Let’s talk about science! In the latest episode of #EZScience, learn about the upcoming launch of NASA’s Perseverance Mars Rover targeted for liftoff on July 30. Dr. E and Dr. Z talk about the technological advancements of the newest Mars rover (and helicopter!).
The latest AI algorithms are probing the evolution of galaxies, calculating quantum wave functions, discovering new chemical compounds and more. Is there anything that scientists do that can’t be automated?
Here’s what you need to know about the United Arab Emirates’ first interplanetary spacecraft, the Hope mission to Mars.
The fourth Long March-5 rocket, to be used to launch China’s first Mars exploration mission — the Tianwen-1 — was vertically transported to the launching area at the Wenchang Space Launch Center in south China’s Hainan Province on Friday.
To calculate the most stable atomic configuration, as well as estimate its hardness, the team relied on a computational method called density functional theory (DFT). DFT has been successfully used throughout chemistry and solid-state physics to predict the structure and properties of materials. Keeping track of the quantum states of all the electrons in a sample, and their interactions, is usually an intractable task. Instead, DFT uses an approximation that focuses on the final density of electrons in space orbiting the atoms. This simplifies the calculation to make it suitable for computers, while still providing very precise results.
Based on these calculations, the scientists found that the Young’s modulus, a measure of hardness, for pentadiamond is predicted to be almost 1700 GPa – compared with about 1200 GPa for conventional diamond.
“Not only is pentadiamond harder than conventional diamond, its density is much lower, equal to that of graphite,” explains co-author Professor Mina Maruyama.
Posted in space
#OTD 51 years ago, Apollo 11 launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center with NASA Astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins aboard. Four days later, Armstrong and Aldrin landed on the Moon’s surface, while Collins orbited overhead in the Command Module: https://go.nasa.gov/3j7tRV0
The first images from the Solar and Heliospheric Imager, or SoloHI instrument, reveal the zodiacal light (the bright blob of light on the right protruding towards the center). Mercury is also visible as a bright dot on the image left. The straight bright feature on the very edge of the image is a baffle illuminated by reflections from the spacecraft’s solar array.
Credits: Solar Orbiter/SoloHI team (ESA & NASA), NRL
Images from the Polar and Helioseismic Imager, or PHI, showed it is also primed for later observations. PHI maps the Sun’s magnetic field, with a special focus on its poles. It will have its heyday later in the mission as Solar Orbiter gradually tilts its orbit to 24 degrees above the plane of the planets, giving it an unprecedented view of the Sun’s poles.
The launch of the United Arab Emirates’ Hope Mars mission has been further delayed by bad weather at the launch site.
The giant impacts that dominate late stages of planet formation have a wide range of consequences for young planets and their atmospheres, according to new research.
Research led by Durham University and involving the University of Glasgow, both UK, has developed a way of revealing the scale of atmosphere loss during planetary collisions based on 3D supercomputer simulations.
The simulations show how Earth-like planets with thin atmospheres might have evolved in an early solar system depending on how they are impacted by other objects.
