Astronomy

The influential AI design that makes chatbots tick now runs on quantum computers

Extracting, freezing and retransplanting slices of hormone-producing ovarian tissue could postpone menopause, but some experts say it’s not effective enough—or necessary

Millions of human-made objects travel at high speeds in low-Earth orbit, polluting space and increasing the chance of collision with satellites and other spacecraft

The birth of a cloned black-footed ferret named Elizabeth Ann, and her two new sisters, has sparked a new pilot program to preserve the tissues of hundreds of endangered species “just in case”

Here we look at the best photo of the total solar eclipse sent to us by our readers. From diamond rings to exquisite close-ups, we have it all and more!

Years in the making, a project in the Amazon rain forest is finally set to determine whether a rise in carbon dioxide could save one of the world’s largest carbon sinks.

Video: 00:57:15

Watch a replay of the ESA astronaut class of 2022 graduation ceremony.

ESA astronaut candidates Sophie Adenot, Rosemary Coogan, Pablo Álvarez Fernández, Raphaël Liégeois, Marco Sieber and Australian Space Agency astronaut candidate Katherine Bennell-Pegg received astronaut certification at ESA’s European Astronaut Centre on 22 April 2024. This officially marks their transition into fully-fledged astronauts, ready and eligible for spaceflight.

The group was selected in November 2022 and began their year-long basic astronaut training in April 2023.

Basic astronaut training provides the candidates with overall familiarisation and training in various areas, such as spacecraft systems, spacewalking, flight engineering, robotics and life support systems, as well as survival and medical training.

Following certification, the new astronauts will move on to the next phases of pre-assignment and mission-specific training, paving the way for future missions to the International Space Station and beyond.

Shading the planet by spraying aerosols into the stratosphere might stave off ice sheet collapse, modelling studies suggest, but we are running out of time

Shading the planet by spraying aerosols into the stratosphere might stave off ice sheet collapse, modelling studies suggest, but we are running out of time

Astronauts on board the International Space Station are often visited by supply ships from Earth with food among other things. Take a trip to Mars or other and the distances are much greater making it impractical to send fresh supplies. The prepackaged food used by NASA loses nutritional value over time so NASA is looking at ways astronauts can produce nutrients. They are exploring genetic engineering techniques that can create microbes with minimal resource usage. 

Many of us take food and eating for granted. The food we can enjoy is usually flavoursome and the textures varied. Astronauts travelling through space generally rely upon pre-packaged food and often this can lack the taste and textures we usually enjoy. Lots of research has gone into developing a more pleasurable dining experience for astronauts but this has usually concentrated on short duration trips. 

The space station’s Veggie Facility, tended here by NASA astronaut Scott Tingle, during the VEG-03 plant growth investigation, which cultivated Extra Dwarf Pak Choi, Red Russian Kale, Wasabi mustard, and Red Lettuce and harvested on-orbit samples for testing back on Earth. Credits: NASA

During longer term missions, astronauts will have to grow their own food. Not only due to the nutritional issues that form the purpose of this article but carrying prepackaged food for flights that last many years becomes a logistic challenge and a launch overhead. To address the loss of nutritional values, the Ames Research Centre’s Space Biosciences Division has launched its BioNutrients project to enable future space travellers to grow their own supplements.

The team has announced they has come up with a solution, thanks to the wonders of genetic engineering. The approach that the team has developed involves microbial based food (similar to yeast) that can produce nutrients and compounds with small amounts of resources. 

The secret is to store dried microbes and take food grade bioreactors along on the trip. Until now I never knew what a bioreactor was nor that they even existed. I live in the world of physics and astrophysics so this concept intrigued me. Turns out that a bioreactor does just what it says. It is a container of some form, often made from steel inside which, a biologically active environment can be maintained. Often chemical processes are carried out inside which involve organisms undergoing either aerobic or anaerobic processes. They are often used to grow cells or tissues and it is within these that NASA pins their hopes on cultivating food in space. 

Even years after departure, the dried out microbes can be rehydrated many years later and cultured inside the bioreactor, creating the nutrients astronauts need. To date, the team has managed to produce carotenoids (a pigment found in nature) which are used for antioxidants, follistatin for muscle loss and yogurt and kefir to keep the gut in good health. The real challenge though is making food that the astronauts will want to eat. 

Source : BioNutrients Flight Experiments

The post Astronaut Food Will Lose Nutrients on Long-Duration Missions. NASA is Working on a Fix appeared first on Universe Today.

A surprise appearance of a new comet made the April 8th total solar eclipse all the more memorable.

Any dedicated ‘umbraphile’ will tell you: no two eclipses are exactly the same. Weather, solar activity, and the just plain expeditionary nature of reaching and standing in the shadow of the Moon for those brief moments during totality assures a unique experience, every time out. The same can be said for catching a brief glimpse of what’s going on near the Sun, from prominences and the pearly white corona to the configuration of bright planets… and just maybe, a new comet.

The Discovery

While many planned to try and spy periodic Comet 12P Pons-Brooks during totality, astronomer Karl Battams at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory alerted us to another possibility. A new sungrazing comet, spotted just hours prior. The Kreutz family comet was seen by Worachate Boonplod in the field of view of the joint NASA/ESA Solar Heliospheric Observatory’s (SOHO) LASCO C3 and C2 imagers. These are equipped with Sun-covering coronagraphs that allow it to see the near solar environment. The mission was launched over a quarter of a century ago in 1995. SOHO was deployed to the sunward L1 Earth-Sun Lagrange point nearly a million miles distant. SOHO has since proven itself to be a crucial workhorse in solar heliophysics.

Doomed SOHO-5008 (lower left). Credit: NASA/ESA/SOHO

The comet soon received the formal designation of SOHO-5008. That’s right: SOHO has led to the discovery of over 5,000 comets in its career. Most of these discoveries were thanks to the efforts of dedicated online sleuths, scouring recent LASCO images.

