“With the world growing more crowded, the great powers strive to conquer other planets. The race is on. The interplanetary sea has been charted; the first caravelle of space is being constructed. Who will get there first? Who will be the new Columbus?” A robot probe is being readied to explore the secrets of the red planet, Mars. The only component lacking: a human brain. No body. Just the brain. It is needed to deal with unexpected crises in the cold, dark depths of space. The perfect volunteer is found in Colonel Barham, a brilliant but hot-tempered astronaut dying of leukemia. But all goes awry as, stripped of his mortal flesh, Barham — or rather his disembodied brain — is consumed with a newly-found power to control…or destroy. Project psychiatrist Major McKinnon (Grant Williams) diagnoses the brain as having delusions of grandeur…but, just perhaps, Col. Barham has achieved grandeur.
Hidden beneath the heavily cratered surface of Mimas, one of Saturn’s smallest moons lies a secret: a global ocean of liquid water. This astonishing discovery, led by Dr. Valéry Lainey of the Observatoire de Paris-PSL and published in the journal Nature, reveals a “young” ocean formed just 5 to 15 million years ago, making Mimas a prime target for studying the origins of life in our solar system.
“Mimas is a small moon, only about 400 kilometers in diameter, and its heavily cratered surface gave no hint of the hidden ocean beneath,” says Dr. Nick Cooper, a co-author of the study and Honorary Research Fellow in the Astronomy Unit of the School of Physical and Chemical Sciences at Queen Mary University of London.
“This discovery adds Mimas to an exclusive club of moons with internal oceans, including Enceladus and Europa, but with a unique difference: its ocean is remarkably young, estimated to be only 5 to 15 million years old.”
“It’s the largest coherent structure that we know of, and it’s really, really close to us,” said study co-author, Dr. Catherine Zucker.
A recent study published in Nature investigates further evidence that a gaseous cloud both looks and behaves like an oscillating ocean wave, giving birth to new stars as it traverses the Milky Way Galaxy, which has since been dubbed the Radcliffe Wave. This study was conducted by an international team of researchers led by the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian and holds the potential to help astronomers better understand the beautiful and fascinating aspects of our cosmos.
Image obtained from an animation of the Radcliffe Wave with our Sun (yellow dot). (Credit: Ralf Konietzka, Alyssa Goodman, and WorldWide Telescope)
MIT researcher Richard Binzel has studied near-Earth asteroids for more than five decades and believes they could one day act as “space filling stations.”
In this study, a novel rapid diagnostic method was developed for optimizing the production of transplutonium isotope through high flux reactor irradiation. The proposed method was based on the concept of “Single Energy Interval Value (SEIV)” and “Energy Spectrum Total Value (ESTV)”, which significantly improved the production efficiency of isotopes such as 252Cf (by 15.08 times), 244Cm (by 65.20 times), 242Cm (by 11.98 times), and 238Pu (by 7.41 times). As a promising alternative to the traditional Monte Carlo burnup calculation method, this method offers a more efficient approach to evaluate radiation schemes and optimize the design parameters. The research discovery provides a theoretical basis for further refining the analysis of transplutonium isotope production, leading to more efficient and sustainable production methods. Future studies could focus on the implementation of energy spectrum conversion technology to further improve the optimal energy spectrum.
The production of transplutonium isotope, which are essential in numerous fields such as military and space technology, remains inefficient despite being produced through irradiation in a high flux reactor. Past studies on the optimization of transplutonium isotope production through irradiation in a high flux reactor have been limited by the computational complexity of traditional methods such as Monte Carlo burnup calculation. These limitations have hindered the refinement of the evaluation, screening, and optimization of the irradiation schemes. Hence, this research aimed to develop a rapid diagnostic method for evaluating radiation schemes that can improve the production efficiency of isotopes such as 252Cf, 244Cm, 242Cm, and 238Pu. The outcome of the study showed great potential in advancing the production of transplutonium isotope, which have numerous applications in fields such as military, energy, and space technology.
Some of the oddest cosmic phenomena are short but tremendously powerful bursts of radio waves, which, in a fraction of a second, can give off as much energy as the sun does in a year. Known as fast radio bursts, these incredibly bright flashes of energy are thought to be related to dying stars called magnetars. Now, using two separate telescopes, astronomers have observed one of these events just a few minutes before and after it occurred, giving the best look yet at what causes these strange events.
Astronomers used NASA’s NICER (Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer) on the International Space Station and NuSTAR (Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array) in low-Earth orbit to observe a magnetar called SGR 1935+2154. Magnetars are a type of neutron star, the dense core left behind after a star collapses and with an extremely strong magnetic field. In October 2022, this magnetar gave off one of these strange, fast radio bursts.
