#like do you. where were you when jwst launched then

[followtrendings]

FT Tech News 11: WhatsApp new feature, Bard AI cost $144 billion to Google, Google Lens big upgrade, Instagram walking in Twitter footsteps, Ford plans to cut jobs

Our aim with the tech news series is to cover multiple topics in one article so that you don’t have to go through other websites or articles for tech-related information. Please like the article because it keeps us motivated. Without any delay let’s start today’s tech news.

Topics We Have Covered

WhatsApp new feature Bard AI cost Google 144 Billion dollarsWhat was the question Bard answered wrong? Google Lens is getting an upgrade Instagram walking on Twitter footsteps Ford to cut jobs

WhatsApp new feature

Literally, I can write a novel on WhatsApp features list. Every other day, there is something on WhatsApp new features. Recently WhatsApp launched five features related to WhatsApp status. For this info click here. Now coming to the point, if you use WhatsApp you know that there is a limit to sending photos. You cannot send more than 25 or 30 odd photos at a time. That means if you have to send 50 photos then you can’t send all 50 images at once. You have to send it two times.

WhatsApp is going to not remove the limit but instead increase it. It is being said that WhatsApp will soon allow users to send 100 photos at once. Isn’t this great? I am eagerly waiting for this one because I tend to share photos in bulk and this feature is gonna be a relief. This feature will be more helpful for those who travel a lot and keep sharing photos on WhatsApp. Also Read: Don’t be too happy that Apple announced USB Type C port for its upcoming iPhones

Bard AI cost Google 144 Billion dollars

ChatGPT has been the talk of the town for the last few months. After all, ChatGPT is very capable and helpful. In competition to this, we were expecting something like this from Google. And believe it or not our expectations were a bit higher. To our anticipation, Google launched its own AI called Bard. According to Google, Bard is an AI service that provides conversational results to our queries. This is powered by LaMDA. It uses Google’s huge collection of language models and collects information from the web. Bard is still in the experimental stage. Google shared a short GIF video on Twitter showing Bard in action. To this point, the world was watching Google and this is when everything went upside down for Google. In the GIF video, Bard answered wrong. What was the question Bard answered wrong? In the short ad video, Bard was asked: “what new discoveries from the James Webb Space Telescope can I tell my 9-year-old about?” Bard responded with three points answer and the last point was where it went wrong. In the third point, it included: “JWST took the very first pictures of a planet outside of our own solar system.” This answer is incorrect because as confirmed by NASA, European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) is the first telescope to capture pictures of a planet outside of our solar system. This news spread like fire in the forest and Google had to suffer a tremendous $144 billion loss. This is what a few seconds of video can do.

Google Lens is getting an upgrade

We all know what Google lens can do. It can extract and read text from an object, or photo. It can also translate the texts for you. It can tell you information about objects. For example, you can find the name of a product, or a flower just by looking through Google's lens.

But now, Google is upgrading Lens. You can literally scan anything be it a building, hotel, animal, car, or whatever, it can tell. Even if you are in an app or watching a video on your phone or any website, without leaving what you are doing, you can use Google lens and find more information about it. So this new Google lens feature of being able to work anywhere across apps and websites makes a huge improvement. It is very important for those who don’t want to type or are not well at typing so that they can just scan it and they will get all the details. Also Read: FT Tech News 10: Twitter new paid plan| Wikipedia banned | World’s biggest wind turbine | Google investment in AI startup | YouTube introduces a new live sharing function | WhatsApp new features

Instagram walking on Twitter footsteps

There was a time when the blue tick resembled authenticity but now it resembles status. Anyone can get this tick nowadays. It was Twitter that started charging users for the blue tick. Now it is being said that Instagram will also do the same. This was spotted by the reverse engineer Alessandro Paluzzi. In the past, he has found several features of Instagram ahead of its official launch.

So this news is also likely to be official by Instagram in the future. He shared this information writing that Instagram is working on a subscription plan which will include the blue tick/badge as well. He also wrote at the bottom stating that he has just found a few small references in the code about this new paid plan. So until he become certain and post with screenshots he asked people to consider this news a rumor.

Ford to cut jobs

2023 has not been a great year for the employees so far. Everyone has the dream to work in giant companies like Google, Microsoft, Twitter, and Facebook. But looking at the current scenario, we feel glad that we are not working there because these all companies are laying employees in large numbers. It is being said that Ford is planning to cut 3800 jobs in Europe. Statistically, Ford plans to kick out 2300 people in Germany, 1300 in the U.K., and the remaining 200 elsewhere in Europe.  But Ford also clarified that it is not going to remove these employees all at once and all of a sudden. It said that 3800 jobs will be just over the next three years. The reason they gave for this decision was that it wants to adopt a leaner structure as it is focusing on electric vehicle production for the future. Ford has not just planned the layoff numbers but also has planned to retain 3400 engineering roles in Europe focusing on vehicle design and its development. Read the full article

