Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 215

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.

Venezuela has been plunged into darkness for the fourth time this year with another nationwide blackout hitting the country, in something that Venezuelan officials are calling a hostile "electromagnetic attack".

The blackout has taken most of the country down including the capital Caracas, with close to 94% of the Venezeulan telecommunications infrastructure affected. Internet connectivity in the country has dropped to 10% nationwide, which means we're not hearing much out of the country and whatever comes out, is in drips.

The Venezuelan government released a statement on Twitter saying the blackout was "an electromagnetic attack" but didn't point any fingers in who did it. Officials are working around the clock to restore power and internet cconnectivity, while working on supplies like food and water, as well as health services and transportation.

Elon Musk is the real-life Tony Stark of our age, founding companies such as Tesla and SpaceX and pioneering some of the best technology advancements in their respective fields.

SpaceX is currently designing a selection of rockets, some of which are eventually aimed at to at taking us humans to Mars. The rocket that is shaping up to be the winner of the Mars race is SpaceX's Super Heavy Rocket. Originally, the Super Heavy Rocket was planned to have 31 next-generation Raptor Engines, each of the engines are powered by cryogenic liquid methane and liquid oxygen. Ignition of both of these substances creates 200 tonnes of force per engine, and the Super Heavy Rocket now has 41 of them on at launch.

Musk recently took to Twitter to answer a fans question regarding the full stack of engines on the rocket. Musk replied with "Full stack is 41 rn, but kinda beggin for just one more ..." SpaceX's Super Heavy booster will be launching the 100-passenger Starship vehicle towards Mars. Starship will be powered by 6 Raptors, which explains the total of 41 - Super Heavy having 35 + Starship having 6. Funnily enough, SpaceX already has one round flight booked to the moon, Yusaku Maezawa will be taking the Starship Super Heavy rocket around the moon sometime in 2023.

During the 50th anniversary for the Apollo 11 Moon missions, Vice President, Mike Pence shared with the American people some great news surrounding the next moon mission, Artemis 1.

NASA is currently planning on returning to the moon by 2024, and to do that the space exploration company needs to do two preparation tests on their brand new spacecraft called Orion. This new space program has been called Artemis by NASA - in honor of Apollo's twin sister in Greek Mythology and will consist of three stages.

The Artemis 1 launch will an uncrewed spacecraft thousands of miles past the moon. Artemis 2 will consist of the astronaunts actually being aboard Orion, and then finally Artemis 3 will be the launch where American astronauts will step foot back on the moon. Before these checkpoints of the Artemis space program can go underway, there still needs to be some final tests done to Orion before its blasted off into space.

A recent discovery has come out from the Faulty of Physics, University of Warsaw and University of Oxford regarding Quantum Computation and how it is much faster then standard methods we are using today.

According to the scientists from the mentioned Universities, the discovery has been deemed the 'Holy Grail' of computer science and will unlock more faster and more accurate data processing. The studies suggests that with this now new found knowledge, quantum technologies could boost applications such as medical diagnostics, robotics, artificial intelligence and much more.

Since the the 1970's, we have been using the Fast Fourier Transform algorithm (FFT). This algorithm makes it possible to efficiently compress and transmit data, store pictures, broadcast digital TV and talk over our phones. While this algorithm is widely used, it still has limited capabilities. The answer to these limitations has now be found in the power of Quantum Mechanics with what has been called the Quantum Fourier Transform (QFT).

Ever wondered the fastest possible time with a Rubik's Cube? Its not by a human, but of course an artificial intelligence and boy its quick.

Above we have Ben Katz and Jared Di Carlo who have engineered a robot that can solve a Rubik's Cube much faster than humanly possible. This robot can solve a puzzle in just 0.38 seconds, which is the current record on paper. This news came out in March of last year, but now we have a new invention in the artificial intelligence Rubik's Cube solving field. This time, researchers behind DeepCubeA have managed to teach their artificial intelligence through human experience to solve a cube in 1.2 seconds.

While this might not be as fast as Katz and Di Carlo's demonstration, DeepCubeA's AI managed to solve the cube in less moves. This is because the system focuses on using real learning experience and to improve speeds. DeepCubeA equipped their AI with roughly 10 billion different puzzle combinations, this repertoire of combinations allowed for the AI to complete the puzzle in just 28 moves. The average human takes around 50 moves to solve a Rubik's Cube.

Israeli-Russian physicist, Yuri Milner has decided to partner up with VERITAS to go on the hunt for alien communication code in a completely different way.

Yuri Milner decided to fund Breakthrough Listen, a science based program with the initiative of discovering extraterrestrial intelligence somewhere across the cosmos. To help them do that, Breakthrough have partnered up with VERITAS, or - Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System. The goal of the partnership is to basically search the surrounding stars for alien morse code through nanosecond-long optical pulses.

The most conventional way of looking for alien communication is through radio waves, so the line of thinking behind is the project is to stray away from the norm and try something different in hopes of receiving some form of information. As we don't know how aliens communicate, anything is really worth a shot. Its certainly not guaranteed that Breakthrough or VERITAS will stumble across something, but hopefully they do because it will be good to know that we aren't alone out here.

Elon Musk's research company that is creating what could be the bridge between the brain and technology is beginning its testing on human subjects as early as next year.

Musk's Neuralink is the newest technology in brain-interfacing and has the goal of what Musk describes as a way of achieving a "a sort of symbiosis with artificial intelligence." Doing this will pave the way forward for human benefits in the field of medical science and other fields. At the moment the technology is quite new, and for it to be used applicants will have to surrender their skulls to a drilling process that will create the ultra thin holes that are required to insert the Neuralink threading.

