Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 83

Potentially artificial signals were detected by the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST) in China.

Global Times, the self-described "China state-affiliated media" has reported that researchers from the Beijing Normal University have detected several signals using China's FAST. The signals are suspected to be from extraterrestrial civilizations," though the researchers are exploring further to confirm the findings.

FAST is the world's largest filled-aperture radio telescope, and has been used since 2020 to search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). According to a Chinese source translated by Andrew Jones on Twitter, a self-described "journalist tracking China's space program," several candidate signals of "possible technological traces and extraterrestrial civilizations" have been found using FAST, referred to as the "Chinese Sky Eye."

The Federal Aviation Administration has finally completed its environmental review of SpaceX's Starship.

The Final Programmatic Environmental Assessment (PEA) is now available online, with the FAA concluding that SpaceX's plans for Starship and Starbase will "not result in significant environmental consequences." However, 75 actions are necessary before Starship will be able to launch. Following the conclusion of the assessment, SpaceX tweeted out, "One step closer to the first orbital flight test of Starship."

Following the news, Twitter users have queried Elon Musk when an orbital flight test of Starship might occur, after it was initially planned for late last year but delayed while awaiting the completion of the FAA's assessment. Musk responded by saying that Starship will be "ready to fly next month," indicating an orbital flight test as a possibility sometime in July.

A Chinese satellite launch center has experienced an explosion, according to a slew of high-resolution satellite images.

According to Spacenews.com, the explosion occurred at China's Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center located in the Gobi Desert between October 15 and October 16, 2021. Space enthusiast Harry Stranger found evidence of the explosion using images captured by Airbus and CNES (seen above). Reports indicate that the explosion didn't have any effect on China's future launches, as the nation's Shenzhou-13 mission launched from Jiuquan on October 15, 2021.

The publication reports that Chinese media didn't report on the explosion, which adds a certain mysterious element to what could have caused the explosion or what China was attempting to get off the ground. Spacenews suspects that China was attempting to construct, test, and launch solid rockets for orbital launches. This isn't the first time a launch was failed at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, as the Kuaizhou-1A and Kuaizhou-11 rockets both failed.

The below video was captured by Yellowstone's helicopter manager and showcases why the national park is now closed.

Taking to its official Twitter account, the Yellowstone National Park explains that the north entrance road to the park through to the Gardner Canyon between Gardiner, Montana, and Mammoth Hot Springs has endured mass flooding. The fast-paced water has destroyed large portions of the road and has created an overall hazardous situation for anyone on the ground.

Yellowstone National Park explains in a follow-up tweet that the high volumes of water came from the adjacent river that has overflowed and eroded the road as well as some banks. This recent closure of the park marks the first time Yellowstone has been forced to close in 34 years. Notably, the floodwaters have broken all previously set records and have caused more than 10,000 visitors to evacuate the park. Furthermore, officials at the park have said that repairs to the affected area will likely take months to complete.

Elon Musk has posted to his personal Twitter account an image of the launch vehicle poised to land the first humans on Mars.

The above image showcases Starship SN24 in the "high bay" at what seems to be SpaceX's South Texas launch site called Starbase. The photograph from Musk comes a day after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) finally released its evaluation of the environmental impacts of Starbase, which requested SpaceX make more than 75 changes to its facility before the regulator can grant the space-faring company approval to launch Starship.

The report from the FAA puts SpaceX at a metaphorical yellow light, and the company seemingly took the news in stride as it wrote on its Twitter that it's now "one step closer to the first orbital test of Starship". Notably, the report from the FAA states it "Finding of No Significant Impact" for SpaceX's plans to conduct orbital launches with its Starship, or the Super Heavy rocket. Furthermore, the FAA will only approve SpaceX for five orbital and suborbital launches per year.

Amazon has updated the world on its upcoming Prime Air drone deliveries, where residents in Lockeford, California, will be some of the first people to get their deliveries... by drones.

The company has published a new blog post that explains that Amazon's teams of "hundreds of scientists, engineers, aerospace professionals, and futurists have been working hard" on the Prime Air drone delivery side of Amazon's continuously expanding business.

Lockeford is also no stranger to the aviation industry, with Amazon pointing out that one of the early pioneers of aviation -- Weldon B. Cooke -- built and flew planes in the early 1900s, and was a resident of Lockeford. Now, 100+ years later we're seeing the next generation of delivery technology: drone delivery. Lockeford residents will be providing feedback to Amazon over the Prime Air drones delivering packages to their backyards.

A study on the asteroid Ryugu titled "Samples returned from the asteroid Ryugu are similar to Ivuna-type carbonaceous meteorites" has been published in the journal Science.

Researchers have analyzed samples retrieved from the Ryugu asteroid by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's (JAXA) Hayabusa2 spacecraft after a six-year mission to visit the asteroid about 300 million kilometers (186.4 million miles). Researchers from Okayama University discovered organic matter, including amino acids, that they believe "could give clues to the origin of life on Earth."

