Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 91

SpinLaunch has completed another test on April 22nd, 2022, of its unconventional alternative to traditional rocket launches.

New footage from the company's eighth flight test shows an optical camera payload being launched from its Suborbital Accelerator Launch System at over 1,000 (1,609 kilometers) miles per hour. The payload is a 3-meter (9.8 feet) long flight test vehicle, equipped for the first time with an onboard camera to provide a unique perspective.

The Suborbital Accelerator Launch System contains a large, rotating carbon fiber arm within a steel vacuum chamber 300 feet (91.4 meters) in diameter. The arm is used to accelerate the payload-carrying launch vehicle to up to 5,000 miles (8046 kilometers) per hour, faster than six times the speed of sound (Mach 6).

A team of marine scientists have discovered fascinating geological formations while diving at Lili uokalani ridge in the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument (PMNM) in the Pacific Ocean.

The team of researchers was studying seamounts, underwater mountains, or geologic landforms that were formed by extinct volcanoes rising abruptly. The team was inspecting the summit of Nootka Seamount with the Exploration Vessel (E/V) Nautilus and discovered a "dried lake bed" formation that featured hyaloclastite rock.

The geological formation was described as a "yellow brick road" that leads to the mythical city of Atlantis and is a prime example of ancient volcanic geology. The 90-degree brick-like fractures were likely caused by sharp heating and cooling stress from multiple eruptions. The PNMM is located north of the Hawaiian islands and spans a whopping 583,000 square miles of ocean, making it one of the largest marine conversation areas on Earth.

NASA's asteroid detection system recorded an asteroid making its closest approach to Earth on Monday, May 9.

Data from the Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory detailed the asteroid named 2006 JF42, which passed safely by Earth at a distance of 3.5 million miles, or about 14 times the distance between the Earth and the moon. The asteroid is estimated to have a diameter of 1,247 feet to 2,822 feet, and poses no future threat to Earth, according to current measurements of its orbit.

NASA has previously stated that while many asteroids are categorized as "potentially hazardous," it doesn't necessarily mean that Earth is in danger by them. Two factors determine an asteroid being categorized as potentially dangerous; its diameter and if its orbit comes within a certain distance of Earth. Previously NASA researchers have stated that the agency doesn't know of any asteroid 500+ feet in diameter that has a chance of impacting Earth within the next 100 years.

NASA has taken to its blog to announce that there was a communications dropout between its Ingenuity helicopter and the Perseverance Mars rover.

On NASA's website, the space agency states that the Mars helicopter named Ingenuity missed planned communications with the Perseverance rover. Ingenuity uses Perseverance as a base station to receive new commands from Earth. Alerted to the drop in communications, NASA began to perform tests to see what had gone wrong.

According to the space agency, Ingenuity failed to communicate with the rover on May 3, which was due to the helicopter entering a "low-power state" that NASA says may be due to the "seasonal increase in the amount of dust in the Martian atmosphere and lower temperatures as winter approaches". Essentially, the increase in martian dust is reducing the amount of sunlight Ingenuity's solar array can acquire, limiting the total amount of charge the helicopter can contain.

Just like Earth, Mars gets smacked with a nice selection of meteors that vary in size and contents. Some of these space rocks make it to the surface.

With images and data acquired by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), researchers believe they have discovered a new crater on the martian surface. The above image was taken by MRO on July 24, 2020, and when compared to an image of the same location taken in 2018, the crater isn't there, meaning an impact happened sometime between 2018 and 2020.

The MRO launched in 2005 and has been in operation since 2006, gathering data on Mars. Over this extensive period of data collection, researchers have been able to estimate that Mars gets smacked by about 200 meteors every year. The HiRISE camera used to snap these images has injected the image with "false" color that allows researchers to more easily distinguish between different materials and textures within the image. The crater would look very different if the human viewing it was standing next to it.

Elon Musk has copped some criticism online over a short private jet trip that took him just 31 miles, or nine minutes of flight time.

The outrage was sparked when the ElonJet Twitter bot account, which Musk has attempted to bribe to be shut down in the past over people using it to meet him at his landing locations, published a post that revealed Musk's jet took off from San Joe, California, US and landed in San Francisco. Many Twitter users were quick to point to the carbon emissions caused by Musk's private jet flight and his overall public message of reducing the reliance on fossil fuels.

Notably, text messages between Musk and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates revealed that Gates holds a $500 million short position against Tesla. Gates was attempting to meet with Musk to discuss climate philanthropy prospects. Musk replied by saying, "Sorry, but I cannot take your philanthropy on climate change seriously when you have a massive short position against Tesla, the company doing the most to solve climate change."

Have you ever wondered what a bullet from a 9mm would look like flying through an egg? The Slow Motion Guys have captured that in staggering amounts of frames per second.

In a new video released to The Slow Mo Guys YouTube channel, Gav and Dan revisit a video that was uploaded to the channel 11 years ago where Gav demonstrated the difference in frames rates by writing on the mugs and shooting at the respective numbers. The highest frame rate in that 11 year old video was 10,000, and is where the egg shooting video begins with the maximum recorded frame rate being 1 million frames per second (FPS).

