Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 70

A study on the human muscles and yeast titled "Full humanization of the glycolytic pathway in Saccharomyces cerevisiae" has been published in the journal Cell Reports.

Researchers from Delft University of Technology have placed human muscle genes inside the DNA of yeast cells, creating "humanized yeast." The genes are responsible for breaking down sugar and making the building blocks of muscle cells and are critical for human survival. They are also involved in many diseases, including cancer, and the similarity of yeast cells to humans means they can be used as a model for future drug and cancer research.

A study on the VR experience titled "Group VR experiences can produce ego attenuation and connectedness comparable to psychedelics" has been published in the journal Nature Scientific Reports.

Artist and computational molecular physicist David Glowacki had a near-death experience after falling in the mountains fifteen years ago, causing blood to leak into his lungs and suffocate him. While lying on the ground, Glowacki looked at his body and saw himself as balled-up light, and in his words, "I knew that the intensity of the light was related to the extent to which I inhabited my body." However, as he saw the light leak out of his body into the environment around him, Glowacki was not frightened.

In an attempt to recapture his transcendent experience, Glowacki has developed a VR experience called Isness-D. Based on the four key indicators used in studies of psychedelics, the experience had the same effects on users as a medium dose of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) or psilocybin, the primary psychoactive chemical in psychedelic mushrooms. Isness-D represents groups of four to five people from anywhere in the world, as diffuse clouds of smoke, with balls of lights representing their hearts.

A study on the jets titled "Upward propagation of gigantic jets revealed by 3D radio and optical mapping" has been published in the journal Science Advances.

Researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology have created a detailed 3D of the "gigantic jets" of electrical discharge that appeared during an Oklahoma thunderstorm, reaching 50 miles (80.5 kilometers) towards space, reaching into the ionosphere, the last region of Earth's atmosphere, bordering with space. The jets moved an estimated 300 coulombs of electrical charge into the ionosphere, making them the most powerful of their kind that has been studied, twice as powerful as the next strongest one.

They carried about 100 times the electrical charge of a typical lightning bolt, which carries less than five coulombs between clouds or to the ground from clouds. Plasma streamers shot off into the atmosphere with temperatures of 400 degrees Fahrenheit (204 degrees Celsius) alongside structures called leaders, which are over 8,000 degrees Fahrenheit (4426 degrees Celsius). Gigantic jets are estimated to occur between 1,000 and 50,000 times yearly, though no observation system is dedicated to detecting them.

The new robot making its way to the International Space Station (ISS) is called MIRA, short for "miniaturized in vivo robotic assistant."

NASA has helped fund the University of Nebraska-Lincoln to ready MIRA to fly to the ISS to be tested in 2024, after being in development for almost 20 years. Virtual Incision, the company based on the Nebraska Innovation Campus whose co-founder invented the robot, has received over $100 million since it was founded in 2006.

Compared to other much larger surgical robots, the robot will be small enough to fit in an experiment locker on the ISS. MIRA's other advantages include its ability to operate through small incisions, allowing for minimally invasive surgeries, and its ability to be operated remotely. A previous experiment saw a retired NASA astronaut use MIRA to perform "surgery-like tasks" 900 miles away.

An interstellar meteorite is an object that is from beyond our solar system, and on January 8, 2014, one crashed into Earth.

Astronomers have penned a new paper published on the pre-print ArXiv server where the authors put forward an argue that they are confident that the meteorite is interstellar (traveling between stars) and that recovering a fragment of the space rock would "represent the first contact humanity has ever had with material larger than dust from beyond the solar system", wrote first author of the paper, Amir Siraj, an astrophysicist at Harvard University.

In May 2022, the US Space Command confirmed that the meteorite officially called CNEOS 2014-01-08 is of interstellar origin. Notably, Siraj explains that it entered Earth's atmosphere 100 miles off the coast of Papua New Guinea during the middle of the night. Furthermore, CNEOS 2014-01-08 was traveling at 37.2 miles per second relative to the Sun, meaning that it was traveling faster than the Sun's gravity, indicating that it's of interstellar origin.