While this might seem out of the ball park for human technological capabilities, Musk's company performed tests on rats and the performance results exceeded that of today's systems. The rats that were tested showed exceptional data transfer results, the data was captured through a USB-C port located on the head of the rat, and provided 10x more than what the best current sensors can offer. Long term, Neuralink plans to allow for the electrodes that are planted in the subjects head to be able to communicate wirelessly with chips outside the brain (image above).

Area 51 is going to light up on September 20 for all the right reasons, with a huge crowd of people planning to storm Area 51 in Nevada. The event is being organized on Facebook with 1.6 million people (and it keeps going up) planning to attend Storm Area 51, They Can't Stop All of Us.

The event will see the millions of people at the time meeting at the Area 51 Alien Center tourist attraction and then from there the post says they will "coordinate our entry" into Area 51. Better yet, in case the government starts shooting at people to stop them the post adds that "if we naruto run, we can move faster than their bullets", finishing on a more positive note of "Lets see them aliens". Yeah BOI.

The United States Air Force is putting its military foot to the ground, with Air Force spokesperson Laura McAndrews telling ABC News: "The United States Air Force is aware of the Facebook post. The Nevada Test and Training Range is an area where the Air Force tests and trains combat aircraft. As a matter of practice, we do not discuss specific security measures, but any attempt to illegally access military installations or military training areas is dangerous".

Americans are currently celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 space launch, and what better way to experience it all over again then with an interactive website that shows you the entire thing.

In celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 launch that occurred on Wed Jul 16th, 1969 a website has been developed and dedicated to re-living the whole experience. Users can go to this website here which has been sourced entirely of historical material.

Heading over to the website we can see that it can filtered by 'mission milestones', as well as the transcript has been provided and updates in real-time as the launch progresses. There is also images on the right-hand side of the site, each of the images are from the official launch taken by NASA and the astronauts themselves.

Perhaps the future of human health benefits will come in the form of tiny robots that assist your health problems from the inside your body.

The above video has been released onto the official Georgia Tech YouTube Channel and showcases what is has been called a "bristle-bot". The bot is only 2mm (about 0.08in) in length, weighs 5mg and can move at about 8mm per second. Not only are the bots, small fast and diversable, but they are made out of lead ziconate titante and have the ability to turn voltage into vibration for movement.

Georgia Tech has developed these bots but at the moment they wouldn't be much benefit to health insitutes as they can only move in one director and can't carry a payload. The end goal of these bots is eventually equipping them with the ability to jump and swim. Once these goals are completed and implemented, we could see these bots being adopted to combat health problems and fix people from inside their bodies out.

Humans are continuously attempting to map the stars and gain a better understanding of the planets we have in our solar system. One of those planets that are in our understanding slow cooker is our very own red planet, Mars.

Scientists are hell-bent on attempting to figure out if Mars was home to its very own version of life and now a recent discovery coming out MSL Curiosity regarding a specific Mars landmark and how it could of potentially been the spot life developed. MSL Curiosity is Mars Space Laboratory, a space probe mission with a goal of discovering more about Mars and if life was ever at home on the planet.

Christopher House is a Professor of Geosciences at Penn State University, he is involved within NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission and in a press release from Penn State University he talked about the discoveries made in Mars' Gale Crater. "Gale Crater appears to have been a lake environment. The water would have persisted for a million years or more." The team managed to locate a mudstone in the crater and also find that "the whole system, including the groundwater that ran through it, lasted much longer, perhaps even a billion or more years."

As America and NASA come closer to the 50th anniversary celebration of the Moon landing, NASA administrator, Jim Bridenstine shined a light on what the next space-program will be.

Bridenstine was on Face The Nation and was iasked about how NASA plans on getting to the Moon within the next 5 years. According to Bridenstine, "There's two risks. There's technical risk and there's political risk. We would be on the moon right now if it weren't for the political risk. We would be on Mars, quite frankly, by now had it not been for the political risk." Combining into the 'political risk' is the other half the equation which is funding, which Bridenstine also says that was a massive issue.

Since the announcement by the Vice President for a Moon mission in the next 5 years, NASA has recently received the funding necessary to make this mission possible. Donald Trump recently said on Twitter that the Moon mission should not be focused on, and rather that Mars should be America's next goal.

The human race has made another milestone in the quantum entanglement field where they have managed to teleport an electron to a low-orbiting satellite 300 miles away.

According to a team of researchers in China, scientists have managed to use quantum entanglement to teleport an electron 300 miles away. An MIT Technology Review said that this is the furthest the technology has managed to teleport an object, the scientists findings have been published in a paper online at arXiv.

This isn't the first test of its kind, for about a month these scientists have conducted many tests and have beamed up millions of photons from their ground site located in Tibet. The team said that "This work establishes the first ground-to-satellite up-link for faithful and ultra-long-distance quantum teleportation, an essential step toward global-scale quantum Internet."

The global understanding of how the universe works could get another injection of information after a new Russian space probe conducts its 6.5 year survey of the cosmos once it reaches its destination.

Russia partnered with Germany has successfully launched a new space probe telescope called Spektr-RG, and after its 100 day journey to Lagrange Point 2 it will be surveying the surrounding galaxies. Spektr-RG will be surveying for 6.5 year survey that is expected to gather information on 100,000 galaxies clusters, hundreds of thousands of active stars and 3 million supermassive black holes.

With this new information that will be recovered, its believed that the human race as a whole will be given a better understanding of how the universe is mapped. Not only will this new map be great, scientist also expect to gain a better understanding of how black holes form and the distribution of matter is throughout the universe. Dark energy is also on the list of theories that should gain some level of information.