Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 71

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.

The existence of such a molecule has long been theorized, but its confirmation shows a mechanism through which molecules could form in space, as well as avenues for manipulating ultracold atoms. Electromagnetic radiation propagating through space from stars can interact with cold atoms in space with little energy, polarizing them and inducing their ability to create molecules with other nearby atoms.

Researchers from Western University in London, Ontario, Canada, have achieved what they believe is the world's first international holographic teleportation.

Also known as "holoportation," holographic teleportation means transporting the hologram of a person or object instantaneously to another location. On July 27th, 2022, a team from the Western Institute for Space Exploration holoported an individual from Huntsville, Alabama, to London, Ontario, and instantly holoport themselves to Huntsville.

Though this marks the first holoportation across international borders, April 2022 saw NASA holoport a doctor to the International Space Station (ISS), becoming the first "holonaut." One of the major potential applications of the technology is delivering medical care to remote areas, including the ISS.

In a recent interview with Elon Musk, the SpaceX CEO revealed when he believes the largest flying object ever made will launch.

Elon Musk's SpaceX has been developing Starship for quite some time, and recently Musk sat down with the Full Send Podcast to discuss its timeline ahead of its expected first orbital launch. The SpaceX CEO says that he spends most of his day working on getting Starship to orbit, describing the process as "complicated" and "challenging" as Starship is "more than double the thrust of the Saturn V and twice the weight".

Musk further explains that the Saturn V is the largest rocket that has ever reached orbit and was the rocket that took the human race to the moon. Notably, Musk explains that there are numerous hurdles in Starship's development process, but the company is making progress on the "largest flying object ever made," with Musk estimating Starship's first orbital test launch to occur between "maybe 1 and 12 months from now".

A study on the brain after midnight titled "The Mind After Midnight: Nocturnal Wakefulness, Behavioral Dysregulation, and Psychopathology" has been published in the journal Frontiers in Network Psychology.

Researchers from Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania have published a new hypothesis, dubbed the "Mind After Midnight" hypothesis, suggesting that neurophysiological changes occur in the brain when people are awake after midnight. The absolute time these changes occur is relative to your Circadian rhythm but typically occur after midnight, impacting the brain's reward processing, impulse control, and information processing functions.

The researchers found people were more likely to view the world negatively and make impulsive decisions or engage in harmful behaviors without fully considering the consequences. Part of the biological basis for these effects is the circadian influence of positive affect and negative affect, the tendency to view information in a positive or negative light, respectively. Positive affect is highest in the morning after waking and falls to its lowest levels at night when the body is ready for sleep, and negative affect is at its lowest and highest at the opposite times.

Since humans could document anything, we have been recording the relationship between the Earth, the sun, and the moon.

The documentation of the Earth, the sun, and the moon goes back thousands of years and is present cross-culturally. However, there are gaps in our recorded history, with one gap standing out - the May of 1110, when the moon disappeared from view for an entire month. With little knowledge of the phenomenon, researchers set out to uncover the mystery, with one study published in 2020 providing an updated theory on its disappearance.

According to the study, the moon disappearing from the night sky was a result of the Hekla volcanic eruption that occurred in 1110. However, this theory was wholly completed as researchers sifted through numerous medieval documentation for references to a "dark lunar eclipse" or "black eclipse". Scientists concluded that it wasn't just the Helka eruption that blotted out the sun but a string of volcanic eruptions that happened in various locations.

Officials have confirmed that debris from one of Elon Musk's SpaceX missions have crash landed in a farmers paddock.

An Australian sheep farmer was stunned when he found a part of a space mission lying in his field. The object was found in Dalgety, located near Australia's Snowy Mountains, which is about a five-hour drive southwest of Sydney. The farmer described the discovery as "astounding". An Australian Space Agency spokesperson recently confirmed that the debris is from a SpaceX mission, and according to astrophysicist Brad Tucker, the debris is from a trunk jettisoned by the Crew-1 capsule that re-entered Earth in 2021.

The astrophysicist explains that the trunk had split up on re-entry as there were reports of more debris being found scattered in surrounding properties. Since the majority of the planet's surface area is water, most of the space debris that makes it to Earth's surface crash land into the ocean. However, with the space expansion only getting exponentially more real as more companies join in on the race and push to other worlds, debris crashing down into Earth is only going to get frequent.

Many individuals across a country have been onlookers at the many meteors that are entering Earth's atmosphere over their country.

On July 7, a large meteor entered Earth's atmosphere over New Zealand. The space rock streaked across the sky and eventually exploded above the ocean near Wellington. The explosion caused a sonic boom that was heard by residents living in various locations across the South Island. Following that event was another meteor seen above Canterbury just two weeks later.

Individuals have posed many questions to Fireballs Aotearoa, a group project run by astronomers and citizen scientists, with the most requested question being why the meteors turn the sky green and if the same green that is seen in auroras.

A study on the merger titled "The First Short GRB Millimeter Afterglow: The Wide-Angled Jet of the Extremely Energetic SGRB 211106A" has been accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Researchers led by Northwestern University and Radboud University have recorded one of the most high-energy, short-duration gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) ever, exploding from the merger of a neutron star and another nearby star. Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), the largest radio telescope in the world, the researchers produced a time-lapse of the GRB produced by the merger, generating a large flash of light radiation.

The GRB is dubbed GRB 211106A and produced one of the most luminous afterglows on record. These short gamma ray bursts (SGRBs) last a fraction of a second and occur when binary star systems containing a neutron star collapse. They are believed to create the heaviest elements in the Universe, like platinum and gold. The merger that produced it was initially observed by NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory using X-rays, but it could not detect the host galaxy as the burst was so faint and distant.

