Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 214

There is an asteroid floating around out in space called that has been estimated to be worth $700 quintillion, if NASA retrieves this asteroid and divided it up with the population everyone would receive about $93 billion each.

While that isn't NASA's plan at all, they will still be visiting the asteroid and much sooner than you might think. Originally the asteroid was found back in 1852 by Italian astronomer Annibale de Gasparis, and NASA now will be going to '16 Psyche' to investigate its properties. Considering the size of 16 Psyche, and the properties which are 95% metals (iron and nickel), NASA won't be traveling to the asteroid for its insane value but instead for a great comparison of its composition versus Earths.

Scientists believe that since the asteroids composition is very similar to that of Earths, we could learn some brand new information about how our own core works, or some new information about how planets are formed. When purely speaking about monetary value, some companies have already formed and are concentrating on building the infrastructure of space mining. Companies such as EuroSun Mining are looking towards the space economy which Morgan Stanley has estimated to $350 billion today, but by 2040 jumps to $2.7 trillion.

Researchers have announced that they have formed a brand new 3D model of our Milky Way galaxy, giving us a much better understanding of the surrounding stars.

Researchers Dorota M. Skowron, Jan Skowron, Przemek Mroz and more published an article in the American Association for the Advancement of Science, revealing a new large-scale model of our Milky Way galaxy and the thousands of Cepheid stars. Cepheid stars are a type of star that pulsates radially and are found scattered across galaxies.

The new scale that has been devised by the researchers enables us to gain a better understanding of the S-like structure inside the Milky Way's warped stellar disc. Co-author, Przemek Mroz said "Our map shows the Milky Way disk is not flat. It is warped and twisted. This is the first time we can use individual objects to show this in three dimensions." Traditional maps of the Milky Way are built upon indirect measurements to celestial landmarks and interference's of other galaxies in the universe.

Scientists and astronomers led by Cornell's Lisa Kaltenegger have announced that they have discovered a 'super-Earth' planet in a nearby solar system.

The planet was found using NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite or TESS for short. Kaltenegger, associate professor of astronomy, director of Cornell's Carl Sagan Institute and a member of the TESS science team spoke out about the discovery, saying "This is exciting, as this is humanity's first nearby super-Earth that could harbor life-uncovered with help from TESS, our small, mighty mission with a huge reach."

Astronomers from the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands and the University of La Laguna, both in Spain, said that this planet is located in the Gj 357 system to the journal of Astronomy & Astrophysics. The solar system GJ 357 contains a sun that is about one-third the size of our own, and only has three other planets in the entire system. GJ 357 d, the Earth-like planet is located in what seems to be habitable zone in comparison to its position with the star.

NASA has announced that they have partnered up with Elon Musk's space exploration company SpaceX, and Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos' aerospace manufacturer Blue Origin to advance Moon landing technology.

According to the announcement, NASA has identified areas in which private and public companies can assist them in developing further advancements in space technology. SpaceX and Blue Origin will be working with NASA's Langley Research Center in Virginia and Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama to develop and evaluate materials that could be used on future lunar rovers.

Other technological advancements that are in the pipeline are a navigation and guidance system for more precise and accurate Moon landings. A SpaceX spokesperson gave a statement regarding the new deals between the company and NASA, saying "We believe SpaceX's fleet of advanced rockets and spacecraft, including Falcon Heavy and Starship, are integral to accelerating NASA's lunar and Mars plans." Jim Reuter, associate administrator of NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) also gave a statement, saying "NASA's proven experience and unique facilities are helping commercial companies mature their technologies at a competitive pace."

Scientists have just captured the first-ever image of the naturally occurring and extremely interesting phenomenon called 'Quantum Entanglement'.

Quantum Entanglement has perplexed scientists for quite some time, even going back to the creator of the general theory of relativity, Albert Einstein. Einstein called Quantum Entanglement "spooky action at a distance" as particles can remain connected to each other such that their physical properties will influence one another no matter the distance between them.

Scientists at the University of Glasgow recently conducted an experiment with an array of lasers and crystals that allowed for them to entangle photons, or light particles. The scientists hit the crystals with the ultraviolet (UV) laser that caused some of the photons to break off, resulting in some of the photons entangling and giving the scientists an opportunity to capture the entanglement in action. Miles Padgett, the professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Glasgow commented on the experiment, saying this is "the pivotal test of quantum entanglement" and that "this is the first time anyone has used a camera to confirm [it]."

