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Archive for the ‘space’ category: Page 114

Dec 9, 2023

Tesla working on ‘tap to park’ feature, says Elon Musk

Posted by in categories: Elon Musk, robotics/AI, space

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has alluded to an upcoming “tap to park” feature for the automaker’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) beta. While it isn’t clear when it’s expected to become available, some have already pointed out how useful such a feature could be.

On Friday, Musk responded to a post on X saying that Tesla is developing a feature in which the car identifies potential parking space options, letting users tap the one they want to use. Upon doing so, the driver will then be able to leave the vehicle before the vehicle parks in the selected space.

The statement came in response to another post claiming that a 360-degree bird’s eye view would be irrelevant in a world of self-driving vehicles, as the driver wouldn’t need to do anything at all for the vehicle to locate and park in a specific spot.

Dec 9, 2023

Rolls Royce plans ‘120-inch-long’ mini nuclear reactor for Moon outpost

Posted by in categories: nuclear energy, space

Rolls-Royce displayed a conceptual model design of a nuclear Space Micro-Reactor at the UK Space Conference that may one day power Moon settlers.

Dec 9, 2023

Asteroid Will Pass In Front Of Bright Star Betelgeuse To Produce A Rare Eclipse Visible To Millions

Posted by in category: space

One of the biggest and brightest stars in the night sky will momentarily vanish as an asteroid passes in front of it to produce a one-of-a-kind eclipse.

Dec 9, 2023

How Former Astronaut Mike Massimino Turned Three No’s From NASA Into a YES

Posted by in category: space

“One in a million is not zero.” If you’re unfamiliar with the story of how New York Times bestselling author, Columbia University professor of engineering an…

Dec 8, 2023

Reevaluating Exomoon Claims: New Study Challenges Findings around Kepler-1625b and Kepler-1708b

Posted by in category: space

A recent study published in Nature Astronomy uses a new method to challenge previous studies regarding the discoveries of the first exomoons around two exoplanets, Kepler-1708b and Kepler-1625b, located approximately 5,436 and 7,534 light-years from Earth, respectively. This study was conducted by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research and the Sonnenberg Observatory and holds the potential to develop new observational methods in identifying and confirming the existence of exomoons throughout the cosmos.

Artist illustration of an exomoon orbiting a gas giant. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

“Exomoons are so far away that we cannot see them directly, even with the most powerful modern telescopes,” said Dr. René Heller, who is an astrophysicist at Max Planck and lead author of the study.

Dec 8, 2023

Space telescope spots ‘superflares’ 10,000 times brighter than Sun — Study

Posted by in categories: energy, physics, space

Scientists have developed a model to better understand the physics of the powerful superflares emitted by stars far beyond our solar system.

Solar flares, which are rapid and strong bursts of energy and radiation that originate from the Sun’s surface, are known to be emitted into space by our Sun.

NASA’s Kepler and TESS missions, however, have discovered several stars may produce superflares that are 100–10,000 times brighter than those emitted by our Sun.

Dec 8, 2023

NASA will try bringing Hubble back online on Friday

Posted by in categories: health, space

The Hubble Space Telescope recently suffered a glitch that made it go into safe mode, so it has not been collecting new science data since November 23. But on Friday, December 8, NASA will attempt to get the telescope up and running again by tweaking the operation of one of its three gyros.

The gyros are responsible for keeping the telescope pointed in the right direction, and an error in one of them put the telescope into safe mode to prevent any damage occurring to its hardware. Although it is theoretically possible for the telescope to operate with just one gyro, this would be less efficient and observing time would be lost as it would take longer for the telescope to switch between targets. So ideally, all three gyros can be operational.

The problem with the telescope was first shared on November 29, when NASA announced it was performing tests to understand the issue. Now, the tests are complete and NASA plans to resume operations. “After analyzing the data, the team has determined science operations can resume under three-gyro control,” NASA wrote in a new update. “Based on the performance observed during the tests, the team has decided to operate the gyros in a higher-precision mode during science observations. Hubble’s instruments and the observatory itself remain stable and in good health.”

Dec 8, 2023

Aliens Will Never Invade Earth Because It’s ‘Trash’

Posted by in category: space

The young man quickly replied, “Aliens will never invade Earth because it’s trash.”

“Total trash,” his sister confirmed.

They seemed as sure of that as the sun rising in the East and setting in the West. To them, our planet has become nothing more than a cosmic landfill in our galaxy, populated with the worst that humanity can offer. Aliens, they assured me, would no more come here than we would jump into a vat of raw sewage.

Dec 8, 2023

Webb captures a Prominent Protostar in Perseus

Posted by in category: space

This new Picture of the Month from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope reveals intricate details of the Herbig Haro object 797 (HH797). Herbig-Haro objects are luminous regions surrounding newborn stars (known as protostars), and are formed when stellar winds or jets of gas spewing from these newborn stars form shockwaves colliding with nearby gas and dust at high speeds.

HH 797, which dominates the lower half of this image, is located close to the young open star cluster IC348, which is located near the eastern edge of the Perseus dark cloud complex. The bright infrared objects in the upper portion of the image are thought to host two further protostars.

This image was captured with Webb’s Near-InfraRed Camera (NIRCam). Infrared imaging is powerful in studying newborn stars and their outflows, because the youngest stars are invariably still embedded within the gas and dust from which they are formed. The infrared emission of the star’s outflows penetrates the obscuring gas and dust, making Herbig-Haro objects ideal for observation with Webb’s sensitive infrared instruments.

Dec 7, 2023

“Deep Heating” of a Jupiter-Like Planet Causes New Storm to Blow

Posted by in categories: climatology, space, supercomputing

Supercomputer simulations of the weather on a hot Jupiter reveal a previously unseen storm pattern in which cyclones are repeatedly generated and destroyed.

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