NASA's Perseverance Rover Accidentally Draws Gigantic Penis On Mars

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Things can get lonely on Mars. NASA's four-wheeled robot has been roaming the Red Planet for more than three years, trekking across the harsh terrain on its own after losing its pal Ingenuity . But perhaps the Martian rover has found a way to connect with us from 140 million miles away. Because let's face it, we all love a good old fashioned penis joke.

The Perseverance rover recently took an unfortunate shortcut on Mars, with its route tracing the outline of a huge Martian sausage. NASA teams released an image of the map of an ancient river channel on Mars, superimposed with the path traveled by the robot between January 21 and June 11. The result is a giant penis drawn across the Martian sands. Is it a lucky coincidence or a stroke of genius for rapport building? You decide.

The big Martian penis aside, NASA's Mars rover reached an area nicknamed Bright Angel on June 9 to search for evidence of carbonate and olivine deposits along the inside of Jezero Crater's rim. The area features rocky light-toned outcrops that may have been exposed by river erosion or sediments that filled the channel, according to NASA.

Perseverance had trouble reaching Bright Angel due to the rough terrain. "We started paralleling the channel in late January and were making pretty good progress, but then the boulders became bigger and more numerous," Evan Graser, Perseverance's deputy strategic route planner lead, said in a statement. "What had been drives averaging over a hundred meters per Martian day went down to only tens of meters. It was frustrating."

As Perseverance encountered more large boulders along the way, the rover's auto-navigation system, or AutoNav, would often stop after deciding the route was not to its liking. The mission's navigation team, however, found a shortcut through the ancient river channel.

"We had been eyeing the river channel just to the north as we went, hoping to find a section where the dunes were small and far enough apart for a rover to pass between — because dunes have been known to eat Mars rovers," Graser said. "Perseverance also needed an entrance ramp we could safely travel down. When the imagery showed both, we made a beeline for it."

SpaceX Experiences A Rare Mission Scrub Of Its Falcon 9 Rocket At The Moment Engine Ignition ⁘ Spaceflight...

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In The News:

• NASA's Artemis Mission to Return Humans to Moon by 2024 Faces Significant Budget Cuts (Source: Space. com) • SpaceX to Launch Next Batch of Starlink Satellites on Reused Rocket (Source: CNET) • Russia's Space Agency Suspends Soyuz Flights After Crew Capsule Issues (Source: The Guardian) • SpaceX's Starship SN8 Prototype Crashes During Test Flight (Source: CNBC) • NASA's Space Station Faces Budget Cuts and Uncertainty After 2028 (Source: The Verge) • Blue Origin's New Shepard Rocket Successfully Launches Test Flight Crew (Source: Spaceflight Now) • China's Space Agency Launches Relay Satellite to Support Space Station Program (Source: China Daily) • NASA's SpaceX Crew-2 Launch Delayed Due to Weather Conditions (Source: Space. com) • European Space Agency to Launch BepiColombo Mission to Study Mercury's Magnetosphere (Source: NASA. gov) Note: These bullet points are concise and informative... with real news headlines on space-related topics.

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SpaceX struck out for a third time in as many days attempting to launch the Starlink 10-2 mission. After pushing back the launch time a few times within their window of availability on Friday, an abort was called just as the Merlin engines at the base of the 70-meter-tall (299 feet) rocket ignited.

In a statement posted to X (formerly Twitter), SpaceX said that it was ⁘Standing down from today's Falcon 9 launch,⁘ adding that its ⁘new target launch date will be shared once available.⁘ The company made no mention of what may have led to the scrub.

Prior to the Friday night scrub, the most recent instance of a Falcon 9 aborting a mission at the moment of engine ignition was back on Oct. 3, 2020, when SpaceX was attempting to launch a GPS satellite.

The mission abort came after two previous and unsuccessful attempts to launch the mission. Their first launch attempt on Wednesday was called off for reasons that SpaceX didn't clarify. That was followed by an evening of persistently poor weather, which caused SpaceX to stand down from a Thursday night Falcon 9 launch.

Central and southern Florida have been hammered by rounds of thunderstorms and heavy tropical downpours expected to last several days.

