Tuesday, June 30, 2020

Country Garden Opens Restaurant Operated Completely By Robots

Country Garden, a property developer in China, revealed that its subsidiary Qianxi Robot Catering Group (Qianxi Group) opened a restaurant complex operated completely by robots. Located in Shunde, which is a city in China's Guangdong province, the restaurant eliminates most human-to-human contact and may be a harbinger of how businesses plan to handle the aftermath of the coronavirus outbreak.  

The restaurant complex is 2,000 square meters or about 21,527 square feet, and it has 20 robots equipped to serve a variety of dishes, including Chinese food, fast food, clay-pot rice and hot pot. The menu has 200 items, but they are available within 20 seconds of ordering. The restaurant can handle 600 diners at once.

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Publisher: Forbes
Date: 2020-06-30
Author: Lana Bandoim
Twitter: @forbes
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And here's another article:

Medical robotics in China: the rise of technology in three charts

In 2006, China highlighted the importance of robotics in its 15-year plan for science and technology. In 2011, the central government fleshed out these ambitions in its 12th five-year plan, specifying that robots should be used to support society in a wide range of roles, from helping emergency services during natural disasters and firefighting, to performing complex surgery and aiding in medical rehabilitation.

* * *

Guang-Zhong Yang, head of the Institute of Medical Robotics at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, says that China's robotics research output has been growing steadily for two decades, driven by three major factors: "The clinical utilization of robotics; increased funding levels driven by national planning needs; and advances in engineering in areas such as precision mechatronics, medical imaging, artificial intelligence and new materials for making robots."

Date: 2020-06-24
Twitter: @nature
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Don't Panic, But Russia Is Training Its Robot Tanks To Understand Human Speech

The Kremlin's Advanced Research Foundation—Russia's answer to the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency—has begun testing artificial intelligence that allows a Marker experimental ground-combat vehicle to respond to the same orders that a commander issues to human soldiers.

* * *

But Uran-9 didn't quite work as its designers intended. After just a month of combat, the Kremlin admitted the unmanned ground vehicle wasn't ready for regular front-line use. 

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Publisher: Forbes
Date: 2020-06-30
Author: David Axe
Twitter: @forbes
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Can robots keep the salad bar safe? – RetailWire

The novel coronavirus pandemic is giving grocers a new reason to consider robots for food preparation.

The Chowbotics website bills Sally as “the most hygienic custom salad bar experience available on the market.” The current iteration can hold up to 22 ingredients.

A demonstration video of Sally 2.0, the machine's latest incarnation, shows people selecting and ordering meals from a touch screen. Sally then puts together the meal by dispensing the correct fresh ingredients from a rotating carousel of see-through ingredient containers.

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While you're here, how about this:

Rios raises $5 million for robots that can grasp 'thousands' of types of products |

Rios , a Stanford robotics spinout founded by former Xerox PARC engineers, emerged from stealth today after 18 months with $5 million in funding. The company plans to use the funds to bolster product R&D and to accelerate its go-to-market efforts as it signs on "global" customers and partners.

Around $1.2 billion in U.S. venture capital deals have targeted logistics-focused robotics and automation companies since 2015, according to PitchBook, and investments are poised to accelerate. During the pandemic, ecommerce order volume has increased by 50% compared with 2019 and shipment times for products like furniture more than doubled.

Publisher: VentureBeat
Date: 2020-06-30T16:00:27 00:00
Twitter: @venturebeat
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Robots to deliver groceries for free in Ann Arbor - mlive.com

ANN ARBOR, MI -- Delivery robots are being deployed to ship groceries to Ann Arbor residents during the coronavirus pandemic.

"Our expansion into grocery delivery was a no-brainer during this time when the need for contactless delivery is so strong," said Matthew Johnson-Roberson, co-founder and CEO of Refraction AI, in a statement. "We're really happy to provide a safer solution for grocery shopping, especially for the at-risk members of our community. Through this partnership with Produce Station, we'll be gathering insight and data to further expand our grocery delivery model."

