Today on Far Future Horizons we present another exciting episode of the acclaimed documentary series How the Universe Works ~ Weapons of Mass Extinction.
The Universe is a very dangerous place to live. Death and destruction lie all around us. The Cosmic Grim Reaper lies in wait; scythe in hand, in some dark corner of the universe ever ready to bestow some dark faith upon us.
To give you a taste, an asteroid containing $5 trillion worth of platinum zoomed past Earth just a few months ago.
NASA has announced the continuation of a two-phase $750,000 research award to Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and project partner Honeybee Robotics to develop a small integrated autonomous robotic spacecraft system to support the exploration and mining of asteroids and other planetary bodies and moons.
Dr. Hever Moncayo and Dr. Richard Prazenica, both Assistant Professors of Aerospace Engineering in the College of Engineering are leading the effort at the Daytona Beach Campus. Also collaborating on this project is Dr. Sergey Drakunov, Professor of Engineering Physics in the Physical Sciences Department and Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. Dr. Kris Zacny is the team lead for Honeybee Robotics.
The Embry-Riddle team includes Aerospace Engineering master’s degree students Diego Garcia, Chirag Jain, Andres Chavez, Wai Leuk Law, Aerospace Engineering Ph.D. student Andres Perez and Engineering Physics Ph.D. student Samuel Kitchen-McKinley. The researchers are focusing on an innovative concept based on autonomous small free-flyer prospector spacecraft that can leave from, return and recharge from a mothership on the planet’s or asteroid’s surface.
“When the Rosetta spacecraft deployed the Philae lander to land on a comet last November, the world held its breath. … Little surprise too that space is back on the design agenda as a primary source of inspiration. Visiting Design Miami/Basel in June, it was obvious that the “Philae effect” was having an impact much closer to home.”
This Week in Science: The First Privately Backed Moon Mission, Using Gene Therapy to Reverse Aging, Artificial Veins and Arteries, and More.
Go here for a clickable image: http://futurism.com/images/this-week-in-science-october-4th-11th-2015/?src=home
Sources
Detecting All Viruses:http://futurism.com/5srzA
Water on Pluto: http://futurism.com/aO2av
Kidney Tissue from Stem Cells: http://futurism.com/DLDON
Converting Algae Blooms into Electrodes: http://futurism.com/w9ez
Fixing Holes in Heart: http://futurism.com/a13Jd
Reversing Aging: http://futurism.com/TjaTL
Private Moon Mission: http://futurism.com/9V626
Artificial Veins: http://futurism.com/rKNzH
Scientists using data from NASA’s Kepler mission have confirmed the first near-Earth-size planet orbiting in the habitable zone of a sun-like star. The habitable zone is the region around a star where temperatures are just right for water to exist in its liquid form.
The artistic concept compares Earth (left) to the new planet, called Kepler-452b, which is about 60 percent larger. The illustration represents one possible appearance for Kepler-452b — scientists do not know whether the planet has oceans and continents like Earth.
Both planets orbit a G2-type star of about the same temperature; however, the star hosting Kepler-452b is 6 billion years old, 1.5 billion years older than our sun. As stars age, they become larger, hotter and brighter, as represented in the illustration. Kepler-452b’s star appears a bit larger and brighter.
Continue reading “Close cousins? Comparison between Earth and Kepler-452b and their host stars” »
Scientists were looking for planets forming in the large disk of dust surrounding a young star when they encountered a surprise: fast-moving, wavelike arches racing across the disk like ripples in water.
The team first spotted the five structures in data from the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile while searching for lumps and bumps that might indicate planets forming around the young star. When the researchers looked back at images taken with the Hubble Space Telescope in 2010 and 2011, they managed to spot the same features — but in new locations. A new video of the mysterious ripples, describes the strange features as seen by ESO scientists.
“Our observations have shown something unexpected,” Anthony Boccaletti, a researcher from LESIA (Observatoire de Paris/CNRS/UPMC/Paris-Diderot) in France and lead author on the paper, said in a statement. “The images from [the Very Large Telescope instrument] SPHERE show a set of unexplained features in the disk, which have an archlike or wavelike structure unlike anything that has ever been observed before.” [The Top 10 Strangest Things in Space]
Continue reading “These Mysterious Blazing-Fast Ripples Racing Around a Star Defy Explanation” »
The growling list of mysteries surrounding Pluto just got longer. On Oct. 8, NASA released the first color photo of Pluto’s atmosphere, and the shade they saw was anything but expected:
