Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Category: space – Page 776

Space — also commonly known as the final frontier — has left us in a state of awe since we ever first laid eyes on it. Inspired by numerous works of science fiction, we’ve made it a mission of ours to not only explore space but to colonize its planets as we continue searching for a secondary home.

And while our efforts have been mildly successful thus far, a group of non-biological “creatures” have already achieved the difficult task of conquering space. They’re known as robots.

Whether on the International Space Station (ISS) or on another planet, these automated machines have extended our reach into the cosmos far better than any actual human hand has accomplished. It all started in 1969 when the Soviets made the first attempt to land a robotic rover, known as Lunokhod 0, onto the Lunar surface of our Moon. Unfortunately for the Soviets, the rover was unsuccessful in its landing; instead crashing down after a failed start.

Read more | >

UK company Reaction Engines has tested its innovative precooler at airflow temperature conditions equivalent to Mach 5, or five times the speed of sound. This achievement marks a significant milestone in its ESA-supported development of the air-breathing SABRE engine, paving the way for a revolution in space access and hypersonic flight.

The precooler heat exchanger is an essential SABRE element that cools the hot airstream generated by air entering the engine intake at hypersonic speed.

“This is not only an excellent achievement in its own right but one important step closer to demonstrating the feasibility of the entire SABRE engine concept,” said Mark Ford, heading ESA’s Propulsion Engineering section.

Read more | >

Grab a mixing bowl from your kitchen, throw in a handful of aluminum balls, apply some high voltage, and watch an elegant dance unfold where particles re-arrange themselves into a distinct “crystal” pattern. This curious behavior belongs to the phenomenon known as Wigner crystallization, where particles with the same electrical charge repel one another to form an ordered structure.

Wigner crystallization has been observed in variety of systems, ranging from particulates the size of sand grains suspended in small clouds of electrons and ions (called a dusty plasma) to the dense interiors of planet-sized , known as white dwarfs. Professor Alex Bataller of North Carolina State University has recently discovered that Wigner crystallization inside can be studied in the lab using a new class of classical systems, called gravity crystals.

For the curious behavior of Wigner crystallization to occur, there must be a system composed of charged particles that are both free to move about (plasma), that strongly interact with each other (strongly coupled particles), and has the presence of a confining force to keep the plasma particles from repulsively exploding away from each other.

Read more | >

Earth-like exoplanets may be quite common in the universe, a new UCLA study suggests.

Scientists led by Alexandra Doyle, a University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) graduate student of geochemistry and astrochemistry, came up with a new method to analyze the geochemistry of planets outside our solar system for the study, which was published in the journal Science this week.

“We have just raised the probability that many rocky planets are like the Earth and there’s a very large number of rocky planets in the universe,” co-author Edward Young, UCLA professor of geochemistry and cosmochemistry, said in a statement.

Read more | >

A phenomenon that has previously been seen when researchers simulate the properties of planet cores at extreme pressures has now also been observed in pure titanium at atmospheric pressure. Chains of atoms dash around at lightning speeds inside the solid material.

“The phenomenon we have discovered changes the way we think about mass transport in metals. It explains properties of metals that we have, until now, not been able to understand. It’s too early to say what this means in practical terms, but the more we know about how materials function in different conditions, the better possibilities we have to develop materials with new or improved properties,” says Davide Sangiovanni, researcher in the Division of Theoretical Physics at LIU and principal author of an article that has been published in Physical Review Letters.

Read more | >

Scientists believe they may have caught a glimpse of a parallel universe bumping up against ours.

They’ve seen hints in signals from the most distant points of the universe that suggest the fabric of our universe has been disrupted by another incredibly different universe. Their analysis may be the proof for the multiverse theory.

According to researchers: “Dr Ranga-Ram Chary examined the noise and residual signals in the cosmic microwave background left over from the Big Bang (pictured) and found a number of scattered bright spots which he believes may be signals of another universe bumping into our own billions of years ago.”

At least that’s the tentative conclusion researchers have come to. According to some cosmological theories, collisions of alternative universes should be possible. Theories conclude that our universe is like a bubble among many.

Continue reading “Scientists may have discovered parallel universe” | >

The only in-flight beverages on the 11-seat private jet were bottled water and a genetically modified bacterial slurry designed to prevent the worst effects of hangovers.

A handful of passengers on the short evening flight from Hawthorne to the edge of the Mojave — venture capitalists, a man with a mushroom-based manufacturing company and this reporter — downed the mixture. The pilot, along with two senior SpaceX engineers, politely declined.

At the Apple Valley Airport, a helicopter waited to take us beyond a far ridge, farther from civilization. Miles from paved roads were two tents, a ring of shipping containers and an “H” painted on the dirt marking a makeshift helipad.

Read more | >