Publisher: mlive
Date: 2020-06-30T13:00:00.221Z
Author: dafana
Twitter: @mlive
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Publisher: IEEE Spectrum: Technology, Engineering, and Science News
Twitter: @IEEESpectrum
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Bossa Nova Robotics announces cuts to Pittsburgh workforce | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Publisher: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Twitter: @PittsburghPG
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Happening on Twitter

‘Skyman’ Review: Ready for an Alien Reunion - The New York Times

'Skyman' Review: Ready for an Alien Reunion - The New York Times

As Carl enlists the help of his sister (Nicolette Sweeney) and his best friend (Faleolo Alailima) in elaborate preparations for the visitation, the movie's striking desert locations and generous tone are more soothing than scary.

Subdued and temperate, "Skyman" refuses to lean into the mystery of Carl's claims or wind us up for a final resolution. Those elements might be present, but they're never allowed to obscure what is essentially an empathetic, textured portrait of loneliness and loss.

Date: 2020-06-30T13:00:02.947Z
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Quite a lot has been going on:

Desert Microbes Mine for Water - Eos

Once back in her lab, DiRuggiero cut the rock samples into tiny square "coupons" for microscopic and spectroscopic analysis. Kisailus's postdoctoral fellow Wei Huang used electron microscopy for the first analysis of the rock coupons, which revealed the cyanobacterium Chroococcidiopsis tucked between rock layers.

"The water itself is part of the [gypsum] crystal—it's not like pools of water are trapped in there." Using X-ray diffraction, which shows how atoms are organized inside rocks, the team could see the rock coupons were mostly gypsum, which is calcium sulfate dihydrate, or CaSO 4 plus two molecules of water. "The water itself is part of the [gypsum] crystal—it's not like pools of water are trapped in there," Kisailus explained.

Publisher: Eos
Twitter: @AGU_Eos
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My dad launched the quest to find alien intelligence. It changed astronomy. | National Geographic

Frank Drake and a BBC film crew at the Green Bank Observatory, with the Ozma telescope in the background. The telescope's control room has been restored to how it looked in 1960 when Drake became the first person to conduct a modern scientific search for intelligent civilisations among the stars.

Frank Drake , then an astronomer at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory , was gearing up to search for radio whispers from faraway civilizations that might be sailing the cosmic sea. For such a grand quest, he had a budget of £1,600 and access to a radio telescope thought to be sensitive enough to detect transmissions from any potentially broadcasting extraterrestrials.

Publisher: National Geographic
Date: 2020-06-22T08:19:26Z
Author: NatGeoUK
Twitter: @natgeouk
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These Baton Rouge movie theaters are now delaying reopenings because of coronavirus | Business |
Publisher: The Advocate
Date: B0FEFE08B944F4A263E8A8E4DBC60379
Author: TIMOTHY BOONE Staff writer
Twitter: @theadvocatebr
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And here's another article:

New Houston-made satellites to mimic versatility of the chameleon in space - HoustonChronicle.com

Like the versatile reptile, the satellites could be quickly updated and reconfigured while in orbit. Let’s say a volcano erupts and there isn’t an imaging satellite nearby. This planned Chameleon Constellation of 24 to 36 satellites could switch within minutes from running machine learning models on data collected in space to taking pictures of the disaster and aiding first responders.

Or perhaps a malicious hacker gets into the satellite’s software and renders it useless. An update to fix the security weakness could be quickly pushed out.

Publisher: HoustonChronicle.com
Date: 2020-06-30T14:00:00 00:00
Author: Andrea Leinfelder
Twitter: @houstonchron
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AI could deceive us as much as the human eye does in the search for extraterrestrials |

IMAGE:  Picture of the Vinalia Faculae region of Ceres obtained by NASA's Dawn spacecraft on July 6, 2018 at an altitude of about 58 kilometres. Can a square and/or a triangle... view more 

* * *

An artificial neural network has identified a square structure within a triangular one in a crater on the dwarf planet Ceres, with several people agreeing on this perception. The result of this intriguing visual experiment, carried out by a Spanish neuropsychologist, calls into question the application of artificial intelligence to the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence (SETI).

