Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 22

NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) involved NASA sending a vending machine-sized spacecraft to a binary asteroid system in an attempt to prove the space agency has the capability to redirect potentially dangerous asteroids.

The mission was deemed an overall success as NASA's high-speed spacecraft collided with the moonlet Dimorphos, which is orbiting a larger asteroid called Didymos. The collision took place on September 26, 2023, and the DART spacecraft reduced the Dimorphos' orbit around Didymos by 33 minutes, making its total time to complete one orbit around its parent 11 hours and 23 minutes. The success of the mission demonstrated that Earth has planetary defense capabilities to redirect dangerous asteroids years in advance if one is detected.

Now, the DART impact seems to have had a permanent change on the appearance of Dimorphos, as a team of researchers led by University of Bern scientist Sabina Raducan performed high-level computer simulations that determined that Dimorphos is a loose, rubble-pile asteroid. The impact of the DART spacecraft has caused what researchers call global deformation, which is the process of interior material becoming surface material. According to the team's calculations, between 0.5% and 1% of Dimorphos' mass was ejected after DART's impact, with 8% of its mass being redistributed throughout the asteroid.

NASA's Mars rover named Perseverance has snapped a new photograph of the Mars helicopter situated on the desolate Red Planet.

The helicopter named Ingenuity landed on Mars with Perseverance in February 2021, and during its active time, the 4-pound helicopter served as a reconnaissance drone for Perseverance as it was sent ahead of the rover to collect data on the upcoming terrain and any potential scientific prospects that warranted further inspection by the rover. Ingenuity flew 72 separate times while active on the Red Planet, and on January 18, it endured catastrophic damage through a hard landing.

Following the January 18 flight, NASA confirmed that a piece of at least one of Ingenuity's rotor blades had broken off - this was confirmed by a selfie image snapped by Ingenuity. This damage forced NASA to retire Ingenuity and nickname the location where it now sits Valinor Hills, a reference to J.R.R Tolkien's Valinor, a heaven-like place in Middle-Earth where elves and some hobbits return to following the destruction of the One Ring.

NASA's powerful radar system detected an asteroid zoom past Earth on February 2, and according to estimations, the asteroid named 2008 OS7 is approximately the size of a stadium.

The space rock was detected using the Goldston Solar System Radar, and according to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), 2008 OS7 orbits the Sun every 2.6 years, coming extremely close to Venus at its closest point to the Sun and then eventually out past Mars' orbit when it's at its greatest distance from the Sun. NASA has categorized 2008 OS7 as "potentially hazardous" due to its size and proximity to Earth, but it's not considered a direct threat to our planet, as represented by its fly-by on February 2.

When 2008 OS7 passed by Earth, it was at a distance of 1.8 million miles, or about 7.5 times the distance between the Earth and the moon. While that may seem like an extreme distance when thinking about how far away things are on Earth, in space, that is considered to be quite close, hence the "potentially hazardous" categorization by NASA. The asteroid was first discovered in 2008, and researchers estimated it was anywhere between 650 and 1,650 feet wide.

Odysseus, the lunar lander that made history on February 22 when it touched down on the surface of the moon just 190 miles from the lunar south pole.

The landing of Odysseus marked the first time a privately built lander has ever touched down on the Moon, while also being the first US-built vehicle to do so since the Apollo 17 mission conducted in 1972. The company behind Odysseus is Houston-based Intuitive Machines, which took to its X account to share images captured by Odysseus during its descent to the lunar surface. The company posted three photos and according to Intuitive Machines they are the "closest observations of any spaceflight mission to the south pole region of the moon".

More specifically, these images were captured at just 100 feet above the lunar surface while Odysseus' main engine throttled down from a staggering 24,000 mph to almost zero. Unfortunately, the landing wasn't completely perfect as Intuitive Machines believes that Odysseus tipped over shortly after its touchdown, which is causing delays with sending/receiving data. Despite the lunar lander being tipped over its still able to carry out its scientific objectives as some of its solar panels are in the right position to gather energy, while none of NASA's instruments appear to damaged.

The lunar lander that successfully landed on the surface of the Moon on February 22 sent back a photograph of the lunar surface while it began to circle the Moon in preparation for landing.

