Tag Archives: science

Webb’s latest Phantom Galaxy image sheds light on stellar feedback

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Today, NASA published a new image of the Phantom Galaxy, also known as M74 and NGC 628. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) captured it. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen the Webb telescope send a picture of the Phantom Galaxy back. NASA previously published one in 2022.

Below is the 2022 image for comparison. Despite the different colors, it’s clear that both images are of the same galaxy.

Phantom Galaxy Webb Image 2022
ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, J. Lee

Webb captured the older image using only its Mid-InfraRed Instrument (MIRI). Conversely, the new one combines data from MIRI and Webb’s Near-InfraRed Camera (NIRCam). This combination allowed scientists from the Feedback in Emerging extrAgalactic Star clusTers (FEAST) team to observe the Phantom Galaxy’s nurseries.

For the uninitiated, stellar nurseries are regions in space full of gasses and molecular clouds. They’re where stars and planets are born. For that reason, some people also refer to them as star-forming regions.

The FEAST team’s primary mission is to examine stellar feedback in locations outside the Milky Way galaxy while also observing the formation of stars. By looking at how much energy from stars pours out into the surroundings, scientists can better understand how stars come into being.

Combined data from Webb’s MIRI and NIRCam instruments allowed scientists to conclude that the spiral arms of the Phantom Galaxy are where stars are more actively forming in the celestial body. Thanks to NIRCam, the JWST can now also see hydrogen emission lines, which aren’t as affected by the dust and show where massive stars are newly formed.

The JWST continues to send images back for us to enjoy, courtesy of a 68GB SSD. For those interested in viewing more, the ESA/Webb site has many of them.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/space/webbs-latest-phantom-galaxy-image-sheds-light-on-stellar-feedback-153026022.html?src=rss

NASA spent October hoisting a 103-ton simulator section onto a test stand to prep for the next Moon mission

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NASA spent the last two weeks hoisting a 103-ton component onto a simulator and installing it to help prepare for the next Moon missions. Crews fitted the interstage simulator component onto the Thad Cochran Test Stand at Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. The connecting section mimics the same SLS (Space Launch System) part that will help protect the rocket’s upper stage, which will propel the Orion spacecraft on its planned Artemis launches.

The Thad Cochran Test Stand is where NASA sets up the SLS components and conducts thorough testing to ensure they’ll be safe and operating as intended on the versions that fly into space. The new section was installed onto the B-2 position of the testing center and is now fitted with all the necessary piping, tubing and electrical systems for future test runs.

Top-down view of the SLS interstage section installed at a test center.
NASA

The interstage section will protect electrical and propulsion systems and support the SLS’s EUS (Exploration Upper Stage) in the rocket’s latest design iteration, Block 1B. It will replace the current Block 1 version and offer a 40 percent bigger payload. The EUS will support 38 tons of cargo with a crew or 42 tons without a crew, compared to 27 tons of crew and cargo in the Block 1 iteration. (Progress!) Four RL10 engines, made by contractor L3Harris, will power the new EUS.

The interstage simulator section NASA spent mid-October installing weighs 103 tons and measures 31 feet in diameter and 33 feet tall. The section’s top portion will absorb the EUS hot fire thrust, transferring it back to the test stand so the test stand doesn’t collapse under the four engines’ more than 97,000 pounds of thrust.

NASA’s testing at Stennis Space Center will prepare the SLS for the Artemis IV mission, which will send four astronauts aboard the Orion spacecraft to the Lunar Gateway space station to install a new module. After that, they’ll descend to the Moon’s surface in the Starship HLS (Human Landing System) lunar lander.

You can catch some glimpses into NASA’s heavy lifting in the video below:

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/space/nasa-spent-october-hoisting-a-103-ton-simulator-section-onto-a-test-stand-to-prep-for-the-next-moon-mission-173008826.html?src=rss

NASA spent October hoisting a 103-ton simulator section onto a test stand to prep for the next Moon mission

Posted on by

NASA spent the last two weeks hoisting a 103-ton component onto a simulator and installing it to help prepare for the next Moon missions. Crews fitted the interstage simulator component onto the Thad Cochran Test Stand at Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. The connecting section mimics the same SLS (Space Launch System) part that will help protect the rocket’s upper stage, which will propel the Orion spacecraft on its planned Artemis launches.

