Jingszo !

Engineers working on NASA’s Voyager 1 probe have successfully mitigated an issue with the spacecraft’s thrusters, which keep the distant explorer pointed at Earth so that it can receive commands, send engineering data, and provide the unique science data it is gathering.

After 47 years, a fuel tube inside the thrusters has become clogged with silicon dioxide, a byproduct that appears with age from a rubber diaphragm in the spacecraft’s fuel tank. The clogging reduces how efficiently the thrusters can generate force. After weeks of careful planning, the team switched the spacecraft to a different set of thrusters.

The thrusters are fueled by liquid hydrazine, which is turned into gases and released in tens-of-milliseconds-long puffs to gently tilt the spacecraft’s antenna toward Earth. If the clogged thruster were healthy it would need to conduct about 40 of these short pulses per day.

Switching to different thrusters would have been a relatively simple operation for the mission in 1980 or even 2002. But the spacecraft’s age has introduced new challenges, primarily related to power supply and temperature. The mission has turned off all non-essential onboard systems, including some heaters, on both spacecraft to conserve their gradually shrinking electrical power supply, which is generated by decaying plutonium.

During the first billion years after the Big Bang, as the first stars and galaxies switched on and filled the darkness with new light, they also caused another transformation: ionizing the neutral hydrogen gas filling the universe. Until recently, astronomers struggled to explain how it could happen. Ionizing hydrogen requires high-energy ultraviolet (UV) light, and the sparse, fledgling galaxies did not seem up to the task. Now, JWST, NASA’s orbiting infrared observatory, has turned that on its head. It is finding so many bright young galaxies and luminous black holes that there may be an oversupply of UV light.

“We’re beginning to call this an overproduction crisis, because it seems like we just have too many ionizing photons in the universe."

About 900 miles off the coast of Chile along the Nazca Ridge, a slew of new discoveries have thrilled marine scientists. During a 28-day expedition, researchers aboard Schmidt Ocean Institute’s vessel Falkor (too) mapped a previously unknown seamount along the ridge’s mountain chain, along with nine others. These included a pristine 800-square-meter coral garden.

The team documented a live Promachoteuthis squid, “a genus that is so rare that only three species have been described based on only a few collected specimens, several of which are from the late 1800s,” a statement about the findings says. “Until now, the squid genus has only been characterized from dead samples found in nets.”

Scientists also recorded the adorable Casper octopus, marking the first time the species has been spotted in the Southern Pacific, and two rare Bathyphysa siphonophores, commonly known as flying spaghetti monsters.

Questions about the reliability of the transistors on the Europa Clipper spacecraft arose earlier this year after similar problems cropped up elsewhere. With the tight launch window looming, NASA rushed to conduct tests to verify that the electronic parts could survive the $5 billion mission to determine whether the suspected ocean beneath Europa’s icy crust might be suitable for life.

It will take six years for Europa Clipper to reach Jupiter, where it will orbit the gas giant every three weeks. Dozens of flybys are planned of Europa as close as 16 miles (25 kilometers), allowing cameras and other instruments — including ice-penetrating radar — to map virtually the entire moon.

Europa Clipper is the biggest spacecraft ever built by NASA to investigate another planet, spanning more than 100 feet (30 meters) with its solar panels unfurled.

Researchers said on Monday they had designed the first robotic leg with "artificial muscles"—oil-filled bags allowing machines to move more like humans—that can jump nimbly across a range of surfaces.

The small, disembodied robot leg was shown hopping over grass, sand and rocks in a video released alongside a new study in Nature Communications

Electrohydraulic musculoskeletal robotic leg for agile, adaptive, yet energy-efficient locomotion

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-51568-3

The space agency's VaMEx initiative aims to explore the canyon's gorges and caves for the first time. It will also search for traces of liquid water and thus possibly for life that could exist there in protected niches.

To this end, DLR wants to bring a swarm of autonomous, interconnected robots to Mars: They will operate on the ground, in the air and in caves, where they will collect images and other data.

Caves are not only interesting as locations for lunar or Martian bases. They offer protection from cosmic radiation, more moderate temperatures and therefore also a good environment for the preservation of life, which could have emerged billions of years ago when conditions on Mars were much more favorable.

