Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 340

If you were planning on getting Starlink and using it, that possibility will soon become available to you as SpaceX has announced global operations will begin this year.

According to a statement from Starlink's President, Gwynne Shotwell, full operation capabilities will begin in September on a global scale, or at least this is the goal. Shotwell also said that SpaceX has been able to successfully deploy 1,800 Starlink satellites to their operation orbit around Earth. However, as Shotwell explains, there is a lot of regulatory work to do as the company needs regulatory approval from each individual country.

At the moment, Starlink has been approved and is providing internet service to users in eleven countries. Elon Musk also announced that SpaceX had received more than 500,000 preorders for Starlink internet access. SpaceX plans on launching 12,000 Starlink satellites for around $10 billion and also says that it will be able to keep up with the big demand for the service. For more information on this story, check out this link here.

A new study has revealed that most major geological events that happen on Earth happened every 27.5 million years.

Researchers have penned a new study in Geoscience Frontiers, and according to an analysis on 89 major geological events that have happened in the past 260 million years, most major geological events occur in intervals of 27.5 million years. So, what is a major geological event? The researchers took into account events such as extinctions, ocean anoxic events, rising sea levels, large volcanic activity, and Earth's tectonic plates shifting.

Lead author Michael Rampino, a professor in the departments of biology and environmental studies at New York University, said that the estimates aren't "exact", but it's a "pretty good estimate" that's "unlikely to be a coincidence". So, why every 27.5 million years does Earth have this geological "pulse"? The authors state in the study that the geological pulse may have something to do with the tectonic plates shifting and movement inside the mantle. The researchers also state that it could have something to do with the movement of Earth within our solar system/galaxy.

The birthplace of stars are still somewhat of a mystery to astronomers, and as humans continue to expand our knowledge of the universe, we begin to understand more about how stars develop over long stretches of time.

Stars form in specific regions, and one of those regions is Westerlund 2, which is located around 20,000 light-years away from Earth. This star-factory region of space hasn't been observed in high resolution until now, and from the above image, we can see that the star cluster is surrounded by a bubble of gas. It was previously hypothesized that Westerlund 2 was surrounded by two bubbles of gas, but now astronomers understand that its just one.

The study's lead author Maitraiyee Tiwari, a postdoctoral associate in astronomy at the University of Maryland, said, "When massive stars form, they blow off much stronger ejections of protons, electrons, and atoms of heavy metal, compared to our sun. These ejections are called stellar winds, and extreme stellar winds are capable of blowing and shaping bubbles in the surrounding clouds of cold, dense gas. We observed just such a bubble centered around the brightest cluster of stars in this region of the galaxy, and we were able to measure its radius, mass, and the speed at which it is expanding."

Alien skeptics and believers of the recently viral UFO footage are all patiently awaiting the coming report from US intelligence agencies on UFO or UAP sightings.

Ahead of the report, the broadcasting network Fox has announced that it's currently investigating UFOs in its coming one-hour special from TMZ. The network says that it will be called TMZ Investigates: UFOs: The Pentagon Proof, and as reported by Deadline, "will analyze the US government's official response to the phenomenon, which is expected later this month."

Additionally, Deadline reports that Fox has said that the one-hour special will contain entirely new footage of UFOs and that this footage was shot from the deck of a US Navy ship. The footage will be aired when the special is released. On top of that, the special will also contain interviews with senators, military pilots, scientists, former Pentagon officials, and much more. TMZ Investigates: UFOs: The Pentagon Proof will air on Tuesday, June 29.

Space tourism is beginning to become a reality, and soon anyone will be able to take a trip to see Earth like they have never seen it before.

Blue Origin and Boeing are just some of the companies that are working towards making space tourism a reality. Blue Origin will have its first passenger flight in the coming weeks, and one of its first passengers will be Amazon CEO, Jeff Bezos. If rockets aren't your thing, or if you can't afford the price tag, and want to opt for something cheap, maybe a space balloon will be up your alley.

