Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 73

The two asteroids are due to make their close approaches past Earth on Friday, July 29th, and Saturday, July 30th, respectively.

The first of the two asteroids is named 2016 CZ31 and will make its close approach at 23:02 UTC on Friday, missing the planet by about 1,740,000 miles (2,800,000 kilometers). The asteroid orbits within the solar system and makes its closest pass by Earth every few years, with the next one due in January 2028. 2016 CZ31 measures roughly 400 feet (122 meters) across, with a width comparable to the height of a 40-story skyscraper.

The second asteroid, 2013 CU83, will make its close approach to Earth at 23:37 UTC. 2013 CU83 won't come as close to Earth, only coming as close as 4,320,000 miles (6,960,000 km) from Earth. This distance is 18 times the average distance between the Earth and the Moon, compared to 7 times that distance for 2016 CZ31's close approach. However, 2013 CU83 is much larger, measuring roughly 600 feet (183 meters) across at its widest point.

A study on the thinking experiment titled "Thinking About Thinking: People Underestimate How Enjoyable and Engaging Just Waiting Is." has been published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.

Researchers have conducted six experiments involving 259 participants, comparing how people expected to enjoy sitting around and thinking with how much they actually enjoyed the experience. Participants were made to sit alone for 20 minutes without any distractions such as smartphones, books, or being able to walk about, and to predict how much they would enjoy it beforehand. Multiple variations of the same experiment were performed, reducing the time to 3 minutes, removing visual stimulation by sitting participants in a dark, tented area or empty conference room, and more.

The researchers found that in every scenario, participants enjoyed the experience more than they initially predicted. One experiment saw a group of participants predict their enjoyment of a bout of thinking, and another predicted their enjoyment of checking the news online. The thinking group more greatly underestimated their actual enjoyment, and both groups reported similar enjoyment levels after their respective activities. Overall, thinking on its own was rated between 3 to 4 on a 7-point scale of enjoyment.

Russia's space agency Roscosmos announced on July 26th, 2022, that it would abandon its role in the International Space Station (ISS) after 2024.

The nation has since shared plans for its own space station called the Russian Orbital Service Station (ROSS), which it plans to begin assembling in space in 2028. It is unknown exactly when Russia will fully sever its ties with the ISS, but it will likely coincide with the ROSS approaching operational status. The first construction phase is due to begin in 2028, and a second phase will begin in 2030, expanding the station with additional modules.

The need for a new station is partly because the aged modules making up the ISS require evermore work to upkeep. The Russian modules are up to 25 years old, despite initially being designed for a 15-year lifespan. As such, Russian cosmonauts have been less able to focus on science experiments in space as they attend to maintenance and repairs.

A study on the origins of life titled "Prebiotic synthesis of α-amino acids and orotate from α-ketoacids potentiates transition to extant metabolic pathways" has been published in the journal Nature Chemistry.

Researchers from The Scripps Research Institute have discovered a new group of chemical reactions that can produce amino acids and nucleic acids, foundational molecules for life used to build proteins and deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). The reactions involve cyanide, ammonia, and carbon dioxide, all molecules thought to have been present on Earth early in the planet's existence.

The planet has reached Earth Overshoot Day for this year on July 28th, 2022.

Earth Overshoot Day marks the date on which humanity has consumed the number of resources since the start of the calendar year that the Earth is capable of sustainably regenerating in an entire year. Passing this milestone about a month past the halfway mark of the year indicates that it would take 1.75 Earths to produce the resources required by the world's population sustainably.

NASA is planning to inspire the world with its plan to get Martian samples back on Earth's soil for analysis.

NASA's Perseverance rover, which landed in the Jezero Crater on February 18 2021, has been hard at work collecting Mars samples, and so far, it has collected 11 scientifically-compelling rock core samples along with one atmospheric sample. NASA is devising a plan to get those samples and more back on Earth. The space agency has taken to its blog to reveal its updated plan for retrieving the Mars samples, and according to NASA, it's coming to the end of its conceptual design phase.

NASA writes that the retrieval mission will include a craft called the Sample Retrieval Lander that will feature two sample recovery helicopters that will be designed off the helicopter currently sitting on the surface of Mars, Ingenuity. These two helicopters will provide a secondary capability to retrieve the Mars samples cached on the surface of Mars. Here's how it will work. NASA's Perseverance rover will take its samples to the Sample Retrieval Lander, where a robotic arm provided by the European Space Agency (ESA) will load them into an ascent vehicle.

Black holes have been a center point for scientific exploration for many years now, and while progress is being made on their understanding, researchers still have a long way to go.

NASA has published a new image of a black hole using its Chandra X-Ray Observatory and the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory. NASA explains on its website that the above image showcases rings around a black hole located in the binary system called V404 Cygni, that's located approximately 7,800 light-years from Earth. So, what causes these rings to appear in the X-ray image?

The space agency explains that the rings are caused by the black hole pulling material away from a companion star located within its approximate vicinity. The star is estimated to be about half the size of the Sun, and the rings that are clearly seen in the image aren't visible in visible light, but are clear as day through X-ray vision as the material "glows". Astronomers refer to systems such as these as "X-ray binaries". For more information on this story, check out this link here.

