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Oct 20, 2020
NASA Just Successfully Touched Down on an Asteroid
Posted by Raphael Ramos in categories: engineering, space
NASA just landed a spacecraft on an asteroid and, if everything went as planned, sucked up a sample of dust and rock from the surface.
From 200 million miles away, NASA and its engineering partner, Lockheed Martin, instructed the spacecraft to descend to the surface of a space rock called Bennu.
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Oct 20, 2020
Tesla’s limited Full Self-Driving beta is rolling out tonight, confirms Elon Musk
Posted by Raphael Ramos in categories: Elon Musk, robotics/AI, transportation
Elon Musk announced that Tesla’s Full Self-Driving beta test will indeed be rolled out tonight. The Full Self-Driving beta will feature improvements from Tesla’s Autopilot rewrite. Musk has described the upcoming FSD beta as “profound,” which has only fueled excitement for its release.
While Musk confirmed the rollout of FSD’s limited beta, he did set some realistic expectations to the electric car community. The CEO stated that this limited beta will be rolled out in an “extremely slow and cautious” manner, likely to maximize safety. This bodes well for Tesla’s public Full Self-Driving rollout, as it shows that the company is taking a very conservative approach with regards to the release of its autonomous driving features.
Earlier this month, the Tesla CEO gave the public some information about the FSD beta coming out tonight. He said that Tesla’s new FSD build will be “capable of zero-intervention drives.”
Oct 20, 2020
Etching a Simple Pattern on Solar Panels Boosts Light Absorption
Posted by Raphael Ramos in categories: solar power, sustainability
A simple way to improve efficiency…
Solar panels offer huge potential to move more people away from electricity generated from burning coal, and a new innovation devised by scientists stands to more than double the amount of light captured by conventional solar cells.
In a new study, a team of scientists from the UK, Portugal, and Brazil discovered that etching a shallow pattern of grating lines in a checkerboard design on solar cells can enhance the current generated by crystalline silicon (c-Si) by as much as 125 percent.
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Oct 20, 2020
New Research Claims That Consciousness Itself Is an Energy Field
Posted by Raphael Ramos in category: neuroscience
Dualism Reborn
McFadden’s hypothesis veers away from most neuroscientists, who generally see consciousness as a narrative that our brain constructs out of our senses, perceptions, and actions. Instead, McFadden returns to a more empirical version of dualism — the idea that consciousness stems from something other than our brain matter — in this case energy.
“How brain matter becomes aware and manages to think is a mystery that has been pondered by philosophers, theologians, mystics and ordinary people for millennia,” McFadden said in a press release. “I believe this mystery has now been solved, and that consciousness is the experience of nerves plugging into the brain’s self-generated electromagnetic field to drive what we call ‘free will’ and our voluntary actions.”
NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy handed over station command today to Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Ryzhikov. Cassidy will return to Earth on Wednesday with two Expedition 63 crewmates. https://go.nasa.gov/2SWS3Ob.
Oct 20, 2020
Touchdown! NASA makes touchdown on asteroid Bennu to collect samples
Posted by Alberto Lao in categories: robotics/AI, space
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft has made a historic touchdown on the asteroid Bennu, dodging boulders the size of buildings to collect samples from the surface for several seconds before safely backing away Tuesday evening.
The meticulous descent took 4.5 hours and by 6.12pm the spacecraft made touchdown where its 11-foot robotic arm acted like a pogo stick and bounced on the asteroid’s surface to collect dirt and dust before the craft launched back into space.
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Unveiled by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab this week, this is the brand new DuAxel Rover 🚀 🙌
Oct 20, 2020
Microsoft’s new data center in a box will use SpaceX Starlink broadband
Posted by Genevieve Klien in categories: computing, internet, satellites
Oct 20, 2020
Virgin Galactic test flight scheduled to launch this fall
Posted by Genevieve Klien in category: space travel
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The president of Virgin Galactic gave state lawmakers an update Monday on the company’s progress toward commercial spaceflight.
Virgin Galactic President Mike Moses said the first test space flight from Spaceport America will happen sometime this fall, which is the final step before taking paying customers into space.