When the robots on the ground enter caves, they are shielded from the surface of Mars and cannot communicate directly with the gateway. The concept therefore also includes repeater stations, which pass on the recorded images and data in a transport chain—from the robot in the cave to the gateway on the surface of the planet.

OP: @overholt@glammr.us

The tardigrade’s tiny size belies both its astounding physical resilience and its charisma. Also known as water bears or moss piglets, they can survive extreme temperatures and pressures, withstand radiation levels that would kill most organisms, and reanimate after long periods of desiccation or oxygen deprivation. They can even handle being in outer space without too much trouble — impressive for creatures that are roughly the size of a grain of sand. As a result, the 1300 known species of tardigrades are found everywhere on Earth: from the deep seas, to rainforests, to Antarctica.

The first recorded observations of these remarkable microfauna were published in 1773 by the German pastor Johann August Ephraim Goeze. Because they looked like tiny bears to his eyes, he called these strange creatures kleiner Wasserbär, “little water bears” (the name “tardigrade” came later in 1777, when an Italian biologist highlighted their slow movements). Goeze’s observations and drawings covered just a few pages, appended to his German translation of Charles Bonnet’s Traite d’insectologie, but they communicated the same wonder and fascination for tardigrades that many still feel today.

Every space elevator design has three different components: an anchor, a tether, and a counterweight. Each would require its own technologies.

The anchor is simple enough; it's how the system interfaces with Ceres. The surface of Ceres is primarily made of clay, which is relatively good for anchoring technologies

The tether is where the technology falls short on Earth—no material known to science can withstand the forces exerted on the tether of a passively controlled space elevator when it is tied to Earth. However, the closest we can come, something space elevator enthusiasts mention as almost a holy grail, is carbon nanotubes.

The counterweight is much simpler, as it can be just a big, dumb mass. However, its mass is proportional to the necessary length of cable—the heavier the mass, the shorter the cable. So, the tradeoff between having a heavier counterweight and a shorter cable is another design consideration when considering these systems.

Calculations from the team show that, with only a little more technological development, all three main systems could be ready for installation on Ceres itself. But what advantages does it have? It could be helpful as a launching point for accessing other asteroids in the asteroid belt.

But before it can provide any of those advantages, someone is going to have to pay for it. Estimates of the overall cost of the system total about $5.2 billion—not too far out of the range of larger-scale space exploration projects. But more than most countries are likely willing to pony up for a grand infrastructure project that hasn't yet proven its benefit.

The Wound Man is a surgical diagram which first appeared in European medical manuscripts of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

The illustration acted as an annotated table of contents to guide the reader through various injuries and diseases whose related cures could be found on the text's nearby pages. The image first appeared in a printed book in 1491 when it was included in the Venetian Fasciculus medicinae, likely Europe's first printed medical miscellany.

Thereafter it circulated widely in printed books until well into the seventeenth century. 

The Wound Man has since become a recognisable figure in popular culture.

The Wound Man illustrates various injuries that a person might receive through war, accident, or disease: cuts and bruises from multiple weapons, rashes and pustules, thorn scratches, and the bites of venomous animals.

The figure also includes some schematic anatomical outlines of several organs within his unusual, transparent abdomen.

Another high-ranking government official who investigated UFOs/UAPs is ready to tell their story.

Jay Stratton, the former director of the U.S. government’s secretive Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force, has struck a memoir deal with HarperCollins. Stratton represents the most senior former U.S government official yet to go public about their direct involvement in the investigation of UAP and non-human intelligence.

For paleontologists who study animals that lived long ago, fossilized remains tell only part of the story of an animal's life. While a well-preserved skeleton can provide hints at what an ancient animal ate or how it moved, irrefutable proof of these behaviors is hard to come by. But sometimes, scientists luck out with extraordinary fossils that preserve something beyond the animal's body.

Case in point: in a study published in the journal Current Biology, researchers found fossilized seeds in the stomachs of one of the earliest birds. This discovery shows that these birds were eating fruits, despite a long-standing hypothesis that this species of bird feasted on fish (and more recent hypotheses it ate insects) with its incredibly strong teeth.