[oflgtfol]

not to be petty or whatever but it is deeply annoying how tumblr users pride themselves on "oh this is tumblr we love space and astronomy here" and then half the time any astro post makes its rounds, its either misleading or straight up wrong, and even besides that point, most people's enthusiasm for astronomy is entirely surface level and doesnt seem to appreciate it as an actual science beyond ooo pretty pictures

[samsspambox]

(⌒▽⌒)☆ hi sam! So 4 the 2 truths & 1 lie I think the lie is the aerospace one just bc, & the other ask game, I think a fic I'd wish youd write about(sorry if Im wrong I dont remember) anything that has gwendolyn in it I love her so much( ´ ▽ ` ) or maybe ur interpretation of Artems old beta card where it looks like mc is leaving him in the rain, that's all have a good day! (About the last I sent in in the dead of night haha sorry (*ﾉ▽ﾉ)

hi cutie!! how you been?? god those asks were a trip and a half to find but i found them!!

actually the lie is being able to see jwst before launch and that they all happened in high school!

the aerospace firm one DID happen when i was in hs (i had to be escorted by security for an interview it was so cool) but happened mostly bc they got back to me late. i've written some base code but that happened in my first year of college! was fun lmaoo

i am slightly salty that i didn't get to see jwst when some of my peers did get to,,, but my childhood friend gave me a pin they stole from there so eh fuck it LOL

as for the fic ask! i can give you some bullet points rq!! god gwen was so fun to write maybe i should make a sequel

i'm pretty sure the first order of business for vyn once gwen gets freed of all legal bindings would be to celebrate

the rest of the nxx would definitely be on board with it too!! they do ask gwen what she wants tho and well... she's never been to an arcade before

so they go to a dave and busters-esque place (which is basically just a big arcade with adult level games)

artem makes them all eat his dust at the basketball free throws

vyn and gwen get stupid high scores in ddr and somehow get a crowd around them

racing games are luke's dominion and fucking dominates them all

marius and lyra get really competitive in the ball drop games but they're not good at them lolol

marius somehow finds a way to finance the whole trip even though everyone doesn't want him to

they all pitch in and give gwen their tickets and she picks the gaming console which has everyone very surprised but they brush it off quickly

they end up taking photo booth pictures in the end

very found family of them but also they get to know gwen better too 🥺

thank you for the ask!!! i hope you have a really good day!!!

[nasa]

13 Reasons to Have an Out-of-This-World Friday (the 13th)

1. Not all of humanity is bound to the ground

Since 2000, the International Space Station has been continuously occupied by humans. There, crew members live and work while conducting important research that benefits life on Earth and will even help us eventually travel to deep space destinations, like Mars.

2. We’re working to develop quieter supersonic aircraft that would allow you to travel from New York to Los Angeles in 2 hours

We are working hard to make flight greener, safer and quieter – all while developing aircraft that travel faster, and building an aviation system that operates more efficiently. Seventy years after Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in the Bell X-1 aircraft, we’re continuing that supersonic X-plane legacy by working to create a quieter supersonic jet with an aim toward passenger flight.

3. The spacecraft, rockets and systems developed to send astronauts to low-Earth orbit as part of our Commercial Crew Program is also helping us get to Mars

Changes to the human body during long-duration spaceflight are significant challenges to solve ahead of a mission to Mars and back. The space station allows us to perform long duration missions without leaving Earth’s orbit.

Although they are orbiting Earth, space station astronauts spend months at a time in near-zero gravity, which allows scientists to study several physiological changes and test potential solutions. The more time they spend in space, the more helpful the station crew members can be to those on Earth assembling the plans to go to Mars.

4. We’re launching a spacecraft in 2018 that will go “touch the Sun”

In the summer of 2018, we’re launching Parker Solar Probe, a spacecraft that will get closer to the Sun than any other in human history. Parker Solar Probe will fly directly through the Sun’s atmosphere, called the corona. Getting better measurements of this region is key to understanding our Sun. 

For instance, the Sun releases a constant outflow of solar material, called the solar wind. We think the corona is where this solar wind is accelerated out into the solar system, and Parker Solar Probe’s measurements should help us pinpoint how that happens.  

5. You can digitally fly along with spacecraft…that are actually in space…in real-time!

NASA’s Eyes are immersive, 3D simulations of real events, spacecraft locations and trajectories. Through this interactive app, you can experience Earth and our solar system, the universe and the spacecraft exploring them. Want to watch as our Juno spacecraft makes its next orbit around Juno? You can! Or relive all of the Voyager mission highlights in real-time? You can do that too! Download the free app HERE to start exploring.

6. When you feel far away from home, you can think of the New Horizons spacecraft as it heads toward the Kuiper Belt, and the Voyager spacecraft are beyond the influence of our sun…billions of miles away

Our New Horizons spacecraft completed its Pluto flyby in July 2015 and has continued on its way toward the Kuiper Belt. The spacecraft continues to send back important data as it travels toward deeper space at more than 32,000 miles per hour, and is ~3.2 billion miles from Earth.

