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Sabtu, 31 Agustus 2019

NASA's $10 billion successor to the Hubble Telescope is finally assembled after more than a decade of delays - Business Insider

James Webb telescope The launch was initially planned for 2007.Getty

NASA's $10 billion successor to the Hubble Space Telescope has finally been fully assembled, after 12 years of delays and cost overruns.
The two halves that make up the next-generation space telescope have been brought together by NASA engineers for the very first time.
The tennis-court-sized James Webb Space Telescope will be able to see seven times further than the Hubble Space Telescope, capturing more concise pictures of the deep universe.
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After 12 years of delays and cost overruns, the $9.7 billion successor to the Hubble Space Telescope — the James Webb Space Telescope — has finally been fully assembled.

The two halves that make up the next-generation space telescope have been brought together by NASA engineers for the very first time, something which took many years and countless hours of planning to achieve.

"This is an exciting time to now see all Webb's parts finally joined together into a single observatory for the very first time," said Gregory Robinson, the Webb program director at NASA.

"The engineering team has accomplished a huge step forward and soon we will be able to see incredible new views of our amazing Universe."

The telescope will "explore the cosmos using infrared light, from planets and moons within our solar system", according to the NASA press release. It will be able to take very precise pictures of the deep universe, something which only the Hubble Space Telescope was able to achieve before. The Hubble Space Telescope was launched into Earth's orbit in 1990 and remains in operation.

The James Webb Space Telescope is not a replacement for the Hubble Space Telescope, but an upgrade. While Hubble captures optical and ultraviolet wavelengths, James Webb will capture the universe in infrared. It will also be able to look even deeper into the universe.

While Hubble's 7-foot-wide mirror is limited in the amount of light that it can capture, the James Webb Space Telescope has a 21-foot-wide mirror that can see seven times as far.

NASA engineers are still working on putting in a five-layer sun shield to protect the telescope from the infrared light coming from the Sun.Getty

As of now, the telescope has only been connected "mechanically", according to NASA. Engineers working for the space agency still have to connect the wires and links within the telescope for it to be fully functional.

The next step for engineers at NASA is to put together the James Webb Space Telescope's five-layer sun shield. The sun shield is an integral part of the telescope since it will protect the telescope's mirrors and scientific instruments from the infrared light coming from the Sun.

James Webb is the size of a tennis court and will only work once it unfurls itself in space without tearing or falling apart — a feat it has yet to accomplish.

"The more we learn more about our universe, the more we realize that Webb is critical to answering questions we didn't even know how to ask when the spacecraft was first designed," said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, in a statement last month.

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2019-08-31 07:06:45Z
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Jumat, 30 Agustus 2019

Northern lights will be visible in parts of Maine this weekend - WGME

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http://wgme.com/news/local/northern-lights-will-be-visible-in-parts-of-maine-this-weekend

2019-08-30 08:07:00Z
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Kamis, 29 Agustus 2019

NASA's long-delayed James Webb telescope is finally assembled for the first time - Fox News

Nearly a year after it was supposed to launch, NASA has finally assembled the James Webb Space Telescope, the long-awaited successor to the Hubble Space Telescope.

The government agency said the two halves of the telescope were joined earlier this week in Redondo Beach, Calif., where engineers used a crane to put the telescope together. The next step is to electrically connect the telescope and test it out.

“The assembly of the telescope and its scientific instruments, sunshield and the spacecraft into one observatory represents an incredible achievement by the entire Webb team,” said Bill Ochs, Webb project manager in a statement. “This milestone symbolizes the efforts of thousands of dedicated individuals for over more than 20 years across NASA, the European Space Agency, the Canadian Space Agency, Northrop Grumman, and the rest of our industrial and academic partners.”

The fully assembled James Webb Space Telescope, with its sunshield and unitized pallet structures that fold up around the telescope for launch, partially deployed to an open configuration to enable telescope installation. (Credit: NASA/Chris Gunn)

NASA TO HOLD EXPLORE JUPITER'S MOON EUROPA, WHICH MAY HOLD LIFE

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine tweeted about the accomplishment, calling it a "major milestone."

The next steps for the telescope include engineers deploying the five-layer sunshield, which NASA said is "designed to keep Webb's mirrors and scientific instruments cold by blocking infrared light from the Earth, Moon and Sun." The space agency added that the deployment of the sunshield "is critical to mission success."

Following final testing, including environmental and deployment testing, the James Webb telescope will launch into space in 2021. The Hubble continues to allow incredible discoveries since its launch into space in April 1990.

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2019-08-29 12:10:16Z
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SpaceX CEO Elon Musk says Starship could be followed by a dramatically larger rocket - Teslarati

By Eric Ralph

Posted on August 29, 2019

Hinted at in a brief tweet on August 28th, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk says that SpaceX’s massive Starship and Super Heavy launch vehicle – set to be the most powerful rocket ever built upon completion – could eventually be followed by a rocket multiple times larger.

SpaceX is currently in the process of assembling the first full-fidelity prototypes of Starship, a 9m (30 ft) diameter, 55m (180 ft) tall reusable spacecraft and upper stage. Two prototypes – Mk1 and Mk2 – are simultaneously being built in Texas and Florida, respectively, while the beginnings of the first Super Heavy prototype has visibly begun to take shape at SpaceX’s Florida campus.