Elon Musk has taken to his Twitter account to re-share an epic video of SpaceX conducting a static fire test on Starship 24

The SpaceX CEO recently posted on Twitter a re-shared video of the largest flying object ever made, the Starship launch vehicle. The static fire test is a part of the lead-up to SpaceX's first orbital test flight of Starship, a full-standing 230 feet rocket with the Super Heavy booster attached, capable of more than double the thrust of the Saturn V with more than twice the weight. Notably, the Saturn V is the rocket the largest rocket to reach orbit and is also the rocket that transported humans to the moon.

Following Musk's re-sharing of the Starship static fire test, the SpaceX CEO posted a meme that insinuates that Starship static fire tests are too 'sexy' or 'attractive' for him to "live a normal productive life". Musk's meme got several replies, with one Twitter user writing, "Tbh, conducting static fire tests of Starship is a productive day for you, Elon", with Musk replying, "True".

NASA has taken to its official social media to explain the difference between asteroids, comets, and meteorites as they are different.

Posted to NASA's Science Solar System Exploration on July 21, 2022, the space agency outlined the definition of different space rocks. Asteroids are different from comets as they are ancient pieces of the early formation of the solar system, mostly consisting of rock and coming in various sizes ranging from approximately the size of a car to as wide as a city.

While mostly consisting of rock, asteroids can contain metals that make them shine or carbon that makes them appear a coal-black color. Additionally, asteroids can also be "rubble piles", which are almost like sand held together by gravity. Comets are the cold version of asteroids as they mostly consist of ice. At the center of every comet is an icy nucleus, and when the orbit of the comet gets close to the Sun, its icy body heats up, producing large amounts of gases that cause a coma or tail to form around its nucleus.

Despite its age, the Hubble Space Telescope can still pull off some incredible photography, and a reminder of that is the Hubble Classic image of NGC 248.

NASA has taken to its social media to shine a light on the above Hubble Classic and explained that the image includes two nebulas that were originally discovered in 1834 by astronomer Sir John Herschel. The two nebulas are located in the Small Magellanic Cloud, which is a dwarf galaxy that's a satellite galaxy to our Milky Way galaxy. Notably, NGC 248 is located about 200,000 light-years away from Earth within the constellation Taurus, which measures in at approximately 60 light-years long and 20 light-years wide.

According to NASA's website, NGC 248 is a star-forming nebula, and the above picture was snapped of the nebulas as part of research being conducted on the dust contents of the Small Magellanic Cloud. Researchers studied the dust contents of the Small Magellanic Cloud to learn more about the relationship between dust contents and the amount of heavy elements residing in galaxies. Notably, the Small Magellanic Cloud has between a fifth and a tenth the number of heavy elements as our Milky Way galaxy.

Robot-like dogs are being sent to a US space station that are a part of the Department of Defense's (DOD) push to save man-hours.

According to a statement from the DOD, the newest members of the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station will be Ghost Robotics Quadruped Unmanned Ground Vehicles (Q-UGV), as seen in the above photo, where two units are posing in front of an American flag. The Q-UGVs are designed to perform repetitive tasks that will free up human hours, along with patrolling certain areas as they are equipped with various high-tech optical and audio sensors - essentially making them the "eyes and ears" of the Space Force base.

Notably, the dog-like robots are able to be operated autonomously and manually. Additionally, Q-UGVs can be given voice commands and are capable of being communication nodes that expand the distance of a network. Furthermore, according to Space.com, Q-UGVs are weather- and water-proof - they can even travel underwater, according to Space.com. Officials believe the deployment of Q-UGVs will be for "damage assessments and patrol to save significant man hours."

About 1,000 people have been left trapped after historic flash flooding submerged roads leading in and out of Death Valley National Park.

Reports indicate that 500 staffers and 500 visitors of the Death Valley National Park have been left stranded, with CNN reporting that some individuals have managed to find ways out of the park despite the mass flooding. Notably, at least 60 vehicles have been left in the dirt and debris, with Death Valley officials writing in a Facebook post that conditions have lessened, allowing for repair crews and authorities to work on fixing the roads and escorting individuals out of the park.

