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The Speculative Evolution of Project Hail Mary

Project Hail Mary, a story by Andy Weir (author of The Martian), features some of the most creative speculative evolution scenarios in modern science fiction. With the release of the film adaptation starring Ryan Gosling, now seemed like a great time to explore the speculative biology of the aliens in this story: the Astrophage and the Eridians (Rocky’s species).

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Wind-powered robot could enable long-term exploration of hostile environments

Researchers at Cranfield University have created WANDER-bot, a low-cost, 3D-printed robot that is powered by wind energy. Designed to spend long durations in hostile, windy environments such as certain deserts, polar regions or even other planets, WANDER-bot doesn’t need a battery to power movement, enabling longer operations without having to pause and recharge.

Movement accounts for around 20% of battery use in most robots, so running on natural energy makes WANDER-bot an efficient solution for long-term exploration or mapping of unknown terrains. As a result, any electronic elements added to future versions for data collection or transmission purposes could have their own smaller, lighter power source. Using natural energy also counters the issue of performance degradation over time in traditional power sources, such as solar cells and radioisotope thermoelectric generators.

Designed by Dr. Saurabh Upadhyay and Sam Kurian, Research Associate in Space Engineering, the robot uses parts that are entirely 3D printed, with the design deliberately simple to allow for quick repair and replacement. This means that, in theory, you could print and construct WANDER-bot anywhere and make replacement parts in situ as needed, removing the need for time-consuming and costly resupply missions.

Does Entropy Control Time?

In this episode, Neil deGrasse Tyson and Chuck Nice speak with physicist Sean Carroll about whether entropy actually creates time. Sean explains that entropy does not generate time itself, but it gives time an arrow—a direction from past to future. Even if the universe were to stop expanding and begin collapsing, entropy would still increase. The key distinction is between time (which can exist without direction) and the arrow of time, which entropy provides through statistical mechanics and phase space dynamics.

From ‘The Complex Universe, with Sean Carroll’: • The Complex Universe, with Sean Carroll.

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What Is Beyond The End?

Start using AnyDesk, the blazing-fast Remote Desktop Software, today at https://anydesk.com/en/downloads/windows?utm_source=brand&am…utube&…

Written by Colin Stuart.
Check out his fantastic astronomy newsletter here: https://colinstuart.substack.com.

Edited and animated by Siji Sheehan.
Narrated by David Kelly.
Thumbnail Art by Ettore Mazza.
Audio editing by Jack White and Peter Halstead.
Mastering by Craig Stevenson.
Extra animations by @ArtandContext (Manuel Rubio)
Extra animations by Jero Squartini https://www.fiverr.com/share/0v7Kjv using Manim — MIT License, © 2020–2023 3Blue1Brown LLC

A huge thanks to our Ho’oleilana Patreon supporters — James Keller, Unpunnyfuns, Ramsay Chambers, Matthew Williams and Mike Cumings, Jr.

Footage from Videoblocks, Artlist. Other footage from NASA and ESO.
Music from Epidemic Sound, Artlist, Silver Maple and Yehezkel Raz.
Images of scientists frequently from the AIP
Icons from The Noun Project.
Quantum Fluctuations by Derek Leinweber.

00:00 Introduction.
04:18 Will The Universe Go On Forever?
17:42 What Lingers In The Long Night?
33:20 What Would It Mean?
46:20 Everything Everywhere

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Using moon dirt with 3D printing to build future lunar colonies

Simulated lunar dirt can be turned into extremely durable structures, potentially paving the way to more sustainable and cost-effective space missions, a new study suggests. Using a special laser 3D printing method, researchers melted fake lunar soil—a synthetic version of the fine dusty material on the moon surface, called regolith simulant—into layers and fused it with a base surface to manufacture small, heat-resistant objects.

If utilized on the lunar surface, the material may help build sturdy, nontoxic habitats and tools for future astronauts, capabilities that would be vital to the NASA Artemis missions that aim to establish a long-term human presence on the moon by the end of the decade.

But to assess how well this new construction material may work in space, the team tested their fabrication process under a range of different environmental conditions, revealing that the overall quality of the material depends greatly on the surface onto which the soil is printed.

10 Ancient Space Objects That Existed Before the Universe Itself

All right, let’s go.
Number 10. Methuselah’s Star.
In 2000, a team of astronomers led by Howard Bond at Penn State University pointed the Hubble Space Telescope at a faint star in the constellation Libra and made a discovery that should have been impossible. The star, designated HD 140,283 and later nicknamed Methuselah, appeared to be 14.5 billion years old. The universe itself is only 13.8 billion years old. A star older than the cosmos that contains it shouldn’t exist. Yet there it was, burning quietly just 190 light years from Earth, defying the most fundamental timeline in all of physics.

Space-grade perovskite solar cells can survive extreme temperature fluctuations

The Aydin Group at LMU Munich has unveiled a novel strategy for making perovskite solar cells more robust against extreme temperature fluctuations. To this end, the researchers led by Dr. Erkan Aydin, group leader at LMU’s Department of Chemistry and Pharmacy, combined two molecular approaches. Their goal was to stabilize both the grain structure within the perovskite material and the interfaces of the solar cells, with a particular focus on enhancing the interaction between the perovskite layer and the underlying substrate. This enables the solar cells to maintain stable performance under the extreme thermal cycling typical of Low Earth orbit (LEO), as well as in other harsh environmental conditions. Their results have been published in the journal Nature Communications.

Regarding the background: Perovskite solar cells are considered one of the most promising next-generation photovoltaic technologies. They are relatively inexpensive to manufacture and achieve high efficiencies.

However, their mechanical stability is an issue. In particular, when confronted with strong temperature fluctuations in LEO—for example, in the range between −80 and +80 degrees Celsius—materials inside the solar cell can expand and contract to varying extents. This creates mechanical stresses, which lead to cracks, delamination, or drops in performance.

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