This Encyclopedia Britannica list highlights 10 important dates in the exploration of Pluto, from its discovery in 1930 to the flyby of New Horizons in 2015 and beyond.
Archive for the ‘space’ category: Page 273
Nov 13, 2022
A tiny space probe could reveal the aftermath of our first asteroid defense test
Posted by Atanas Atanasov in category: space
Mini instruments are entering their prime.
After DART collided with Dimorphos, scientists want to understand how the asteroid changed. They’ll send the smallest radar to space to glean more information beneath Dimorphos’ surface.
Nov 13, 2022
Scientists discover massive ‘extragalactic structure’ behind the Milky Way
Posted by Paul Battista in categories: energy, space
Astronomers have detected an enormous extragalactic structure hiding in an uncharted region of space far beyond the Milky Way ‘s center.
This phantom region, known as the zone of avoidance, is a blank spot on our map of the universe, comprising somewhere between 10% and 20% of the night sky. The reason we can’t see it — at least with standard visible light telescopes — is because the Milky Way’s bulging center blocks our view of it; the center of our galaxy is so dense with stars, dust and other matter that light from the zone of avoidance gets scattered or absorbed before reaching Earth’s telescopes.
However, researchers have had better luck uncovering the zone’s secrets with telescopes that can detect infrared radiation — a type of energy that’s invisible to human eyes, but powerful enough to shine through dense clouds of gas and dust. Infrared surveys of the zone of avoidance have found evidence of thousands of individual galaxies shining through the cosmic fog, though little is known about the large-scale structures that lurk there.
Nov 12, 2022
Fast burst of infrared light opens a way for 3D processing inside semiconductor chips
Posted by Quinn Sena in categories: mobile phones, robotics/AI, space
Researchers from LP3 Laboratory in France developed a light-based technique for local material processing anywhere in the three-dimensional space of semiconductor chips. The direct laser writing of new functionalities opens the possibility to exploit the sub-surface space for higher integration densities and extra functions.
Semiconductors remain the backbone material of the electronics integrated with modern devices such as cellphones, cars, robots and many other intelligent devices. Driven by the continuous need for miniaturized and powerful chips, the current semiconductor manufacturing technologies are facing increasing pressure.
The dominating manufacturing technology, lithography, has strong limitations when addressing these challenges, given its surface processing nature. For this reason, a solution to fabricating structures under the wafer surfaces would be highly desirable so that the full space inside the materials could be exploited.
Nov 12, 2022
AI Researchers from the Netherlands Propose a Machine Learning-based Method to Design New Complex Metamaterials with Useful Properties
Posted by Kelvin Dafiaghor in categories: chemistry, robotics/AI, solar power, space, sustainability
Combinatorial problems often arise in puzzles, origami, and metamaterial design. Such problems have rare collections of solutions that generate intricate and distinct boundaries in configuration space. Using standard statistical and numerical techniques, capturing these boundaries is often quite challenging. Is it possible to flatten a 3D origami piece without causing damage? This question is one such combinatorial issue. As each fold needs to be consistent with flattening, such results are difficult to predict simply by glancing at the design. To answer such questions, the UvA Institute of Physics and the research center AMOLF have shown that researchers may more effectively and precisely respond to such queries by using machine learning techniques.
Despite employing severely undersampled training sets, Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) can learn to distinguish these boundaries for metamaterials in minute detail. This raises the possibility of complex material design by indicating that the network infers the underlying combinatorial rules from the sparse training set. The research team thinks this will facilitate the development of sophisticated, functional metamaterials with artificial intelligence. The team’s recent study examined the accuracy of forecasting the characteristics of these combinatorial mechanical metamaterials using artificial intelligence. Their work has also been published in the Physical Review Letters publication.
The attributes of artificial materials, which are engineered materials, are governed by their geometrical structure rather than their chemical makeup. Origami is one such metamaterial. The capacity of an origami piece to flatten is governed by how it is folded, i.e., its structure, and not by the sort of paper it is made of. More generally, the clever design enables us to accurately regulate a metamaterial’s bending, buckling, or bulging. This can be used for many different things, from satellite solar panels that unfurl to shock absorbers.
Nov 12, 2022
Scientists Reproduce Fascinating, Powerful Material Found in Meteorite
Posted by Josh Seeherman in categories: materials, space
In an unprecedented experiment, two teams of scientists on either sides of the Atlantic have replicated a material that was previously not produced anywhere on Earth.
As NPR reports, the replication of this powerful compound could have huge implications not just for the manufacturing of high-end machinery, but also for international relations to boot.
Called tetrataenite, the primarily iron-and-nickel compound is normally able to cool for millions of years as it tumbles around in asteroids. As a press release out of the University of Cambridge notes, the researchers who worked in tandem with Boston’s Northeastern University found that if they add phosphorous to the mix, they were able to make synthetic tetrataenite.
Nov 12, 2022
The Global Mind, Collective Intelligence, Agency, and Morphogenesis — Michael Levin Λ Joscha Bach
Posted by Dan Breeden in category: space
This theolocution has been released early in an ad-free audio version for TOE members at http://theoriesofeverything.org.
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Nov 11, 2022
NASA leaves its Artemis I rocket exposed to winds above design limits
Posted by Kelvin Dafiaghor in categories: climatology, space
Early on Thursday morning, Hurricane Nicole made landfall near Vero Beach on Florida’s eastern coast. Because Nicole had a very large eye, nearly 60 miles in diameter, its strongest winds were located well to the north of this landfalling position.
As a result of this, Kennedy Space Center took some of the most intense wind gusts from Nicole late on Wednesday night and Thursday morning. While such winds from a Category 1 hurricane are unlikely to damage facilities, they are of concern because the space agency left its Artemis I mission—consisting of the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft—exposed on a pad at Launch Complex-39B. The pad is a stone’s throw from the Atlantic Ocean.
How intense were the winds? The National Weather Service hosts data from NASA sensors attached to this launch pad’s three lighting towers on a public website. It can be a little difficult to interpret the readings because there are sensors at altitudes varying from 132 feet to 457 feet. Most of the publicly available data appears to come from an altitude of about 230 feet, however, which would represent the area of the Space Launch System rocket where the core stage is attached to the upper stage. The entire stack reaches a height of about 370 feet above the ground.
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Giant Stars are often considered too hot and short lived to colonize, but it may be that they shall be the most powerful and pivotal systems in a future galaxy.
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Nov 11, 2022
Our Universe Trailer: Morgan Freeman Narrates The History Of Everything
Posted by Paul Battista in categories: education, space
When you need someone to narrate the history of the universe — and Mel Brooks is busy — you might as well go with Morgan Freeman. Not only has Freeman played God in “Bruce Almighty” and “Evan Almighty,” but he’s also told “The Story of God” and “The Story of Us” for National Geographic.
In “Our Universe,” Freeman is lending his voice to a new six-part nature documentary series for Netflix. As the title implies, this series is even bigger in scope than “The Story of Us.” It’s looking back at the whole history of the universe and how 13.8 billion years have led us to this moment.
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