Once complete, Starship’s Super Heavy booster will be the single most powerful rocket booster ever built, standing at least 70m (230 ft) tall on its own and capable of producing as much as ~90,000 kN (19,600,000 lbf) of thrust with 30 250-ton-thrust and 7 200-ton-thrust Raptor engines installed. Assuming 31 throttleable 200-ton Raptors, Super Heavy’s minimum max thrust is a still record-breaking ~62,000 kN (13.7 million lbf).

In fewer words, a full Starship/Super Heavy ‘stack’ would be the tallest (~118m/390ft), heaviest (~5000 tons/11 million lbs), and most powerful rocket ever assembled.

Starship was never meant to lower SpaceX's annual launch cadence. (SpaceX) — Starship separates from its Super Heavy booster in this updated render. (SpaceX)

And yet, despite its size, orbital-class rocketry in Earth gravity will almost never fail to benefit from more thrust; more propellant; more rocket. In light of this, CEO Elon Musk says that a theoretical next- next-generation SpaceX rocket – to potentially follow some years after Starship and Super Heavy – could be a full 18m (60 ft) wide, twice the diameter of its predecessors.

Many will recollect that doubling the diameter of a circle quadruples its area, meaning that a theoretical Starship 2.0 would have four times the surface area and four times the propellant tank volume, requiring roughly four times as much thrust and making the vehicle four times as heavy as Starship 1.0. Assuming that Starship’s successor retains its fineness ratio (height/width), an unlikely end result but still interesting to ponder, the vehicle would measure 18m (60 ft) in diameter and a terrifying ~236m (780 ft) tall, literally more than twice as tall as Saturn V. An 18m diameter would also make it the widest rocket ever built, with Saturn V’s S-IC first stage measuring 10m wide and the Soviet Union’s N1 ‘Block A’ first stage measuring an impressive ~17m in diameter at its widest point.

If the above assumptions are correct, a very rough estimate would peg Starship 2.0’s gross (fueled) mass at a gobsmacking ~20,000 metric tons (~45 million pounds). In the unlikely event that SpaceX would use the current generation of Raptor to power such a colossal rocket, the booster would need a bare minimum of 100+ Raptors just to lift off at all. Using Saturn V’s F-1, still the most powerful single-chamber rocket engine ever built, Starship 2.0 would need a minimum of 30+ engines to lift off, comparable to Super Heavy’s 31-37 Raptors.

*A roughly to-scale comparison of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets and proposed BFR variants, including Starship (BFR 2018) and an 18m-wide rocket teased by Elon Musk.* (Teslarati/SpaceX)

For the time being, Starship and Super Heavy are plenty ambitious on their own, but it’s unsurprising to hear that SpaceX CEO Elon Musk already has some thoughts on what could follow that next-generation launch vehicle in the new decade. Still, it’s worth noting that quite possibly the craziest aspect of Starship – SpaceX’s utterly non-traditional attempt at rewriting the book on rocket manufacturing – could eventually make an 18m-diameter vehicle far more practical, assuming the company proves it’s methods can be used to build reliable, high-performance rockets.

Check out Teslarati’s newsletters for prompt updates, on-the-ground perspectives, and unique glimpses of SpaceX’s rocket launch and recovery processes.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk says Starship could be followed by a dramatically larger rocket

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2019-08-29 10:31:12Z
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Astronomers Baffled by 'Cosmic Mountain Ranges' Jutting Through the Milky Way - Livescience.com

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Astronomers Baffled by 'Cosmic Mountain Ranges' Jutting Through the Milky Way Livescience.com

To us, the night sky may look like a random splattering of stars, but astronomers are learning that in some regions of our galaxy, stars have clumped into features ...

https://www.livescience.com/milky-way-has-geographic-features.html

2019-08-29 11:00:00Z
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Russian humanoid robot boards space station after delay - MENAFN.COM

(MENAFN - Jordan Times) MOSCOW — It was second time lucky on Tuesday as an unmanned spacecraft carrying Russia's first humanoid robot docked at the International Space Station following a failed attempt over the weekend.

'Sorry for the delay. Got stuck in traffic. Am ready to carry on with work,' the robot's Twitter account said in a jokey first Tweet from space.

Copying human movements and designed to help with high-risk tasks, the lifesize robot, Fedor, is due to stay on the ISS until September 7.

Speaking to Russian cosmonauts on the ISS via a video link-up, President Vladimir Putin lavished praise on them for the way they handled the glitch.

The problems with docking were 'in some way abnormal', he said, adding that 'as usual for our cosmonauts, you dealt with this work magnificently'.

The robot sat in the commander's seat of an unmanned Soyuz spaceship that blasted off Thursday from a Russian spaceport in southern Kazakhstan.

'Let's go. Let's go,' the robot was heard saying during the launch, repeating the phrase used by the first man in space, Yuri Gagarin.

Soyuz capsules are normally manned on such trips, but this time no humans were travelling in order to test a new emergency rescue system.

The ship was carrying scientific and medical equipment and components for the space station's life-support system, as well as food, medicines and personal hygiene products for crew members, Russia's Roscosmos space agency said.

After the successful docking at the second attempt, a NASA TV commentator praised the vessel's 'flawless approach to the ISS'.

'Second time was a charm... the crew is up to seven,' he said, referring to the six astronauts aboard the space station.

Putin told the crew he hoped Fedor 'will give you the help you need and support in your interesting work that is needed by all of us'.