NASA's Apollo 11 mission was not only a pivotal point in human history, but also a gift that keeps on giving as the work the astronauts did aboard the massive space rock still is helping us out today.

In 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin blasted off to the surface of the Moon, after a successful landing and an adventure out onto the wasteland-like surface, science needed to be conducted. One of the experiements the two astronauts did was the installation of glass prism arrays on the Moon's surface. These prisms were placed there so scientists back on Earth could fire lasers at them and measure the distance between Earth and the Moon.

While those prisms were placed there back in 1969, they are still being used today and have delivered an extraordinary amount of valuable information. Observatories on Earth have fired lasers at these prisms and waited for the light to return back to Earth to measure the distance between the two floating objects. It was discovered that the Moon is actually moving 1.5 inches away from Earth each year, and that at the moment the Moon is currently 384,400km away from Earth.

Tesla has just announced its new Megapack, a new gigantic battery system that will replace "peaker" power plants that will see energy being generated when the local electricity grid gets overloaded.

The new Tesla Megapack is already being deployed, with Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) using multiple Megapacks at Moss Landing on Monterey Bay, California. This is just 1 of 4 locations that will see Tesla's new Megapack batteries installed, with each of them storing up to 3 megawatt hours (MWh) of energy at a time.

They can be daisy-chained to store over 1GWh of energy storage, something that Tesla claims is enough energy to power every home in San Francisco for six hours. In typical Tesla engineering fashion, the new Megapacks will include "battery modules, bi-directional inverters, a thermal management system, an AC main breaker and controls".

The International Space Station (ISS), just like anyone's room or house, accumulates garbage or rubbish over time. ISS astronauts have now disposed some of their built up garbage by using Earth's atmosphere.

Just recently, Elon Musk's space exploration company, SpaceX launched a cargo ship to the ISS via their Falcon 9 rocket. The Falcon 9 was carrying their Dragon Capsule that contained supplies for numerous scientific experiments, and other necessities for the astronauts aboard. This morning, the docking compartment on the Russian section of the ISS released the Progress 72 cargo spacecraft. This craft was at the ISS for 4 months and once its supplies were extracted after its arrival it was literally used as one big bin.

When re-entering the Earth's atmosphere, the object is introduced to extreme friction which causes sparks and intense flames to be produced. This is the disposal method for the rubbish on the ISS as Progress 72 is now currently making its way down to Earth's atmosphere loaded with "trash and discarded gear for a fiery, but safe disposal over the Pacific Ocean." In other news about the ISS, the supplies that SpaceX's Dragon Capsule were carrying will allow for scientists to test 3D human tissue printing in low gravity, more on that here.

Considering the thought that glasses technology will soon be adopted by the mainstream, what would be the extent of that technology? Perhaps some sci-fi level contact lenses that allow the user to have mini-binoculars in their eyes.

Scientists at the University of California, San Diego have designed and created some brand new contact lenses that can do just that. The lenses are capable of measuring the electrooculographic signals the eye creates when it is moved up and down. Since these signals are tracked, the lenses measure the impulses that are generated by the eye and when users blink twice the focal length on the lenses is adjusted.

The focal length on these contact lenses can be changed by as much as 32%, simply by the user of the contacts moving their eyes and blinking twice. Shengqiang Cai, a lead researcher for the new contacts told New Scientist, "Even if your eye cannot see anything, many people can still move their eyeball and generate this electro-oculographic signal." Since these signals are always being sent from the eye, researchers say that these contacts could have applications in "visual prostheses, adjustable glasses, and remotely operated robotics in the future."

In something out of an evil villain from a superhero movie, the French government is pushing to have lasers and guns on its satellites by as early as 2030.

French President Emmanuel Macron announced news of a French space force defending its satellites recently, which has quickly morphed into seeing France's Ministry of Defense announcing a new project that would see guns and lasers attached to satellites. The country is spending $780 million of its military budget in space defense, adding to the existing $4 billion military program for 2019-2025.

The country has planned for its military to build next-gen satellites that are capable of detecting enemies and other objects with cameras, and then the successor to that gets huge upgrades with on-board submachine guns, and even lasers that will be used in a destructive force to "disable other satellites" by shooting their solar panels.