The Thad Cochran Test Stand is where NASA sets up the SLS components and conducts thorough testing to ensure they’ll be safe and operating as intended on the versions that fly into space. The new section was installed onto the B-2 position of the testing center and is now fitted with all the necessary piping, tubing and electrical systems for future test runs.

Top-down view of the SLS interstage section installed at a test center.
NASA

The interstage section will protect electrical and propulsion systems and support the SLS’s EUS (Exploration Upper Stage) in the rocket’s latest design iteration, Block 1B. It will replace the current Block 1 version and offer a 40 percent bigger payload. The EUS will support 38 tons of cargo with a crew or 42 tons without a crew, compared to 27 tons of crew and cargo in the Block 1 iteration. (Progress!) Four RL10 engines, made by contractor L3Harris, will power the new EUS.

The interstage simulator section NASA spent mid-October installing weighs 103 tons and measures 31 feet in diameter and 33 feet tall. The section’s top portion will absorb the EUS hot fire thrust, transferring it back to the test stand so the test stand doesn’t collapse under the four engines’ more than 97,000 pounds of thrust.

NASA’s testing at Stennis Space Center will prepare the SLS for the Artemis IV mission, which will send four astronauts aboard the Orion spacecraft to the Lunar Gateway space station to install a new module. After that, they’ll descend to the Moon’s surface in the Starship HLS (Human Landing System) lunar lander.

You can catch some glimpses into NASA’s heavy lifting in the video below:

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/space/nasa-spent-october-hoisting-a-103-ton-simulator-section-onto-a-test-stand-to-prep-for-the-next-moon-mission-173008826.html?src=rss

NASA’s Webb telescope detects the first potential brown dwarfs outside our galaxy

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The James Webb Space Telescope is making it possible to detect more celestial objects we previously wouldn't be able to, including ones that can further our knowledge on how our universe began. A team of astronomers, for instance, detected a "rich population of brown dwarf candidates" outside our own galaxy for the first time. The image above was captured using the telescope's Near-InfraRed Camera (NIRCam) instrument. 

We already know of the roughly 3,000 brown dwarfs inside the Milky Way, but Webb made it possible to find candidates 200,000 light years away from our planet. "Only with the incredible sensitivity and spatial resolution in the correct wavelength regime is it possible to detect these objects at such great distances," said Peter Zeidler, the team leader from AURA/STScI for the European Space Agency. "This has never been possible before and also will remain impossible from the ground for the foreseeable future."

Brown dwarfs are neither planets nor stars. They're free-floating objects around 13 to 75 times larger than Jupiter, and they aren't gravitationally bound to a star like exoplanets are. Yes, they're bigger than the biggest gas giants, but they're also not big enough to produce massive amounts of light, which is why they're sometimes called "failed stars." According to the scientists in this study, their observations support the theory that brown dwarfs form like stars do, they merely "don’t accrete enough mass to become a fully fledged star." As NASA notes, scientists think it's possible that a "great deal" of the universe's mass comes in the form of brown dwarfs. Seeing as they're mostly dark and can barely generate any light, they could help answer the "missing mass" problem that astronomers are still trying to solve. 

The team found the new brown dwarf candidates in a star cluster called NGC 602 near the outskirts of the Small Magellanic Cloud dwarf galaxy. They explained that older Hubble observations showed that the cluster contains very young low mass stars, but Webb made it possible to look at them more closely. Based on what they've seen, the cluster exists in an environment comparable to the early universe, which means studying the brown dwarfs could provide more clues on how stars and planets formed billions of years ago.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/space/nasas-webb-telescope-detects-the-first-potential-brown-dwarfs-outside-our-galaxy-120007295.html?src=rss

NASA’s newest telescope can detect gravitational waves from colliding black holes

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NASA showed off a telescope prototype for a new gravitational wave detection mission in space. The telescope is part of the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) mission led by the European Space Agency (NSA) in partnership with NASA.

The goal of the LISA mission is to position three spacecraft in a triangular orbit measuring nearly 1.6 million miles on each side. The three spacecraft will follow the Earth’s orbit around the Sun. Each spacecraft will carry two telescopes to track their siblings using infrared laser beams. Those beams can measure distances down to a trillionth of a meter.

Gravitational waves are created during a collision between two black holes. They were first theorized by Albert Einstein in 1916 and detected almost a century later by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) Scientific Collaboration from the National Science Foundation, Caltech and MIT. A gravitational wave is detected when the three spacecraft shift from their characteristic pattern.