Failed attempt

An aborted attempt to dock on Saturday raised more questions over the future of Russia's space programme, which has suffered a number of recent setbacks.

Last October, a Soyuz rocket carrying an American and a Russian had to make an emergency landing shortly after lift-off — the first failure in the history of manned Russian flights.

On Saturday, NASA had said the Soyuz craft was 'unable to lock onto its target at the station'.

Russian flight controllers had told the ISS crew it appeared the problem that prevented automated docking was in the station and not the Soyuz spacecraft, NASA added.

Fedor — short for Final Experimental Demonstration Object Research — can be operated manually by ISS astronauts wearing robotic exoskeleton suits and it mirrors their movements.

Robots like Fedor will eventually carry out dangerous operations such as space walks, according to the Russian space agency.

Its head Dmitry Rogozin told Interfax news agency that the next stage for Fedor could be further tests on the Federatsiya — the manned transport ship Russia is developing — or a spacewalk to work on the outside of the ISS.

'That's what he's being created for. We don't really need him inside the station,' Rogozin said.

Fedor is not the first robot to go into space. In 2011, NASA sent up Robonaut 2, a humanoid developed with General Motors that had a similar aim of working in high-risk environments.

It was flown back to Earth in 2018 after experiencing technical problems.

In 2013, Japan sent up a small robot called Kirobo along with the ISS's first Japanese space commander. Developed with Toyota, it was able to hold conversations — albeit only in Japanese.

The International Space Station has been orbiting Earth at about 28,000 kilometres per hour since 1998.

By Maxime Popov

MENAFN2808201900280000ID1098939013

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2019-08-29 03:20:54Z
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Rabu, 28 Agustus 2019

These Marsupials Go Out With a Bang - The New York Times

Kalutas live fast and die young — or, at least, the males do. Male kalutas, small mouselike marsupials found in the arid regions of Northwestern Australia, are semelparous, meaning that shortly after they mate, they drop dead.

This extreme reproductive strategy is rare in the animal kingdom. Only a few dozen species are known to reproduce in this fashion, and most of them are invertebrates. Kalutas are dasyurids, the only group of mammals known to contain semelparous species. Only around a fifth of the species in this group of carnivorous marsupials — which includes Tasmanian devils, quolls and pouched mice — are semelparous and, until recently, scientists were not sure if kalutas were among them.

Now there is no doubt that, for male kalutas, sex is suicide.

In a study, published in April in the Journal of Zoology, researchers from the University of Western Australia and the University of Queensland confirmed that kalutas exhibit what is known as obligate male semelparity.

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“We found that males only mate during one highly synchronized breeding season and then they all die,” said Genevieve Hayes, a vertebrate ecologist and the lead author of the study.

Dr. Hayes and her colleagues monitored the breeding habits of a population of kalutas in Millstream Chichester National Park in Western Australia during the 2013 and 2014 breeding seasons. In both seasons, the researchers observed a complete die-off of males. Although other scientists have observed male kalutas exhibiting semelparity in captivity, this was the first time it had been seen in the wild.

Kalutas evolved independently of other semelparous dasyurids, so the confirmation that male kalutas die after mating suggests that this unorthodox reproductive strategy has evolved not once, but twice in dasyurids.

“It’s really interesting that it would evolve twice in dasyurids because it’s such an extreme mating system,” Dr. Hayes said.

Genevieve Hayes led a team of researchers who monitored the breeding habits of kalutas in Millstream Chichester National Park in Western Australia during the 2013 and 2014 breeding seasons. In both seasons, the researchers observed a complete die-off of males. — CreditGenevieve Hayes

Extreme indeed. Kalutas, which reach sexual maturity at just 10 months, have only one two-week window in early September during which resources in their environment are abundant enough to support reproduction. During these brief, frenzied breeding seasons, male kalutas mate with several females — for up to 14 hours at a time — until they succumb to exhaustion and die.

“It’s an inevitable death from chronic stress,” said Christopher Dickman, a professor of terrestrial ecology at the University of Sydney, who was not involved with the study.

One to two months before the onset of the mating season, male kalutas stop producing sperm and start producing large amounts of testosterone and corticosteroids. Although this influx of hormones drives them to mate, it also suppresses their immune system and puts immense stress on their internal organs.

“The precise cause of death is usually ulceration of the gut track,” Dr. Dickman said. “They’ll be leaking blood into their body and begin to suffer organ collapse.”

As gruesome as the kaluta’s reproductive strategy is, it is not without merit. Like pouched mice, wambengers and other dasyurids, kalutas are polyandrous, which means they mate with multiple partners. And scientists suspect that, like their polyandrous cousins, female kalutas are capable of internally stockpiling sperm for up to two weeks before fertilization. Doing this allows females to produce offspring — six to eight per litter — using sperm from multiple partners. Dr. Hayes and her colleagues performed paternity tests on eight litters born after the first breeding season and found that all but one had been sired by multiple males.

Image

CreditGenevieve Hayes

“The fact that females can store sperm is probably one of the ultimate factors that led to the evolution of male die-off,” Dr. Dickman said. “Males simply wouldn’t have any guarantee of fathering young if they were to mate with one female over the two-week period. The only chance that they’ve got to guarantee paternity is to mate with as many females as possible.”