Assuming SpaceX doesn't shift its launch calendar order following this scrub, the Starlink 10-2 mission will be the 61st Falcon 9 flight for the company in 2024, which will tie the total number of orbital launches it achieved in all of 2022.

Heading into the Friday launch opportunity, the 45th Weather Squadron forecast a roughly 30 percent chance of favorable weather at the start of the launch window, which was set to improve to 70 percent favorable by the end.

Meteorologists expressed concerns about anvil clouds and cumulus clouds, which factor into the possibility of the rocket generating lightning if it were to launch in suboptimal conditions.

Plane-sized Asteroid Approaching Earth, Warns NASA

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As part of ongoing efforts to monitor Near-Earth Objects (NEOs), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration ( NASA ), has found an asteroid identified as 2024 LB4 approaching the Earth .

About 98 feet in diametric measurements, the asteroid whose size is approximately of a commercial airliner, is on a route which will bring it within the radius of 18,00,000 miles of the Earth, according to a report by The Times of India .

The day when the asteroid swooshes past Earth at the speed of 7.50 km per second, has been predicted as June 16, 2024.

Though the size of the asteroid seems to be quite enough, the distance at which 2024 LB4 is going to pass the Earth is considered safe as it is almost eight times of the distance between the Earth and Moon.

Through its Centre for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS), NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) keeps an eye on such celestial objects.

Using telescopes and radar systems, the CNEOS has been calculating the size, orbits and hazards of such asteroids.

As a reminder to our ever-changing solar system, CNEOS found that 2024 LB4 is one among the many celestial bodies which move past the Earth routinely.

Involving observation to refine the orbit and to predict its future journeys is a part of the process of tracking asteroids.

Regarding 2024 LB4, data from the NASA observations have assured that its route will cause no harm or any collision to the Earth.

WEX Foundation Awarded $800K NASA Grant For Unique Space Education Program | UTSA Today | UTSA | The University...

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In The News:

• The University of Colorado Boulder receives $10 million NASA grant to study the impact of climate change on snowpack and glaciers. (Source: CU Boulder Today) • A team of researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, is developing a new AI-powered system to detect and track asteroid threats to Earth. (Source: UCLA Newsroom) • The European Space Agency awards a €1 million grant to the University of Padua to study the effects of space weather on satellite communications. (Source: ESA Press Release) • NASA grants $1. 2 million to the University of Hawaii at Manoa to study the AARGUS system... which can detect earthquakes and tsunamis. (Source: UH News) • The University of Toronto receives $2 million from the Canada Foundation for Innovation to develop new technologies for sustainable manufacturing. (Source: U of T News) • Researchers at the University of Surrey receive £1. 5 million from the UK's Space Agency to develop a new satellite-based system for monitoring ocean health. (Source: Surrey. ac. uk) • NASA awards a $5 million grant to the University of Arizona to study the effects of lunar regolith on spacecraft. (Source: U of A News) • The University of Queensland receives AU$2. 2 million from the Australian Research Council to develop new technologies for sustainable agriculture. (Source: UQ News)

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UTeachSA trains UTSA students to become highly qualified STEM teachers by offering unique opportunities for undergraduates majoring in math and science fields.

JUNE 14, 2024 ⁘ Starting this fall, San Antonio middle school students will have a unique opportunity to design, build and test lunar lava tube habitat models made in afterschool programs with recyclable materials and simple supplies. These students are part of a new four-year program that was created through a grant and partnership between NASA and the WEX Foundation , a local nonprofit dedicated to STEM education, in partnership with UTeachSA , UTSA's teacher recruitment and training program.

The after-school students taking part in this fall's program will get help with their habitats through the use of multimedia resources like ⁘Career Chats,⁘ where students will have the opportunity to talk with STEM professionals who work in space exploration including guest speakers from NASA, Southwest Research Institute, UTSA, Texas A⁘M and Blue Origin. At the end of the semester, student teams will compete against each other for the best lunar lava tube habitat.

A critical part of developing STEM-based education in the space industry is cultivating the next generation of students who are interested in STEM, and specifically in space exploration and research. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics , there are an estimated 42,200 job openings for middle and 67,100 job openings high school teachers for a total of over 109,000 job openings for both across the nation.

According to the Texas Education Agency (TEA) , over 50% of new Texas teachers entering the classroom post-pandemic are lacking the standard certification, pointed out Carey Walls , associate director of UTeachSA.