Publisher: EurekAlert!
Date: 2020-01-28 05:00:00 GMT/UTC
Twitter: @EurekAlert
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Idaho top state for UFO sightings | Local | idahostatejournal.com

Idaho was the top ranked state for per-capita UFO sightings during the first three months of 2020, according to a new report.

The internet company used data from the National UFO Reporting Center and issued per-capita rankings based on state population data.

Idaho residents have reported 164 UFO sightings — or 9.18 sightings per 100,000 people — according to the study. Other top states included Montana, New Hampshire, Main and New Mexico, which is home to Roswell, renowned for an alleged UFO crash in 1947 and home to the International UFO Museum and Research Center.

Publisher: Idaho State Journal
Author: By Journal Staff
Twitter: @IdahoStateJ
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Not to change the topic here:

US Navy 'UFO task force' exists, and Sen.

Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee Chairman Marco Rubio (R-FL) presides over a hearing on June 10, 2020 in Washington, DC. As part of a Senate committee request, Rubio asked for information pertaining to unidentified aerial phenomen

The Office of Naval Intelligence has an “Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force,” and U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio is requesting a detailed analysis of their findings.

The reveal of both the task force’s existence, as well as Rubio’s data request, came in a June 17 Select Committee on Intelligence report  authored by Rubio on the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021 . 

Publisher: FOX 10 Phoenix
Date: 2020-06-26
Twitter: @FOX10Phoenix
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'I have seen a UFO': Police reveal logs of sightings over past three years | Express & Star
Author: Jamie Brassington
Twitter: @ExpressandStar
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Roswell’s UFO Festival to go on virtually | KRQE News 13

ROSWELL, N.M.  (KRQE) – The COVID-19 pandemic has forced some of the biggest events in New Mexico to cancel. The UFO Festival was scheduled to take place this weekend before it was canceled. However, Roswell is still going forward with a different kind of festival.

“I’m just really blown away by the positive, the positivity you know,” said Marie Manning. MainStreet Roswell, the organizers for the UFO Festival said even though they are not allowed to hold the traditional festival that everyone is used to, they have decided to hold a virtual one instead.

Publisher: KRQE News 13 Albuquerque - Santa Fe
Date: 2020-06-29T22:59:35 00:00
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This may worth something:

UFOs over Washington: The first report of 'flying saucers' | The Spokesman-Review

On June 24, 1947 – 73 years ago Wednesday – automatic firefighting system company owner and licensed pilot Kenneth Arnold of Boise, flying from Chehalis to Yakima, spotted nine large metallic-looking objects flying rapidly near Mount Rainier. It would be the first of many reports of "flying saucers" or unidentified flying objects from around the world.

While flying to Yakima on a sales call, Arnold read about a downed Marine C-46 transport that had crashed near Mount Rainier in January. With skies clear and a little time on his hands, Arnold lingered over the area in hopes of spotting the wreckage and earning a $10,000 reward.

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Publisher: Spokesman.com
Date: 2020-06-23T16:03:05.890751
Twitter: @SpokesmanReview
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A Search for U.F.O.s Leads to Utopian Dreams in This Debut Novel - The New York Times

In the summer of 1947, a private pilot crossing the Cascade Mountains in Washington State reported seeing nine shiny objects in the sky. The sighting led to the first use of the term "flying saucer" and a global obsession with U.F.O.s.

Seekers of what? Vision of what? The answers to those questions are rather opaque. At the start, it seems Oliver promises his followers that they will be "taken up" by extraterrestrials, that "a new dawn would come." But the mission morphs. One of the followers, a leftist radio host named Alice Linwood, recalls the early days of the movement as a kind of proto-hippie commune: "Funny thing was she started to believe. Belief, she liked to say later, infected her.