In addition to New Horizons, our twin Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft are exploring where nothing from Earth has flown before. Continuing on their more-than-37-year journey since their 1977 launches, they are each much farther away from Earth and the sun than Pluto. In August 2012, Voyager 1 made the historic entry into interstellar space, the region between the stars, filled with material ejected by the death of nearby stars millions of years ago.

7. There are humans brave enough to not only travel in space, but venture outside space station to perform important repairs and updates during spacewalks

Just this month (October 2017) we’ve already had two spacewalks on the International Space Station...with another scheduled on Oct. 20. 

Spacewalks are important events where crew members repair, maintain and upgrade parts of the International Space Station. These activities can also be referred to as EVAs – Extravehicular Activities. Not only do spacewalks require an enormous amount of work to prepare for, but they are physically demanding on the astronauts. They are working in the vacuum of space in only their spacewalking suit. 

8. Smart people are up all night working in control rooms all over NASA to ensure that data keeps flowing from our satellites and spacecraft

Our satellites and spacecraft help scientists study Earth and space. Missions looking toward Earth provide information about clouds, oceans, land and ice. They also measure gases in the atmosphere, such as ozone and carbon dioxide and the amount of energy that Earth absorbs and emits. And satellites monitor wildfires, volcanoes and their smoke.

9. A lot of NASA-developed tech has been transferred for use to the public

Our Technology Transfer Program highlights technologies that were originally designed for our mission needs, but have since been introduced to the public market. HERE are a few spinoff technologies that you might not know about.

10. We have a spacecraft currently traveling  to an asteroid to collect a sample and bring it back to Earth

OSIRIS-REx is our first-ever mission that will travel to an asteroid and bring a sample of it back to Earth. Currently, the spacecraft is on its way to asteroid Bennu where it will survey and map the object before it “high-fives” the asteroid with its robotic arm to collect a sample, which it will send to Earth.

If everything goes according to plan, on Sept. 24, 2023, the capsule containing the asteroid sample will make a soft landing in the Utah desert.

11. There are Earth-sized planets outside our solar system that may be habitable

To date, we have confirmed 3,000+ exoplanets, which are planets outside our solar system that orbit a Sun-like star. Of these 3,000, some are in the habitable zone – where the temperature is just right for liquid water to exist on the surface.  

Recently, our Spitzer Space Telescope revealed the first known system of SEVEN Earth-size planets around a single star. Three of these plants are firmly in the habitable zone, and could have liquid water on the surface, which is key to life as we know it.

12. Earth looks like art from space

In 1960, the United States put its first Earth-observing environmental satellite into orbit around the planet. Over the decades, these satellites have provided invaluable information, and the vantage point of space has provided new perspectives on Earth.

The beauty of Earth is clear, and the artistry ranges from the surreal to the sublime.

13. We’re building a telescope that will be able to see the first stars ever formed in the universe

Wouldn’t it be neat to see a period of the universe’s history that we’ve never seen before? That’s exactly what the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will be able to do…plus more!

Specifically, Webb will see the first objects that formed as the universe cooled down after the Big Bang. We don’t know exactly when the universe made the first stars and galaxies – or how for that matter. That is what we are building Webb to help answer.

Happy Friday the 13th! We hope it’s out-of-this-world!

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.

[asiatechinfo]

Telescope 'James Webb' sets out in search of creation history

New Post has been published on https://www.asiatech.info/telescope-james-webb-sets-out-in-search-of-creation-history/

Telescope 'James Webb' sets out in search of creation history

Telescope ‘James Webb’ sets out in search of creation history. The largest space telescope in the history of the earth has traveled in space. The 1 trillion James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is being touted as one of the most important and promising scientific projects of the 21st century.

The JWST started its journey from the launchpad of the European Space Agency (ESA) in French Guiana at 6:20 pm Bangladesh time on Saturday. 30 years have passed between the design of the project and the space journey; By the end of the year, the expenditure has reached almost 10 times of the initial budget. 

Built with so much time and money, the main goal of JWST is to find the first constellations and galaxies in the universe. In addition, the telescope will look for the presence of life-sustaining gases in the atmosphere of distant planets.

Telescope ‘James Webb’ sets out in search of creation history

As much as there were expectations about JWST, there was also uncertainty. The Aryan 5 rocket carrying JWST took 28 minutes to reach space. But to give a literal description of this process of going to space, he must say ‘controlled explosion’; There is no chance of taking lightly even the smallest aspect of the whole launch process.

JWST has been rolled into the shell of Aryan 5 rocket. After reaching space, the work of the telescope did not end with the separation from Aryan 5, but only after that the most important and complex part of the whole mission will begin. JWST has gradually adapted itself from the rolled-up situation, and these matching steps are so complex and important that the whole mission can be ruined by the slightest noise.