Longipteryx chaoyangensis lived 120 million years ago in what's now northeastern China. It's among the earliest known birds, and one of the strangest.

This article originally appeared in The Skeptic, Volume 4, Issue 2, from 1990.

There have been numerous reports recently concerning sightings of UFOs in the Soviet Union. The most dramatic have involved aliens perambulating in parks, or even dumping (presumably) unwanted debris from their craft. The bulk of these articles have originated from the official news agency, TASS, which one usually associates with announcements of industrial achievements, or synopses of leadership speeches. As well as fulfilling this prosaic function, it has become a kind of Russian Guardian, chronicling the adventures of aliens, psychic healers and abominable snowmen. This article will examine the Russian UFO stories which have been circulating in recent months.

The search for life beyond Earth is one of humanity’s most exciting scientific endeavors. For over 60 years, scientists have been scanning the skies and exploring our solar system for signs of extraterrestrial life. However, this search has so far assumed that any life out there would be similar to life on Earth – based on familiar chemistry and existing in roughly Earth-like conditions.

While this is a reasonable starting point, many researchers argue that we need to expand the search to find “life as we don’t know it” – forms of life that are fundamentally different from life on Earth. This will require rethinking our assumptions, considering exotic possibilities, and searching in unexpected places.

Conclusion: Thinking Outside the Earth-Box

We stand at a pivotal moment in the search for extraterrestrial life. Widening our mental horizons will maximize our chances of success.

This will require actively combating the tendency for Earth-centric thinking, reconsidering assumptions, speculating about exotic possibilities, searching in unexpected places, and developing new techniques. With an open mind, humanity is ready to discover just how strange alien life beyond our planet may be.

Specifically, the thirty square meters excavated this year from Level 4 (46,000 years old) yielded teeth and bone fragments from cave bear (Ursus speleaeus), wild boar (Sus scrofa), horse (Equus ferus) and red deer (Cervus elaphus) were found, as well as numerous flint and quartzite tools, among which the highlights are racloirs and rough-edged flakes.

The main novelty for this campaign is the recovery of a hearth, which was raised en bloc for more detailed processing and study in the laboratory. Analysis of the ashes, charcoal and scorched sediments and materials will reveal which species of trees were in the landscape, the temperature the fire reached, its structure, and when the hearth was used.

The second major finding was of eight coprolites (fossilized feces) from cave bear, which will offer information about these animals' diet and genetic makeup. Analyzing these will also allow us to see which fruit and plants were among the biotic resources of the zone 46,000 years ago, and which might therefore have been gathered by the Neanderthals who occupied Cueva de Prado Vargas.

Neanderthal occupation

This year's excavation has evinced the existence of different sublevels within Level 4, showing that the cave was occupied by various Neanderthal generations, who used the cavity as their fireplace for hundreds or thousands of years.

A discovery of dinosaur tracks on Australia's southern coast—dating back to the Early Cretaceous when Australia was still connected to Antarctica—indicates that large theropod dinosaurs thrived in this polar environment, prowling the river floodplains when the ice thawed during the summers.

These numerous tracks are the best evidence yet that these former polar environments supported large carnivores.

Theropods, from the ancient Greek for "wild beast foot," are a dinosaur clade characterized by walking on two legs and feet with three clawed toes. They belong to the same evolutionary group as Allosaurus, Tyrannosaurus rex and Velociraptor.

The largest track from the current find was 18.5 inches long. "The hip height of that theropod would have been about the same as the full height of a tall, modern-day human—or a bit more than six feet tall."

Hyperloop, a new form of mass transit involving capsules whizzing on magnetic fields through depressurized tubes, has achieved significant liftoff in the northern Netherlands, a company developing the technology said Monday.

A test vehicle was levitated and zipped through a tube at a testing facility for the high-speed transit system.

The European Hyperloop Center's 420-meter (460-yard) tube is made up of 34 separate sections mostly 2½ meters (more than eight feet) in diameter. A vacuum pump sucks out the air to reduce the internal pressure. That reduces drag and allows capsules to travel at high speeds.

Hyperloop developers aim to have capsules speeding through tubes at up to 700 kph (435 mph). Its backers say it's far more efficient than short-haul flights, high-speed rail and freight trucks, but it will involve significant investment in infrastructure.