So, what caused all this destruction? A historic storm battered the region, with officials writing that Death Valley experienced 75% of its annual rainfall in just 24 hours. Notably, Death Valley gets about two inches of rain every year, with the 24-hour record being 1.47 inches. Over the weekend, the Furnace Creek region got 1.46 inches of rainfall.

NASA successfully landed the Curiosity rover on Mars on August 6, 2012, and since then, it has been exploring the Gale Crater to answer one big question.

NASA sent the now-seasoned rover to the Red Planet to answer a simple yet difficult question - did Mars have all the ingredients to support life? According to Curiosity's Deputy Project Scientist Abigail Fraeman, after 10 years of being on the planet and streams of data acquired by Curiosity, researchers can definitively say that Mars did have ingredients to support life.

Notably, NASA only expected to get about two years out of Curiosity, meaning the rover has more than surpassed its mission requirements and still, to this day, continues to explore the Martian surface. Being stationed on the Red Planet for the past 10 years has caused some damage to the rover, with its wheels taking most of the beating as it traverses Mars' rocky terrain. So far, Curiosity has sent back 3,102 gigabytes of data and drilled 35 samples.

Elon Musk has issued a challenge to the CEO of Twitter, Parag Agrawal, for a "public debate" regarding the number of bots on the platform.

The issue of the number of bots on Twitter has been the cornerstone of Musk's offer to purchase the company for $44 billion being withdrawn, which resulted in lawsuits being filed from both teams. Now, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO has taken to Twitter to issue a challenge to Agrawal, with Musk writing that "I hereby challenge @paraga to a public debate about the Twitter bot percentage".

The challenge from Musk came after he replied to a Twitter thread that supported his legal case against Twitter as the billionaire wrote that "If Twitter simply provides their method of sampling 100 accounts and how they're confirmed to be real, the deal should proceed on original terms". If Twitter provides its method for getting its estimate of less than 5% of Twitter's daily accounts are fake or spam, and it's proven to be accurate, Musk says the deal will go forward as its SEC filing would then be accurate.

An asteroid that was only discovered at the end of last month by astronomers has made its approach to Earth, confirms officials.

The asteroid recently dubbed 2022 OE2 was discovered on July 26, and according to astronomers' estimates, the space rock is approximately the size of two American football fields - between 557 and 1,246 feet wide. If this asteroid was to collide with Earth, officials have estimated it would release more energy than approximately 1,000 nuclear bombs. However, that won't happen as NASA has confirmed that its trajectory won't put it on a collision course with our little blue planet.

Officials have measured 2022 OE2 and found that it will pass Earth at about 3.2 million miles, which is about 13 times the average distance between the Earth and the moon. 2022 OE2 safely zoomed past Earth on August 4. If you are wondering if Earth is due to be impacted by any large asteroids of this caliber, fear not, as NASA is tracking thousands of space rocks such as 2022 OE2, and according to the space agency, there isn't a cataclysmic asteroid that its aware of due to impact Earth for at least the next 100 years.

A recent rocket launch by the China National Space Administration (CNSA) has seen debris come crashing back to Earth.

The nation launched a Long March 5B to deliver the second module of its in-progress space station, Tiangong, to orbit on July 24th, 2022. The 25-ton rocket was then expected to make an uncontrolled descent back to Earth on July 31st, contrasting with the standard practice of a controlled re-entry to land in the Pacific Ocean. Instead, the falling rocket booster slowly lost altitude as it fell through Earth's atmosphere and broke up over Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines.

China's Tiangong space station has been expanded with a new module, including a new robotic arm.

The space station is continually expanding as it is still under construction following its launch in April 2021, with the new Wentian module launching on July 24th, 2022, to join the assembly. The new module brings the station's total module count to two. It includes additional astronaut sleeping quarters, as well as a robotic arm on its exterior that spans about six meters (19.6 feet).