A team of researchers has captured insane footage of a rare sea creature living at the extreme depth of nearly 10,000 feet.

The team of researchers called Nautilus Live has taken to their YouTube channel to share footage of an expedition down to the unexplored seamount north of Johnston Atoll in the Pacific Ocean. During the expedition, the researchers observed and captured glorious footage of a rare sea creature known as a Solumbellula Sea Pen. The observation marked the first time the sea creature has been spotted in the pacific ocean.

Notably, the Solumbellula Sea Pen is about 15 inches from its 6.5-foot-long stalk. The tentacles seen attached to the creature are for gathering food particles that have floated down to the depths from above, and from the video, you can hear the researchers gasping at their discovery, with one researcher saying that "My mind is blown right now." The researchers speculated on the creature's age and estimated that it would be anywhere between seven to ten years old.

The falling piece of space junk is the core stage of a Chinese Long March 5B rocket.

The rocket launched on Sunday, July 24th, 2022, taking the Wentian module for China's Tiangong space station to orbit, the second module for the under-construction space station. Experts estimate that the rocket stage will stay in orbit for about a week before re-entering Earth's atmosphere on July 31st, around 3:30 a.m. EDT (07:30 UTC), plus or minus 22 hours, and then crashing to the ground to an as-of-yet unknown location.

The Aerospace Corporation noted that about "20-40% of the mass of a large object will reach the ground," meaning 5-9 tonnes (5.5-9.9 tons) of rocket will reach Earth, with the rest burning up in the atmosphere. The uncontrolled return of the Long March 5B rocket is the second of its kind, after an identical rocket did the same after delivering the first module of the Tiangong space station, Tianhe, to orbit on April 29th, 2021.

A study on the predator titled "A crown-group cnidarian from the Ediacaran of Charnwood Forest, UK" has been published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.

Paleontologists have discovered a 560-million-year-old fossil of the earliest known predator from the animal kingdom. The animal has been named the Auroralumina attenboroughii in honor of Sir David Attenborough, with the first portion of its name meaning "dawn lantern" in Latin. The A. attenboroughii is related to the group of animals that includes corals, jellyfish, and anemones.

The fossil was found in Charnwood Forest near Leicester, England, where many famous fossils have been found. It is the oldest animal discovered to have a skeleton, and it predates the emergence of animals like jellyfish around 540 million years ago by about 20 million years. Jellyfish and many other animals appeared during the Cambrian Explosion, from which point much of the anatomy of living animals became fixed. However, this find suggests that this general anatomy may have been fixed at least 20 million years earlier.

A study on the bacteria titled "Plastic pollution fosters more microbial growth in lakes than natural organic matter" has been published in the journal Nature Communications.

Researchers from Cambridge University have studied 29 European lakes, finding that bacteria that were naturally present in the lakes grew faster and more efficiently when consuming degraded plastic bags instead of organic matter like leaves or wood. The bacteria broke down and ate the carbon compounds making up the plastics and appear to prefer the carbon compounds sourced from the plastic as they are easier to break down than carbon in organic matter.

Only a 4% increase in carbon levels due to plastic in water bodies resulted in a doubling in bacterial growth rate. The team believes that increasing the concentration of these bacteria in other water bodies polluted with plastic could be a viable means to remove the pollution. However, the researchers warn that this finding does not condone continued plastic pollution, which has a wide gamut of adverse consequences.

The footprints were spotted by researchers from Cornell University and the Far Western Anthropological Research Group.

Driving along the salt flats at the United States Air Force's Utah Testing and Training Range (UTTR), they spotted "ghost tracks" that only appear when the moisture conditions are right before disappearing again. They returned to the site the next day with ground-penetrating radar, and more tracks were discovered, created by bare feet and totaling 88 footprints from adults and children.

The trash was collected from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP) by the non-profit organization, The Ocean Cleanup.

The Ocean Cleanup has collected its first 100,000 kilograms (220,462 pounds) of plastic from the patch, as announced by the organization on LinkedIn, saying "we have now officially cleaned up 1/1000th of the GPGP." The GPGP is the single largest collection of plastic in the ocean worldwide and is located between Hawaii and California. It is estimated to cover a surface area of 1.6 million square kilometers (617,763 square miles), about twice the size of Texas.

The GPGP is estimated to weigh approximately 80,000 tonnes (88,185 tons), equivalent to about 500 jumbo jets. This estimation only considers the densest, central region of the patch, as the density of mass decreases towards the outer boundaries. When factoring in the mass in both areas, the total mass is estimated to be around 100,000 tonnes (110,231 tons).

Over the weekend, hundreds of people reported seeing a fireball light up the night sky over Texas, with some individuals seeing the event from surrounding states.

The object has been confirmed to be a meteoroid entering Earth's atmosphere over the Texas region, and according to the American Meteor Society (AMS), the fireball flew overhead at 10:52 pm on Sunday. The fireball that hundreds of people saw was unusually large when compared to the typical space debris entering Earth's atmosphere. According to the AMS, the meteoroid was approximately the size of a small car when it entered Earth's atmosphere and began burning up.