Before you freak out, asteroids whizz past Earth all the time and NASA is currently tracking 90 percent of the most dangerous asteroids in space. There is no immediate global level threat at the moment, but astronomers did just miss an asteroid that could of caused a nuclear-level destruction.

The asteroid was called 2019 OK and on July 25th, it flew passed Earth at a range of 45,000 miles. The asteroid ranged in size from 187-427 feet and according to Michael Brown, an associate professor in astronomy at Monash University in Australia, if the asteroid collided with Earth the destruction would devastating. "The lack of warning shows how quickly potentially dangerous asteroids can sneak up on us" said Brown.

This also isn't the first time an asteroid has appeared out of nowhere to us, back in 2013 a meteor exploded over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk and the blast was stronger than a nuclear explosion. This meteor injured over 1,000 people and was only 66 feet in diameter which is much smaller than 2019 OK which just flew past Earth. Astronomers will still continue to monitor asteroids and better yet NASA are currently working on ways to deflect asteroids that are in route to collide with Earth.

A couple of days ago, SpaceX launched their Dragon Capsule spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS) on a cargo delivery mission. That craft has now be successfully grabbed by the ISS's robotic arm.

On July 25th, SpaceX launched the Dragon Capsule on their Falcon 9 rocket containing more than 5,000 lbs of supplies and equipment. The craft also contains 2,500 lbs of science gear that will enable and fuel many experiments that will be conducted on the ISS by astronauts.

Flight controllers on Earth will operate the ISS's robotic space arm to port the craft on the ISS which will then enable the on-board astronauts to venture into the capsule to acquire the supplies. The supplies that will be on-board of the Dragon Capsule will enable the astronauts to conduct experiments in low-gravitational environments. Some of these experiments include the fabrication of human tissue using a 3D printer and how microgravity affects the process of human tissue healing and regeneration.

NASA's 20 year old Chandra X-Ray Observatory launched from the surface of Earth to give NASA, and their researchers a better understanding of how radiation is produced and observed in the universe.

The observatory launched 20 years ago and was named after the Nobel Prize winner Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, who was an indian American astrophysicist and was honored for his contribution towards the now current understanding of astronomy. Chandra X-Ray Observatory launched back on July 23, 1999 and has been orbiting earth and observing the structure of huge galaxy clusters ever since.

Belinda Wilkes, Chandra X-ray Center director gave a statement on some newly released images out of Chandra, saying "Chandra remains peerless in its ability to find and study X-ray sources. Since virtually every astronomical source emits X-rays, we need a telescope like Chandra to fully view and understand our universe." Not only is Chandra observing galaxies and star clusters, the observatory is also monitoring gravitational waves (massive ripples in space-time) and black hole mergers.

A recent study conducted by some international astronomers has shined a light on a dying star that is very similar to the one that is in our solar system and how it will eventually die.

It is a strange thought to consider the fact that our Sun, literally the source of life in our solar system will eventually die. Perhaps not in our life time (you reading this), but eventually it will. Dr Meridith Joyce, an astronomer at The Australian National University (ANU) in collaboration with Dr Laszlo Molnár and Dr Laszlo Kiss from the Konkoly Observatory of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences conducted the recent study on T Ursae Minoris (T UMi).

The astronomers observed T Ursae Minoris becoming unstable with internal energy flares from nuclear fusion that are deemed "hiccups" by the astronomers. These "hiccups" are scientifically called thermal pulses and according to Dr Joyce, "cause drastic, rapid changes in the size and brightness of the star, which are detectable over centuries. The pulses of old stars like T UMi also enrich the entire Universe with elements including carbon, nitrogen, tin and lead."

Following up on yesterday's news regarding the delay of SpaceX's cargo mission to the International Space Station (ISS), recent news coming out from SpaceX confirms that today's launch was a success and that the Dragon capsule is on its way to the ISS.

And we have lift off, or at least SpaceX has gotten lift off from their Falcon 9 rocket carrying the robotic Dragon Space Capsule planned for connection with the ISS. This successful launch marks the 18th mission for SpaceX and also the first time that the same Dragon spacecraft has flown to the ISS three times.