The LISA mission is scheduled to launch in the mid-2030s. The detection of gravitational waves could provide “enormous potential” to better our understanding of the universe, including events like black holes and the Big Bang that are difficult to study through other means, according to the official mission website.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/space/nasas-newest-telescope-can-detect-gravitational-waves-from-colliding-black-holes-194527272.html?src=rss

Prada reveals its spacesuit for NASA’s Artemis III mission

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Last October, Axiom Space and Prada partnered to create a new spacesuit for NASA's Artemis III mission — it's first crewed venture to the moon since Apollo 17 in 1972. One year later, the pair has revealed a first look at the Axiom Extravehicular Mobility Unit (AxEMU) spacesuit during Milan's International Astronautical Congress. The suit is white with red and gray accents that admittedly does look chicer than a typical spacesuit. 

The pair claims the new spacesuit's design improves on flexibility, can manage an eight hour spacewalk and will sustain two hours of the lunar south pole's coldest temperatures. "Prada’s design and product development team worked alongside Axiom Space engineers on customized material recommendations and features that would both protect astronauts against the unique challenges of the lunar environment and visually inspire future space exploration," the companies said in a joint statement. 

The suit is almost finished, having undergone testing and simulations at Axiom Space, SpaceX and NASA facilities. It should enter a final review in 2025, following completion of the remaining evaluations. NASA initially planned to launch Artemis III in 2025 and pushed it to at least September 2026 early this year. The space agency originally awarded Axiom with the mission in 2022. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/prada-reveals-its-spacesuit-for-nasas-artemis-iii-mission-123014149.html?src=rss

NASA’s Europa Clipper mission is on its way to Jupiter

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NASA has launched its Europa Clipper spacecraft, the biggest one it has ever built for a mission heading to another planet, on top of a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Mission controllers at the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory have confirmed that the Europa Clipper successfully separated from the rocket's second stage and has already deployed the two solar arrays flanking its main body. Now, the spacecraft has started its 1.8 billion-million journey Europa, one of Jupiter's moons and one of the most promising habitable worlds outside our own planet, which will take it five-and-a-half years to reach. 

The Europa Clipper will not be heading straight to Jupiter — it will instead fly by Mars and, in 2026, by Earth to use the planets' gravity to boost its momentum. NASA's plan is to use that momentum to slingshot the spacecraft towards the outer solar system. Europa has a thick icy shell that's estimated to be around 10 to 15 miles thick, covering a saltwater ocean that could have twice the water in our planet's oceans combined. Since scientists believe that life on our planet originated from the ocean, Europa's could also host organic compounds and contain energy sources. 

"Scientists believe Europa has suitable conditions below its icy surface to support life. Its conditions are water, energy, chemistry and stability," said Sandra Connelly, the Deputy Associate Administrator in the NASA Science Mission Directorate.

Upon reaching Europa in 2031, the Clipper will fly by the moon 49 times, coming as close as 16 miles to its surface. NASA equipped the spacecraft with nine instruments, including an ice-penetrating radar, cameras and a thermal instrument, housed inside a vault made of titanium and aluminum to protect them from the intense radiation produced by Jupiter. The Clipper will operate its instruments simultaneously every time it passes by the moon to investigate how thick Europa's outer shell truly is and how deep the ocean underneath all that ice is. It will also look for areas with warmer ice and find any plumes of water vapor that could be escaping from Europa's icy shell. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/space/nasas-europa-clipper-mission-is-on-its-way-to-jupiter-110041120.html?src=rss

This dazzling NASA image shows the biggest super star cluster in our galaxy

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The James Webb Space Telescope continues to capture images of space that are clearer and more detailed than what we've seen before. One of the latest images it has taken is of a "super star cluster" called Westerlund 1, and it shows an abundant collection of heavenly bodies, shining brightly like gemstones. Super star clusters are young clusters of stars thousands of times bigger than our sun that are all packed in a small area. Our galaxy used to produce more clusters billions of years ago, but it doesn't churn out as many stars anymore, and only a few super star clusters still exist in the Milky Way. 

Westerlund 1 is the biggest remaining super star cluster in our galaxy, and it's also the closest to our planet. It's located 12,000 light-years away, made up of massive stars between 50,000 and 100,000 times the mass of our sun within a region that measures six light-years across. Those stars include yellow hypergiants that are around a million times brighter than our sun, as well. Since the stars populating the cluster have a comparatively short life, scientists believe it's only around 3.5 to 5 million years old. That's pretty young in the cosmic scale. As such, it's a valuable source of data that could help us better understand how massive stars form and eventually die. We won't be around to see it, but the cluster is expected to produce 1,500 supernovae in less than 40 million years. 