Date: 2020-06-30T09:00:10.876Z
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Berkshire UFO Story on Netflix

Netflix is reviving the docuseries "Unsolved Mysteries ,"and an upcoming episode will feature the Berkshire Athenaeum.

* * *

"Unsolved Mysteries" is being produced by its original creators and the producers of the Netflix hit "Stranger Things."

The Berkshires episode is the fifth episode of the six-part summer series. It will be available to stream on July 1.

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'Unsolved Mysteries' Returns Because 2020 Isn't Scary Enough - The New York Times

"Unsolved Mysteries," the alternately chilling and far-out docu-series, which returns to TV this week, began with a solved one.

In the fall of 1982, William Catterson, a New Jersey father of two , failed to return home from his fast-food job. His car was found, abandoned. A chocolate cake, an anniversary present for his wife, still rested on the passenger seat. Two years later, the writer and producer Terry Dunn Meurer included his case in an HBO documentary: "Missing Persons: Four True Stories." Catterson, who had faked his own disappearance, saw it. He turned himself into police, then reunited with his family.

Date: 2020-06-30T09:00:14.564Z
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Monday, June 29, 2020

Pentagon should release UFO report, Senate intelligence committee argues | Space

However, according to the committee's report, "there is no unified, comprehensive process" for collecting information on unidentified aerial phenomena, "despite the potential threat."

The committee instructed the Director of National Intelligence and other agency heads to submit a report within 180 days with a number of details about the ONI's investigation. The report must include details about what the federal government knows about "intrusions" into restricted U.S. airspace and other unidentified flying objects, as well as a plan to firm up intelligence collection and sharing on the subject.

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Publisher: Space.com
Date: 2020-06-26T15:28:26 00:00
Author: https www facebook com spacecom
Twitter: @SPACEdotcom
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In case you are keeping track:

'Alien Warrior Figure' spotted on Mars in NASA image by UFO hunter | World News | Zee News

The Taiwan-based UFO enthusiast is reportedly known for frequently analysing NASA photos and Google maps images in his search for aliens.

New Delhi: NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has recently taken images of the Red Planet revealing several facts that has become an inexhaustible source of discoveries for alien enthusiasts.

A self-proclaimed UFO expert, Scott C Waring, has made a shocking discovery with the help of photos from Mars recently published by NASA, according to Sputnik News. Waring has reportedly claimed that one of the images showed nothing less than a warrior-like figure carved into the planet's hillside.

Publisher: Zee News
Date: 2020-06-23T23:14:07 05:30
Twitter: @zeenews
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ufo investigation reports should be made public US senate intelligence committee advises
Date: 635815AB3DF5AFBB454201A435112761
Twitter: @9News
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'Skyman' Review | Hollywood Reporter

It's a funny thing. Even as real documentaries seem to get better, fake documentaries seem to get worse. The latest example of a now exhausted trend is the new effort from director/screenwriter Daniel Myrick, best known for co-directing the landmark 1999 found-footage horror film The Blair Witch Project .

Supposedly chronicling the experiences of a man attempting to reconnect with the alien form he encountered as a child, Skyman squanders whatever potential thrills it might have offered with its lackluster execution. Opening Friday in drive-in theaters, the film will be available on demand the following week.

Publisher: The Hollywood Reporter
Twitter: @THR
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Not to change the topic here:

Sarasota-raised ‘The Blair Witch Project’ director to release new film,

The film will be released on video on demand and at drive-ins, including multiple Florida theaters.

Two decades after co-directing "The Blair Witch Project," one of the biggest independent movies of all time, Sarasota-raised filmmaker Dan Myrick will release another faux-documentary format film with an unconventional marketing campaign.