For male kalutas, mating enough times, with enough partners, to ensure that their genes are passed on takes a lot of energy — and a lot of sperm. Mustering all that energy and ejaculate ultimately costs them their lives — but for an animal that weighs less than a light bulb, this may not be such a bad strategy.

“Mammals this small generally don’t live for more than a year, so if there’s only one opportunity to successfully rear a litter each year, then it makes sense to invest as much energy as you can into reproduction,” Dr. Dickman said. “Forgive the pun, but in this case, it’s wise to put all your eggs in the one basket.”

Earlier reporting on animal and plant reproduction

How Does a Male Black Widow Find a Mate? Follow the Other Guys

July 31, 2019

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2019-08-28 14:54:00Z
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Asteroid warning: Universe is trying to ‘KILL US OFF’ - warning - Express.co.uk

One psychologist has stated that humans have a tendency to think ‘out of sight, out of mind’ when it comes to major risks, but that this could ultimately lead to our demise. Speaking to journalist Bryan Walsh for his new book ‘End Times’ – which analyses the major threats humanity faces – Paul Slovic, a professor of psychology at the University of Oregon and an expert in risk perception, said it is time to sit up and take notice. Prof Slovic said: “We treat something as impossible unless there is an experiential aspect to it, and no one has experienced an asteroid strike.

“The human tendency is to take that small probability and sweep it to zero.”

Mr Walsh goes on to conclude that humans need to work harder on asteroid prevention if we are to survive the Universe’s ongoing mission to kill us off.

Mr Walsh said: “That’s how we end up ignoring risks that could wipe us off the face of the planet.

“Not because we’re making a reasoned decision to spend money on one need over another, but because we’re not being reasonable at all.

“That’s an understandable tendency. It’s also one that may just get us all killed, unless we’re brave enough to come face-to-face with the end of the world.

“The Universe may be trying to kill us, but that doesn’t mean we have to let it.”

A recent asteroid-near miss also prompted the European Space Agency to state that more eyes are needed to observe the skies.

On July 25, a huge asteroid about the size of a football pitch, skimmed Earth, and scientists were unaware it was coming.

“The asteroid in question is known as ‘2019 OK’ and when it was first discovered, it was not classed as a near-Earth asteroid.

“However, the European Space Agency (ESA) confirmed that scientists had only noticed it was travelling near Earth “just days” before it whizzed past as a distance of 65,000 kilometres – one fifth of the distance to the Moon.

The ESA stated: “The 100m wide asteroid dubbed ‘2019 OK’ was detected just days before it passed Earth, although archival records from sky surveys show it had previously been observed but wasn’t recognised as a near-Earth asteroid.

“We know of, and are tracking, thousands of asteroids in the Solar System, so why was this one discovered so late?

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“Unfortunately, there is currently no single obvious reason, apart from its slow motion in the sky before close approach.

“2019 OK also travels in a highly elliptical orbit, taking it from within the orbit of Venus to well beyond that of Mars.

“This means the time it spends near Earth and is detectable with current telescope capabilities is relatively short.

“ESA, NASA and other agencies and organisations around the globe – professional and amateur – discover new asteroids every day.

“This work constantly increases our understanding of the number, distribution and movement of orbiting rocky bodies.”

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https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1170978/asteroid-earth-2019-end-times-space-asteroids-news-european-space-agency

2019-08-28 10:09:00Z
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NASA reveals huge raft of pumice was triggered by Pacific underwater volcanic eruption - Express.co.uk

A submarine volcano near the Polynesian island of Tonga in Oceana exploded two weeks ago, creating a great deal of ash and stone debris in the Pacific which is heading towards the Great Barrier Reef. NASA stated that it is the first time the volcano has erupted since 2001, and it could mean good news for the Great Barrier Reef – the world’s largest coral reef system. The Great Barrier Reef has been dying at an astonishing rate, with a 50 percent decline in coral cover between 1985 and 2012, according to the Barrier Reef Foundation.

Climate change has led to extreme coral bleaching, which is where water becomes too warm and the corals expel the algae living in their tissue, which causes the corals to go completely white and ultimately die.

Less corals lead to less habitat for marine life in what is a devastating cycle for the already fragile marine ecosystem.

However, a huge pumice raft, which is around 150 kilometres, could help save the Great Barrier Reef.

This is because along the pumice’s journey to the Great Barrier Reef, experts believe it will act as a temporary marine habitat for many creatures, and collate corals along the way.

The hope is that when it reaches the Great Barrier Reef, it will deposit some of the findings it has gathered in the coral system, which will be a “potential mechanism for restocking the Great Barrier Reef”.

Queensland University of Technology geologist Scott Bryan told the Guardian: “Based on past pumice raft events we have studied over the last 20 years, it’s going to bring new healthy corals and other reef dwellers to the Great Barrier Reef.

“Each piece of pumice is a rafting vehicle. It’s a home and a vehicle for marine organisms to attach and hitch a ride across the deep ocean to get to Australia.”

Writing on Discover Magazine’s blog, Volcanologist Erik Klemetti of Denison University said: “Pumice rafts can drift for weeks to years, slowly dispersing into the ocean currents. These chunks of pumice end up making excellent, drifting homes for sea organisms, helping them spread.

“The erupted pumice means this volcano erupts magma high in silica like rhyolite.”

he NASA Earth Observatory wrote: “On August 13, 2019, the Operational Land Imager on Landsat 8 acquired natural-colour imagery of a vast pumice raft floating in the tropical Pacific Ocean near Late Island in the Kingdom of Tonga.