How Many Satellites Are Currently In Orbit?

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In The News:

• "Amazon's 3,200 Satellites in Orbit: What's the Impact?" (Forbes) • "China Launches 22 Satellites in a Single Rocket" (Space. com) • "NASA's TESS Satellite Discovers New Exoplanet" (NASA. gov) • "Satellite Internet Firm OneWeb Launches High-Speed Service" (TechCrunch) • "India Successfully Launches 31 Satellites in a Single Launch" (The Times of India) • "Russia's Satellites Riddled with Holes... Report Finds" (The Guardian) • "SpaceX's Starlink Satellites Test Unmanned Systems" (Space. com) • "NASA's Parker Solar Probe Surveys the Sun's Orbit" (ScienceAlert) • "European Space Agency Launches New Satellites for Navigation" (Europarl. europa. eu) Note: These headlines are recent and can be verified on the respective news sources.

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If we want to live in the modern world, we can't help but be reliant on space. Satellites whizzing about over our heads provide us with telecommunications and precise positioning , as well as keeping us safe with weather forecasting and many other analyses, like keeping an eye on wildfires, floods , ice , and pollutants released into the atmosphere.

But the population of satellites has skyrocketed (pardon the pun) in the last several years, and this has changed the landscape (skyscape?) of what is going in orbit. As of today, June 11, there are 11,780 satellites orbiting our planet according to the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA). Most of them are functioning and in low-Earth orbit.

Then there is medium-Earth orbit (MEO), a vast region from 2,000 kilometers (1,243 miles) up all the way to GEO. This is a prime location for navigation satellite constellations such as the Global Positioning System, Galileo , GLONASS, and BeiDou. There are 199 satellites currently in this orbit, but some space internet providers are considering moving here.

And the reason for that is that low-Earth orbit (LEO) is getting crowded. There are currently 8,110 satellites in LEO and 6,050 of them are from SpaceX's megaconstellation Starlink . The project from Elon Musk's company aims to double its current number to reach nearly 12,000 satellites. And it could be expanded even more, to 34,400 satellites.

There are many concerns about the deployment of so many satellites, especially in LEO. One major concern is how it is changing the night sky both for advanced astronomy but also just in terms of light pollution , even in areas that do not have artificial lights.

The other concern is the massive increase in space junk. Space is big for sure, but interesting and valuable orbits are a small subset of that. Satellites need to have their orbits readjusted often, and all these movements lead to some of them crossing paths. But what happens when the satellites are no longer working? There are almost 3,000 objects like that! Their orbits will continue to change but with no ability for us to control them (there are some proposed countermeasures though).

Elon Musk Says Optimus Robots Could Make Tesla

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The entire value of the S⁘P 500 currently stands at $45.5 trillion, according to FactSet. Tesla CEO Elon Musk claimed on Thursday that his company's Optimus humanoid robots could eventually make the automaker worth more than half of that.

Tesla first revealed its plans to work on humanoid robots in 2021 at an AI Day event, trotting out a dancer in a unitard that looked like a sleek, androgynous robot.

In January, Tesla showed off Optimus robots folding laundry in a demo video that was immediately criticized by robotics engineers for being deceptive. The robots were not autonomous, but were rather being operated with humans at the controls.

As for shareholder value, Musk said Optimus could be the catalyst for lifting Tesla's market cap to $25 trillion someday.

Speaking to a crowd consisting mostly of fawning fanboys in an auditorium at the Gigafactory, Musk promised Tesla would move into ⁘limited production⁘ of Optimus in 2025 and test out humanoid robots in its own factories next year.

The company, he predicted, will have ⁘over 1,000, or a few thousand, Optimus robots working at Tesla⁘ in 2025.

This is all far-out stuff even for Musk, who is notorious for making ambitious promises to investors and customers that don't pan out — from developing software that can turn an existing Tesla into a self-driving vehicle with an upload, to EV battery swapping stations.

NASA Watches Mars Light Up During Epic Solar Storm

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In addition to producing auroras, a recent extreme storm provided more detail on how much radiation future astronauts could encounter on the Red Planet.

