Derelict satellites could in future be grappled and removed from key orbits around Earth with a space tug using magnetic forces.
This same magnetic attraction or repulsion is also being considered as a safe method for multiple satellites to maintain close formations in space.
Such satellite swarms are being considered for future astronomy or Earth-observing missions – if their relative positions can stay stable they could act as a single giant telescope.
The term “moonshot” is sometimes invoked to denote a project so outrageously ambitious that it can only be described by comparing it to the Apollo 11 mission to land the first human on the Moon. The Breakthrough Starshot Initiative transcends the moonshot descriptor because its purpose goes far beyond the Moon. The aptly-named project seeks to travel to the nearest stars.
The brainchild of Russian-born tech entrepreneur billionaire Yuri Milner, Breakthrough Starshot was announced in April 2016 at a press conference joined by renowned physicists including Stephen Hawking and Freeman Dyson. While still early, the current vision is that thousands of wafer-sized chips attached to large, silver lightsails will be placed into Earth orbit and accelerated by the pressure of an intense Earth-based laser hitting the lightsail.
Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your Automaton bloggers. We’ll also be posting a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next two months; here’s what we have so far (send us your events!):
Another LEAF interview from the International Longevity and Cryopreservation Summit in Madrid with Didier Coeurnelle of Heales.
LEAF director Elena Milova was recently at the International Longevity and Cryopreservation Summit in Madrid. During the conference she caught up with life extension advocate Didier Coeurnelle.
In this interview Didier discusses his projects and shares advice to the community regarding what kind of activities can help foster progress in the development of rejuvenation biotechnology.
A 3D printer that could re-create itself from lunar material is in development at a university in Canada.
The technology could one day enable humans to 3D-print lunar bases, as well as conduct in-space manufacturing of satellites and solar shields on the moon that could help fight global warming, according to Alex Ellery, an associate professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Carleton University in Ottawa, who is leading the project.
“I believe that self-replicating machines will be transformative for space exploration because it effectively bypasses launch costs,” Ellery told Space.com. [How Moon Bases and Lunar Colonies Work (Infographic)].
The researchers think this unseasonably warm air was due primarily to the powerful 2015–2016 El Niño. As they write in their paper, the El Niño climate pattern, which starts with high sea surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific, tends to promote the advection of high pressure air masses over this part of Antarctica. But they’re not sure—after all, the comparably-strong 1997–98 El Niño event didn’t cause widespread melting in West Antarctica. And although the data points to a correlation between El Niño and melty ice in West Antarctica, that doesn’t necessarily imply causation.
300,000 square miles is nearly twice the area of California. It’s difficult to visualize a space that vast, but go ahead and give it a try. Now, imagine this California plus-sized chunk of land is covered in thousands of feet of ice. Then, all of a sudden, that frozen fortress becomes a wading pool.
In January 2016, over the course of just a few weeks, a 300,000 square mile chunk of the West Antarctic ice sheet started turning to slush, in one of the largest melt-outs ever recorded. Scientists with the ARM West Antarctic Radiation Experiment (AWARE), who reported the epic defrost in Nature Communications last week, believe it was related to the 2015–2016 El Niño. Troublingly, they think massive melts like this could be a harbinger of the future—but more research is needed before we can be sure.
The West Antarctic ice sheet has been called the “weak underbelly” of the Antarctic continent, and for good reason: Its glaciers, which contain enough frozen water to raise global sea levels by at least 10 feet, are shedding mass rapidly as the planet heats up. The prevailing wisdom is that warm ocean waters are weakening West Antarctica’s floating ice shelves from below, and causing inland ice sheets to detach from the underlying land surface at their so-called “grounding line.” But a recent survey found evidence for ephemeral lakes and river networks across Antarctica, raising concerns that surface melting could also play a significant role in ice sheet disintegration.
Results from the Micius satellite test quantum entanglement, pointing the way toward hack-proof global communications—and a new space race.
Posted in food, sustainability
This large-scale farm is in the middle of a big city! The future of farming is here. (via AeroFarms)
Wireless charging is a great idea in theory: You can just place your device on a charging mat without having to mess with any wires. But it still doesn’t solve the main hassle of charging in the first place, which is the requirement to leave your device in one place. But now, scientists may have found the answer to that problem using principles from quantum mechanics.
Currently, wireless, or inductive, charging uses an electromagnetic field to transmit energy over very short distances. That’s why your phone, or whatever device you’re charging wirelessly, must remain near a wireless pad in order to actually charge. But Shanhui Fan and his team at Stanford University have published an article in Nature that details a wireless charging system that works even when the charger and device are a meter apart. You can also move around the device while it’s being charged without interrupting the power transfer.
It works by using a principle of quantum mechanics called parity-time symmetry to create a charger with a self-adjusting power flow. A connected amplifier automatically controls the flow of power between the transmitter and receiver. As a device moves further away from the charger, the power levels adjust automatically to ensure an even and uninterrupted flow of current.