“NASA’s Terra satellite detected the mass of floating rock on August 9; the discoloured water around the pumice suggests that the submarine volcano lies somewhere below.

“By August 13, the raft had drifted southwest. As of August 22, the raft had moved north again and was a bit more dispersed, but still visible.”

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2019-08-28 07:09:00Z
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Selasa, 27 Agustus 2019

Secretive U.S. Air Force Spaceplane Breaks Record With 719 Straight Days in Orbit - Gizmodo

The X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV-5) being staged in September of 2017

The U.S. Air Force’s Boeing X-37B spaceplane broke a record yesterday for the most amount of time in orbit around the Earth. But we still don’t know when the uncrewed plane is going to land or even what it’s doing up there. All of the details about the X-37B mission are classified.

As of 6:43am ET today, the X-37B spaceplane’s fifth mission, dubbed the Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV-5), will have spent 719 days in orbit—just 11 days shy of a full two years circling the globe. The previous record was 717 days, 20 hours and 42 minutes, achieved just a few years earlier with OTV-4.

All we know about the 29-foot long spaceplane’s mission comes from the Air Force description, which is light on details, to say the least:

The X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle, or OTV, is an experimental test program to demonstrate technologies for a reliable, reusable, unmanned space test platform for the U.S. Air Force. The primary objectives of the X-37B are twofold; reusable spacecraft technologies for America’s future in space and operating experiments which can be returned to, and examined, on Earth.

The Air Force notes that the vehicle is able to “return experiments to Earth,” but we have no idea what those experiments might be:

Upon command from the ground, the OTV autonomously re-enters the atmosphere, descends, and lands horizontally on a runway. The X-37B is the first vehicle since NASA’s Shuttle Orbiter with the ability to return experiments to Earth for further inspection and analysis, but with an on-orbit time of 270 days or greater, the X-37B can stay in space for much longer.
Technologies being tested in the program include advanced guidance, navigation and control, thermal protection systems, avionics, high temperature structures and seals, conformal reusable insulation, lightweight electromechanical flight systems, advanced propulsion systems, advanced materials and autonomous orbital flight, reentry and landing.

The spaceplane looks a bit like the space shuttles, which were an incredibly exciting advancement for any kid of the 1980s and 90s. But the space shuttle program was killed and the vehicles now sit in museums.

Aside from its time in space, there are a number of other things that make this mission different. The X-37B has completed four missions using a Atlas 5 rocket but its most recent mission was launched on September 7, 2017 using a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Previous missions were also launched from Edwards Air Force Base in California, but this most recent launch was from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

What are they doing up there? We have no idea. But given how bad things are going on Earth—between the global rise of fascism, the deaths of children in American concentration camps, and the disastrous fires in the Amazon—here’s hoping that the Air Force is developing some kind of human escape plan.

The tardigrades clearly succeeded in becoming a multi-planetary species recently. And given the way that humans are destroying our own planet it seems like they know what they’re doing.

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https://gizmodo.com/secret-u-s-air-force-spaceplane-breaks-record-with-719-1837605822

2019-08-27 10:00:00Z
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Senin, 26 Agustus 2019

SpaceX may try to hop its Starship prototype higher on Monday - Ars Technica

Enlarge / A view of Starhopper in July.
Trevor Mahlmann for Ars

As soon as Monday afternoon, SpaceX may attempt a second flight for its Starship prototype named "Starhopper." The stubby vehicle, which resembles a water tower, will seek to make a controlled flight to 150 meters above the ground before returning to land safely at SpaceX's test site in South Texas.

One month ago, Starhopper made its first untethered flight, rising about 20 meters. Although smoke from the vehicle's single Raptor engine shrouded most of that test flight from view, it came off successfully and validated the company's ability to control the Raptor engine in flight.

This weekend, Cameron County officials notified residents in Boca Chica Village, near the test site, that the company plans to conduct a flight test from 4pm to 4:15pm CT Monday, and "there is a risk that a malfunction of the SpaceX vehicle during flight will create an overpressure event that can break windows." The Brownsville Herald reported that residents were advised to go outside during the test, which would be signaled 10 minutes in advance by a siren, for their safety. In its latest approval, the Federal Aviation Administration mandated that SpaceX purchase $100 million in liability insurance.

Although SpaceX does not anticipate losing the Starhopper vehicle, which measures 20 meters tall, this will be the vehicle's last flight. This fall, the company hopes to begin flying suborbital tests of larger Starship prototypes that have similar dimensions to the actual vehicle that will launch into space.

After the 150-meter Starhopper test, SpaceX founder Elon Musk has said he will provide an update on the development of Starship during a presentation in Boca Chica. He has not set a firm date for the presentation but has said it probably will occur in mid-September.

In recent months, separate teams of SpaceX engineers in Boca Chica, as well as Cocoa, Florida, have been working on their full-sized prototypes—Starship Mk 1 and Mk 2 respectively. These vehicles will fly, initially at least, with a complement of three Raptor engines. The full-scale Starship, which will launch into space on a rocket called "Super Heavy," is planned to have six engines; it will be capable of landing on and taking off of distant worlds, including the Moon and Mars.