So far, in the limited space offered by the test center, the speed has been modest.

Key Points

• The doldrums are confined to the area of time-mean convergence of the Atlantic Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ)

• The frequency distribution of low wind speed events peaks between the edges of the ITCZ, which are characterized by increased convergence

• Low wind speed events within the ITCZ occur when precipitation is absent, suggesting they coincide with local low-level divergence

Plain Language Summary

The doldrums, an area between the trade winds formerly feared by mariners because of its low wind speeds and variable wind directions, have largely disappeared from mention in the scientific literature.

The most commonly given explanation for the existence of the doldrums, according to which the weaker surface winds result from the upward circulation of the trade winds, can only be true when averaged over timescales of days or weeks.

In this study, we re-examine this region and its relationship to the convergence of the trade winds.

We show that although low wind speed events occur in the region where the trade winds meet and precipitation rates are high on average, they occur precisely when there is no precipitation.

This leads us to the hypothesis that these regions of low wind speeds are characterized by sinking rather than rising air.

Introduction

“Day after day,

day after day,

We stuck, nor breath nor motion;

As idle as a painted ship

Upon a painted ocean”

is how S. T. Coleridge described the doldrums in the 1834 poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Located between the trades, the doldrums were feared for their low wind speeds and variable wind directions by mariners when sailing ships were still the primary means of sea transportation.

Now that its reflective sail has deployed fully open in orbit, the Advanced Composite Solar Sail System can be seen in the night sky from many locations across the world!

Stargazers can join NASA’s #SpotTheSail campaign by using the NASA app on mobile platforms to find out when the spacecraft will be visible at their location. The app, which is free to use and available on iOS and Android, provides a location-specific schedule of upcoming sighting opportunities. A built-in augmented reality tool points users to the location of the spacecraft in real time.

Prior research has shown that interbreeding occurred between Neanderthal and Homo sapiens populations—Neanderthal DNA has been found in the genome of modern humans. What is still not known is where the interbreeding occurred.

For this new study, the team has used a variety of sources to pin down one of the most likely regions for interacting, and thus interbreeding to occur.

After studying the geographical distribution of both Neanderthal and Homo sapiens during the time period, it is believed they comingled, and the researchers narrowed down the list of possible places to just one region—the Zagros Mountains on the Persian Plateau. In modern times, the mountain range stretches from Iran to northern parts of Iraq and into southeastern Turkey.

Prior research has shown that the region would have been ideal for the Neanderthals living there; its biodiversity and varied topology and warm weather would have made for a good standard of living. It also would have been in the path of Homo sapiens as they migrated out of Africa, right around the time that Neanderthals were still living there, setting up the likelihood of the two meeting.

Notably, the region has also been found to be a treasure trove for both Neanderthal and Homo sapiens skeletons. It is also the place where the Neanderthal "flower burial" was discovered. The region has also been found to be one of the major pathways that Homo sapiens took when they began moving out of Africa.

The research team suggests it would have been very surprising if the two groups had not run into each other. And because of that, it seems equally likely that the two would have interbred.

Reconstructing contact and a potential interbreeding geographical zone between Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-70206-y

Throughout Earth's history, the planet's surface has been regularly impacted by comets, meteors, and the occasional large asteroid. While these events were often destructive, sometimes to the point of triggering a mass extinction, they may have also played an important role in the emergence of life on Earth. This is especially true of the Hadean Era (ca. 4.1 to 3.8 billion years ago) and the Late Heavy Bombardment, when Earth and other planets in the inner solar system were impacted by a disproportionately high number of asteroids and comets.

These impactors are thought to have been how water was delivered to the inner solar system and possibly the building blocks of life. But what of the many icy bodies in the outer solar system, the natural satellites that orbit gas giants and have liquid water oceans in their interiors (i.e., Europa, Enceladus, Titan, and others)?

According to a recent study led by researchers from Johns Hopkins University, impact events on these "ocean worlds" could have significantly contributed to surface and subsurface chemistry that could have led to the emergence of life.

Impacts on Ocean Worlds Are Sufficiently Frequent and Energetic to Be of Astrobiological Importance

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/PSJ/ad656b

A French startup is bringing sails back to the shipping industry.