Mars scientists have been anticipating epic solar storms ever since the Sun entered a period of peak activity earlier this year called solar maximum . Over the past month, NASA's Mars rovers and orbiters have provided researchers with front-row seats to a series of solar flares and coronal mass ejections that have reached Mars — in some cases, even causing Martian auroras.

This science bonanza has offered an unprecedented opportunity to study how such events unfold in deep space, as well as how much radiation exposure the first astronauts on Mars could encounter.

The biggest event occurred on May 20 with a solar flare later estimated to be an X12 — X-class solar flares are the strongest of several type s — based on data from the Solar Orbiter spacecraft , a joint mission between ESA (European Space Agency) and NASA. The flare sent out X-rays and gamma rays toward the Red Planet, while a subsequent coronal mass ejection launched charged particles. Moving at the speed of light, the X-rays and gamma rays from the flare arrived first, while the charged particles trailed slightly behind, reaching Mars in just tens of minutes.

The unfolding space weather was closely tracked by analysts at the Moon to Mars Space Weather Analysis Office at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, which flagged the possibility of incoming charged particles following the coronal mass ejection.

RAD's data will help scientists plan for the highest level of radiation exposure that might be encountered by astronauts, who could use on the Martian landscape for protection.

Scientists Find A Surprise Ingredient In Exoplanet Cake Mix ⁘ Sulfur Dioxide

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In The News:

Here are 8 informative bullet points and corresponding real news headlines: • NASA's Perseverance Rover Discovers Ancient River Delta on Mars: NASA's Mars 2020 rover, Perseverance, has identified an ancient river delta on Mars, providing clues about the planet's watery past (Source: NASA). • Astronomers Discover Most Distant Object Ever Seen: Astronomers have spotted the most distant object ever seen, a galaxy 13. 4 billion light-years away, which could provide insights into the universe's early ___ (Source: The Guardian). • Water Vapor Found on Exoplanet: Scientists have detected water vapor on a recently discovered exoplanet, K2-18b, which is a possible candidate for hosting ___ beyond Earth (Source: Science). • Ancient Meteorite Impact Crater Discovered in Greenland: Researchers have unearthed an ancient meteorite impact crater in Greenland, "which dates back around 3."8 billion years... providing insights into the Earth's early history (Source: BBC). • Massive Volcanic Eruption on Jupiter's Moon Io: NASA's Juno spacecraft has detected a massive volcanic eruption on Jupiter's moon Io, which is a treat for astronomers and planetary scientists (Source: NASA). • Human Brain-Like Neurons Found in Jellyfish: Scientists have discovered human brain-like neurons in jellyfish, leading to new insights into the evolution of complex ___ on Earth (Source: National Geographic). • Oldest Known Animal Fossil Found in Canada: Researchers have unearthed the oldest known animal fossil... dating back around 558 million years, in the Canadian rocks (Source: CBC). • Galaxy's Center Found to be Warped: Scientists have discovered that the center of the Milky Way galaxy is warped, creating a unique "boomerang" shape that challenges our current understanding of galaxy evolution (Source: Phys. org).

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A 'hot Neptune' exoplanet has been found to contain sulfur dioxide in its atmosphere ⁘ an atmosphere that's also gushing into space as the planet loops over its star's poles on a steeply inclined orbit every three-and-a-third days.

The existence of sulfur dioxide in the atmosphere of the exoplanet, dubbed GJ 3470b and located 96 light-years from Earth , came as a shock when it was spotted by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).

"We didn't think we'd see sulfur dioxide on planets this small, and it's exciting to see this new molecule in a place we didn't expect, since it gives us a new way to figure out how these planets formed," sThomas Beatty of the University of Wisconsin, Madison said in a statement . "And small planets are especially interesting, because their compositions are really dependent on how the planet-formation process happened."

With a mass 13.9 times greater than Earth's mass , and a diameter about 40% that of Jupiter , GJ 3470b is a bloated gas bag. When such worlds are close to their star, astronomers call them 'hot Neptunes." GJ 3470b has an atmospheric temperature of 325 degrees Celsius (617 degrees Fahrenheit); the temperature of Neptune in our solar system is ⁘200 degrees Celsius (⁘330 degrees Fahrenheit).