In the words of NASA manager Bill Nelson, “the web is a wonderful mission.”

“It’s a shining example of how much we can achieve if we dream big. We always knew the project was risky. But if you want to get something big, you have to take a big risk. ”

JWST is named after James Webb, one of the most important researchers in the Apollo Moon program. NASA, ESA and CSA have teamed up in various stages of design, construction and launch of the telescope. And in the eyes of all the project partners, JWST is the ‘flagship’ of the 21st century science and technology world.

JWST is being considered as the successor to NASA’s Hubble Telescope. After 31 years in orbit, Hubble has reached the end of its life span. JWST will conduct further research on Hubble’s discoveries.

At the center of JWUST’s entire system is a gold-plated 6.5-meter-wide mirror. The mirror will reflect the light of the early stars, and JWUST’s ‘super-sensitive’ sensors will be able to detect the particles of that light – astronomers hope.

“They will be like tiny red particles,” John Mather, a senior NASA Nobel laureate, told the BBC. Our idea is that there are galaxies and black holes that formed 100 million years after the Big Bang. Many of them may no longer be found, but if they still exist and we’re lucky, James Webb will see them. “

Scientists are looking for the stars at the beginning of creation, not just to satisfy scientific curiosity. It was those stars that started sowing the seeds of ‘Heavy Chemical Elements’ in the whole space. Calcium in the bones of the human body, phosphorus in the DNA and iron dissolved in the blood – these atomic particles are ‘created’ by nuclear reactions; As a result of that same chemical reaction, the stars in space glow brighter, and the reaction intensifies when the stars explode at the end of their life span. Considering these factors, it can be said that JWST is going to witness the events of the creation of the universe.

“What I like most about astronomy is that it leads us directly to the big questions: where do we come from? How come Are we alone? These questions are not just ancient scientific questions; These are deep questions about the existence of human beings, “said Dr. Amber Stron, NASA’s Assistant Project Researcher.

BNE / NEWS

[sciencespies]

Detecting this specific gas in an alien world's atmosphere may be a good sign of life

https://sciencespies.com/space/detecting-this-specific-gas-in-an-alien-worlds-atmosphere-may-be-a-good-sign-of-life/

Detecting this specific gas in an alien world's atmosphere may be a good sign of life

It is no exaggeration to say that the study of extrasolar planets has exploded in recent decades. To date, 4,375 exoplanets have been confirmed in 3,247 systems, with another 5,856 candidates awaiting confirmation.

In recent years, exoplanet studies have started to transition from the process of discovery to one of characterization.

This process is expected to accelerate once next-generation telescopes become operational.

As a result, astrobiologists are working to create comprehensive lists of potential “biosignatures,” which refers to chemical compounds and processes that are associated with life (oxygen, carbon dioxide, water, etc.)

But according to new research by a team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), another potential biosignature we should be on the lookout for is a hydrocarbon called isoprene (C5H8).

The study that describes their findings, “Assessment of Isoprene as a Possible Biosignature Gas in Exoplanets with Anoxic Atmospheres,” recently appeared online and has been accepted for publication by the journal Astrobiology.

For the sake of their study, the MIT team looked at the growing list of possible biosignatures that astronomers will be on the lookout for in the coming years.

To date, the vast majority of exoplanets have been detected and confirmed using indirect methods.

For the most part, astronomers have relied on the Transit Method (Transit Photometry) and the Radial Velocity Method (Doppler Spectroscopy), alone or in combination. Only a few have been detectable using Direct Imaging, which makes it very difficult to characterize exoplanet atmospheres and surfaces.

Only on rare occasions have astronomers been able to obtain spectra that allowed them to determine the chemical composition of that planet’s atmosphere. This was either the result of light passing through an exoplanet’s atmosphere as it transited in front of its star or in the few cases where Direct Imaging occurred and light reflected from the exoplanet’s atmosphere could be studied.

Much of this has had to do with the limits of our current telescopes, which do not have the necessary resolution to observe smaller, rocky planets that orbit closer to their star.

Astronomers and astrobiologists believe that it is these planets that are most likely to be potentially habitable, but any light reflected from their surfaces and atmospheres is overpowered by the light coming from their stars.

However, that will change soon as next-generation instruments like the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) takes to space. Sara Seager, the Class of 1941 Professor of Physics and Planetary Sciences at MIT, leads the research group responsible (aka the Seager Group) and was a co-author on the paper.

As she told Universe Today via email, “With the upcoming October 2021 launch of the James Webb Space Telescope we will have our first capability of searching for biosignature gases – but it will be tough because the atmospheric signals of small rocky planet are so weak to begin with. With the JWST on the horizon, the number of people working in the field has grown tremendously. Studies such as this one coming up with new potential biosignature gases, and other work showing potential false positives even for gases such as oxygen.”

