Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 39

Space is a weird and wonderful place, and a recent discovery from astronomers only drives home that point even more.

A team of astronomers has discovered a very strange exoplanet that's located approximately 1,232 light years away from Earth. This exoplanet is called WASP-193b. According to a recently published study on a preprint server, WASP-193b is 50 percent bigger than Jupiter but has a similar density as cotton candy. For comparison, WASP-193b has just one percent of the density of Earth, making it one of if not the fluffiest planets ever discovered.

Planets such as WASP-193b are certainly rare but not completely unheard of, with astronomers estimating that it has a similar temperature to the Sun while orbiting its companion star closer than any other planet in our solar system. WASP-193b completes one orbit of its host star every 6.25 Earth days.

Researchers have discovered what appears to be the first meteorite that left Earth and have returned back to our planet.

The space rock was discovered in the Sahara Desert in Morocco a few years ago, and according to recent reports, it appears to be an Earth rock that was flung into space and stayed out in the solar system for thousands of years before returning to our planet.

The scientists behind the not-yet-peer-reviewed study presented their work at the International Geo Chemistry Conference last week, where they explained that early testing found unusual features on and within the space rock in particular chemical compositions such as what is found in volcanic rocks on Earth. Additionally, researchers discovered lighter versions of elements known as isotopes which are only known to spawn through the interaction of cosmic rays in outer space.

A former Google executive has warned during a podcast that the emergence of artificial intelligence-powered devices combined with the power of augmented/virtual reality headsets will result in robots replacing humans for sex.

The stark warning was given by Google X's former chief of business officer Mo Gawdat who appeared on the impact theory podcast hosted by Tom Bilyeu. For those that don't know, Google Access X is the company's Semi secret research and development arm that was created in 2010 as an effort to develop moonshot-based businesses under Google's parent company, Alphabet.

Gawdat explained during the podcast that virtual reality and augmented reality headsets, such as Apple's recently announced Vision Pro or Meta's Quest 3, will soon be used to create sexual experiences.

Research from NASA and Japan's Osaka University indicates that rogue planets, worlds that aren't linked by gravity to a star, overwhelmingly outnumber the number of planets that are gravitationally linked to stars.

The scientist's findings can be traced back to a nine-year survey called Microlensing Observations in Astrophysics (MOA) which was conducted at the Mount John University Observatory located in New Zealand.

NASA explains in a blog post that due to the phenomena of mass warping the fabric of space-time, researchers are able to "microlens" objects, which is when an object comes in a near-perfect alignment with light from a distant star, the light bends around the nearest object it passes by.

SpaceX is taken to its Twitter account to showcase 2 wallpaper-worthy images of its Starship super heavy booster located on its launchpad.

The Elon Musk-led company took to its Twitter on July 21 to reveal the giant launch vehicle position on its launchpad at the Starbase facility in southern Texas ahead of the company's planned second orbital launch attempt. Starship Super Heavy contains 33 Raptor engines that are visible in the second image. Additionally, Booster 9, as shown in the second photograph, has its Raptor engines hidden by the launchpad, and both images display an upwards gorgeous upwards-facing orange light to resemble the firing of the booster.

For those that don't know, SpaceX's Starship is expected to be the transportation that will take humans from Earth to the moon and beyond. Predominantly the company is aiming to create a vehicle that is capable of landing on the surface of Mars with the capabilities of setting up the first base on the surface of the Red Planet, hence the 100-ton carrying capacity.

Democrats and Republicans hardly ever agree, but there is one topic that both sides of the fence can get behind, and that's the unveiling of secret alien technologies and evidence of "non-human intelligence".

Early this month Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer introduced an amendment to the National Defence Authorization Act, which would mandate and publicly disclose government records related to Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), more commonly known as UFOs. Schumer said in a press release that the American public has a right to learn about "technologies of unknown origins, non-human intelligence, and unexplainable phenomena".