In analyzing a sample of asteroid dust and rocks weighing only 5.4 grams (0.2 ounces), the team found 23 different types of amino acids. Amino acids are theorized to have been created on Earth billions of years ago through a combination of lightning strikes and other primitive conditions. However, the presence of amino acids on Ryugu, an asteroid located far from off, shows that they can form elsewhere and may have been brought to Earth early on.

A study on the black hole titled "An isolated mass gap black hole or neutron star detected with astrometric microlensing" has been accepted for publication in the The Astrophysical Journal.

Researchers from the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) have discovered what they believe to be a free-floating black hole, the first black hole of its kind to be observed. Astronomers believe large stars leave behind black holes when they die; however, isolated black holes are invisible. It is hypothesized that hundreds of millions of such black holes exist throughout the Milky Way, born from the death of stars.

Researchers used gravitational lensing, which detects the brightening of a star that has been influenced by a strong gravitational field from a nearby object, in this case, a potential black hole. The object's mass is estimated to be between 1.6 and 4.4 times that of our Sun. The researchers caution that the object could be a neutron star, as it is believed dead stars must have masses 2.2 times greater than our Sun's to collapse into a black hole.

Russia is currently working on creating its own space station to use instead of the International Space Station (ISS).

The proposed Russian Orbital Service Station (ROSS), will use modules from the ISS in its creation. However, scientists from the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) are concerned about the possibility of "potentially pathogenic bacteria" from the ISS damaging materials aboard the new Russian space station.

An email obtained by BusinessInsider has revealed that Elon Musk will soon be speaking to Twitter employees for the first time since the deal to purchase the company went public.

The email sent by Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal informs Twitter employees that an all-hands meeting will be held on Thursday, June 16, and will feature SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk as a guest speakers. The email also states that employees will be able to submit questions for Musk to answer as soon as Wednesday and that Leslie Berland, Twitter's chief marketing officer, will be moderating the meeting.

Twitter employees have already been very vocal about wanting to speak to Musk about his plan to acquire Twitter and what that means for their jobs and the overall ethos of the company. Notably, Agrawal stated in the email that Musk will be asked questions that employees have proposed over the past weeks, which will no doubt cover topics such as layoffs, reenabling banned Twitter accounts (Donald Trump), and how "free speech" on Twitter will change under Musk's ownership.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) recently concluded its investigation into the environmental impacts of SpaceX's Starbase facility located on Texas's Gulf Coast.

The assessment, which has been released online, requests that SpaceX make more than 75 changes to its facility before the regulator grants approval for the company to launch rockets to the Moon and beyond. Notably, the conclusion from the FAA has put a temporary stop to SpaceX's launch of Starship, the company's new next-generation rocket poised to be the transportation method that will be used to put humans on Mars.

However, as SpaceNews notes, the assessment didn't specifically state that Starship, or any coming orbital launches, will have any environmental impact, but more so, the requests are aimed at making SpaceX take the necessary steps now to reduce any future environmental impact. Furthermore, the recent review by the FAA puts a cap on the number of launches SpaceX can conduct per year - five orbital launches and five suborbital launches.

NASA has captured on video the Sun firing off a solar flare that was accompanied by a coronal mass ejection.

NASA used its Solar Dynamics Observatory to observe the solar event from multiple wavelengths, giving astronomers and Sun researchers a variety of ways to interpret the data. The Sun released its solar flare on June 13, where it shot large quantities of high-energy radiation into space for approximately eight hours. Officials reported that the flare reached M3.4, which places it in the "medium" power categorization, meaning it wasn't powerful enough to cause any significant impact to Earth.

Notably, Spaceweather reports that the solar flare also came with a coronal mass ejection (CME), which is a large cloud of plasma that is ejected from the Sun's corona, usually, after a solar flare occurs. The flare can be traced back to the sunspot group named AR3032 exploding. As for the CME, officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) believe the CME will mostly pass Earth when it arrives on June 15 but may impact Earth's magnetosphere slightly.

New Zealand has new plan to impact climate change, and while initially it may sound like a ridiculous plan, officials believe it could have a big effect.

Reports indicate that a new draft proposal suggests implementing a new tax that would charge farmers for the amount of methane emissions produced by their livestock. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, livestock methane and carbon dioxide emissions account for approximately 10% of greenhouse emissions created by human activity. Notably, there are about 1.4 billion cows in the world and each of them produce on average 500 liters of methane each day.

New Zealand plans to reduce its greenhouse emissions by creating a new tax scheme that would charge farmers on the approximate amount of methane produced by their livestock, and if passed the new scheme would begin taxing farmers in 2025. The draft proposal will also provide farmers with incentives to reduce their methane emissions by feeding their livestock a special diet as well as planting more trees. Lastly, the money generated from the tax would be rolled back into research and development to further reduce greenhouse gases across the country.

SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk has played a major role in curbing Putin's disinformation campaign, according to the Pentagon.

A recent report from Politico has revealed that Musk's Starlink satellites, which have provided much-needed internet access across Ukraine, have "totally destroyed" Russian President Vladimir Putin's information campaign and have provided as many as 150,000 Ukrainians with internet access every day.

To illustrate the importance of Starlink to Ukraine, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said that in areas where Ukraine's traditional internet access was disconnected, Russian troops in the area informed residents that Ukraine was overrun with Russians and that country didn't exist anymore.

Energy storage company Energy Dome has launched its first ever "CO₂ Battery facilty" in Sardinia, Italy.

The carbon dioxide (CO₂) battery technology uses electric compressors to compress huge amounts of carbon dioxide gas inside a flexible dome into smaller and smaller volumes before the pressure is so great that it turns into a liquid. This process, in effect, "charges" the battery, while also generating some waste heat, which is captured by a thermal energy storage system.

The carbon dioxide can be safely stored for a long duration, awaiting use. When the battery is to be discharged, the stored heat is used to return the liquid carbon dioxide to a gaseous state, causing it to expand by almost 400 times. This expansion powers a set of turbines which returns energy to the grid, resulting in a round-trip efficiency of more than 75%, according to Energy Dome.

A study on the moon map titled "The 1:2,500,000-scale geologic map of the global moon" has been accepted for publication in the journal Science Bulletin.

Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and other institutions have created the largest and most detailed map of the lunar surface yet. One of the many previous geologic maps of the lunar surface stitches together six individual 1:5,000,000 scale maps to cover the Moon's surface. However, knowledge of the lunar surface has expanded significantly since its creation.

The researchers created a geologic map with a 1:2,500,000 scale, doubling the resolution. They achieved this by subdividing the Moon into 30 quadrangles which could be individually mapped with a consistent approach. Previously, many of the geologic maps of the Moon compiled by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) were created by different groups at different times and with different standards, which led to inconsistencies and confusion.

A study on the cancer treatment titled "Targeting LIPA independent of its lipase activity is a therapeutic strategy in solid tumors via induction of endoplasmic reticulum stress" has been published in the journal Nature Cancer.

Researchers from the University of Texas at Dallas (UT Dallas) have synthesized a new molecule capable of killing many cancers that are notoriously difficult to treat, including triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). The new molecule is called ERX-41, which is effective against breast cancer cells with and without estrogen receptors (ERs).

Patients with TNBC have fewer treatment options as the cancer cells have no estrogen, progesterone, and human epidermal growth factor 2 receptors. However, ERX-41 could kill these cells and effectively treat hard-to-treat pancreatic, ovarian, and brain cancers, notably glioblastoma, the most deadly of brain cancers.

A study on the Earth's oscillation titled "Seismological observation of Earth's oscillating inner core" has been published in the journal Science Advances.

Researchers from the University of Southern California (USC) have found evidence of the Earth's inner core oscillating instead of consistently rotating faster than the planet's surface does, as was previously thought. Seismic data from 1969 to 1974 indicates that the direction of the inner core's movement changed during that time. The scientists believe the inner core movement explains the changes in day length seen in the last several decades.

The new robotic lunar rover has a humanoid upper body and four wheeled legs, resembling a centaur from Greek mythology, a creature with a human upper body and the lower body of a horse.

The lunar rover is called the R1 robot and was developed by GITAI, a space robotics startup, in partnership with Japan's space agency, JAXA. The R1 has two arms with articulating claws for hands, cameras on its head that resemble eyes, and each of its four wheels can rotate independently with complete 360-degree freedom.

During a test at a JAXA facility, the R1 traversed uneven terrain peppered with rocks, designed to simulate a lunar environment. The rover also showed off various locomotion maneuvers, and a later test showed an operator controlling the robot with a virtual reality (VR) headset and handheld controls.

Researchers have reported the discovery of the largest meat-eating dinosaur to ever roam Europe called the "White Rock spinosaurid".

A new study published in the journal PeerJ Life & Environment details the discovery of fossils from the dinosaur that is expected to have lived approximately 125 million years ago during the Cretaceous Period. The fossils that were found include a back, hip, and tail bones with some additional limb fragments. The fossils were found along Compton Bay, located on the southwest coast of the Isle of Wight.

According to the researchers, the White Rock spinosaurid is, at the very least, "one of the biggest - and possibly the biggest - known land predator ever to stalk Europe," said Chris Barker, a University of Southampton doctoral student in paleontology and the lead author of the new paper. Notably, paleontologists estimate that the dinosaur was about 32 feet long but could have possibly been even bigger. For reference, the Tyrannosaurus rex was close to 42 feet long.