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Sep 28, 2019
What If Planet Nine Is a Bowling Ball-Size Black Hole?
Posted by Genevieve Klien in category: cosmology
Some of the most distant rocks in our solar system act in a way that suggests there’s some massive object out there we haven’t been able to see. A planet? Maybe. But why not a small black hole?
That’s a scenario a pair of scientists describe in a new paper. Of course, they recognize that a planet is more likely than an ancient black hole unlike any we’ve directly observed. But they simply want astronomers to think creatively while hunting for whatever this hypothetical object, often called Planet Nine, might be.
Sep 28, 2019
Quantum Internet Is One Step Closer to Reality With U.S. Army Research Breakthrough
Posted by Genevieve Klien in categories: internet, military, quantum physics
Research Triangle Park, N.C. — A U.S. Army research result brings the quantum internet a step closer. Such an internet could offer the military security, sensing, and timekeeping capabilities not possible with traditional networking approaches.
The U.S. Army’s Combat Capability Development’s Army Research Laboratory’s Center for Distributed Quantum Information, funded and managed by the lab’s Army Research Office, saw researchers at the University of Innsbruck achieve a record for the transfer of quantum entanglement between matter and light — a distance of 50 kilometers using fiber optic cables.
Entanglement is a correlation that can be created between quantum entities such as qubits. When two qubits are entangled and a measurement is made on one, it will affect the outcome of a measurement made on the other, even if that second qubit is physically far away.
Sep 28, 2019
Watch Elon Musk give a design update on SpaceX’s next-generation Starship rocket
Posted by Genevieve Klien in categories: alien life, Elon Musk, transportation
This evening, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk will give an update on the design and future of his company’s next-generation rocket, Starship, a massive vehicle that is meant to take people to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. The concept for Starship has evolved in numerous ways over the last few years, and now Musk plans to reveal the vehicle’s latest blueprints.
Musk is giving an hour-long presentation on the rocket at SpaceX’s test facility in Boca Chica, Texas, a tiny town just north of the Mexican border. SpaceX has been building lots of test hardware for Starship at the site, and the CEO will likely be surrounded by this shiny material during his talk. As you watch, keep an eye out for a large Starship test vehicle that’s meant to perform high-altitude test flights in the months ahead.
Sep 28, 2019
Autobots, Roll Out: NASA Creates Transforming Robot for Exploring Titan
Posted by Genevieve Klien in categories: mapping, robotics/AI, space
Finally, the future that children of the ’80s want to see is on its way. NASA is working on its very own Transformer — a bot called Shapeshifter, made up of smaller robots which can combine into different configurations to roll, swim, fly, and float.
Shapeshifter is a prototype for exploring Saturn’s moon Titan. Before it ended its mission by burning up in Saturn’s rings, the Cassini probe flew by Titan more than one hundred times, observing the moon which is surprisingly similar to Earth. It has rivers, lakes, and rain, but instead of being made of water, these bodies are made of liquid methane and ethane. On Earth, these are gases, but in the freezing temperatures of Titan, they are liquid. Cassini collected mapping data of the surface, and scientists have been keen to discover more since then.
Continue reading “Autobots, Roll Out: NASA Creates Transforming Robot for Exploring Titan” »
Sep 28, 2019
The ‘Perfect Way to Make Energy’ Is Attracting Major Investors
Posted by Genevieve Klien in category: nuclear energy
Nuclear fusion could be the clean energy the world needs—and private companies are now working on machines to harness it.
Sep 28, 2019
Search For E.T. Snags ‘Extraordinarily Exciting’ Bounty From Qualcomm Co-Founder
Posted by Bill Retherford in category: alien life
Tonight—just like every night—the pursuit of E.T. perseveres in Hat Creek, California.
There, in the midst of the Cascade Mountains, the faint buzz of the Allen Telescope Array hums on a secluded and scrubby field where jackrabbits wander and rattlesnakes roam.
Since 2007, the array’s 42 radio dishes have scanned the skies for signals from alien civilizations. Detecting one is the longest of long shots. So far, nothing suggesting an extraterrestrial intelligence has been found. Here at Hat Creek, a close encounter with a bear seems more likely.
The most important image ever taken in history of Astronomy…
Sep 28, 2019
Our Solar System Might Have a Black Hole From the Dawn of the Universe
Posted by Paul Battista in category: cosmology
This alternate explanation for ‘Planet Nine,’ proposed by scientists in a new paper, poses some fundamental questions like: Should we visit it?