At the time, the doom’d comet was a faint object, located only a few degrees from the Sun. The icy interloper was a tough target to nab during the fleeting minutes of totality, but at least two dedicated astrophotographers managed to catch it. Lin Zixuan saw it imaging from northern New Hampshire. Petr Horálek from the Institute of Physics in Opava Czechia (Czech Republic) was imaging from Mexico as he caught the object.

Like so many other sungrazers, the comet met its demise shortly after discovery (less than 12 hours, in fact), like a sundiving spaceship at a Disaster Area concert right out of Douglas Adam’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

A Brief History of Sungrazers

This sort of SOHO versus comet, versus eclipse discovery has only occurred twice: once in 2008 and again in 2020). SOHO wasn’t designed per se to find comets, but its prolific nature as a comet hunter has become an essential part of the legacy of the mission. SOHO has defined whole new families of Kreutz, Marsden and Kracht sungrazing comets. And to think, prior to the mission, only sixteen sungrazing comets were even known of.

One similar case was the Great Comet of 1948, which was also discovered by stunned observers during a total solar eclipse. Another was C/1965 Ikeya-Seki, which went on to become one of the truly great comets of the 20th century. More recently, C/2011 W3 Lovejoy surprised everyone by surviving its perihelion passage 140,000 kilometers from the surface of the Sun. Just one year later, however, 2012 S1 ISON didn’t.

It was a thrilling celestial spectacle, with an added treat.

The post There Was a Doomed Comet Near the Sun During the Eclipse appeared first on Universe Today.

On this Earth Day, we reflect on the importance of protecting our planet for future generations. Understanding the Earth system and the complex interactions that shape our planet is paramount for addressing environmental challenges, mitigating climate change, preparing for natural disasters, managing resources sustainably and conserving biodiversity.

Each component of the Earth system – from the atmosphere and oceans to land surfaces and ice sheets – influences and interacts with one another in complex ways. ESA works all-year round to provide satellite data to monitor the health of our planet. Here are 10 examples of how Earth’s systems intertwine and how satellite measurements are key to understanding these complex processes.

An Australian bull ant is the first animal known to use the patterns produced by polarised moonlight to navigate its environment

An Australian bull ant is the first animal known to use the patterns produced by polarised moonlight to navigate its environment

I really can’t believe that the Ingenuity helicopter on Mars took its maiden voyage in April 2021. On the 16th April 2024, engineers at NASA have received the final batch of data from the craft which marks the final task of the team. Ingenuity’s work is not over though as it will remain on the surface collecting data. For the engineers at NASA, they have their sights set on Dragonfly, a new helicopter destined for Titan.

When Ingenuity took off on its maiden voyage it became the first powered craft to achieve flight on an alien world. It has completed 128.8 minutes of flight covering 17 kilometres. It has extra large rotor blades to achieve lift in the thin martian atmosphere and has performed excellently providing guidance and targets for the Perseverance Rover to study close up. 

Ingenuity helicopter

It’s surprising to think that Ingenuity was only ever designed to be a short-lived demonstration mission. Over a period of 30 days, Ingenuity was to perform five experimental test flights and operate over three years. Unfortunately a rather hard landing damaged its rotor blades rendering it unable to fly again. It’s now sat at Airfield Chi in the now named “Valinor Hills” area of Mars. The team gave the region the nickname as a homage to the final residence of the immortals in Lord of the Rings. 

With Ingenuity now unable to fly the team had sent a software update to direct it to continue to collect data even if the Rover is unavailable. This will mean that it will wake each morning, test the (non-flight) systems are operational, take a colour image of the surface and record the temperature. The team believe such long term data could help to inform martian weather studies and help future explorers. This is a long term purpose for Ingenuity and it has the capability to store data for 20 years! If system or battery failure occurs the data will still be securely stored. The only way to retrieve the data though, will be through another autonomous craft or a human visitor of the future. 

The success of Ingenuity paved the way for a new era of planetary exploration. Next up is Dragonfly, a mission to Saturn’s moon Titan. Costing a total of $3.35 billion across its entire lifecycle it will become the fourth mission in NASA’s New Frontiers Program. The probe will be managed by the Marshall Space Flight Centre but behind them is an international team from many different organisations including but not limited to Goddard Space Flight Centre in Maryland; Penn State University in State College, Pennsylvania; Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales in Paris; the German Aerospace Centre in Cologne, Germany; and JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) in Tokyo.

Artist’s concept of Dragonfly soaring over the dunes of Saturn’s moon Titan. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Steve Gribben

Dragonfly is slated to arrive in 2034. It’s mission will be to visit multiple locations, sampling the minerals to search for prebiotic chemical processes. It will also look for chemical signatures that indicate water-based and/or hydrocarbon-based life. Unlike Ingenuity, its rotors are similar size to those you would find on a drone on Earth. The atmosphere is thick and so there is no need for super-sized blades. 

Source : NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Team Says Goodbye … for Now and NASA’s Dragonfly Rotorcraft Mission to Saturn’s Moon Titan Confirmed

The post The Ingenuity Team Downloads the Final Data from the Mars Helicopter. The Mission is Over appeared first on Universe Today.

Something strange happened to this galaxy, but what?

As a planetary scientist and astrobiologist who studies ice grains from Enceladus, '’m interested in whether there is life on this or other icy moons. I also want to understand how scientists like me could detect it.

The U.S. is paying hundreds of millions of dollars to replenish storm-ravaged beaches in a losing battle against rising seas and erosion

The Apollo program put humans on the moon in 1969. So why haven't we sent any more since?

We spoke to Jamie Carter about winning the award and his plans for future solar eclipses.