Once it is deployed and operational, the JWST will be able to observe our Universe at longer wavelengths (in the near- and mid-infrared range) and with greatly improved sensitivity.

The telescope will also rely on a series of spectrographs to obtain composition data, as well as coronagraphs to block out the obscuring light of parent stars. This technology will enable astronomers to characterize the atmospheres of smaller rocky planets.

In turn, this data will allow scientists to place much tighter constraints on an exoplanet’s habitability and could even lead to the detection of known (and/or potential) biosignatures.

As noted, these “biosignatures” include the chemical indications associated with life and biological process, not to mention the types of conditions that are favorable to it.

These include oxygen gas (O2), which is essential to most forms of life on Earth and is produced by photosynthetic organisms (plants, trees, cyanobacteria, etc.). These same organisms metabolize carbon dioxide (CO2), which oxygen-metabolizing life emits as a waste product. There’s also water (H2O), which is essential to all life as we know it, and methane (CH4), which is emitted by decaying organic matter.

Since volcanic activity is believed to play an important role in planetary habitability, the chemical byproducts associated with volcanism – hydrogen sulfide (H2S), sulfur dioxide (SO2), carbon monoxide (CO), hydrogen gas (H2), etc. – are also considered biosignatures.

To this list, Zhan, Seager, and their colleagues wished to add another possible biosignature – isoprene.

As Zhan explained to Universe Today via email: “Our research group at MIT focuses on using a holistic approach to explore all possible gases as potential biosignature gas. Our prior work led to the creation of the all small molecules database. We proceed to filter the ASM database to identify the most plausible biosignature gas candidates, one of which is isoprene, using machine learning and data-driven approaches.”

Like its cousin methane, isoprene is an organic hydrocarbon molecule that is produced as a secondary metabolite by various species here on Earth. In addition to deciduous trees, isoprene is also produced by a diverse array of evolutionary-distant organisms – such as bacteria, plants, and animals.

As Seager explained, this makes it promising as a potential biosignature. “Isoprene is promising because it is produced in vast qualities by life on Earth – as much as methane production! Furthermore, a huge variety of life forms (from bacteria to plants and animals), those that are evolutionary distant from each other, produce isoprene, suggesting it might be some kind of key building block that life elsewhere might also make.”

While isoprene is about as abundant as methane here on Earth, isoprene is destroyed by interaction with oxygen and oxygen-containing radicals. For this reason, Zhang, Seager, and their team chose to focus on anoxic atmospheres. These are environments that are predominantly composed of H2, CO2, and nitrogen gas (N2), which is similar to what Earth’s primordial atmosphere was composed of.

According to their findings, a primordial planet (where life is beginning to emerge) would have abundant isoprene in its atmosphere.

This would have been the case on Earth between 4 and 2.5 billion years ago when single-celled organisms were the only life and photosynthetic cyanobacteria were slowly converting Earth’s atmosphere into one that was oxygen-rich.

By 2.5 billion years ago, this culminated in the “Great Oxygenation Event” (GOE), which proved toxic to many organisms (and metabolites like isoprene).

It was also during this time that complex lifeforms (eukaryotes and multi-celled organisms) began to emerge. In this respect, isoprene could be used to characterize planets that are in the midst of a major evolutionary shift and laying the groundwork for future animal phyla.

But as Zhang noted, teasing out this potential biosignature will be a challenge, even for the JWST.

“The caveats with isoprene as a biomarker are that: 1. 10x-100x the Earth’s Isoprene production rate is needed for detection [and] 2. Detecting Near-Infrared isoprene spectral feature can be hindered by the presence of methane or other hydrocarbons. Unique detection of isoprene will be challenging with JWST, as many hydrocarbon molecules share similar spectra features in Near-Infrared wavelengths. But future telescopes that focus on the mid-IR wavelength will be able to detect isoprene spectral features uniquely.”

Beyond the JWST, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope (successor to the Hubble mission) will also be taking to space by 2025. This observatory will have the power of “One-Hundred Hubbles” and its recently-upgraded infrared filters will allow it to characterize exoplanets on its own and through collaborations with the JWST and other “great observatories.”

There are also several ground-based telescopes currently being built here on Earth that will rely on sophisticated spectrometers, coronographs, and adaptive optics (AOs). These include the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT), the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) These telescopes will also be able to conduct Direct Imaging studies of exoplanets, and the results are expected to be ground-breaking.

Between improved instruments, rapidly improving data analysis and techniques, and improvements in our methodology, the study of exoplanets is only expected to accelerate further.

In addition to having tens of thousands of more available for study (many of which will be rocky and “Earth-like”), the unprecedented views we will have of them will let us see just how many habitable worlds are out there.

Whether or not this will result in the discovery of extraterrestrial life within our lifetimes remains to be seen.

But one thing is clear. In the coming years, when astronomers start combing through all the new data they will have on exoplanet atmospheres, they will have a comprehensive list of biosignatures to guide them.