When a new cargo ship set sail from France to New York last month, loaded with hundreds of pallets of champagne, wine, and cognac, it was the first time in nearly a century that a large cargo ship crossed the Atlantic powered almost entirely by the wind.

The French startup that designed the ship, called TOWT (TransOceanic Wind Transport), argues that sailing cargo ships can viably compete with container ships running on fossil fuels.

This isn’t a traditional sailing ship

The company’s first vessel, called Anemos, is very different from a traditional sailing ship. It takes some inspiration from sailboats used in racing. First, the masts are made from carbon fiber. That makes them so lightweight that they can be much taller than the traditional version made from wood. The extra height means that they can hold up sails that are around twice as large, and catch more wind.

The sails are deployed with a mechanized system rather than sailors working by hand. “You could actually handle the whole rigging—the seven sails on board, and 3,000 square meters of sail—with just one remote control,” says Le Grand. At around 265 feet long, the vessel is a little bigger than the Cutty Sark, the famous British clipper ship. But while the Cutty Sark had 48 sailors, Anemos has just seven.

Astronomers have discovered black holes ranging from a few times the Sun’s mass to tens of billions. Now a group of scientists has predicted that NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope could find a class of “featherweight” black holes that has so far eluded detection.

Today, black holes form either when a massive star collapses or when heavy objects merge. However, scientists suspect that smaller “primordial” black holes, including some with masses similar to Earth’s, could have formed in the first chaotic moments of the early universe.

The spin of a particle seems to detach and move without a body—a strange experimental observation that’s stirring up debate

With their recent preprint paper, Aharonov and Popescu, together with physicist Daniel Collins of the University of Bristol, have now described how a particle’s spin can move completely independently of the particle itself—without employing a weak measurement. In their new experimental setup, a particle is located in the left half of an elongated two-part cylinder that is sealed at the outer edges. Because of a highly reflective wall in the middle, the particle has a vanishingly small probability of tunneling through to the right-hand side of the cylinder. In their paper, the researchers provide a proof that even if the particle remains in the left-hand area in almost all cases, it should still be possible to measure a transfer of the particle’s spin at the right-hand outer wall.

“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” Collins says. “You think the particle has a spin and the spin should stay with the particle. But the spin crosses the box without the particle.”

This approach would address several of the critical concerns raised thus far. The physicists don't need weak measurements. Nor do they need to group their experimental results to draw temporal conclusions.

Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP), commonly known as UFOs, have captured public imagination for decades. However, scientific research into these phenomena has been limited. NASA recently released a report by an independent study team outlining how the agency can leverage its expertise and assets to enhance the scientific study of UAP. Satellite imaging and space-based observations will play a key role in this endeavor.

Current Limitations in UAP Research

There are several factors currently limiting UAP research:

• Lack of high-quality data and observations - Poor sensor calibration, lack of metadata, and missing baseline data makes analysis difficult.

• Stigma surrounding UAP reporting - Negative perception of UFOs discourages data collection.

• Lack of a systematic framework - No standardized methodology for collecting, analyzing, and interpreting data.

NASA’s involvement in studying UAP aims to help overcome these limitations. The agency’s reputation can help reduce stigma, while its expertise in space-based observations provides new data collection opportunities.

The Arecibo message is an interstellar radio message carrying basic information about humanity and Earth that was sent to the globular cluster Messier 13 in 1974. It was meant as a demonstration of human technological achievement, rather than a real attempt to enter into a conversation with extraterrestrials.

The content of the Arecibo message was designed by a group of Cornell University and Arecibo scientists: Frank Drake, creator of the Drake equation, Richard Isaacman, Linda May, and James C.G. Walker. Carl Sagan and others also contributed.

The message was meant more as a demonstration of human technological achievement than a serious attempt to enter into a conversation with possible extraterrestrials. 

As globular cluster M13, at which the message was aimed, is more than 25,000 light-years from Earth, the message, traveling at the speed of light, will take at least 25,000 years to arrive there.

By that time, the core of M13 will no longer be in precisely the same location because of the orbit of the star cluster around the Galactic Center. Even so, the proper motion of M13 is small, so the message will still arrive near the center of the cluster.