Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 96

A study on the vaccine development titled "Enantiomer-dependent immunological response to chiral nanoparticles" has been published in the journal Nature.

An international research team found that the addition of left-handed chiral gold nanoparticles to vaccines increased their effectiveness by over 25 percent. The gold nanoparticles are added as adjuvants, molecules that boost the immune system's sensitivity to a particular antigen, where an antigen is any substance that elicits an immune response.

In February, the U.S. Navy used an "all-electric, high-energy laser weapon" to destroy a target for the first time.

The demonstration involved a red drone flying nearby the ground-based laser system, which the test used to represent a subsonic cruise missile in flight. The weapon is the Layered Laser Defense (LLD) and was designed and built by Lockheed Martin. It homed in on the drone, firing a laser invisible to the naked eye, which caused a fiery glow and smoke to emit from the drone before it fell to the ground while deploying its parachute.

NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion spacecraft made their way onto the launchpad on March 17th.

Since then, NASA engineers have been conducting tests at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to ensure the SLS and Orion's readiness for the upcoming uncrewed Artemis I mission to the moon. After three attempts, workers have been unable to complete the final test, a practice countdown referred to as the "wet dress rehearsal."

The repeated failure has led NASA to decide to return the SLS and Orion to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB), where technicians can undertake work to fix the issues plaguing the spacecraft. The major problems have been with a faulty helium check valve and a liquid hydrogen leak. The spacecraft's launch was initially slated for early June, but the setbacks may result in yet another delay for the mission.

Originally discovered in 2007, fast radio bursts, or as researchers refer to them, FRBs, are one of the many mysteries of the universe that are yet to be fully explained by science.

FRBs are a radio wave pulse that ranges from a fraction of a millisecond to a few milliseconds, but is estimated to release as much energy as the sun does over three days. The process of these pulses isn't yet fully understood by astronomers, but a team of scientists recently put forward a study published in the Astrophysics Journal, and it provides evidence for an explanation of these FRBs.

The team suggests that FRBs may be caused by neutron stars interacting with orbiting planets within their region. The researchers explain that the pulse of radio waves may be caused by a planet's orbit coming too close to the neutron, and as a result, the neutron stars strong gravitational pull tears parts of the planet off, causing an interaction that produces "really strong radio emissions."

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has photographed a spiral galaxy 55 million light-years away from Earth and at its heart is a monster.

NASA has taken to its blog and social channels to showcase an image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Camera 3, which has honed in on a barred spiral galaxy that is approximately 55 million light-years away from Earth within the constellation Coma Berenices. The above image shows spiral galaxy M91, and while looking stunning to the eye, it's hiding an "astronomical monstrosity", according to NASA.

Much like our own galaxy, the Milky Way, M91 also contains a supermassive black hole at its center. A 2009 study using data acquired by Hubble estimated M91's black hole to weigh anywhere between 9.6 and 38 million times as much as the Sun. If you are interested in learning more about M91 or the Hubble Space Telescope, check out this link here.

Over the Easter holiday weekend, officials at the US Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) reported observing a large solar flare followed by a coronal mass ejection (CME).

NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recording.

On April 16 at 11:23 pm EDT, the SWPC, which is overseen by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), confirmed an X1.1 class solar flare that was traced to sunspot regions 2994 and 2993 located on the eastern limb of the sun. According to the agency, the flare lasted for around 34 minutes and caused a brief radio blackout that NOAA has classified as an "R3 (Strong) event [that] had an associated Type II radio sweep".

The Subaru Telescope, located in Hawaii near Mauna Kea and situated at an altitude of 13,579 feet, has captured a video of a "flying whirlpool".

SpaceWeather.com has described the object as a "flying whirlpool," and it was spotted by the Subaru Telescope on Sunday, April 17, only hours after the launch of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket. LiveScience and SpaceWeather.com confirm that the "flying whirlpool" was caused by the post-deorbit-burn fuel vent of the Falcon 9 upper stage that sends it out of its orbit back down to Earth to burn up eventually.

SpaceX launched the Falcon 9 rocket carrying a classified payload for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on April 17. While the upper stage of the Falcon 9 isn't reusable, the first stage is, and its reusability was displayed by a few videos posted to SpaceX's official Twitter account. These videos show the first stage successfully landing atop a drone ship in the Pacific Ocean.