Seager and Zhan’s previous work include a concept for a Martian greenhouse that could provide all the necessary food for a crew of four astronauts for up to two years. This greenhouse, known as the Biosphere Engineered Architecture for Viable Extraterrestrial Residence (BEAVER), took second place in the 2019 NASA BIG Idea Challenge. You can read more about it here.

This article was originally published by Universe Today. Read the original article.

#Space

[scootoaster]

NASA’s plan to build stuff in space just took its first step

The SPIDER robotic arm (white) will put together a large antenna. (Maxar Technologies/)

Wherever humans go, they build. Civilization blossomed from clusters of homes and paths, and has more recently swelled to include skyscrapers, power lines, plumbing, and cell towers. And if it is ever to grow beyond the planet, engineers will have to figure out how to build there too.

Designers have long dreamt of the intricate telescopes and roomy hotels they could construct with the equivalent of space-cranes and space-bricks, but—with the exception of the International Space Station (ISS) and the Hubble Space Telescope—every piece of hardware in orbit was built on Earth and crammed whole into a rocket for transport. Now, NASA is encouraging companies to take the first steps toward assembling more complex machines while zipping around the planet in orbit. Last week it announced a $142 million contract to Maxar Technologies to include a robotic arm on an upcoming satellite that will put together a large antenna once in space.

“The development cost that NASA's helping with is a huge enabler for our industry to be able to start doing assembly in space very affordably,” says Al Tadros, Maxar’s Vice President of Space Infrastructure and Civil Space.

Dubbed the Space Infrastructure Dexterous Robot (SPIDER), the robotic arm will hitch a ride on a minivan-sized satellite called Restore-L around the middle of the decade. Under development since 2014, SPIDER measures about 16 feet long when fully extended, but can twist itself into all manner of contortions using its seven joints, which grant it as much flexibility as a human arm—albeit with a different architecture.

Once in orbit, it will put that dexterity to work. SPIDER will, one by one, remove seven panels stowed alongside Restore-L and fasten them together like a puzzle. Using a rachet-like tool, SPIDER can tighten specialized attachments built into each panel. The partially autonomous arm will pause after each command and organize a photoshoot with mounted cameras and lighting to check that the panels are precisely aligned. “It’s a little bit of a Swiss Army knife,” Tadros says.

The finished product will be a functional, round, 10-foot-wide reflector antenna, similar to the sort that beams down television channels to homes around the planet. Broadband providers currently design their antennas to fit flat against their spacecraft inside a 13-foot-wide rocket. With SPIDER, however, a satellite could build out its own antenna twice that size, allowing it to send more data to more people.

In some ways, Earth is actually a terrible place to build delicate machines. Not only do they have to endure gravity constantly pressing them against the ground, they also have to survive the shaking that comes along with riding a controlled explosion to reach speeds 20 times that of sound. Objects built in space face their own challenges (like temperature swings of hundreds of degrees), but can theoretically grow to any size. NASA chose to fund SPIDER because the technology has such wide appeal, Tadros says, from commercial antennas to scientific telescopes with mirrors four to five times larger than even the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).

“The intent is to have unlimited volume,” Tadros says.

And Maxar isn’t the only would-be space construction company NASA is kickstarting. Last summer it awarded a $73.7 million contract to Made in Space, a company that has developed a 3D printer for making custom parts on the ISS, to support its Archinaut One spacecraft. This satellite, which could launch as early as 2022, aims to 3D print two 33-foot beams from which it can unfurl solar panels of unprecedented size for such a small body.

Both missions foreshadow a future where humanity can service and upgrade its space hardware. The main mission of Restore-L, the spacecraft that will carry SPIDER, will be to demonstrate the ability to snag an aging satellite and fuel it up. Tadros envisions fleets of these robotic mechanics hopping from craft to craft, extending their lifespans and maintaining them as we do our terrestrial infrastructure. When Verizon upgraded from 3G to 4G, for instance, it switched out the old antennas for new ones. “You don't change the cell tower,” he said. “You don’t change the power going out to it, or the access road to it.”

Having advanced robotic arms on hand also gives mission planners more options for improvising when things go south. SPIDER shares its technological DNA with the arm of the Martian Insight lander, another Maxar part. Ever since one of Insight’s instruments failed to properly bury itself in the Red Planet’s unexpectedly tough soil, the arm has been the engineers’ main tool for trying to get it digging again. NASA has designed the JWST to fit inside a rocket by folding up like origami, but the 10-billion dollar telescope will only get one shot at unfolding. SPIDER-like arms could give future space telescopes additional chances to fix themselves if things go awry.

While space repair and construction are technologies that feature prominently in science fiction, real researchers have considered them seriously for decades. Early depictions of space stations were drawn up with the expectation they’d be built in orbit, and NASA originally designed the space shuttle in part to fix up satellites. Indeed, the space agency performed both a satellite refueling experiment and its first retrieval of a defunct satellite on different shuttle missions in 1984.