By using two different teams of engineers, SpaceX is following a rapid, iterative process of technology development for the unprecedented spacecraft. it is unclear how long it will take to get everything right, including the difficult process of re-entering Earth's atmosphere without burning up the vehicle, but orbital flights of Starship could occur as early as next year.

The next step, however, is a much more modest hop a few hundred meters above a Texas beach. A list of livestreams for Monday's potential test has been curated by the SpaceX subreddit. Hopefully, the company won't break any windows.

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https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/08/spacex-may-try-to-hop-its-starship-prototype-higher-on-monday/

2019-08-26 13:36:00Z
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Monster tumbleweed: Invasive new species is here to stay - Phys.Org

A new species of gigantic tumbleweed once predicted to go extinct is not only here to stay—it's likely to expand its territory.

The species, Salsola ryanii, is significantly larger than either of its parent plants, which can grow up to 6 feet tall. A new study from UC Riverside supports the theory that the new tumbleweed grows more vigorously because it is a hybrid with doubled pairs of its parents' chromosomes.

Findings from the study are detailed in a new paper published in the Oxford University-produced journal AoB Plants.

"Salsola ryanii is a nasty species replacing other nasty species of tumbleweed in the U.S.," said study co-author Norman Ellstrand, UCR Distinguished Professor of Genetics. "It's healthier than earlier versions, and now we know why."

Humans are diploid organisms, with one set of chromosomes donated by the mother and one set from the father. Sometimes a mother's egg contains two sets of chromosomes rather than just the one she is meant to pass on. If this egg is fertilized, the offspring would be triploid, with three sets of chromosomes. Most humans do not survive this.

Plants with parents closely related enough to mate can produce triploid offspring that survive but are unable to reproduce themselves. However, a hybrid plant that manages to get two copies from the mother and two from the father will be fertile. Some species can have more than four sets of chromosomes. They can even have "hexaploidy," with six sets of chromosomes.

Scientists have long assumed there must be some kind of evolutionary advantage to polyploidy, the term for hybrids that have multiple sets of chromosomes, since it poses some immediate difficulties for the new hybrids.

"Typically, when something is new, and it's the only one of its kind, that's a disadvantage. There's nobody exactly like you to mate with," said study co-author Shana Welles, the graduate student in Ellstrand's laboratory that conducted the study as part of her Ph.D. research. She is now a postdoctoral fellow at Chapman University.

The advantage to having multiple sets of chromosomes, according to the study, is that the hybrid plant grows more vigorously than either of its parents. This has been suggested as the reason polyploidy is so common in plants. However, it has not, until now, been demonstrated experimentally.

Polyploidy is associated with our favorite crops; domesticated peanuts have four sets of chromosomes, and the wheat we eat has six.

Though tumbleweeds are often seen as symbols of America's old West, they are also invasive plants that cause traffic accidents, damage agricultural operations, and cause millions in property damage every year. Last year, the desert town of Victorville, California, was buried in them, piling up to the second story of some homes.

Currently, Salsola ryanii has a relatively small but expanding geographic range. Since the new study determined it is even more vigorous than its progenitors, which are invasive in 48 states, Welles said it is likely to continue to expand its range. Additionally, Welles said climate change could increase its territory takeover.

Though this tumbleweed is an annual, it tends to grow on the later side of winter.

"It's one of the only things that's still green in late summer," Welles said. "They may be well positioned to take advantage of summer rains if climate changes make those more prevalent."

Given its potential for damage, the knowledge now available about Salsola ryanii could be important for helping to suppress it, and Ellstrand believes that is what should happen before it takes over.

"An ounce of prevention is a pound of cure," he said.

Explore further

New tumbleweed species rapidly expanding range

More information: Shana Welles et al, Evolution of increased vigor associated with allopolyploidization in the newly formed invasive species Salsolaryanii, AoB PLANTS (2019). DOI: 10.1093/aobpla/plz039

Provided by University of California - Riverside

Citation: Monster tumbleweed: Invasive new species is here to stay (2019, August 26) retrieved 26 August 2019 from https://phys.org/news/2019-08-monster-tumbleweed-invasive-species.html

This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.

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2019-08-26 08:21:42Z
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Minggu, 25 Agustus 2019

A giant pumice stone floating in the Pacific could help heal Australia's Great Barrier Reef - CNN

The massive floating sheet of volcanic rock was first spotted by sailors on August 9, days after an underwater volcano is believed to have erupted near the Pacific Island of Tonga, according to NASA Earth Observatory.

Days later, Australian sailors heading towards Vanatu on the ROAM catamaran said they encountered volcanic rocks "made up of pumice stones from marble to basketball size such that water was not visible."

ROAM crew Michael and Larissa Hoult told CNN that they had been at sea for 10 days before coming into contact with the gray floating matter one evening.

"It was quite eerie, actually," Larissa said. "The whole ocean was matte -- we couldn't see the water reflection of the moon."

"The rocks were kind of closing in around us, so we couldn't see our trail or our wake at all. We could just see the edge where it went back to regular water -- shiny water -- at night," Michael added, saying they could see the rock from every direction.

"It was a bit of a mystery, we didn't know how deep it was, if we were sailing over a volcano that was active at that moment. It looked almost like there was more coming up, bubbling up from underneath," said Larissa.

The pumice, which is filled with holes and cavities, floats like an iceberg does, with about 90% underwater and 10% above water, the pair explained.