Additionally, the Senate Majority leader said that lawmakers are not working on declassifying information pertaining to extraterrestrial existence but also the creation of a pipeline for future research to be made public. The amendment would require the National Archies and Records Administration (NARA) to create a collection of records that will be called the UAP Records Collection, along with a UAP Records Review Board.

Reports from the Russian state-run news agency TASS reveal that individuals infected with a rare bacteria have escaped hospitalization.

The reports state that individuals contracted the rare and deadly bacteria known as anthrax, and after being hospitalized, escaped their beds, resulting in a public health alert from authorities. The individuals are located in Russia's southern Siberian region, and reportedly escaped in late June. Where did the anthrax come from? Scientists theorize the uptick in anthrax cases can be traced back to increasing temperatures that thawed permafrost within the region.

Reports indicate that the most recently recorded anthrax case happened in a town called Bizhiktig-Khaya, Russia, where a herd of unvaccinated animals contracted anthrax. The shepherds were then sent to hospital after becoming infected with the bacteria. TASS reports that on June 30, a local resident of the area was sent to hospital for an anthrax infection after they visited the area. Notably, the area of the outbreak is known for horse meat consumption.

In late 2022 Tesla showcased a prototype of Optimus, a humanoid robot that the company says will be able to relieve humans of monotonous jobs, such as those in a factory line.

During the showcase of the Optimus bot Musk said that Tesla's robot program is the most important project that the company is working on and that its anticipated to bring in as much, if not more revenue than the company's electric vehicles. During the most recent Tesla earnings call Musk was asked about the progress of the Optimus project, and more specifically, how many robots has Tesla developed since the showcase in 2022.

Musk didn't give a specific number of developed Optimus bots, but did go on to say that there was potential for robotic limbs to be developed and controlled through a brain implant. This brain implant would developed by Neuralink, one of Musk's other business ventures, and through the combination of robotic limbs and Neuralink implants amputees could receive full control of robotic arms and legs.

A UK-based aerospace company called Pulsar Fusion has taken Elon Musk's request for a nuclear-powered rocket very seriously, as the new company continues development on what could be the next generation of space travel.

In July 2019, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk tweeted that NASA should begin researching a nuclear thermal rocket for fast transit around the solar system, and now Pulsar Fusion is working on just that. The new aerospace company is developing a rocket that's powered by nuclear fusion and would be able to reach speeds of up to 500,000 mph, cutting the travel time between Earth and Mars by half.

If such a rocket was developed successfully, humans could reach the Red Planet in just a matter of weeks instead of the current estimated travel time of months. NASA estimates with current rocket technology that a trip to Mars would take seven months, and the humans that land on the Red Planet's surface would only be able to stay there for four years due to unsafe radiation levels.

An asteroid that's estimated to be worth an astounding $10 quintillion is making it's way closer to Earth ahead of NASA and SpaceX's joint rocket launch that will send a spacecraft to inspect the massive space rock.

The asteroid is officially called 16 Psyche and is estimated to be 176 miles wide, containing $10,000,000,000,000,000,000 worth of metals such as gold, iron, and nickel. In 2020, NASA announced it was partnering with Elon Musk's SpaceX to inspect the asteroid, and now we are less than 100 days away from the highly anticipated launch. Notably, NASA doesn't plan on mining the asteroid, or at least not yet, as the space agency's intentions are purely scientific.

NASA's spacecraft will launch on the back of a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket sometime in October and take approximately six years to reach the Main Asteroid Belt located between Mars and Jupiter. The spacecraft, or more accurately, a satellite, will enter the asteroid's orbit and begin to perform scientific analysis. Researchers have equipped the satellite with various cameras to image 16 Psyche.

Documents released by the National Archives has loosely tied the assassination of John F. Kennedy to UFOs, according to reports.