A team of NASA-led researchers are planning on broadcasting sensitive information about Earth into the cosmos.

The team's project is called "Beacon in the Galaxy" (BITG) and involves operating the SETI Institute's Allen Telescope array in California and China's Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST) to broadcast information about Earth's biology, location, images of humans, solar system pictures, and an invitation for aliens to respond to the message.

The project has been opposed by researchers from the United Kingdom's Oxford University who have warned that it may not be a good idea to send out sensitive information about Earth and the human race as an alien civilizations that may receive the information may not have the best intentions. FHI scientist at Oxford, Toby Ord said that there should be a public discussion before any signals are sent out, adding that there is even dangers involved in listening to incoming messages.

Only days after making an offer to buy Twitter, Elon Musk's space transportation company has taken a classified payload into space.

SpaceX's Falcon 9 launch vehicle took off from Vandenberg Space Force Base located in California, and attached to it was a classified payload from the US National Reconnaissance Office, which is reportedly a US spy satellite with unknown purposes. Videos of the launch were posted to the SpaceX Twitter account that shows the Falcon 9 lifting off from the launch bad in a stunning display of bright flame.

SpaceX also released a video showcasing the first stage booster of the Falcon 9 successfully landing back on the launch pad after separating less than three minutes after it initially launched. While SpaceX would usually conduct a long livestream of the launch, separation, and discuss the payload and its purpose, the US National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) requested that the livestream be ended given the classified nature of the payload.

Last week more than 1,000 scientists from around the world engaged in a unanimous act of civil disobedience in protest against governments' inaction against the production of fossil fuels.

The project is called "Climate Ad Project", and involved scientists and researchers from 26 countries risking arrest by chaining themselves to the doors of banks that are funding fossil fuel projects. The organizer's planned day of disobedience was on April 6, and according to them, it was the "world's largest-ever scientist-led civil disobedience campaign".

US climate scientist Peter Kalmus, who works at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory as a data scientist, chained himself to the door of a JP Morgan Chase bank in Los Angeles, which resulted in his arrest and then release. Many other scientists around the world that participated in the protests were also arrested and released.

A NASA scientist has chained himself to a bank and been filmed giving a passionate speech about how Earth is "on track to be unlivable".

The NASA scientist is Peter Kalmus, a climate scientist and writer that currently works as a data scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and is also an associate project scientist at UCLA's Joint Institute for Regional Earth System Science & Engineering. Last week Kalmus chained himself to the doors of a JP Morgan Chase bank in Los Angeles in a protest against banks funding fossil fuel projects that cause a negative impact on the planet.

Kalmus has taken to Twitter since his arrest and release by posting content about climate change as well as videos of him and other scientists conducting the protest. In the above-posted video, Kalmus can be seen giving an empowering speech where he warns that "we're going to lose everything, and we're not joking, we're not lying, we're not exaggerating". Kalmus goes on to explain that he is protesting "because scientists are not being listened to. I'm willing to take a risk for this gorgeous planet," Kalmus said, "for my sons."

Earlier in the week, officials confirmed that an explosion on the surface of the Sun resulted in a plasma ball of charged particles hurled towards Earth.

The plasma ball came from an eruption that occurred on April 11 when the "corpse" of a sunspot called AR29877 exploded and released a large amount of radiation into space. The explosion was followed by a coronal mass ejection (CME), a wave of charged particles, that was hurled toward Earth and expected to arrive on Thursday, April 14.

The interaction between the charged particles from the Sun and Earth's atmosphere causes a geomagnetic storm, which NOAA officials say will be at least a G2 on the G1 - G5 scale (G5 being the strongest). As explained by SpaceWeather.com, during a G2 geomagnetic storm, auroras can be seen much farther south than they typically would. Reports indicate that the CME impact will cause auroras to be seen as far south as New York and Idaho, giving individuals an incredible opportunity to take pictures of the beautiful auroras above.

NASA 'holoported' a group of humans into the International Space Station (ISS) in October 2021.

NASA used Microsoft's Hololens Konnect camera with custom software developed by AEXA Aerospace running on a computer to project holograms of the group to the ISS. This allowed NASA's Crew 2 astronauts, who were aboard the ISS at the time to communicate with people on Earth as if they were also physically present on the space station.