That pumice is expected to drift with the current down to the Australian coast over the next 7-10 months, they said, where scientist believe could have a positive affect on the microorganisms there.

That's because the floating stones can act as a home for marine organisms to nest.

When the pumice makes its way to the Great Barrier Reef, the sea life attached will travel too, potentially bringing diverse new colonies of barnacles, corals and more.

In 2012, research by Queensland University of Technology Associate Professor Scott Bryan and others following a similar underwater volcanic event found that pumice rafts are one way that the ocean can redistribute diverse sea life.

This month's eruption could have similar positive effects, Bryan said.

'Dead corals don't make babies': Great Barrier Reef losing its ability to recover from bleaching

Speaking to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) on Friday, Bryan said, "[The raft] is a natural mechanism for species to colonize, restock and grow in a new environment," adding that it's just "one way that nature can help promote regeneration." Bryan also said the natural phenomenon is occurring every five years.

He told ABC that when the pumice raft arrives to the Australian coastline over the next seven to 12 months, it will be "covered in a whole range of organisms of algae and barnacles and corals and crabs and snails and worms."

"This is a way for healthy, young corals to be rapidly introduced to the Great Barrier Reef," he said.

In 2016 and 2017, marine heat waves caused by climate change resulted in mass bleaching, which killed about half of the corals on the Great Barrier Reef, along with many others around the world.

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2019-08-25 14:58:00Z
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Sabtu, 24 Agustus 2019

NASA astronaut accused of stealing identity, accessing bank account of estranged wife while in space: report - Fox News

A NASA astronaut has been accused of committing the first crime in outer space after her estranged wife alleged she stole her identity and accessed her bank account without permission during a six-month mission aboard the International Space Station.

Former Air Force intelligence officer Summer Worden, from Kansas, has been involved in a bitter divorce with astronaut Anne McClain since 2018 but the battle heated up after Worden filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission and NASA’s Office of Inspector General accusing her wife of assuming her identity and gaining improper access to her private financial records while orbiting the earth, the New York Times reported.

LARRY KING FILES FOR DIVORCE FROM WIFE SHAWN KING AFTER 22 YEARS OF MARRIAGE

Worden told the Times that she was tipped off when McClain somehow had knowledge about her private spending while on a mission with no way to know otherwise.

Former Air Force intelligence officer Summer Worden has been involved in a bitter divorce with McClain (pictutred) since 2018 but the battle heated up after Worden filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission and NASA’s Office of Inspector General accusing her wife of assuming her identity and gaining improper access to her private financial records while orbiting the earth (NASA)

She contacted her bank and was informed that her sign-in credentials had been used on a computer registered to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

“I was pretty appalled that she would go that far. I knew it was not O.K.,” Worden said.

McClain has denied these allegations, telling the inspector general’s office in an interview last week that she was acting in routine by checking the family’s finances to make sure they had sufficient funds to pay bills for their son.

EX-NASA WINGSUIT SCIENTIST DIES DURING BASE JUMP IN SAUDI ARABIA

McClain (pictured) took Worden to court in 2018 to get shared parenting rights after accusing the boy’s mother of having a temper and making poor financial decisions but Worden filed for divorce after now-pictures of her son and McClain were posted to her Twitter. (NASA)

The child has also been a point of contention during the divorce.

According to the Times report, Worden had a son about a year before she met McClain. After the couple wed in 2014, she refused McClain’s request to adopt the child.

McClain took Worden to court in 2018 to get shared parenting rights after accusing the boy’s mother of having a temper and making poor financial decisions but Worden filed for divorce after now-deleted pictures of her son and McClain were posted to her Twitter.

Expedition 58 Flight Engineer Anne McClain of NASA speaks with friends and family after having her Russian Sokol suit pressure checked in preparation for her launch aboard the Soyuz MS-11 spacecraft on Monday, Dec. 3, 2018, at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. (NASA/Aubrey Gemignani)

A short time later, McClain went on mission.

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The International Space Station was launched in the late nineties and is operated by five agencies from the U.S., Russia, Japan, Canada and 22 collective European nations.

NASA officials told the Times that they were unaware of any previous crimes committed on the space station.

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2019-08-24 16:15:00Z
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Jumat, 23 Agustus 2019

NASA's Artemis Moon Program Just Photobombed a Spacewalk (Photo) - Space.com

NASA's mission patch for the Artemis moon program saw space for the first time during a dramatic spacewalk earlier this week.

The agency, which plans to send crews to the moon's surface by 2024, unveiled the new logo last month. NASA astronauts Nick Hague and Drew Morgan conducted the first spacewalk since then on Wednesday (Aug. 21), with Hague showing off the patch that those future moon landers will wear.

NASA astronaut Nick Hague sports an Artemis program logo during his spacewalk on Aug. 22, 2019.

(Image credit: NASA)

The patch shows a dramatic white "A" floating in black space above a blue horizon that represents Earth. A red ribbon, which denotes the new crews' path to the moon, flows from Earth's horizon to a small, white moon near the back of the patch.

"The work happening now is paving the way for the future," NASA said in a statement. "We are going to the moon to stay, by 2024. NASA's Artemis lunar exploration program will send the first woman and the next man to [the] surface of the Moon within five years, and prepare for human exploration of Mars."