The lunar lander named Odysseus became the first US-built lander to touch down on the surface of the Moon since the Apollo 17 missions in 1972. Odysseus was constructed by Houston-based company Intuitive Machines, which celebrated its achievement of landing on the lunar surface just a few days ago. However, the landing wasn't without any problems as it appears Odysseus has tipped over, according to Intuitive Machines company CEO Steve Altemus.

Before the landing, Odysseus was instructed to enter the Moon's orbit in preparation for the touchdown, and while the lander approached the Moon's orbit, it captured its target with its Terrain Relative Navigation camera at a distance of approximately 62,137 miles. As for Odysseus now, Altemus said the phone-booth-sized spacecraft likely tipped over after one of its feet caught a rock located on the surface of the Moon, or Odysseus had accidentally landed/fallen into a crater.

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has discovered a galaxy in the early universe that's so massive that its mere existence challenges current theories of the evolution of the universe.

According to the authors behind the study, which has recently been published in the scientific journal Nature, astronomers diving through Webb's data discovered a galaxy called ZF-UDS-7329. This galaxy contains more stars than the Milky Way and formed just 800 million years after the occurrence of the Big Bang (13.8 billion years ago).

The discovery of this galaxy poses a "significant challenge" to current cosmological models of the formation of the universe as it appears the galaxy and its stars formed without dark matter due to the period of time in which the formation occurred - something that was previously thought impossible per current cosmological models. Study co-author Claudia Lagos explained early galaxies are typically believed to have formed through massive dark matter structures holding matter together, essentially seeding the emergence of a galaxy.

As the Sun approaches its peak in activity a space probe has snapped an incredible photograph of the intensity increasing on the solar surface.

The peak in solar activity is called the solar maximum, and it's the height of an 11-year solar cycle. During this period, the Sun's strong magnetic fields shift more frequently, which creates sunspots, flares, explosions, loops of plasma, and swirls of superheated gas. The above and below images were snapped by the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) instrument equipped to the European Space Agency's (ESA) Solar Orbiter space probe.

According to the space agency, the most recent solar minimum occurred in December 2019, which is a time when the Sun's activity is at its lowest, as showcased by the image snapped in February 2021. The ESA writes on its website that the solar maximum is expected to take place sometime in 2025, with some astronomers predicting the solar maximum could arrive even earlier given how active the Sun has been.

US space exploration history books have a new entry as the first privately built Moon lander has touched down on the surface of the Moon, marking the first U.S.-built spacecraft to do so since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972.

The first US company to achieve a Moon landing is Houston-based Intuitive Machines, which partnered with NASA to construct and send the Odysseus lunar lander to the surface of Earth's closest neighbor. The scientific community held their breath as Odysseus descended to its designated landing location near the lunar south pole, and on February 22, the touchdown was confirmed. Odysseus is equipped with NASA science instruments and tech demonstrations that are expected to still be functional after Odysseus encountered its big problem.

While the landing was deemed successful and Intuitive Machines announced Odysseus was "upright", Intuitive Machines CEO Steve Altemus announced during a press conference that the aforementioned claim the lunar lander was upright was based on "stale telemetry" sourced from the lander's fuel gauges, and Odysseus is likely laying on its side. Altemus said that the phone-booth-sized spacecraft likely tipped over due to one of its feet being caught up on a rock during entry, or it's stuck in a crevasse, or simply lying on a lunar slope.

A new study that is yet to be peer-reviewed is claiming astronomers have located an object in deep space that looks similar to a cosmic sandwich.

That object is a star nicknamed "Dracula's Chivito," and according to astronomers behind the discovery the star appears to have "fangs", and was named after a sandwich that's Uruguay's national dish. The team behind the study states the star is still quite young in its development as it's surrounded by a protoplanetary disk that contains high quantities of gas and dust. Additionally, the astronomical object appears side-on from Earth's perspective, giving it a sandwich-like appearance.

According to astronomers, Dracula's Chivito is estimated to have 2.5 solar masses, which means 2.5 times the mass of our Sun, while also having a higher temperature than our Sun at approximately 8,000 Kelvin, versus 5,788 Kelvin. The researchers wrote that Dracula's Chivito is the "largest edge-on protoplanetary disk discovered to date" as it is 1,650 astronomical units (AU) in size (1AU = the distance between Earth and the Sun). Additionally, astronomers estimated Dracula's Chivito protoplanetary disk is about 0.2 solar masses.

