will soon have to be forced into using diapers in the near future. According to the Sputniknews website, there are two toilets aboard the ISS, both of which are Russian made.

The first toilet is located in the US module, while the second is located in the Russian one. ISS commander Luca Parmitano is reportedly informing NASA that the US toilet is singling that its out of order and not working, while the Russian one is reportedly filled to the maximum. NASA has since said that the US module toilet is 'operational', but we are yet to confirm if this is true or not. This situation seems sh*tty, hopefully it's worked out soon.