Archive for the ‘space’ category: Page 638
May 4, 2019
NASA and Star Wars: The Connections Are Strong in This One
Posted by Michael Lance in categories: robotics/AI, space
#StarWarsDay #StarWars #StarWarsCelebration #NASA #MayThe4thBeWithYou
Space Screening, ‘TIE’-ins, Tatooine and The Droids You’re Looking For
NASA astronauts “use the force” every time they launch … from a certain point of view. We have real-world droids and ion engines. We’ve seen dual-sun planets like Tatooine and a moon that eerily resembles the Death Star. And with all the excitement around the premiere of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the Force will soon be felt 250 miles above Earth on the International Space Station. Disney is sending up the new film so the astronauts can watch in orbit, and the station’s commander, Scott Kelly, can hardly wait:
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How far is far? And, how do you know when you get there? In 1995, astronomers decided to use Hubble to conduct a bold and daring experiment to address this puzzle. For 10 consecutive days, Hubble stared at one tiny, seemingly empty patch of sky for 1 million seconds.
The gamble of precious telescope time paid off. Hubble captured the feeble glow of myriad never-before-seen galaxies. Many of the galaxies are so far away it has taken billions of years for their light to reach us. Therefore, the view is like looking down a “time corridor,” where galaxies can be seen as they looked billions of years ago. Hubble became astronomy’s ultimate time machine.
The resulting landmark image is called the Hubble Deep Field. At the time, the image won the gold medal for being the farthest peek into the universe ever made. Its stunning success encouraged astronomers to pursue a series of Hubble deep-field surveys. The succeeding surveys uncovered more galaxies at greater distance from Earth, thanks to new cameras installed on Hubble during astronaut servicing missions. The cameras increased the telescope’s power to look even deeper into the universe.
May 2, 2019
Two neutron stars collided near the solar system billions of years ago
Posted by Quinn Sena in category: space
Astrophysicists Szabolcs Marka at Columbia University and Imre Bartos at the University of Florida, have identified a violent collision of two neutron stars 4.6 billion years ago as the likely source of some of the most coveted matter on Earth.
This single cosmic event, close to our solar system, gave birth to 0.3 percent of the Earth’s heaviest elements, including gold, platinum and uranium, according to a new paper appearing in the May 2 issue of Nature.
“This means that in each of us we would find an eyelash worth of these elements, mostly in the form of iodine, which is essential to life,” Bartos said. “A wedding ring, which expresses a deep human connection, is also a connection to our cosmic past predating humanity and the formation of Earth itself, with about 10 milligrams of it likely having formed 4.6 billion years ago.”
Continue reading “Two neutron stars collided near the solar system billions of years ago” »
May 2, 2019
India announces it will land on the moon in SEPTEMBER
Posted by Michael Lance in category: space
May 1, 2019
The Sun Is Stranger Than Astrophysicists Imagined
Posted by Xavier Rosseel in categories: physics, space
The sun radiates far more high-frequency light than expected, raising questions about unknown features of the sun’s magnetic field and the possibility of even more exotic physics.
Now you can discover Daymet Daily Surface Weather Data, which includes precipitation, temperature, and other weather variables from 1980–2018 through the NASA Application for Extracting and Exploring Analysis Ready Samples (AρρEEARS) application!
About AppEEARS: AρρEEARS offers users a simple and efficient way to perform data access and transformation processes. By enabling users to subset data spatially, temporally, and by layer, the volume of data downloaded for analysis is greatly reduced. Sample requests submitted to AρρEEARS provide users with data values and associated quality data for a variety of remote sensing data products. Two types of sample requests are available: point samples of geographic coordinates or area samples of vector polygons. Interactive visualizations with summary statistics of the sample results are provided within the application to allow the user to preview and interact with their sample before downloading the data.
Explore NASA’s AppEEARS: https://lpdaac.usgs.gov/tools/appeears/
May 1, 2019
6 Asteroids Will Buzz Earth Within a 2-Year Span and Scientists are Psyched
Posted by Carse Peel in category: space
Asteroid scientists are already looking forward to six incredible flybys that will take place over just 2 years. The festivities kick off in 2027.
May 1, 2019
This chip was demoed at Jeff Bezos’s secretive tech conference. It could be key to the future of AI
Posted by Klaus Baldauf in categories: robotics/AI, space
The chip on show at Amazon’s MARS event—alongside karate-chopping robots and Martian bases—is many times more efficient than conventional silicon chips.
May 1, 2019
Storage beyond the cloud
Posted by Mike Ruban in categories: biotech/medical, cybercrime/malcode, habitats, internet, space
A new way to store information in molecules could preserve the contents of the New York Public Library in a teaspoon of protein, without energy, for millions of years.
Books can burn. Computers get hacked. DVDs degrade. Technologies to store information–ink on paper, computers, CDs and DVDs, and even DNA–continue to improve. And yet, threats as simple as water and as complex as cyber-attacks can still corrupt our records.
As the data boom continues to boom, more and more information gets filed in less and less space. Even the cloud–whose name promises opaque, endless space–will eventually run out of space, can’t thwart all hackers, and gobbles up energy. Now, a new way to store information could stably house data for millions of years, lives outside the hackable internet, and, once written, uses no energy. All you need is a chemist, some cheap molecules, and your precious information.