In a new article published by The Guardian, Tom Lamont, the author of the piece, set out to talk to as many AI doomsayers as possible.

While the entire article is certainly an interesting read, one quote, in particular, stood out from the bunch of experts Lamont spoke to. Eliezer Yudkowsky, an AI researcher that Lamont said was the most pessimistic about the future of AI implementation out of the researchers he spoke to, and according to Yudkowsky, humanity has a "shred of a chance" at surviving what's coming.

Yudkowsky is the lead researcher at a nonprofit called Machine Intelligence Research Institute in Berkeley, California, and according to the interview, if Yudkowsky was "put to a wall" and forced to give probabilities on what the future entails, "I have a sense that our current remaining timeline looks more like five years than 50 years. Could be two years, could be 10." The two were discussing the context of how long until humanity faces a Terminator-like apocalypse or Matrix hellscape.

Elon Musk has said the first human patient to receive a Neuralink brain chip implant was able to control a mouse successfully.

It was on January 30 that Musk announced the first human to receive an implant from Neuralink, Musk's brain-chip implant company. At the time, Musk said the initial results from the brain-chip implant showed "promising neuron spike detection". For those who aren't sure what that exactly means, the National Institute of Health explains that cells use electrical and chemical signals to send information around the brain and body. These signals appear as spikes when fired by a neuron.

Additionally, Musk wrote on the same day he announced the first brain-chip patient transplant was successful that Neuralink will enable "control of your phone or computer, and through them almost any device, just by thinking". Now reports indicate the first brain-chip patient seems to have made a full recovery, with "no ill effects that we are aware of," per Musk in a recent Spaces event on X. Furthermore, Musk said the patient is able to "move a mouse around the screen by just thinking."

SpaceX's Falcon 9 launched Houston-based company Intuitive Machines' Odysseus lunar lander on February 15 and now the lander has snapped some awesome images of Earth on its way to the surface of the Moon.

The Odysseus lunar lander completed two engine burns in deep space on February 16 and February 18, and according to reports from Intuitive Machines the lander is currently on track to reach the surface of the Moon on February 22. The next challenge for Intuitive Machines is to successfully place the Odysseus into "lunar orbit insertion," which is when the lander will fire up its engines and place itself in orbit around the Moon. This event is expected to take place on February 21.

Intuitive Machines is targeting a small crater approximately 190 miles from the Moon's south pole. This location isn't irrelevant as its about the same location as where NASA intends to land astronauts under its Artemis program, specifically Artemis 3 which is expected to make its landing sometime in 2026. Odysseus is bringing six NASA instruments to the lunar surface which will gather data on a variety of different aspects of not only the landing but also the lunar surface.

A team of researchers penned a new paper published in the scientific journal Nature that warns parts of the Amazon rainforest are reaching a "tipping point".

The international team of researchers behind this study outlined that up to 47% of the Amazon rainforest is currently under threat of increased temperatures, droughts, fires, and deforestation - all of which are pushing the iconic location to the "tipping point."

The dangers of the Amazon rainforest reaching this critical threshold aren't exclusive to the Amazonian rainforest, as rainforests enrich the air with moisture, which forms the basis of precipitation, meaning if one part of the Amazon rainforest hits this "tipping point," it can create a self-propelling feedback loop affecting, potentially resulting in other areas of the rainforest, or other rainforests across the continent losing forests.

NASA successfully gathered more samples from asteroid Bennu than it initially anticipated, with the OSIRIS-REx mission now being deemed more than a success.

NASA's ORISIS-REx spacecraft delivered more than 120 grams of Bennu asteroid samples back to Earth on September 24, 2023, with the space agency now saying it was the largest asteroid sample ever collected in space and more than twice the total amount of weight than what was required for the mission to be called a success.

NASA needed to recover at least 60 grams of asteroid material to meet the goals of the mission, and when the Touch-and-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism (TAGSAM) head was opened, researchers basked their eyes on the treasure trove of ancient asteroid material.

A team of researchers studied four asteroids using sensitive instruments and, for the first time, detected key molecules that are needed for life to exist.

The research was recently published in The Planetary Science Journal and details an analysis conducted on four silicate-rich asteroids. These asteroids were analyzed by the retired Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), which was a telescope equipped with a plane that was operated by NASA and the German Aerospace Center.