Establishing a space mechanics corps proved harder than expected and neither practice took off. These days, however, more companies are launching satellites—each costing hundreds of millions of dollars—than ever before. And with more powerful computing, stronger and lighter materials, and smaller devices (such as SPIDER’s cameras and sensors), Tadros suggests we finally have the technology to go make satellites bigger and better. “To get that kind of capability available to a lot of other missions is the real promise of what we’re demonstrating here,” he says.

[marsreader-blog]

Seven Alien 'Earths' Found Orbiting Nearby Star

New Post has been published on https://marsreader.com/2017/02/22/seven-alien-earths-found-orbiting-nearby-star/

Seven Alien 'Earths' Found Orbiting Nearby Star

Astronomers announced today the discovery of an extraordinary planetary system: seven Earth-sized planets that could all have liquid water on their rocky surfaces. The planets circle a tiny, dim, nearby star in tight orbits all less than 2 weeks long. Although it isn’t possible today to say whether the planets harbor life, astronomers are excited because each planet’s orbit passes in front of—or “transits”—its parent star. What’s more, the system’s proximity to Earth means that answers to questions about whether the system is habitable may come in just a few years’ time with the launch of a powerful new space telescope.

“If we are to find a biosignature, it may be in this kind of system,” says astrophysicist Nikku Madhusudhan of the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge, U.K., who was not involved in the study. “In terms of transiting planets, this is as close to the holy grail as we’ve ever seen.” Team member Didier Queloz of the University of Cambridge says that the system, known as TRAPPIST-1, will be “a major driver of the question of whether there is life in the universe.” Says Thomas Henning, director of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany: “Imagine a solar system with seven planets like our own, it’s just amazing.”

Many exoplanets searches have focused on sunlike stars in the hopes of finding an analog to our own solar system—unsurprising because it is the one system known to foster life. But the team behind the Belgium-led TRAPPIST project (Transiting Planets and Planetesimals Small Telescope) took a different tack: They looked for planets that transit in front of dim, dwarf stars, by far the most numerous type of star in the Milky Way. Starting in 2010 with a 0.6-meter robotic telescope at the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO’s) La Silla Observatory in Chile, they quickly came across the star that came to be known as TRAPPIST-1.

Transit surveys stare at stars, watching for the telltale dip in brightness that occurs when an orbiting planet passes in front and blots out a tiny bit of light. The duration of the dip determines the planet’s orbit, while the depth of the dip determines the planet’s size. Because dwarf stars are so small and dim, transiting planets block a bigger proportion of the light—making the transits more apparent from Earth.

TRAPPIST-1, which is 39 light-years distant and just 8% the mass of the sun, caught the team’s attention because it was obvious from multiple dips that more than one planet orbited the star. Last May, the team published in Nature the discovery of three Earth-sized planets in orbit around it. Finding that many was “an amazing discovery,” Henning says.

But there were more planets to come. “There was a forest of transits,” Queloz says. “We could not make sense of it.” The team used NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope along with observations from telescopes on Earth, including ESO’s Very Large Telescope in Chile and others in Morocco, Hawaii, Spain, and South Africa. A final, nearly continuous 20-day observation with Spitzer in September 2016, during which the team saw 34 transits, allowed them to untangle the mess. “Spitzer made all the difference,” team member Emmanuël Jehin of the University of Liège in Belgium told a press conference yesterday.

In a paper published today in Nature, the team describes a tightly packed group of planets with orbits ranging from 1.5 to 12.3 days. The dimness of the star means that, despite the planets’ close orbits, all seven could conceivably harbor liquid water on their surfaces. Three are firmly in the “habitable zone,” with enough starshine to have liquid water oceans, as long as they have Earth-like atmospheres.

Their orbits are not random but appear to be in a so-called chain of resonance, meaning that the orbital period of each planet is related to that of its neighbors by a ratio of small whole numbers. For example, for every eight orbits made by the innermost planet, the next planet orbits five times, while the next one out orbits three times. Planets don’t form in such tidy arrangements, which suggests that the TRAPPIST-1 planets were born in orbits farther out, before migrating inward and becoming trapped in the stable, resonant orbits. Forming in the system’s colder outer regions, where volatile compounds such as water and carbon dioxide freeze out, makes it possible that the planets incorporated those ices and carried them along to a warmer place where they could melt, evaporate, and become oceans and atmospheres.

One question that hangs over these planets is whether they are rocky, like Earth, or gassy, like mini-Neptunes. A measure of their density would answer that question. But for that, astronomers need to know their mass—individual transit studies reveal only size. However, in the case of TRAPPIST-1 the team was able to estimate masses by watching for a subtle gravitational effect on the planets’ orbits. Because the planets are bunched, they exert a small gravitational pull when they pass by each other. This occasional tug causes some transits to occur slightly later or earlier than expected. By measuring these transit timing variations and performing some fearsome modeling of the system, they were able to estimate the planets’ masses—and work out their densities. They all seemed to be rocky.

