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Category: space – Page 203

Possibly habitable Trappist-1 exoplanet caught destroying its own atmosphere

Trappist-1e is the fourth planet from the red dwarf star at the heart of this fascinating planetary system of rocky worlds. Astronomers have previously discovered that Trappist-1b, the closest exoplanet to the star, seems to have already lost its atmosphere.

The team thinks voltage-driven Joule heating could also be impacting Trappist-1f and Trappist-1g, stripping them of their atmospheres as well, albeit to a lesser extent than they see happening with Trappist-1e. That’s because, at 0.038 and 0.04683 times the distance between Earth and the sun from their star respectively, these planets are moving slower through the red dwarf’s stellar winds than Trappist-1e is.

“Closer-in planets of Trappist-1 will have an even more extreme fate, and further out ones a bit milder,” Garraffo said. “I would imagine that all Trappist-1 planets are going to have a hard time holding on to any atmosphere.”

Swiss Researchers Develop Revolutionary Quadruped Robot for Advanced Manipulation Tasks

In a groundbreaking study published on the arXiv server, a team of Swiss researchers introduces Pedipulate, an innovative controller enabling quadruped robots to perform complex manipulation tasks using their legs. This development marks a significant leap forward in robotics, showcasing the potential for legged robots in maintenance, home support, and exploration activities beyond traditional inspection roles.

The study, titled “Pedipulate: Quadruped Robot Manipulation Using Legs,” challenges the conventional design of legged robots that often rely on additional robotic arms for manipulation, leading to increased power consumption and mechanical complexity. By observing quadrupedal animals, the researchers hypothesized that employing the robot’s legs for locomotion and manipulation could significantly simplify and reduce the cost of robotic systems, particularly in applications where size and efficiency are crucial, such as in space exploration.

Pedipulate is trained through deep reinforcement learning, employing a neural network policy that tracks foot position targets. This policy minimizes the distance between the robot’s foot and the target point while penalizing undesirable movements such as jerky motions or collisions. The controller was tested on the ANYmal D robot, which features 12 torque-controlled joints and force-torque sensors on each foot, proving the feasibility of leg-based manipulation in real-world scenarios.

Enhancing Lunar Exploration: Realistic Simulation of Moon Dust for Robot Operation

Joe Louca: “Think of it like a realistic video game set on the Moon – we want to make sure the virtual version of moon dust behaves just like the actual thing, so that if we are using it to control a robot on the Moon, then it will behave as we expect.”

After Neil Armstrong took his first steps on the Moon, he said, “It’s almost like a powder”, as he described the lunar regolith, and astronauts on future Apollo missions found working on the lunar surface rather cumbersome and tedious due to the much finer lunar dust compared to Earth’s dirt. Therefore, what steps can be taken to better prepare future rovers and astronauts for NASA’s Artemis program to work on the lunar surface?

This is what a recent study published in Frontiers in Space Technologies hopes to address as a team of researchers led by the University of Bristol developed virtual models of lunar regolith simulants that could provide cost-effective methods to prepare astronauts and robots to work on the lunar surface, someday.

This study builds on an August 2023 study conducted by these same team members that explored the trust between teleoperated robots operating at long distances from Earth with their human controllers. The team found that the human controllers desired to train on increasing difficulty for operating their robots before working the real thing.

Super Weapons

Our history has been one of inventing ever more devastating and unstoppable weapons, and yet they may pale in comparison to those made to wreck whole galaxies or tear asunder reality itself.
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Credits:
Super Weapons.
Episode 390a, April 16, 2023
Produced, Written \& Narrated by:
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Editors:
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David McFarlane.

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Three Stars, One Strange Disk! The Mind-Boggling Planet-Forming Revolution!

Key Takeaways:

Within this system, two young stars engage in an intimate celestial waltz, while a third star pirouettes around the pair. Enveloping all three stars is a fragmented disk of dust and gas, a cosmic canvas where future planets may take shape. This disk, unlike the one that gave rise to our solar system’s planets, comprises three loops, each with its unique contortions — a middle ring distinctly warped, and an inner ring playfully askew in relation to its companions.

Birch Planets: Galaxy-Sized Worlds

So called Dyson megaphere.

Birch Planets are enormous hypothetical Megastructures which would have more living area than every planet in our galaxy combined, and are even larger than Dyson Spheres. Mega Earths: https://youtu.be/ioKidcpkZN0 To find out more about megastructures, see the Megastructure Compendium: https://youtu.be/1xt13dn74wc Produced, Written & Narrated by: Isaac Arthur Graphics by: Jeremy Jozwik, Ken York Music Courtesy of Epidemic Sound http://epidemicsound.com/creator

Mega Earths

A look at creating artificial planets, ones vastly bigger than Earth, or potentially even an entire solar system.

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Markus Junnikkala, \