The eggs are positioned in the same location and a 9mm bullet is fired. The slow motion camera records the impact and each level of frame rate showed revealed different aspects of the collision. At the higher frame rates the bullets wobble from piercing through the egg can be more clearly seen, and moving into the 100,000's of FPS smaller pieces of shell can be seen as well as the shadow from the shockwave of air.

Canada passed laws on April 28th, 2022, allowing crimes committed on the moon to be prosecuted.

An amendment to Canada's Criminal Code to allow the change passed with members of parliament voting 181 to 144 in favor. The nation had already expanded its jurisdiction to include the International Space Station (ISS), allowing it to prosecute Canadian astronauts who committed crimes aboard it. Consequently, crimes committed on either the ISS or on the moon will be treated the same as those committed in Canada.

The amendment comes alongside increasing space flights year after year and ahead of NASA's crewed Artemis II to the moon, which will see astronauts return to the moon for the first time in over half a century, and that will include a Canadian astronaut on the journey.

SpaceX's President and Chief Operating Officer (COO), Gwynne Shotwell, made the prediction on CNBC in a recent interview.

Shotwell believes that astronauts will land on the surface of Mars before the end of the 2020s, likely by taking SpaceX's Starship, which features heavily in the company's plans for Mars. Starship is currently committed to several moon missions once it becomes operational following its upcoming orbital flight test should it pass the Federal Aviation Administration's environmental assessment.

After a trip booked by Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa to go around the moon, Starship has also been tapped by NASA to take the first astronauts to return to the moon as part of its Artemis program. The Artemis program has its sights first set on the moon and eventually Mars, but NASA expects to launch a crewed mission to the Red Planet around 2040, at least a decade after Shotwell expects to see astronauts on Mars.

The hypersonic missile prototype has been developed by Lockheed Martin for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

The prototype is being developed as part of DARPA's Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept (HAWC) program. Lockheed Martin's prototype's recent free flight test is the second such test conducted for the program. The first test was conducted in September, 2021, by Raytheon Technologies, according to a DARPA press release.

According to DARPA's latest press release, "air-breathing vehicles utilize air captured from the atmosphere to achieve sustained propulsion." Lockheed Martin's test saw the missile prototype reach and maintain a cruising speed of greater than Mach 5, or over five times the speed of sound, "for an extended period of time." It reached altitudes of over 65,000 feet (12.3 miles, 19.8 kilometers) and flew for more than 300 nautical miles (345 miles, 555.6 kilometers).

A study on the reversal of aging hallmarks titled "Fecal microbiota transfer between young and aged mice reverses hallmarks of the aging gut, eye, and brain" has been published in the journal Microbiome.

Researchers transplanted fecal microbes from young mice into old mice and saw the reversal of key aging hallmarks in their guts, eyes, and brains. Conversely, transplanting fecal microbes from older mice into young mice accelerated these hallmarks, increasing inflammation in the brain and reducing the production of key proteins such as those required for vision.

Both mice and humans experience inflammaging, which refers to increases in chronic inflammation in areas such as the brain and retinas as we grow older. Inflammaging has been linked to over-activation of specific immune cells, which the transplant was able to rectify or induce in the young-to-old and old-to-young transplants, respectively.

In a new report from the New York Times, a man who received a pig heart transplant has died with traces of an animal virus.

57-year-old David Bennett Sr lived for two months after receiving his genetically modified pig heart, and according to surgeons who performed the first-of-its-kind procedure, the man's body didn't reject the organ, nor was there any evidence to say that the Bennett developed an active infection with a virus following the completion of the transplant.

Bennett died on March 8, and according to Dr. Bartley Griffith of the University of Maryland School of Medicine, traces of a virus that is known to infect pigs was found in Bennett. Notably, Griffith says that the traces of animal virus may have impacted Bennett's condition, and contributed towards his sudden decline in health.

In a recent interview with David Mayman, the founder of the company behind the flying motorcycle, he explained why the new way of transportation has been created and the goal behind it.

Mayman sat down for an interview with Futurism, where he was asked several questions about the flying motorcycle named Speeder. Mayman explained that the Speeder isn't for the everyday driver, and isn't technically a flying motorcycle, as he believes the design has pivoted away from the traditional concept of a flying motorcycle. Notably, Mayman said that Speeder is primarily aimed at the emergency response and disaster relief, but that doesn't mean there won't be any recreational use.

The founder of JetPack Aviation explained that a Speeder could be used to provide emergency response relief to an area hit by a hurricane that has caused extreme damage to roads and trails. The Speeder would be able to fly over all of the damaged roads, even in 40-50 mph winds. Furthermore, the Speeder is capable of reaching 15,000 feet in altitude, but Mayman says that the only time that kind of altitude is reached is when the Speeder is already in a location with terrain that has a high altitude.

The National Solar Observatory (NSO) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have released telescope and satellite views of the latest solar eclipse.