The next question for astronomers: Do the planets have atmospheres, and—if so—what are they made of? Transits can reveal atmospheres because as a planet passes in front of its star, atmospheric gases can absorb certain frequencies of the light passing through. Such observations are pushing the spectroscopic powers of even the Hubble Space Telescope to its limits. “Hubble is observing [the system], but it’s a little bit on the edge because of the size of the telescope,” Queloz says. So far, the team has confirmed that neither of the two innermost planets has a thick envelope of hydrogen gas, which is what you would expect if they were mini-Neptunes.

Realistically, any detailed study of TRAPPIST-1’s atmospheres will have to wait for the launch of Hubble’s successor, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), due late next year. With the frequent transits, “you can just stare with JWST,” Henning says. He thinks the JWST will be able to tease out the composition of the planets’ atmospheres, which has never yet been achieved for an Earth-sized exoplanet. Discerning biomarkers—which could be a particular mixture of methane, ozone, and oxygen—within those atmospheres, however, will be “extremely challenging,” Henning says. “It’s a goal, but may take longer than the next couple of years.” It may also take the muscle of the next generation of extremely large telescopes on Earth, which will debut next decade.

Researchers are prepared to wait a few more years for this, perhaps the greatest prize in astronomy. But the discovery of TRAPPIST-1 certainly gives them more hope that they will get there. The TRAPPIST project was only a forerunner for a more concerted search for exoplanets around dwarfs called SPECULOOS, which will rely on four 1-meter telescopes currently being installed at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile. Over the next few years it will survey a thousand such stars. “Imagine how many similar systems may be out there,” Madhusudhan says. “The universe could be teeming with these things.”

published on sciencemag.org

[sciencespies]

Behold This 'Cosmic Yeti', a Monster Galaxy From the Beginning of Time

https://sciencespies.com/news/behold-this-cosmic-yeti-a-monster-galaxy-from-the-beginning-of-time/

Behold This 'Cosmic Yeti', a Monster Galaxy From the Beginning of Time

Spotting the universe’s earliest structures is a challenge for astronomers. Evidence of these massive galaxies is hard to find, but they do leave behind some tracks if researchers look hard enough. Now, the chance discovery of faint light captured by the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile has revealed the existence of one such “cosmic Yeti,” according to a press release.

University of Arizona astronomer Christina Williams noticed a shimmering splash of light in observations from the ALMA radio telescope in an area where nothing had been seen before.

“It was very mysterious because the light seemed not to be linked to any known galaxy at all,” Williams says in a statement. “When I saw this galaxy was invisible at any other wavelength, I got really excited because it meant that it was probably really far away and hidden by clouds of dust.”

The team estimates that the light from the galaxy took 12.5 billion years to reach Earth, meaning that it is an extremely rare glimpse of a galaxy that formed less than 2 billion years after the Big Bang.

The light detected, however, isn’t from the galaxy itself. Researchers suspect that ancient galaxy has 100 billion stars, which is about the same as the Milky Way. It’s also possible that it forms new stars at a rate 100 times faster than our corner of the universe. Clouds of dust conceal all that starlight, but ALMA was able to detect the faint glow from dust particles. The team’s findings are documented in The Astrophysical Journal.

This “monster” galaxy, however, is more than just a cool find. It also helps to answer some big questions in cosmology. Most of the large galaxies astronomers have observed from the early universe reached maturity very quickly—when the universe was just about 10 percent of its current age of about 13.8 billion years old, give or take a billion. For that to happen, those mature galaxies had to come from much larger monster precursor galaxies, something researchers have never observed. But the so-called monster galaxy and other recent observations may finally solve the mystery.

“Our hidden monster galaxy has precisely the right ingredients to be that missing link because they are probably a lot more common,” says Williams in a statement.

The team found theirs by looking at an incredibly tiny slice of the sky, about one-hundredth of the width of the full moon. Study coauthor Kate Whitaker, an astronomer at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, thinks there could be a lot more galaxies like it out there.

“These otherwise hidden galaxies are truly intriguing; it makes you wonder if this is just the tip of the iceberg, with a whole new type of galaxy population just waiting to be discovered,” she says in another press release.

In fact, other massive star-forming galaxies were spotted earlier this year. In August, another team using the ALMA telescope reported in the journal Nature that they had located 39 galaxies that formed before the universe was two billion years old. Those seem to be embedded in a dark matter halo, making them difficult to observe directly.

Both teams are awaiting the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope currently scheduled to lift off in 2021. That scope should be powerful enough to penetrate the dust and answer the questions swirling around these galaxies.

“JWST will be able to look through the dust veil so we can learn how big these galaxies really are and how fast they are growing, to better understand why models fail in explaining them,” Williams says.

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