Space Perspective has successfully completed the first test flight of its prototype stratospheric passenger balloon called Neptune One. The launch was conducted on Friday, June 18, and Neptune One reached 108,409 feet before it splashed back down to Earth in the Gulf of Mexico. True "space" begins at 330,000, often referred to as the Karman Line. However, Space Perspective says passengers will be able to have an incredible view of Earth that creates the Overview Effect.

NASA's Juno spacecraft used Earth for a speed boost to get to its mission destination of Jupiter back in 2016.

Juno has been orbiting Jupiter for five years now, and since then, it has been relaying vital information back to NASA about the mysterious large planet. However, before Juno reached Jupiter, it flew by Earth using its gravity for an assist and gained more than 3.9 kilometers per second (8,800 mph) boost in speed. While Juno was flying past, NASA engineers used the opportunity to test out the spacecraft's camera by taking photos of Earth.

Juno used its JunoCam to snap some incredible images of our blue planet and posted them to the Mission Juno website for public viewing. Paul Steffes from Georgie Tech, one of the Juno science investigators, said, "The idea that you can couple our scientific imaging and understanding of the planet, with artistic representations of not only what the planet means but what exploration means, has been very valuable to the mission- and to the public". For more information about this story, visit this link here.

The Hubble Space Telescope, despite being 30-year-old technology, is still managing to shock onlookers at the quality of images it can produce.

The above image is of a spiral galaxy named NGC 3254, and in order to capture this image, Hubble used its Wide Field Camera 3, which can observe ultraviolet light, visible light, and infrared light. How is an image like this created? According to NASA, the image is a "composite of observations taken in the visible and infrared". NASA also explains that NGC 3254 has a "hidden secret" hiding in plain sight, saying that NGC 3254 is actually a Seyfert galaxy.

For those who don't know, Seyfert galaxies have an extremely active galactic nucleus and belong to a class of galaxies called "active galaxies". Seyfert galaxies are galaxies that have "supermassive black holes at their centers accreting material, which releases vast amounts of radiation". These active cores can release as much energy as the entire galaxy put together. If you are interested in reading more about this story, check out this link here.

Earth has officially added a new ocean to its current list of four, which is; the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian and Arctic oceans.

According to the National Geographic Society, the Southern Ocean, which resides around Antarctica, is now Earth's fifth ocean after 100 years of debate. On June 8, the National Geographic Society announced that it would be labeling the ocean region as the Southern Ocean and that it will be added to the ocean and its respective title to global maps of Earth.

Here's what Alex Tait, the society's official geographer, said to National Geographic, "The Southern Ocean has long been recognized by scientists, but because there was never agreement internationally, we never officially recognized it. It's sort of geographic nerdiness in some ways." Tait also said, "Students learn information about the ocean world through what oceans you're studying. If you don't include the Southern Ocean, then you don't learn the specifics of it and how important it is."

Researchers are currently on the hunt to better understand the relationship between black holes and galaxies.

It's widely considered that most, if not all, galaxies contain a black hole at their center, but the reasoning behind it is still not fully understood by astronomers. However, a new study published in the online in Astrophysical Journal may reveal some new information, which could pave the way for astronomers to have a deeper understanding.

Researchers suspect that black holes and galaxies evolve together through what is described as galactic "winds". The winds are produced by a black hole's ability to swallow anything that is close to it. As objects are pulled closer, the black hole's gravitation pull accelerates the objects, which results in an energy release that ejects the drawn-in objects outwards.

Elon Musk has been great at totally disrupting entire industries with his companies, like PayPal, SpaceX, and Tesla just to name a few.

SpaceX is currently building out its next-gen Starship launch vehicle system, with Elon teasing an upcoming test flight of the new platform. SpaceX will be using Starlink to blast off into space, onto the Moon, and onwards to Mars -- but what about the benefits of the hypersonic rocket technology here on Earth?

That's where SpaceX could revolutionize the airline industry with a hypersonic rocket blasting passengers across the world at speeds simply impossible right now. Back in 2017, SpaceX teased that its Starship vehicle could deliver 100 tons to Lower Earth Orbit (LEO) between LA and New York in just 25 minutes... compared to 5 hours and 25 hours with a commercial airline.