Popular Mechanics has reported that the National Archives has already released thousands of documents that include information about the assassination of JFK, which was sourced from the CIA, FBI, and the State Department, along with other government agencies. Moreover, these documents contained topics such as Lee Harvey Oswald's contacts with Soviet/Cuban officials, and, most importantly, the name of the CIA official who intercepted Oswald's mail in the months leading up to JFKs assassination.

According to these documents, the CIA official named Reuben Efron, who was intercepting Oswald's mail, had a UFO encounter while on a train through the Soviet Union. This CIA official was not alone, and the document names Senator Richard Russell, a Democrat of Georgia, Army colonel, and member of the Warren Commission. The CIA report describes the sighting as the individuals seeing two "flying saucers".

Everything in the solar system orbits the Sun, every planet, every asteroid, every comet. The Sun's gravity is the glue that holds the solar system together, but what if Earth suddenly stopped orbiting the Sun?

The short answer, we would all die either immediately or in about a month's time, it depends on how fast Earth stopped orbiting the Sun. If the Earth stopped orbiting the Sun immediately, everyone would be hurled off the surface of Earth into space, similar to the inertia felt when a driver slams on their brakes. However, if the Earth came to a slow stop, no one would die immediately, and most people wouldn't even realize what had happened, but death would be guaranteed.

As Earth is rotating the Sun, its orbit is pushing against the Sun's strong gravitational pull. Removing the orbiting factor means there is no tug-of-war between the Earth's orbit and the Sun's gravitational pull, meaning the Earth will eventually be pulled into the Sun. This process would take approximately two months. The first two weeks would show hardly any change at all, but as the Earth gets closer to the Sun, the stronger the gravitational pull, meaning the faster the Earth travels towards its doom.

Daniel Sheehan, a top attorney that is responsible for representing some of the biggest UFO whistleblowers before Congress, such as David Grusch, has told the DailyMail that the US government has in its possession a UFO capable of warping space-time.

Sheehan is representing a new UFO whistleblower that claims that the US government recovered a flying saucer approximately 30 feet wide that crash-landed into the Earth. The attorney told the publication that US government personnel attempted to extract the craft from the rock it was stuck into and stopped once it was successfully dislodged by several feet to preserve its overall integrity. Sheehan goes on to say that an individual was directed to enter the craft, and "Upon entering, the man discovered an interior as vast as a football stadium."

The attorney continued and said that not only was the craft larger on the inside, describing the enormity as large as a "football stadium," but also time was moving at a different speed within the spacecraft. When the individual exited the ship, four hours had passed, but only minutes from the individual's perspective, leading the attorney to suggest that the spacecraft has capabilities of warping space-time. When asked about the location of this spacecraft, Sheehan declined to comment, saying there is a lack of corroborated evidence to say any location.

Ever wondered what your face looks like while you are bouncing on a trampoline? The Slo Mo Guys have done the test, and the results are hilariously surprising.

When people hear the word g-force, they are either thinking about NVIDIA's GeForce graphics cards, or what fighter pilots experience when they are flying around at extremely high speeds. More specifically, g-force is the measurement of force, typically through acceleration, that causes a perception of weight to be experienced. An example of this would be a fighter pilot pulling up hard and fast, or simply bouncing on a trampoline at home.

The Slow Mo Guys demonstrate that bouncing on a trampoline, at least in the video linked above, resulted in 7.5Gs being generated. However, these g-forces are only experienced for a split second, but while they are being experienced, the face of the human bouncing completely contorts, much like a fighter pilot while they are pulling up. The slow-motion footage captured showcases the skin on the face stretching for a split second and then bouncing back to its normal place once the g-forces have passed.

A few days ago, a story began going viral about a French woman that claimed she was hit in the rib cage by a meteorite.

Reports indicated that the woman was sitting with her friend, enjoying a cup of coffee, when they heard a noise on the roof above them. The noise was quickly followed by the woman being hit in the chest with what she claims is a fragment of a meteorite.