Furthermore, the AMS states that initial computer-generated trajectory indicates that it entered Earth's atmosphere over Cistern, Texas, and its flight ended a few miles west of Austin. Additionally, the AMS writes that many of the witnesses of the event reported hearing a sonic boom just after the fireball appeared in the sky, leading officials to say that it's possible that pieces of the meteor broke off and impacted the surface of Earth somewhere along its travel path.

In early June, Yellowstone National Park was devastated by torrential flooding that was so powerful it knocked out roads and homes and left individuals stranded.

Yellowstone is still recovering from the horrific natural disaster, and according to previous reports, the flooding came from the adjacent river, which caused the roads as well as some banks to erode and collapse into the rushing water. Notably, the park was closed due to the flooding, marking the first time in 34 years that officials were forced into closure. Furthermore, the flooding caused more than 10,000 visitors to exit the park as well as officials estimated that the damage caused by the flood water will likely take months to repair.

Now, Yellowstone has taken to its social channels to post a video that showcases the widespread flood damage that was caused, in particular to The Canyon and the North Entrance Road. According to the US Geological Survey, the immense volume of water is a "1 in 500-year event", which translates to just a 0.2% chance of a flood of this level occurring each year.

There are many ways humans die, and one way that may not necessarily exist now will certainly pose an issue in the future.

The ever-growing problem of space junk will not only present many issues for companies looking to launch satellite, etc, into Earth's orbit, but also for humans on Earth's surface. According to a newly published study as more space junk is gathered in Earth's atmosphere, humans will be at risk of falling space junk being a measured cause of death. Notably, the study predicts that within the next decade, there's a 6-10% chance that someone will die from falling space junk.

Falling space junk isn't something humans have had to worry about until now, but now space has been opened up to the commercial market, which is causing many companies to look at low-Earth orbit as a prospect for business. As a result of this, we can expect more and more satellites (etc) to blast off from Earth's surface, with one example being SpaceX set to send thousands of Starlink satellites into low-Earth orbit to provide internet connection.

Residents in Indiana and other states noticed the sky turn a strange blue color on July 23, and now we know why.

A video uploaded to the American Meteor Society (AMS) shows a somewhat large meteoroid entering Earth's atmosphere at high speeds and bursting into flames as it soared across the night sky. The event was recorded by the AMS, and according to its website, the fireball was spotted by 155 people across multiple states such as Kentucky, Missouri, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, and more.

So, why did the meteoroid cause the sky to turn into a blue color? When a meteoroid enters Earth's atmosphere, it experiences a high level of friction with Earth's dense atmosphere. This friction is increased as the meteor gets closer to Earth's surface, and as a result, the meteor catches fire - turning into a fireball. The brightness of the meteor is determined by the speed and size of the space debris.

An artificial intelligence (AI) has been asked to produce an image that displays the last selfie a human ever took on Earth.

The artificial intelligence system is called DALL-E and is designed to produce completely original images from text descriptions that anyone can enter. The AI system is a 12-billion parameter version of GPT-3, which is an autoregressive language model that uses deep learning to produce human-like conversations. Engineers took that GPT-3 model, developed by OpenAI, to create DALL-E, and instead of the AI producing human-like conversations, it produces a batch of images based on the text entered.

The AI system was asked to produce what it "thinks" would be the last selfie a human ever took on Earth, and using the data provided to it by Google's servers, the AI produced a batch of completely original images that showcase a grim depiction of the world ending. Now, these images hold no validity when it comes to predicting Earth's future. However, it's certainly an interesting result that was produced. Notably, the same AI was asked to produce an image from inside a black hole. The results of that search can be found below.

A study on Alzheimer's detection titled "Amyloid-beta misfolding and GFAP predict risk of clinical Alzheimer's disease diagnosis within 17 years" has been published in the journal Alzheimer's & Dementia.

Researchers from the Ruhr University Bochum in Germany have created a new sensor that can detect early signs of Alzheimer's disease in patients during the 15 to 20-year period before symptoms emerge in cases. An immuno-infrared sensor detects the misfolding of the amyloid-beta protein biomarker, which leads to the accumulation of characteristic "plaques" in the brain.

The Northrop Grumman Corporation has released footage of a test firing of NASA's new rocket booster.

The test was a "full-scale static fire" conducted by Northrop Grumman and NASA, using the Flight Support Booster-2 from NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, the world's largest solid rocket motor. The SLS will fly on NASA's upcoming Artemis missions to the Moon and uses a five-segment solid rocket booster to provide over 75% of the SLS rocket's initial thrust at launch.

The 154-foot-long (46.9 meters) booster fired for more than two minutes, generating over 3.6 million pounds of thrust. The booster segments to be used on the first three missions in the Artemis program are already complete. However, boosters for the Artemis IV mission through Artemis IX have yet to be finalized. Northrop Grumman was awarded a contract in December 2021 to develop the next generation of boosters for the missions.