"Skyman," which follows a man named Carl Merryweather, who believes he had an extraterrestrial encounter when he was a child and strives to reunite with the alien years later, will be released on video on demand July 7 along with drive-in screenings in the preceding days, as many movie theaters remain closed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Publisher: Sarasota Herald-Tribune
Date: 7E15F9269E2CE66F2A488ABB04B5015E
Author: Jimmy Geurts
Twitter: @HeraldTribune
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The day the first flying saucer was seen | Shropshire Star
Author: Mark Andrews
Twitter: @ShropshireStar
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Newfound 'Super-Earth' exoplanets bear clues about atmospheres of alien worlds | Space

Scientists focused on the red dwarf star GJ 887, also known as Gliese 887. (Red dwarfs are the most common kind of star in the galaxy, and weigh between 7.5% and 50% the mass of the sun.) At a distance of about 10.7 light-years from Earth, Gliese 887 is the twelfth-closest star. Furthermore, at visible wavelengths, Gliese 887 is the brightest red dwarf in the sky, and with nearly half the sun's mass, Gliese 887 is the heaviest red dwarf star within about 20 light-years of Earth.

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Publisher: Space.com
Date: 2020-06-25T18:11:21 00:00
Author: https www facebook com spacecom
Twitter: @SPACEdotcom
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Filmmaker documents UFO 'coverups'

"Roswell Army Air Force Captures Flying Saucer on Ranch…'' blared a front-page headline of the Roswell (New Mexico) Daily Record newspaper in June.

The same month, two men who said they were on harbor patrol in the Puget Sound in Washington State claimed they not only saw six doughnut shaped objects in the sky, they said fragments of them landed on their boat.

In July, a private pilot also in Washington reported seeing nine saucer-shaped UFOs as he flew past Mount Rainier.

Publisher: Times Herald-Record
Date: Times Herald-Record
Author: Steve Israel
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Happening on Twitter

Will private space travel change the way we explore the Solar System? - BBC Science Focus Magazine

Gary Martin is the Vice President for North American operations for the International Space University, but before that he was a senior advisor to the Luxembourg Space Agency and spent more than 30 years at NASA, advising on space science missions, advanced technology development, and human spaceflight.

He explains the significance of the recent SpaceX launch , what private space travel can do that governments can't, and why we need sci-fi to inspire our engineers.

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Publisher: BBC Science Focus Magazine
Twitter: @sciencefocus
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This may worth something:

Cryptocurrency Is Strengthened By Space Exploration

In this image taken from NASA TV video, the SpaceX Dragon crew capsule, with NASA astronauts Doug ... [+] Hurley, left, and Robert Behnken aboard docks with the International Space Station Sunday, May 31, 2020. It was the first time a privately built and owned spacecraft carried astronauts to the orbiting lab in its nearly 20 years. (NASA TV via AP)

One of the most curious things about the emergence of cryptocurrencies has been its tie to a nascent movement in commercial space exploration and commercial space launches. At first, it seems like an odd fit — until one begins to understand that private modules and satellite communications as well as further space exploration dovetails with the ideological and practical effects of cryptocurrency.

Publisher: Forbes
Date: 2020-06-29
Author: Roger Huang
Twitter: @forbes
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Seats available for edge of space travel | News | hometownnewsbrevard.com

To advertise your business, call (321) 242-1013.
Agencies | National | Regional: Call Kathy Young at (772) 467-4352.

Publisher: Hometown News Brevard
Author: Brittany Mulligan bmulligan hometownnewsmediagroup com
Twitter: @the-hometown-news
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Science Update: Space start-up set to send 'cruises' into the stratosphere | Science | News |

Space Perspective revealed on Thursday plans of its ‘Spaceship Neptune that can take space admirers into the sky.

* * *

Scientists say it will take two-hours for the public to reach their destination point, where they will hover over the Atlantic Ocean for another two hours.

Space Perspective have sanctioned tests flights for the start of 2021 with expectations to sell tickets three years later.