SOFIA's Faint Object InfraRed Camera (FORCAST) instrument provided data on the four asteroids, and researchers found evidence of the presence of water molecules on the surface of two of the space rocks. It should be noted that water molecules have previously been detected in asteroid samples that have been returned to Earth, but this is the first time scientists have detected the presence of water on the surface of an asteroid currently in space.

It's currently extremely expensive to get anything with significant weight into space, let alone travel from one space bearing to another.

For these reasons and many others, NASA is throwing money into the research and development of alternative ways of spacecraft propulsion, and the space agency just hit a critical milestone in the development of one of those alternative methods - solar sails. NASA has successfully rolled back or deployed one of the four quadrants of a massive solar sail currently being constructed at Redwire Space facility in Longmont, Colorado.

The idea behind the solar sail is similar to a sail on a boat, but instead of wind pushing the spacecraft, the solar sail absorbs and reflects sunlight, giving it energy and, therefore, propulsion. More specifically, when light from the Sun hits the solar sail, the momentum of the photons transfers a portion of their momentum onto it. This is a small transfer of momentum with a single photon, but since the Sun and the solar system are abundant with them, the solar sail, at least in theory, could travel much faster than the chemical rockets we see today.

Elon Musk, the head of SpaceX, teased when the Starship, the world's most powerful rocket, will attempt its second orbital test flight.

The SpaceX CEO took to X to share some information regarding the next time Starship will take to the skies. The new information came to light in a reply Musk made to the rapper Ye (Kanye West), who asked, "Where my rocket ship?". Musk wrote in response to Ye's tweet that SpaceX's massive rocket ship is expected to take flight "in about 3 weeks". Musk finished up his tweet by saying that despite the third orbital launch attempt being around the corner, he would recommend "waiting for a few more test flights before hopping on board".

For those who don't know, Starship is SpaceX's biggest and best rocket that is currently undergoing development with the overall goal of successfully reaching orbit. The rocket is slated to be the transportation method to the Moon and Mars, but its two orbital test flights, unfortunately, ended in the rocket exploding. However, the process of launching new technology involves explosions, and after every launch, SpaceX learns more about how the 400-foot-tall rocket handles.

Last week, the Sun released an extremely powerful solar flare, and NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory snapped an incredible image showcasing the fiery outburst.

The solar flare occurred on February 9 and was an X-class solar flare, the most intense classification given to solar flares. These powerful blasts from our local star can cause some problems on Earth, and as you can probably imagine, the larger the blast, the bigger the problems. Luckily, in this case, the solar flare occurred on the side of the Sun facing away from Earth, with solar physicist Keith Strong mentioning this point on X by writing, "Goodness knows how big this flare would have been if it had happened this side of the sun."

Solar flares such as this one are often accompanied by a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME), a large wave of plasma that erupts into space in a specific direction similar to a wave. These CMEs can cause disruptions on Earth if their trajectory lines up with the planet. CME impacts result in geomagnetic storms that can cause many problems for Earth-orbiting satellites, power grids, radio signals, and GPS satellites.

Metal 3D printing is coming to space thanks to a new custom metal 3D printer designed by Airbus for the European Space Agency (ESA) that is now aboard the International Space Station. Not to be confused with the polymer-based 3D printers used on the ISS using plastic materials, this is the real deal - "metal being melted using a laser."

The ESA's metal 3D printer was sent to the ISS aboard the Cygnus NG-20 resupply mission and could be a game-changer for both the International Space Station and space exploration as we know it. With the ability to 3D print metal, spare parts or even brand new ones could be effectively 'manufactured' in orbit without relying on rockets and resupply missions.

3D metal printing is very different from using plastic, with the stainless steel wire of this custom printer heated up to a 1,400 degrees Celsius melting point compared to 200 degrees Celsius for plastic wire.

The head of Xbox, Phil Spencer, has quelled fears that Microsoft is planning on eventually stopping production of Xbox consoles, a theory that was birthed out of the recent reports that Xbox games are coming to PlayStation.

The report that Xbox was going to bring exclusive titles such as Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Starfield and more over to PlayStation spawned theories that Microsoft was going to eventually stop production of the Xbox console.

As wild and unfounded as these theories were, they have now been slashed by Xbox head Phil Spencer, who reportedly said at a town hall meeting with fellow Xbox colleagues that Microsoft has no intention of stopping production of the Xbox and that the console remains critical to company's plans moving forward.