The above image showcases the purported meteorite, and now scientists are chiming in, saying that the imaged rock is definitely not from outside of Earth's atmosphere as meteorites that make it to Earth's surface are smooth due to the extreme heat they experience while plummeting through Earth's dense atmosphere.

Researchers from Harvard and MIT have penned a new paper that explores the reversal of aging in cells, and according to the results of the study, there are some treatments humans can take.

The promising new study has been published in the journal Aging by a team of scientists from Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The researchers explain that they've identified six treatments that convert cells into a more "youthful state". Notably, the press release states that these six different cocktails of chemicals also don't cause any damage, which is typically the case with age-reversing treatments.

As you can probably imagine, there are some downsides to the study, or at the very least, the breakthrough findings. According to the press release, these results are derived from mostly tissue experiments in a lab, and trials on mice/monkeys provided "encouraging results". As for human experiments, the lead principal investigator on the project David Sinclair, said that preparations for human trials are ongoing.

A UFO expert has claimed that the US government is hiding a crashed alien spacecraft underneath a building.

Ross Coulthart, a multi-award-winning Australian investigative journalist, who has previously worked for 60 Minutes, and penned the book "In Plain Sight", has appeared on the Project Unity YouTube channel to discuss government agencies becoming interested in retrieving the remains of crashed UFOs. During the interview, Coulthart touched on a crashed UFO that he is aware of, saying that "What if some of that s**t is so big it can't be moved?"

The investigative journalist was pressed for more questions about the downed craft and said that it was "So big they had a building put over it in a country outside of the United States of America." Unfortunately, Coulthart didn't reveal any specific details about the craft or the location where it landed, but said, "I know that sounds preposterous and you can just hear them now, the bleeding debunkers."

The European Space Agency has highlighted an image snapped by the famous Hubble Space Telescope, and this time in the limelight is the irregular galaxy known as Arp 263.

The ESA explains on its website that Arp 263 is located 25 million light years away from Earth and resides in the constellation Leo. Arp 263 was created through the merger of two galaxies, and using Hubble's powerful instruments, researchers set out with two investigations in mind.

The first was to observe recent sites of supernovae, and the second, was to image all peculiar galaxies within the Arp catalog, which is part of Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys campaign. The data from this campaign will be used to find promising scientific prospects for the world's most powerful space telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope.

A foreign object has washed up on a beach attracting the attention of scientists and local authorities as its origin remains unknown.

The Australian Space Agency, along with Western Australian police, have confirmed that a mysterious object has washed ashore beach at Green Head, 155 miles north of Perth. According to reports the object is believed to be part of a foregin space launch vehicle, but that has yet to be confirmed. Notably, the Department of Fire and Emergency Services and Chemistry Center of Western Australian said in a statement that the object was safe and there is no risk to the local community.

The Australian Space Agency took to Twitter and in a series of tweets confirmed its in contact with international partners to gather information about the possible rocket debris. Additionally, the officials have said that Western Australia Police Force will be standing guard of the object until its removed and that members of the local community are requested to stay away from the area. Reports from ABC state that the object is semi-cylindiracl, made of light carbon fiber material, has a diameter of 8 by 8 feet and a height of nearly 10 feet.

A woman has experienced what seems to be one of the rarest events that can take place on Earth - getting hit by a meteorite.

The woman located in France was sitting enjoying a cup of coffee with her friend when they heard a loud noise coming from the roof above them. Immediately following that noise, the woman reported a small object smacking her in the ribs. According to local news reports, the woman initially thought it was an animal of some sort, or a piece of cement that somehow was broken off and become airborne. After identifying the object, the woman noticed it wasn't the right color for any of her previous guesses.

For those that don't know, a meteorite is a space rock that has entered Earth's atmosphere and is on a journey towards its surface. Luckily for us humans, many of these rocks completely burn up in Earth's dense atmosphere, and the meteorites that do make it to the surface are typically smaller than a baseball. However, every now and again, people discover fragments or small pebbles of meteorites, and these discoveries are considered to be very rare.