The arm completed an array of tests after the module docked with the space station on July 25th. These included inspecting itself, deploying single joints, and confirming the arm's crawling ability. The distal end of the arm can dock with adapters across the surface of the space station, after which its base can detach, allowing it to "walk" around on the surface of the space station. The Wentian module's arm can work independently or combine with the existing 10-meter (33 feet) long robotic arm that launched with Tiangong's core module, Tianhe.

A new video by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) highlights what the Curiosity Mars rover has learned in the last ten years.

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover landed on the Red Planet inside the Gale Crater on August 6th, 2012, and was lowered to the surface by a jetpack after launching from Earth on November 26th, 2011. The rover has since driven almost 18 miles (29 kilometers) and ascended 2,050 feet (625 meters) while exploring the crater. Work by the engineering team managing the rover to minimize wear and tear has allowed the rover's mission to be extended by another three years.

One of Curiosity's most notable achievements is determining that liquid water and many other chemicals necessary for supporting life were present on Mars for tens of millions of years. The Gale Crater once stored a lake and is home to Mount Sharp, a 5.5-kilometer (3.4 miles) high mountain, which Curiosity has been ascending, with each layer Curiosity climbs revealing a more recent history of Mars. Curiosity is currently heading to a new region thought to bear sulfates, salty minerals left behind after water has dried out.

Etienne Klein has apologized for causing a stir online after labeling a picture of chorizo as a photo taken by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).

Klein is the research director at France's Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission, and posted the picture on August 1st, captioning it as a "Photo of Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Sun, located 4.2 light years from us." Klein continued by saying "She was taken by the JWST. This level of detail... A new world is revealed day after day."

The post was made amongst recent image releases from NASA taken by the JWST throughout July, showing off the capabilities of the new $10 billion space telescope. In replies to the original tweet, Klein jested by warning readers not to let their cognitive biases get the best of them, seemingly referring to being tricked by something blatantly false posted by a reputable individual. He continued with the remark, "According to contemporary cosmology, no object belonging to Spanish charcuterie exists anywhere but on Earth."

A recent NASA livestream clarified details about how the SpaceX rocket became damaged.

The Crew-5 mission, SpaceX's next delivery of astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS), was delayed after the Falcon 9 rocket's interstage and some onboard instrumentation were "damaged during transport" in mid-July, requiring removal and replacement. The rocket was being transported from Hawthorne, California, at SpaceX's production factory, to its McGregor test facility in Texas.

Benjamin Reed, SpaceX's senior director of the human spaceflight program, revealed during a NASA livestream on August 4th that the new Falcon 9 booster "came in contact with a bridge on the route," while it was being transported on a tractor-trailer. According to Reed, "it was a fairly minor incursion, but it still caused some damage."

A study on the planets titled "Detection of Atmospheric Escape from Four Young Mini Neptunes" has been submitted to the The Astronomical Journal and is awaiting peer review.

Researchers from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have analyzed three newly discovered exoplanets known as mini-Neptunes, and a fourth mini-Neptune discovered earlier this year. The previously known one is TOI 560b, and the three new ones are TOI 1430.01, TOI 1683.01, and TOI 2076b, with all of them being between 2.1 and 2.8 times the size of Earth.

The four mini-Neptunes exist relatively close to their host stars and have been observed steadily losing their atmosphere to said stars. Mini-Neptunes are a class of exoplanets (a planet found outside of our solar system) denoting planets larger than Super-Earths (exoplanets that have between 1 and 1.5 times the radius of Earth) but are smaller than Neptune. Very few exoplanets have been found with radii between 1.5 and 2 times the radius of Earth in what's known as the small planet gap.

A study on the molecule titled "Observation of Light-Induced Dipole-Dipole Forces in Ultracold Atomic Gases" has been published in the journal Physical Review X.

Researchers from the Technical University of Vienna (TU Wien) have a special bonding state between atoms using a laser to polarize two atoms. The atoms became positively charged on one side and negatively charged on the other, causing them to be weakly attracted to one another. The energy from the photons produced by the laser means the atoms effectively form a molecule of matter and light. However, the polarization only allows for a relatively weak bond compared to normal molecular bonds.