Trips will not be cheap for those who want to fly in this capsule as the company estimates the journey could cost around $125,000.

Publisher: Express.co.uk
Date: 2020-06-19T07:12:00 01:00
Author: Ryan Bromilow
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This may worth something:

NASA's Twins Study Reveals How a Year in Space Affects the Human Body

The first-of-its-kind opportunity to study the genetic impact of space on the human body came about after astronaut Scott Kelly was chosen to serve aboard the International Space Station from March 2015 to March 2016. His identical twin, Mark Kelly, who is also a former NASA astronaut, remained on Earth.

During the course of NASA's year-long mission aboard the International Space Station (ISS), researchers from 12 universities analyzed biological samples from both brothers to gauge the genetic shifts that might be taking place.

Publisher: Treehugger
Author: Michael d
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Queensland town Bowen follow Elon Musk and become private space travel hub | Daily Mail Online

The Queensland town of Bowen is the 'ideal' place in Australia to become a hub for private space travel in a similar vein to billionaire Elon Musk 's SpaceX program.

CQUniversity Dean of Research Professor Steven Moore has proposed a commercial satellite launch complex called Launch Whitsunday to be built in the Abbot Point State Development Area near Bowen.

He is currently in talks with the Queensland state government, local councils and Gold Coast rocket producer Gilmour Space to get the project running.

Publisher: Mail Online
Date: 2020-06-19T03:28:39 0100
Author: Shive Prema
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Russia's replacement for the Proton rocket costs way too much | Ars Technica

In recent months, the Russian space industry has talked a good game about its plans for developing new rockets to compete on the international stage.

One of the country's storied rocket engine manufacturers, NPO Energomash, announced it was working on developing a large, methane-fueled rocket engine, named the RD-0177. This engine was part of an overall plan for a "new generation" of rockets. The work comes as three US rocket companies, SpaceX, United Launch Alliance, and Blue Origin, are building their next-generation rockets around methane engines.

Publisher: Ars Technica
Author:
Twitter: @arstechnica
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Space travel to be commercialised with the construction of a private space station | Sky News
Publisher: Sky News Australia
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Happening on Twitter

Want to learn how to survive on Mars? Look to Antarctica. | Space

One is blinding white and the other a dull, dusty red. But both are cold, barren worlds, difficult to reach and full of tantalizing scientific mysteries.

And lessons from the first world, Antarctica, may be vital for those who want to be the first humans on the second, Mars , according to Stan Love, a former NASA astronaut who now supports the agency's astronaut office. Those lessons, Love said in a meeting last month, stem from a decades-long U.S. government-funded program to search for atmospherically toasted space rocks on the brilliant ice of Antarctica .

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Publisher: Space.com
Date: 2020-06-29T10:58:54 00:00
Author: https www facebook com spacecom
Twitter: @SPACEdotcom
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Check out this next:

Detection of Green Dayglow Around Mars | Planetary News

The ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) orbiting Mars has made the first detection of greenline dayglow around a planet other than the Earth. A thin, green glow is seen by astronauts to surround the Earth at approximately 90 kilometers altitude as a result of sunlight interacting with molecules in the atmosphere.

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Sky Shorts: Mars should get your attention soon - News - The Independent - Massillon, OH

If you have been watching Mars in the predawn sky, it continues to grow brighter and redder each month.

* * *

Remembering back to last year, Mars did not outshine Jupiter, unlike 2018. In 2018, it was brighter than all the stars and Jupiter. Because of the change in appearance, early stargazers named Mars the god of war: sometimes the god rests and other times the god is fierce.

So, what causes this dramatic swing in brightness? Planet size is not the reason for the brightness, as in the case of Jupiter, our largest planet. Mars is not a big planet; it is slightly larger than half of Earth’s size.