'Holoportation' is a portmanteau of 'hologram' and 'teleportation' and involves the three-dimensional holographic recreation of an individual in a new space. NASA will turn toward combining the technology with augmented reality to create even more advanced communication capabilities with astronauts in space.

A study on the depression treatment titled "Increased global integration in the brain after psilocybin therapy for depression" has been published in the journal Nature Medicine.

Recent clinical trials have used psilocybin, a psychoactive compound found in so-called "magic mushrooms," to treat depression by boosting connectivity between different brain regions. The study involved 59 people, of which 16 people participated in one clinical trial, and the remaining 43 participated in another.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans showed increased blood flow between different areas and increasing brain network integration, which were correlated with long-term improvements in depressive symptoms, even in patients with treatment-resistant depression.

The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) has released a report summarizing the threats from the nations to the United States' satellites.

The report asserts that China and Russia are both developing and deploying anti-satellite weapons (ASAT) while simultaneously increasing the size of their intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) spacecraft. These potential threats to the U.S. help determine how the Pentagon's defense budget is allocated, specifically for the U.S. Space Force (USSF) and U.S. Space Command (USSPACECOM).

A study on the black hole titled "A dusty compact object bridging galaxies and quasars at cosmic dawn" has been published in Nature.

Astronomers have used the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) data to identify a black hole growing into a supermassive black hole while the universe was only 750 million years old. They found the black hole forming inside a galaxy from the early days of the universe called GNz7q, marking the first observation of a black hole growing inside such a galaxy.

Vladimir Putin has named his next target while simultaneously shielding his people from the atrocities committed by Russian soldiers in Ukraine.

The announcement from Russian President Vladimir Putin came during his visit to the Vostochny Cosmodrome, a Russian spaceport located in the far east of Russia. As reported by The Moscow Times, Putin stated that Russia needs to rebuild its "moon program".

The Russian president added that the Luna 25 mission, a planned uncrewed lunar lander mission scheduled to launch in August 2022, will be completed by the third quarter of this year. At this time, Putin directed a question to the head of Russia's space agency Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, asking, "Are we going to make it in time in the third quarter?"

Moondust collected by NASA astronaut Neil Armstrong on the Apollo 11 mission was recently sold at an auction as a part of a Space History Sale.

The moondust is a part of the first lunar samples collected by astronaut Neil Armstrong, according to NASA. The samples were auctioned off by Bonhams, which originally estimated that the moondust would be worth anywhere between $800,000 to $1.2 million. However, at the Space History Sale held on Wednesday in New York, the very small amount of microscopic moon dust sold for $504,375, falling very short of what Bonhams expected.

When Bonhams received the lunar samples, it was unable to verify the total weight due to the fineness of the dust. Eventually, Bonhams cited the dust in microns and that the dust was actually found in the seams of a bag that was used to transport the original lunar samples that were collected in 1969.

An unconfirmed video that has appeared on some news outlets suggests that Russia is moving military equipment to the Finland border.

The footage is unverified by Ukraine officials but shows Russian military vehicles on the move, which Newsweek reports to be K-300P Bastion-Ps, coastal defense missile systems. The video was uploaded by the Twitter user OSINTdefender spans 43-seconds, and the individual filming makes sure to showcase the nearby street sign that is directions to Helsinki, the capital of Finland.

Since the video is unverified, some people are speculating that it could be Russian propaganda deliberately released by the Kremlin. Finland declared independence from Russia in 1917 and is now preparing to make a historic decision to join NATO "before midsummer", a move that Russia has warned Finland against doing while also suggesting there will be some level of consequences if Finland follows through.

Russia is currently attacking a key piece of Ukraine's space infrastructure, according to a recent report from NBC.

The report from NBC quotes the US Space Force, which says it's possible that Russia has positioned jammers around Ukraine that are interrupting the Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites regularly used for navigation and mapping. Notably, the jammers aren't targeting the satellites in space, but the devices used to receive the data, preventing them from receiving any usable signal.

Furthermore, David Thompson, the Space Force's vice chief of space operations, spoke to NBC and said that at the moment, Russia hasn't attacked any satellites in low-Earth orbit, but officials are monitoring the region for such a situation to unfold. Additionally, some areas in Ukraine are suffering from an internet shortage despite SpaceX CEO Elon Musk's generous donation of Starlink satellites.