A study on the synthetic embryos titled "Post-Gastrulation Synthetic Embryos Generated Ex Utero from Mouse Naïve ESCs" has been published in the journal Cell.

Researchers from the Weizmann Institute of Science have grown synthetic mice embryos with only stem cells cultured in a petri dish. The process did not involve any sperm or eggs, the combination of which leads to the formation and growth of an embryo in nature. Allowing the stem cells to grow into an embryo and the organs that develop as the embryo grows paves the way toward using stem cells to grow tissues and organs using this model in the future.

Scientists have already managed previously to regress mature cells to an earlier stage of "stemness," however, turning these new stem cells into particular, specialized cells has proved difficult. The researchers paired the naïve stem cells, those with the potential to become the most different kinds of cells, with a device they developed over seven years to grow natural mouse embryos outside of a womb. Three different groups of cells were used, and overall, 50 of 10,000, or 0.5 percent, developed successfully into embryos with a 95% similarity to natural mouse embryos.

Lake Mead, the United States' largest reservoir, has dropped to its lowest level since the Hoover Dam was built to contain it.

The levels are their lowest since April 1937, when the reservoir was still being filled for the first time after the Hoover Dam's construction was completed in 1936. As of July 31st, 2022, Lake Mead is only 27 percent full, with the level of water elevation at the Hoover Dam dropping to 1,040.92 feet (317.3 meters) above sea level, compared to 1199.97 feet (341 meters) near the end of July 2000.

The lake's elevation reaches 1,220 feet (372 meters) at maximum capacity, and to continue the operation of the hydropower turbines at the dam, the water level should stay above 1000 feet. The continually dropping water levels have revealed numerous surprises, however, such as the body of a murder victim inside a barrel on May 1st.

The European Space Agency (ESA) has announced the first "astronaut" that will be flying aboard NASA's upcoming Artemis I mission.

The Artemis I mission marks the first part of NASA's Artemis program, which aims to return astronauts to the Moon. The program will use the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft, and Artemis I will fly without any living crew members as it makes its way around the Moon. Artemis II will make the same journey but with human passengers. The Orion spacecraft will house astronauts on Artemis missions, including Shaun the Sheep for the first.

The Orion spacecraft includes the European Service Module, which Shaun has been familiarised with as he has engaged in an astronaut training program since 2020 in preparation for Artemis I. The preparation has seen him visit various sites across Europe and the USA to explore different aspects of the Artemis mission, a process which was documented and will be shared by the ESA as Artemis I's launch draws nearer.

NASA has taken to its social channels to share an image snapped by its Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter that's tasked with mapping the Red Planet's geology.

NASA explains on its website that the above image is a martian ridge that researchers suspect was created from the erosion of the surrounding area that could be an indicator of an ancient fluvial channel. Notably, NASA states the ridge itself is made of much tougher material than what's surrounding it, as indicated by the craters on its flanks.

Furthermore, NASA explains that the erosion is still taking place, which is evident by the "fresh" boulders and sand dunes that are forming alongside the ridge and its outskirts. As previously stated, the image was snapped by NASA's $720 million Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), which was launched on August 12, 2005, and was designed to study the geology and climate of Mars while also providing a relay point for data acquired by rovers such as Curiosity and Perseverance.

Three individuals were caught in a car while a severe bought of hail fell from the sky, causing damage to multiple vehicles.

Gibran Marquez Cedillo and his two friends were stuck in a car when a severe weather system hit Alberta on August 1. Cedillo recorded the event on his phone, and the footage stands as a representation of what many residents in the area experienced as it shows softball-sized hailstones impacting several vehicles in the area and individuals ducking for cover.

According to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, there were at least 34 vehicles that were damaged as a result of the hailstorm, with many of the owners reporting shattered windows and windshields. Cedillo's vehicle was damaged, and according to his statement to Storyful, the event lasted about 17 minutes. During that time, Cedillo and his two friends were "fearing for [their] lives". If you are interested in reading more about this story, check out this link here.

A large sinkhole has just opened up and has caused officials to dispatch experts to the area to begin an investigation.

The sinkhole randomly appeared over the weekend in Chile, approximately 500 miles north of Santiago, according to the National Geology and Mining Service. Officials have already dispatched experts to the area to begin an investigation, and according to preliminary results, the diameter of the sinkhole stretches 104 feet, with current estimates putting its depth at about 200 or more feet.

As you can imagine, experts have fenced off the area by putting a 300-foot perimeter around the hole. Luckily, the appearance of the sinkhole didn't cause any damage to personnel, equipment, or infrastructure in the area. Furthermore, Canadian firm Lundin Mining, which operates the nearby Alcaparrosa mine, has said in a statement that its temporarily suspended mining operations.

A team of archaeologists has unearthed an ancient Egyptian cemetery for the pharaohs that dates back some 4,500 years.

Researchers believe there were six sun temples constructed to honor the ancient Egyptian god Ra, the god of the Sun, kings, and the sky. Only two of these temples were discovered, but now a team of Polish and Italian archaeologists has discovered a third during the excavation of the Abusir necropolis, the primary burial site for the pharaohs of the Fifth Dynasty of ancient Egypt.

The Fifth Dynasty of ancient Egypt existed between 2465 and 2323 BC, and according to the Egyptian Ministry, the temple was constructed using mud bricks and had a weighted limestone entrance. Dr. Mustafa Waziri, secretary-general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, said that archaeologists accessed the temple through a limestone entrance which has a paved floor of mud bricks with some being embedded with a weighted face.