Morgan and Hague took a picture of the patch (with Hague holding it) during their 6-hour-and-32-minute spacewalk to install a new International Docking Adapter (IDA) on the International Space Station. The IDA is the second adapter specifically designed to allow commercial crew vehicles from SpaceX and Boeing to dock with the space station and use ports of entry originally designed for the now-retired space shuttle.

The new dock will also be used by visiting cargo vehicles and possibly by future private flights to the space station, NASA has said. But the most pressing use will be for the first crewed commercial vehicles, which may arrive at the space station as soon as this year if all goes according to plan.

The Artemis program's first major mission is an uncrewed loop around the moon that is expected to fly no earlier than 2020, with test crewed missions expected later in the 2020s.

Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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2019-08-23 19:11:00Z
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Exoplanets could host abundant life – even BETTER than Earth, scientists discover - RT

Exoplanets in our universe may be home to abundant life that enjoys a more hospitable home than we do on Earth, surprising research has revealed. The news may help in the search for alien life.

Researchers are looking for oceans on exoplanets which have “the greatest capacity to host globally abundant and active life,”said geophysicist Stephanie Olson from the University of Chicago.

Also on rt.com NASA discovers ‘first nearby super-Earth’ which could be ripe for human colonization

Her team used special NASA software to model a range of exoplanets to see which would be most likely to develop and sustain life. This led to a “surprising conclusion,” which revealed “conditions on some exoplanets with favorable ocean circulation patterns could be better suited to support life that is more abundant or more active than life on Earth,” Olson said.

These oceans have similar upswelling to Earth’s, and because this creates an upward flow of nutrients from the depths of oceans to the sunlit portions where photosynthetic life lives, meaning there is a nutrient resupply and more biological activity.

Also on rt.com ‘Hot Saturn’ exoplanet 60 times bigger than Earth discovered

The research found that thicker atmospheres, slower rotations and the presence of continents all created higher upswelling rates.

The new research will help extend the current parameters used in the search for habitable exoplanets, which currently focus on temperatures and the potential for liquid oceans. “Not all oceans are equally hospitable,” Olson explains, “and some oceans will be better places to live than others due to their global circulation patterns.”

Scientists have estimated that up to 35 percent of all known exoplanets that are bigger than Earth should be rich in water, so there’s plenty of potential out there.

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2019-08-23 11:24:00Z
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Complex quantum teleportation achieved for the first time - Phys.org

Austrian and Chinese scientists have succeeded in teleporting three-dimensional quantum states for the first time. High-dimensional teleportation could play an important role in future quantum computers.

Researchers from the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the University of Vienna have experimentally demonstrated what was previously only a theoretical possibility. Together with quantum physicists from the University of Science and Technology of China, they have succeeded in teleporting complex high-dimensional quantum states. The research teams report this international first in the journal Physical Review Letters.

In their study, the researchers teleported the quantum state of one photon (light particle) to another distant one. Previously, only two-level states ("qubits") had been transmitted, i.e., information with values "0" or "1". However, the scientists succeeded in teleporting a three-level state, a so-called "qutrit". In quantum physics, unlike in classical computer science, "0" and "1" are not an 'either/or' – both simultaneously, or anything in between, is also possible. The Austrian-Chinese team has now demonstrated this in practice with a third possibility "2".

Novel experimental method

It has been known since the 1990s that multidimensional quantum teleportation is theoretically possible. However: "First, we had to design an experimental method for implementing high-dimensional teleportation, as well as to develop the necessary technology", says Manuel Erhard from the Vienna Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.

The quantum state to be teleported is encoded in the possible paths a photon can take. One can picture these paths as three optical fibers. Most interestingly, in quantum physics a single photon can also be located in all three optical fibers at the same time. To teleport this three-dimensional quantum state, the researchers used a new experimental method. The core of quantum teleportation is the so-called Bell measurement. It is based on a multiport beam splitter, which directs photons through several inputs and outputs and connects all optical fibers together. In addition, the scientists used auxiliary photons—these are also sent into the multiple beam splitter and can interfere with the other photons.

Through clever selection of certain interference patterns, the quantum information can be transferred to another photon far from the input photon, without the two ever physically interacting. The experimental concept is not limited to three dimensions, but can in principle be extended to any number of dimensions, as Erhard emphasizes.

Higher information capacities for quantum computers

With this, the international research team has also made an important step towards practical applications such as a future quantum internet, since high-dimensional quantum systems can transport larger amounts of information than qubits. "This result could help to connect quantum computers with information capacities beyond qubits", says Anton Zeilinger, quantum physicist at the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the University of Vienna, about the innovative potential of the new method.

The participating Chinese researchers also see great opportunities in multidimensional quantum teleportation. "The basics for the next-generation quantum network systems is built on our foundational research today", says Jian-Wei Pan from the University of Science and Technology of China. Pan recently held a lecture in Vienna at the invitation of the University of Vienna and the Academy.

In future work, the quantum physicists will focus on how to extend the newly gained knowledge to enable teleportation of the entire quantum state of a single photon or atom.

Explore further

One step closer to complex quantum teleportation

More information: Yi-Han Luo et al. Quantum Teleportation in High Dimensions, Physical Review Letters (2019). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.123.070505

Provided by University of Vienna

Citation: Complex quantum teleportation achieved for the first time (2019, August 23) retrieved 23 August 2019 from https://phys.org/news/2019-08-complex-quantum-teleportation.html

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2019-08-23 09:33:15Z
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