Science, Space, Health & Robotics News - Page 318

NASA has announced that a large asteroid is approaching Earth, and it could be as big, if not bigger, than the Eiffel Tower.

The asteroid has been dubbed 2021 KT1, and according to NASA, it will make a "close approach" with Earth on June 1 at about 10:24 am EDT. 2021 KT1 will whiz past Earth at 40,000 miles per hour, or around 20 times the speed of a bullet shot out of a rifle. Additionally, NASA says that the asteroid could be anywhere between 491 feet and 1079 feet in diameter. For reference, the Eiffel Tower is 1062 feet in height.

If you are wondering if the asteroid warrants any concern, NASA's Center for Near-Earth object Studies has said that "No one should be overly concerned about an Earth impact of an asteroid or comet. The threat to any one person from auto accidents, disease, other natural disasters and a variety of other problems is much higher than the threat from NEOs (near-Earth-objects)." For more information on this story, check out the NASA report here.

Space junk is becoming a large problem as many companies continue to launch rockets and satellites into the atmosphere.

The problem of space junk, or space debris, was brought up by Donald Kessler, a retired NASA senior scientist for orbital debris research, who said that the current state of space junk has reached a "tipping point". Now, a new report has come out about the International Space Station (ISS) experiencing a collision with space junk that has now caused a hole.

Operators noticed a hole in the ISS's Canadarm2 on May 12. The robotic arm has been in service since 2001, and according to Canadian Space Agency (CSA), who provided the ISS with the robotic arm, the hole isn't going to impact the Canadarm2's responsibilities in maintaining the ISS. The CSA has said that the hole is a "lucky strike" considering that the robotic arm has a diameter of just 14 inches.

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has poked some fun at Jeff Bezos' space exploration company Blue Origin.

For those that aren't caught up with the story, NASA awarded Musk's SpaceX with a $3 billion contract to construct a lunar lander for NASA's Artemis program. Bezos' Blue Origin has contested the decision by NASA by submitting a protest to the U.S Government Accountability Office (GAO) that requests NASA to select a second company to build a lunar lander.

NASA has revealed its reasoning for selecting SpaceX for the award, stating, "SpaceX's Total Evaluated Price of $2,941,394,557 was the lowest among the offerors by a wide margin. Blue Origin's Total Evaluated Price was significantly higher than this, followed by Dynetics' Total Evaluated Price, which was significantly higher than Blue Origin's."

A book written in 1977 has recently been declassified by the United States National Security Agency (NSA), and it reveals a three-step process for breaking "impossible" encryptions.

The book was written by cryptologist Lambros Callimahos, and it explains how to break all types of codes that are commonly used by the military. For the aforementioned reason, the NSA decided to claim that the book's release could endanger national security, as it could reveal the NSA's "code-breaking prowess". The NSA later declassified the book in December 2020.

One of the chapters of the book is titled "Principles of Cryptodiagnosis", and within that chapter, Callimahos reveals a systematic three-step approach to deciphering an encrypted message that used an unknown method. For example, the NSA may encounter thousands of encrypted messages, but if the cryptographers don't know the method for how the messages were encrypted, then they won't be able to break the encryption.

An astrophysics professor has come out and said that the recent UFO videos surfacing online "don't impress him".

The astrophysicist is Adam Frank, who is a professor at the University of Rochester. Frank wrote an opinion piece in The New York Times that featured the title, "I'm a Physicist Who Searches for Aliens. UFOs Don't Impress Me." In the article, Frank states that in the past, he has been asked about these encounters with UFO due to his professional credentials and goes on to say that he is skeptical about how much information we can gather from the recent UFO videos that appeared on CBS "60 Minutes".

Here's what Frank said, "While some researchers have used the footage to make simple estimates of the accelerations and other flight characteristics of the UFOs, the results have been mixed at best. Skeptics have already shown that some of the motions seen in the videos (like the ocean skimming) may be artifacts of the cameras' optics and tracking systems."

We aren't too far away now... with Jeremy Corbell posting a 46-video on his personal Twitter that he says was taken aboard the USS Obama on July 15, 2019 of multiple UFOs swarming the US Navy warship. Check it out:

The radar screen has multiple objects hovering around the ship, with one man saying in the video "Holy shit! They're moving fast... they're turning around". The video wouldn't come at more perfect timing, as Trump pushed the US government to ink June 2021 as the month for when the government-sanctioned report on UAPs (unidentified aerial phenomena) is released.

Corbell was asked on Twitter if there was any attempts made to communicate with the UAPs, to which he replied: "I'm aware that the USS Omaha DID attempt to hail the craft or craft controller via IAD (International Air Distress) channel. ALL aircraft flying in the public domains are required to monitor. Military has a separate channel MAD (Military Air Distress) that is ALSO monitored".

A cure to cancer was found over 10 years ago now and I even reported on it back in May 2011, but we're back again with scientists at the University of Edinburgh with a new cancer-killing drug.

The new "Trojan Horse" drug has the ability of killing cancer and bacterial cells without damaging nearby tissue, just like the researchers from the University of Alberta did in 2011 -- yeah, 10 years ago they had a drug called "dichloroacetate" that destroys cancer cells without harming nearby tissue.

In the new peer-reviewed experimental "Trojan Horse" test, the researchers tested zebrafish and human cells with the cancer-killing molecule SeNBD with a chemical food compound in order to trick the malignant cells into ingesting it. Since the drug was invented, it can have a patent put on it -- unlike the cancer-killing drug from 10 years ago... this one can be very profitable and that's what Big Pharma is all about, those profits.

SpaceX is celebrating its monumental achievement of being the first company to launch NASA astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) with a commercial rocket.

One year ago today, NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley were transported to the International Space Station (ISS) by SpaceX's Crew Dragon spaceship. The trip took 19 hours and marked the first time a US spacecraft has docked with the ISS since NASA retired its shuttle fleet back in 2011. Additionally, SpaceX's successful mission marked the first time a manned commercial spacecraft has

docked with the ISS.

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope is at work 24 hours a day 7 days a week, and as you can imagine, researchers have collected a lot of images of the universe in that time.

To really put Hubble's image library to the test, NASA has a tool on its website that allows you to plug in your birthday to see the image that Hubble snapped on that special day. Users can enter the month and date that they were born, and the tool will cycle through its library and present an awesome image that the telescope snapped.

The results of using the tool can be directly shared to Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest via buttons at the top of the image. In other Hubble news, the space telescope captured a wild image of a galactic game of "tug-of-war", you can check out that image here. If you are interested in reading more about Hubble, check out this link here.

The Hubble Space Telescope is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990, and still, to this day, Hubble is shocking people around the world at its quality of images.

Hubble has snapped another awesome image of the spiral galaxy NGC 5037, which William Herschel first discovered in 1785. NASA states that the galaxy is 150 million light-years away from Earth and resides in the constellation of Virgo. The camera that took these images was installed by astronauts in 2009.

Hubble took this image using its Wide Field Camera 3, which is able to capture ultraviolet light, visible light, and infrared light. Due to its versatility, the Wide Field Camera 3 gives researchers a tonne of useful information about the cosmos and its many mysteries. If you are interested in reading more about this topic, check out this link here.