Publisher: The Independent
Date: 7E15F9269E2CE66F2A488ABB04B5015E
Author: Suzie Dills Special to The Canton Repository
Twitter: @Indedotcom
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How many humans are needed to start a colony on Mars? | CTV News
Publisher: CTVNews
Date: 2020-06-28T13:24:00-04:00
Twitter: @CTVNews
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Many things are taking place:

Sols 2803-2804: A Drive to a View – NASA's Mars Exploration Program

As much as the science team loves seeing Mars up close, sometimes the view isn't quite as pretty for the engineering team. As the rover gets closer to hills or cliffs, like "Bloodstone Hill" that we just left, we encounter boulders that have rolled downslope (as they are wont to do), creating visual obstacles in our path. It's also the case that sometimes Mars makes bouldery landscapes, like when we drove up towards Vera Rubin Ridge. The path ahead is very similar to that.

* * *

These blog updates are provided by self-selected Mars Science Laboratory mission team members who love to share what Curiosity is doing with the public.

Publisher: NASA's Mars Exploration Program
Author: Fred Calef
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Why go 'horse and buggy' to Mars when we could go supersonic? | TheHill

As it was during the recent launch of the SpaceX Falcon 9 booster, carrying the Crew Dragon and its two-person crew toward a rendezvous with the International Space Station, the entire space community and much of the worldwide general public are truly excited about the planned July 22 launch of the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover.

* * *

But, along with that excitement and promise comes a serious and potentially troubling disconnect. When Perseverance launches atop the United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas 541 booster , if you squint your eyes just right, it will seem exactly the same as when Viking 1 was launched on Aug. 20, 1975, to touch down on the Martian surface on July 20, 1976.

Publisher: TheHill
Date: 2020-06-27T13:00:08-04:00
Author: Douglas MacKinnon opinion contributor
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How Long Will the Trip Be When Humans Go to Mars? | kgw.com
Publisher: kgw.com
Date: 6/29/2020 9:38:12 AM
Twitter: @KGWNews
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Happening on Twitter

A supermassive black hole lit up a collision of two smaller black holes | MIT Technology Review

Astronomers from Caltech have reported that they've observed a collision between two black holes. Normally such an event is invisible, but this time a more massive black hole sitting nearby helped illuminate the other two as they collided. If confirmed, the findings, published in Physical Review Letters , would be the first optical observations ever made of a black hole merger.

What happened: First detected in May 2019 and dubbed S190521g, the merger happened about 4 billion light-years away, within the vicinity of a supermassive black hole called J1249+3449. This object is 100 million times more massive than the sun, with a diameter roughly the size of Earth's orbit around the sun.

Publisher: MIT Technology Review
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Check out this next:

Black holes could (theoretically) provide infinite energy if they're fed

Space might be where most powerful and just about limitless repositories of energy are lurking. We just don't know how to harness it yet.

Black holes are kind of like dragons guarding their lairs full of treasure. Sure, they'll give you that thing you're looking for—but they always want something in return. Say you were able to snare escaped energy from a black hole (they supposedly don't devour everything). What the black hole would require as payment is a gargantuan amount of energy, because otherwise, it would evaporate into the void over billions of years.

Publisher: SYFY WIRE
Date: 2020-06-28T16:54:53-04:00
Author: Elizabeth Rayne
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Could we extract energy from a black hole? Our experiment verifies old theory

Daniele Faccio receives funding from EPSRC, the Royal Academy of Engineering and EU Horizons 2020

* * *

A rotating black hole is such an extreme force of nature that it drags surrounding time and space around with it. So it is only natural to ask whether black holes could be used as some sort of energy source. In 1969, mathematical physicist Roger Penrose proposed a method to do just this, now known as the " Penrose Process ".

The method could be used by sophisticated civilisations (aliens or future humans) to harvest energy by making "black hole bombs". Some of the physics required to do so, however, had never been experimentally verified – until now. Our study confirming the underlying physics has just been published in Nature Physics .