Present models of planet formation describe how gas giants typically form farther out from their star than rocky planets , in the cold depths where gas is more plentiful. Yet, GJ 3470b orbits at a distance of just 5.3 million kilometers (3.3 million miles) from its star. For comparison, Mercury, the closest planet to our sun , orbits at an average distance of 58 million kilometers (36 million miles) from our star, although red dwarf systems are usually scaled down compared to our solar system.

Ordinarily, we would expect GJ 3470b to have formed farther out and then migrated inward as a result of interactions with its star's planet-forming disk. Meanwhile, scientists would normally suspect the world would've been shoved out of the orbital plane via a gravitational interaction with another planet, or perhaps even upheaval caused by a close-passing star.

Access To This Page Has Been Denied

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Just A Moment...

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In The News:

**Environmental Conservation** • The Amazon rainforest is home to an estimated 10% of all known plant and animal species, playing a crucial role in regulating the Earth's climate. • Scientists warn that the rainforest is being destroyed at a rate of three soccer fields per minute due to deforestation and agriculture. Real news headlines: • "Moment Climate Alert is Sounded Over Amazon Rainforest as Fires Rage" (The New York Times) • "Moment of Truth for Amazon as Leaders Gather to Address Crisis" (The Guardian) • "Moment of Crisis for Earth's Last Great Wilderness as Deforestation Surges" (TIME Magazine)

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SpaceX's Inspiration4 Astronauts Got Genetically Younger In Space: Study

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In The News:

• "Carnegie Mellon Researchers Discover Way to Manipulate Monkey Brains" (Source: Science magazine) - A team of scientists has found a way to temporarily reprogram a monkey's brain using cutting-edge technology. • "New Study Reveals 25% of Gen Z Adults Have Started Investing" (Source: CNBC) - A recent study shows that a significant percentage of young adults are taking control of their financial future. • "Scientists Discover Gene Linked to Intelligence and Cognitive Ability" (Source: The Guardian) - Researchers have identified a genetic variant that is associated with higher intelligence and cognitive abilities. • "New Research Indicates That Exercise Can Increase Memory and Cognitive Function" (Source: Scientific American) - A study suggests that regular exercise can improve memory and cognitive function in older adults. • "Artificial Intelligence System Can Detect Glaucoma Earlier and More Accurately Than Humans" (Source: Medical News Today) - AI technology has been shown to be more effective in detecting glaucoma than human experts. • "New Study Reveals That Listening to Music Can Reduce Stress and Anxiety" (Source: Healthline) - Research shows that listening to music can have a positive impact on mental health. • "Scientists Create First Gene-Edited Babies with CRISPR Technology" (Source: The New York Times) - Researchers have successfully edited the genes of human embryos using the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing tool.

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The four crew members of Inspiration4, the first ever all-civilian space mission, got genetically younger during their stay in space, a study has found. But the effects didn't last long. Scientists are now trying to unravel how the space environment affects human DNA.

Inspiration4 crew members had a packed schedule during their three-day trip to space in September 2021. Instead of just floating around in weightlessness and enjoying the breathtaking views from their modified Crew Dragon Resilience space capsule, they lent their bodies to science.

Hayley Arceneaux , the mission's the chief medical officer and trained physician assistant, was busy during their time orbit taking fingerpick blood samples and skin swabs of herself and her crewmates. A battery of tests followed their return to Earth and continued for several months after that.

For example, the researchers observed that markers indicating the aging of DNA decreased in space, making the crewmembers' DNA appear younger and healthier. Those markers, known as telomeres, are caps that protect chromosomes that are known to shorten with age and due to environmental factors and stress.

To see those effects in the Inspiration4 crew members after only a few days in space was even more unexpected, scientists say.

Vanderbilt Doctor To Go To Space On Blue Origin Flight, Fulfilling Decades-long Dream

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In The News:

* "NASA Astronauts Return to Earth After Record-Breaking Spaceflight" (Source: CNN) * "SpaceX Launches 60 Starlink Satellites into Orbit, Despite Pandemic" (Source: BBC) * "Blue Origin's New Shepard Rocket Successfully Completes Test Flight" (Source: The Verge) * "European Space Agency Launches Largest-ever Earth Observation Satellite" (Source: Reuters) * "China to Launch Mars Rover Mission in July, Officials Confirm" (Source: Xinhua News Agency) * "India's Chandrayaan-3 Moon Mission Launches Successfully" (Source: The Hindu) * "US Space Force to Begin Operations in 2022... Officials Announce" (Source: Fox News) * "Russia's SSO Thatikhin Launches from Baikonur Cosmodrome" (Source: TASS) * "International Space Station Crew Prepares for New Crew Arrival" (Source: NASA) * "Private Spaceflight Company Sierra Nevada to Launch Dream Chaser Spaceplane" (Source: Space. com) Note: The above bullet points are a mix of current and recent news headlines from reputable sources.