The partial solar eclipse on April 30th was viewable only from the Southern Hemisphere, in parts of Antarctica, South America, the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. However, NOAA satellites were also able to view the event from space. NOAA's GOES-16 satellite captured the moon passing in front of the sun, while its GOES-East satellite spotted the moon's shadow passing over Earth.

Some ground-based telescopes also caught the event, such as the National Science Foundation's Global Oscillation Network Group (GONG) telescope at their NOIRLab Cerro Tololo site located in Chile. The next eclipse is due on May 15th, when May's full moon, known as the Flower Moon, will undergo a total lunar eclipse. After that, another solar eclipse is due on October 25th, 2022.

To celebrate Black Hole Week, NASA has shared a fact about the heart of our Milky Way Galaxy and how it has a "leak".

NASA explains that at the heart of our Milky Way galaxy is a supermassive black hole with a mass of 4.1 million Suns called Sagittarius A. In the space agency's blog post, NASA writes that black holes draw in material into what is called an accretion disk. Sometimes when some of the material swirling around the black hole falls inside, it's "swept up into outflowing jets that are collimated by the black hole's powerful magnetic fields. The narrow "searchlight beams" are accompanied by a flood of deadly ionizing radiation."

Gerald Cecil of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill was able to prove through multiple wavelength observations that the central black hole is "currently powered down" but can sometimes burp or hiccup out mini-jets when it consumes something large such as a gas cloud or an entire star. NASA explains in the below video that observations from Hubble have revealed that the jet is still pushing feebly into a hydrogen cloud, which causes bubbles that can expand as far as 500 light-years.

A group of scientists believes that the compounds found in lunar soil may be able to provide astronauts exploring the surface with oxygen and potentially fuel.

In a new paper published in the journal Jule, a team of scientists analyzed lunar samples obtained by China's Chang'e 5 spacecraft and now plan to develop a system capable of extracting oxygen from the lunar soil. The process is called "extraterrestrial photosynthesis" and includes developing a system that uses solar radiation and lunar soil to electrolyze water from the moon, creating oxygen and hydrogen.

Notably, the scientists also propose that carbon dioxide exhaled by astronauts could be combined with hydrogen from the water electrolysis to produce hydrocarbons such as methane. Methane could then be used as fuel, proposed the researchers.

A team of scientists has uncovered fossils of a 33 ft apex predator dinosaur, breaking records in its appropriate category.

A team of Argentinian paleontologists has announced the discovery of what is now considered the largest Megaraptor on Earth today. The newly discovered Apex Predator has been detailed in a new study published in the Nature journal Scientific Reports. The dinosaur's scientific name is "Maip macrothorax", and the dinosaur is described in the report as being the "shadow of the death" that "kills with cold wind" throughout the Andes mountains.

The now largest Megaraptor measured around 33 ft in length and featured two sharp curved claws per front paw, each of the talons extended 15.7 inches in length. The researchers write in the study that during its time, Maip's would have fed on smaller dinosaurs slashing at them with its long talons and digging into their torsos to withdraw intestines. Maip's are estimated to have lived about 70 million years ago, nearing the end of the Cretaceous period, and according to researchers, the species went extinct about 66 million years ago, making it one of the last megaraptors to roam Earth.

Lunar samples taken on the Apollo 17 missions from 1972 are finally being studied.

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, has received the samples after being transported from NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, where they were brought to and stored in a freezer in December 1972 after Apollo 17 astronauts returned to Earth.

The samples were consolidated at Goddard over four years as researchers from Johnson began designing and retrofitting a facility where the samples could be processed. The samples are being studied as part of the Apollo Next Generation Sample Analysis Program (ANGSA) to produce research to aid the upcoming Artemis missions to the Moon's South Pole.

A study on the binary system titled "A 62-minute orbital period black widow binary in a wide hierarchical triple" has been published in the journal Nature.

MIT astronomers have detected a "black widow binary" star system candidate approximately 3,000 light years from Earth, named ZTF J1406+1222. The star system comprises a pulsar (a rapidly spinning neutron star) and a smaller companion star that the pulsar is slowly consuming, like its namesake, the black widow spider, does to its mate.

Two dozen other black widow binaries have been observed throughout the Milky Way. However, this candidate is unique in that it appears to have a third star associated with the system, circling the two inner stars from afar every 10,000 years. The inner pair of stars also has the shortest orbital period of any known black widow binary, circling each other every 62 minutes.

A study on the Moon titled "Distribution of water phase near the poles of the Moon from gravity aspects" has been published in the journal Nature.

Water has been found on the Moon, and some of this lunar water likely originated from asteroid and comet collisions that brought water to it. However, a new study suggests that another water source is from the Earth itself, up to as much as 3,500 cubic kilometers (840 cubic miles) of it.

Hydrogen and oxygen ions in Earth's upper atmosphere may have passed over to the Moon as the Moon passes through the tail of Earth's magnetosphere for five days out of every lunar month. Solar wind from the Sun breaks the magnetic field lines on one side of Earth, creating the magnetotail the Moon passes through to pick up these ions.