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Publisher: The Conversation
Author: Daniele Faccio
Twitter: @ConversationUK
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Monster black hole found in the early universe: The second-most distant quasar ever discovered

Astronomers have discovered the second-most distant quasar ever found using three Maunakea Observatories in Hawai'i: W. M. Keck Observatory, the international Gemini Observatory, a Program of NSF's NOIRLab, and the University of Hawai'i-owned United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT). It is the first quasar to receive an indigenous Hawaiian name, Poniua'ena, which means "unseen spinning source of creation, surrounded with brilliance" in the Hawaiian language.

Poniua'ena is only the second quasar yet detected at a distance calculated at a cosmological redshift greater than 7.5 and it hosts a black hole twice as large as the other quasar known in the same era. The existence of these massive black holes at such early times challenges current theories of how supermassive black holes formed and grew in the young universe.

Publisher: ScienceDaily
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Mark Davis: You think I want to sell advertising on Black Hole seats? - ProFootballTalk

His son, current Raiders owner Mark Davis, voted against the league’s plan to turn the lower rows of seats closest to the field in every stadium into advertising opportunities. The Raiders were the only team to oppose the measure with Davis expressing his misgivings during the virtual meeting last week.

"I can't imagine telling one fan they cannot attend the opening game of our inaugural season in Las Vegas at the most magnificent stadium that they helped to build. Let alone tell 3,500 fans that their seats are gone for the entire season," Davis told Vincent Bonsignore of the Las Vegas Review-Journal . "Those seats in the front rows are some of our most ardent fans, including members of the famed Black Hole . You think I want to sell advertising on their seats?"

Publisher: ProFootballTalk
Date: 2020-06-29T01:27:31 00:00
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Black Hole Eruption Is a Pretty Big Bang – Now. Powered by Northrop Grumman

Astronomers using a combination of space-based and Earth-based telescopes have spotted the aftermath of the largest known cosmic outburst since the original Big Bang that formed the universe as we know it some 14 billion years ago.

The blast, reports NASA , is due to a black hole eruption in a galaxy cluster some 390 million light-years from Earth, in the direction of the far-northern constellation Ophiuchus.

How big was this eruption? Big enough to punch though the sheet of hot gas that stretches across the Ophiuchus cluster — leaving a gap more than a million light-years across. The blast, says EarthSky , was five times more powerful than the previous cosmic record holder, another black hole eruption designated MS 0735+74.

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Publisher: Now. Powered by Northrop Grumman
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Iowa astrophysicist observes black hole's outburst | Iowa Now

A University of Iowa astrophysicist is part of an international team that has observed a black hole hurling hot material into space at close to the speed of light.

The flare-up between the black hole and a companion star make up a system called MAXI J1820+070, located in the Milky Way galaxy, about 10,000 light years from Earth. The scientists working with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory found that while some of the hot gas from the companion star will cross the "event horizon" (the point of no return) and fall into the black hole, some of it is blasted away from the black hole in a pair of short beams of material, or jets.

Publisher: Iowa Now
Date: 2020-06-19T16:26:24-05:00
Author: SiteNow v1 Custom https sitenow uiowa edu
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The Monster Black Hole at the Beginning of the Universe --"Unseen Spinning Source of

Home » Black Holes » The Monster Black Hole at the Beginning of the Universe –“Unseen Spinning Source of Creation”

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When the iconic black hole the size of our Solar System at the center of Galaxy M87 was imaged in 2019, astronomers described it as witnessing the “gates of Hell and the end of spacetime.

“How can the universe produce such a massive black hole so early in its history?” said Xiaohui Fan, Regents’ professor and associate department head of the Department of Astronomy at the University of Arizona about current theory that holds the growth of the first giant black holes started during the Epoch of Reionization, beginning about 400 million years after the Big Bang.

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Publisher: The Daily Galaxy
Date: 2020-06-26T15:35:25 00:00
Twitter: @dailygalaxy
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