In celebration of this milestone, SpaceX has placed three decals on the side of the capsule, two ISS logos and one more to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing back in 1969. Bill Specht, NASA's deputy manager for ISS Transport Integration spoke out about the launch, saying "Historically today, 50 years ago, we were able to complete Kennedy's challenge to get men to the moon."

If you didn't know, SpaceX planned to launch a rocket to the International Space Station on a cargo mission. That planned flight has been unfortunately delayed.

The original scheduled launch was for today, July 24th and SpaceX's workhorse rocket the Falcon 9 was planned to take a robotic Dragon cargo capsule. The location for the launch was from Launch Complex 40 at Cap Canaveral Air Force Station at 6:24 p.m. EDT (2024 GMT).

This isn't the first time the Falcon 9 and the Dragon have taken flight, as SpaceX has already gotten two completed flights to the ISS. According to the Air Force's 45th Space Wing Weather Squadron, there was only a 30% chance that today's weather would act as expected. Will Ulrich, a official employee at the Weather Squadron said "Today's weather looks terrible. There's a pretty unique weather pattern we have in place. With an instantaneous window today, either the weather is good or it is not."

Most people are extremely curious of the vastness of space, as within the infinite black there is truly some beauty found in observing galaxies and star clusters. That is what we have here today, a perfect image of a galaxy millions of light-years away.

NASA's Hubble Telescope is one the leading telescopes that observe our universe and just a couple of days ago NASA release an image of a galaxy spotted. The galaxy that was observed was NGC 2985, which is about 70 million light-years from Earth and Hubble managed to capture the incredible above image.

From the image we can see that NGC 2985 is a spiral galaxy that is almost near symmetrical, which is quite rare for galaxies we have observed. This is because when a galaxy is developing over the course of millions of years they usually bleed into and become a part of a neighboring galaxy which creates a non-symmetrical appearance when observed. An example of this is our own Milky Way galaxy as 10 billion years ago it consumed a smaller galaxy about quarter of its size, more on that here.

Toyota has released a new video showcasing their next-gen lunar rover they have planned for manufacturing. The rover will be pressurized and will be able to house astronauts for some period of time.

In the above video which was been released onto the Toyota Motor Corporation YouTube Channel, we are introduced to the rover project that is a collaboration between The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and Toyota. From the video we learn that the rover will use electric fuel cell technology and be equipped with solar panels to power its journeys across the moons surface.

The rover plans also include the ability of astronauts being able to live inside the rover for select amounts of time. The astronauts will also be able to remove their space suits as the inside of the rover will be pressurized. Toyota and JAXA expect that the rover will have a total lunar-surface cruising range of more than 10,000km, which is quite a feat when you consider that the total circumferance of the moons surface is just over 10,900km.

A recent study has come out that suggests that scientists current understanding of what is on the moon might not be completely fulfilled.

A new research paper that has been published in Nature Geoscience by Lior Rubanenko, Jaahnavee Venkatraman and David Paige suggests that there might actually be more water on the moons surface than once expected. Using data from the Arecibo Observatory and also NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft, we found that Mercury has much more water in its cratered areas on its surface. These craters revealed ice vapor and ice deposits.

Since it was unexpected that Mercury contained thick ice sheets, we looked for the same craters on the moon to see if the trend followed. The research states that due to material buildup inside of these divots or craters, ice was eventually formed. Researchers have now located 2,000 craters across Mercury's surface and have cross-referenced these craters with the moons surface and have found 12,000 similar looking craters.

Imagine watching a galaxy level battle between two galaxies fighting it out to see who is going to win on the consumption level. The Milky Way is an undefeated champion in this regard as 10 billion years ago it swallowed up a fellow galaxy.

About 10 billion years ago, the Milky Way had a "violent collision" with another galaxy. Researchers from the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC) used the Gaia space telescope to observe the position, brightness and distance of over 1 million stars in the Milky Way. The observation was within 6,500 light years of the Sun and indentified two clusters of stars - one set being "blue" and containing less metal and the other "red" containing more.

From this observation the researchers were able to determine that each of the sets of stars were equally as old, except that the blue set had been set into a "chaotic" motion. This is the evidence of The Milky Way swallowing up another galaxy around 10 billion years ago. "The novelty of our work is that we have been able to assign precise ages to the stars that belong to the galaxies that merged and, by knowing these ages, when the merger took place," Carme Gallart, lead author of the study published in Nature Astronomy.