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Category: space – Page 350

The Sun let out a powerful solar flare causing radio blackouts

The powerful flare caused a radio blackout over South America.

The Sun sent out a very powerful solar flare in the morning hours of Saturday EST time. NASA’s Solar Dynamic Observatory captured a video of the same.

Sunspots and solar flares.

Thomas Faull/iStock.

Solar flares are powerful eruptions of electromagnetic radiation from a region of the Sun with an intense magnetic field. This high-intensity magnetic field temporarily stops the convection process on the solar surface, which cools down the region. When observed from a distance, it appears darker than the solar disc and is known as a sunspot.

Farming robot kills 200,000 weeds per hour with lasers

In 2021, Carbon Robotics unveiled the third-generation of its Autonomous Weeder, a smart farming robot that identifies weeds and then destroys them with high-power lasers. The company now has taken the technology from that robot and built a pull-behind LaserWeeder — and it kills twice as many weeds.

The weedkiller challenge: Weeds compete with plants for space, sunlight, and soil nutrients. They can also make it easier for insect pests to harm crops, so weed control is a top concern for farmers.

Chemical herbicides can kill the pesky plants, but they can also contaminate water and affect soil health. Weeds can be pulled out by hand, but it’s unpleasant work, and labor shortages are already a huge problem in the agriculture industry.

SpaceX to break pad turnaround record in support of Starlink

To launch another pair of Starlink stacks to orbit this week, SpaceX will break its all-time launch pad turnaround record. The first launch, Starlink Group 5–4, is currently scheduled to lift off at 12:10 AM EST (05:10 UTC) on Sunday, Feb. 12, pending a forecasted 20% chance of acceptable weather.

If the launch target holds, the mission will break the record for both Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida and the overall record across all three Falcon 9 launch pads. The second mission, Starlink Group 2–5, is slated to launch at 8:32 AM PST (16:32 UTC) on Wednesday, Feb. 15 from Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

Elon Musk Makes an Insane Prediction

The CEO of Tesla has made it his mission to colonize the planet Mars in our lifetime.

Elon Musk is known for making wild promises and setting outrageous goals. It’s one of his detractors’ biggest criticisms.

But it is also one of the visionary entrepreneur’s driving forces. He thrives on setting goals that society broadly deems unattainable. He loves nothing more than having his back to the wall, the odds against him.

Hubble Telescope Gauges Mass of Lone White Dwarf Using Einstein’s Gravitational Microlensing

Science Daily reports that the astronomers found out that the mass of this lone white dwarf is equivalent to 56% of the sun’s weight. It aligns with previous theoretical predictions regarding the white dwarf’s mass, and it also sheds light on persisting theories regarding the evolution of these white dwarfs as a result of usual star evolution. The interesting observation grants further understanding of theories regarding white dwarf composition and structure.

According to the Space Academy, the astronomers made use of the renowned Hubble Space Telescope to gauge this lone white dwarf’s mass. The dwarf is known as LAWD 37.

Blue stragglers are the weird grandparents of the galaxy

Blue straggler stars are the weird grandparents of the galaxy: They should be old, but they act young. Finding and studying these strange stars helps us understand the complicated life cycles of normal, more well-behaved stars.

All stars follow a particular path in life, known as the main sequence. The moment they begin fusing hydrogen in their cores, they maintain a strict relationship between their brightness and temperature. Different stars will have different combinations of brightness and temperature, but they all obey the same relationship. For example, smaller stars, like red dwarfs, will be relatively dim but also cool, with their surfaces turning a characteristic shade of red. Medium stars, like the sun, will be both hotter and brighter, turning white. The largest stars will be both incredibly bright and extremely hot, making them appear blue.