Astronomers captured an image of the super star cluster as part of an ongoing survey of Westerlund 1 and another cluster called Westerlund 2 to study star formation and evolution. To take the image, they used Webb's Near-InfraRed Camera (NIRCam), which was also recently used to capture a gravitationally lensed supernova that could help shed light on how fast our universe is expanding. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/space/this-dazzling-nasa-image-shows-the-biggest-super-star-cluster-in-our-galaxy-120053279.html?src=rss

A pair of DeepMind researchers have won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

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A day after recognizing former Google vice president and engineering fellow Geoffrey Hinton for his contributions to the field of physics, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has honored a pair of current Google employees. On Wednesday, DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis and senior research scientist John Jumper won half of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, with the other half going to David Baker, a professor at the University of Washington.

If there’s a theme to the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, it’s proteins. Baker, Hassabis and Jumper all advanced our understanding of those essential building blocks of life that are responsible for functions both inside and outside the human body. The Nobel Committee cited Baker’s seminal work in computational protein design. Since 2003, Baker and his research team have been using amino acids and computers to design entirely new proteins. In turn, those chemicals have contributed to the creation of pharmaceuticals, vaccines, nanomaterials and more.

As for Hassabis and Jumper, their work, and that of the entire DeepMind team, on AlphaFold 2 led to a generational breakthrough. Since the 1970s, scientists have been trying to find a way to predict a protein’s final, folded structure based solely on the amino acids that form its constituent parts. With AlphaFold 2, DeepMind created an AI algorithm that could do just that. Since 2020, the software has been able to successfully predict the structure of 200 million proteins, or nearly every one known to researchers.

“One of the discoveries being recognized this year concerns the construction of spectacular proteins. The other is about fulfilling a 50-year-old dream: predicting protein structures from their amino acid sequences,” said Heiner Linke, chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry. “Both of these discoveries open up vast possibilities.”

More broadly, the 2024 Nobel Prizes highlight the growing importance of artificial intelligence in modern science. Moving forward, it's safe to say advanced algorithms will be essential to future scientific discoveries and breakthroughs. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/a-pair-of-deepmind-researchers-have-won-the-2024-nobel-prize-in-chemistry-145056306.html?src=rss

The Morning After: Boring Company’s Vegas Loop plagued by lost drivers, trespassers and skateboarders

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Elon Musk’s Boring Company pitched that its Vegas Loop, underground tunnels built below Las Vegas, would reduce gridlock in some of the busiest parts of the city, offering a new transport solution that isn’t a monorail. People are transported by ordinary Tesla vehicles in tunnels and terminals that are often difficult to get to. (At least, that was my experience earlier this year.)

It hasn’t been the transport game changer the company promised, though. A report from Fortune elaborated on what’s actually happening in those tunnels, saying there have been at least 67 trespassing reports since 2022 and 22 instances of other vehicles following Teslas into the tunnels and stations.

Boring’s monthly reports to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority also showed several instances of “property damage, theft, technical issues or injuries, near-misses and trespassing or intrusions.” Some curated highlights include a skateboarder who snuck into the tunnels through a passenger pickup station and two people spotted sleeping in one of the tunnel stations.

And yet (and yet!) county commissioners approved a plan last May to expand the tunnels to 65 miles and add 69 passenger stations.

— Mat Smith

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If you were intrigued by Meta’s continued VR experiments but put off by the price of the Quest 3, then the Quest 3S may be for you. It’s a slightly bulkier, slightly less sharp version of Meta’s last standalone VR headset, but starting at $300, it’s much less than the Quest 3’s $500 launch price. There are compromises with display resolution and lenses, but it packs the same powerful processor as the Quest 3, so it should run games and apps just as quickly. Expect our full review soon, but so far we’re impressed.

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Two scientists have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics “for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks.” John Hopfield, an emeritus professor of Princeton University, devised an associative kind of memory that can store and reconstruct images and other patterns in data. Geoffrey Hinton, dubbed the Godfather of AI, pioneered a way to autonomously find properties in data, leading to the ability to identify picture elements.

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This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/the-morning-after-boring-companys-vegas-loop-plagued-by-lost-drivers-trespassers-and-skateboarders-111742611.html?src=rss