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Astronomers from CSIRO and Curtin University have used pulsars to probe the Milky Way’s magnetic field. Working with colleagues in Europe, Canada, and South Africa, they have published the most precise catalogue of measurements towards mapping our Galaxy’s magnetic field in 3D.

The Milky Way’s magnetic field is thousands of times weaker than Earth’s, but is of great significance for tracing the paths of cosmic rays, star formation, and many other astrophysical processes. However, our knowledge of the Milky Way’s 3D structure is limited.

Dr. Charlotte Sobey, the lead author of the research paper, said “We used pulsars (rapidly-rotating neutron stars) to efficiently probe the Galaxy’s magnetic field in 3D. Pulsars are distributed throughout the Milky Way, and the intervening material in the Galaxy affects their radio-wave emission.”

This article originally appeared in the Aug. 19, 2019 issue of SpaceNews magazine.

When the Aerospace Corp. launched the Optical Communications and Sensor Demonstration in 2017, one mission objective was to test water-fueled thrusters. At the time, the idea was fairly novel. Two years later, water-based propulsion is moving rapidly into the mainstream.

Capella Space’s first radar satellite and HawkEye 360’s first cluster of three radio-frequency mapping satellites move in orbit by firing Bradford Space’s water-based Comet electrothermal propulsion system. Momentus Space and Astro Digital are testing a water plasma thruster on their joint El Camino Real mission launched in July. And an updated version of the water-fueled cold gas thrusters the Aerospace Corp. first flew in 2017 launched in early August.

Our brain has 86 billion neurons connected by 3 million kilometers of nerve fibers and The Human Brain Project is mapping it all. One of the key applications is neuromorphic computing — computers inspired by brain architecture that may one day be able to learn as we do.

#BloombergGiantLeap #Science #Technology

Continue reading “Building a Computer Like Your Brain” »

As an astronomer, there is no better feeling than achieving “first light” with a new instrument or telescope. It is the culmination of years of preparations and construction of new hardware, which for the first time collects light particles from an astronomical object.

This is usually followed by a sigh of relief and then the excitement of all the new science that is now possible.

On October 22, the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) on the Mayall Telescope in Arizona, US, achieved first light. This is a huge leap in our ability to measure galaxy distances – enabling a new era of mapping the structures in the Universe.

With the Skydio 2 Dock, a drone-in-a-box solution, the California startup wants to let companies rely on its obstacle-dodging, self-flying drone for automated mapping and surveillance — no humans needed.

Maps of the long filaments of gas that hold the universe together might one day help trace and unveil dark matter.

Rice University physicist Qimiao Si began mapping quantum criticality more than a decade ago, and he’s finally found a traveler that can traverse the final frontier.

The traveler is an alloy of cerium palladium and aluminum, and its journey is described in a study published online this week in Nature Physics by Si, a theoretical physicist and director of the Rice Center for Quantum Materials (RCQM), and colleagues in China, Germany and Japan.

Si’s map is a graph called a phase diagram, a tool that condensed-matter physicists often use to interpret what happens when a material changes phase, as when a solid block of ice melts into liquid water.

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” »

Caves on the #Moon? This is a 100 m deep pit in the Sea of Tranquility, potentially an entrance to a tunnel system. We’re seeking innovative ideas for how to explore #lunar caves, via the Open Space Innovation Platform 👉 http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Preparing_for_the_Future/D…unar_caves (📷 NASA/GSFC/Ariz. State Univ.)

How would you design a system to detect, map and explore caves on the Moon? Our latest hunt for ideas is seeking novel initiatives that address this question.

While the surface of the Moon has been well-documented with cameras on board several satellite missions, relatively little is known about the presence and nature of subsurface cavities. In volcanic areas of the lunar maria, planetary geologists have identified pits that could be related to the collapse of cavities such as lava tubes – where lava once flowed under the lunar surface.

Continue reading “Seeking innovative ideas for exploring lunar caves” »