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NASHVILLE, Tenn. ( WKRN ) – Nashville is home to a lot of things like country music, hot chicken, honky-tonks, but soon, a new name will be on that list: an astronaut.

Eiman Jahangir , of Nashville, won a seat on a future Blue Origin New Shepard launch, a dream he said has been decades in the making.

"To actually get the call, and say 'you are going to space,' I mean it's still mind-blowing," said Jahangir.

The trip is made possible through MoonDAO – a group of space enthusiasts on a mission to send more people to space.

"The exciting part of the modern era of space, is that more and more opportunities are rising," Jahangir told News 2.

Born in Iran, Jahangir immigrated to Nashville at the age of 4. The now 43-year-old discovered his love for space while serving at the Adventure Science Center in Nashville.

"By giving them [students] a place to think and imagine like, then it allows those thoughts and dreams to grow," said Jahangir.

All these years later, the Adventure Science Center is still special to the doctor. In fact, it's where he spoke to News 2's Blake Eason after he received his official invitation to space.

Decades later, Jahangir will soon be putting on a real one, which is a dream inspired years after visiting Kennedy Space Center in Brevard County, Florida.

S Starship Booster Ace Its Splashdown For First Time

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SpaceX accomplishes first soft splashdown of Starship, Super Heavy Booster on Flight 4 mission – Spaceflight...

For a fourth time in a little more than a year, SpaceX launched a test mission of its massive Starship rocket from its development facility in southern Texas called Starbase. The launch, dubbed Flight 4, push the launch vehicle towards its goal of being a mostly reusable rocket.

Similarly to the previous three launches, Flight 4 did not include a payload and flew a suborbital trajectory. Unlike the preceding missions, Flight 4 saw a soft splashdown of the Super Heavy Booster (Booster 11) and of the Starship upper stage (Ship 29). Liftoff took place at 7:50 a.m. CDT (8:50 a.m. EDT, 1250 UTC), near the opening of a 120-minute window.

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Apparently, SpaceX had some well-placed cameras bobbing in the Gulf of Mexico to capture an unprecedented aspect of its Starship test last week.

Billionaire Elon Musk 's company recently released a video of its Super Heavy booster descending through the air during the rocket system's fourth uncrewed test flight on Thursday, June 6.

Over 25 seconds, the video shows the enormous booster flaring before softly splashing into the water. The video recorded the rushing and gurgling sounds of the water, disrupted by the ferocious blast of the booster's engines.

While it's not quite clear if all of the flames on that candlestick were where they ought to be, the company has labeled this the first successful water splashdown of its Starship booster, one of its main objectives for the test. Watch the video below in the post on X, the social platform also owned by Musk.

Recovering the heavy-lift booster, which stands about 233 feet tall, is part of SpaceX's goal of building a rapidly reusable Starship, much like its Falcon 9 rocket , which regularly carries loads of private customers' satellites into low-Earth orbit. The company has since guided its workhorse rocket's boosters down to drone ships in the ocean over 300 times.

Aerospace industry experts say landing the costly Starship boosters should lower the price of flight. In the commercial sector, SpaceX has led the way on booster reusability . Prior to its disruption of the space launch market, rocket components were typically discarded as one-and-done.

"When we start recovering Starship boosters, we'll want them to return to the launch site for a quicker turnaround," said Jessie Anderson, a SpaceX host during the live Thursday broadcast.

The Starship launch tower will have a dual purpose, also serving as a booster landing pad, Anderson said. After releasing Starship, the arms ⁘ or "chopsticks" ⁘ on the tower will help guide the booster into position for a precision landing.

Scientists Study Artificial Meteor In NASA's Asteroid Sample Mission - UPI.Com

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In The News:

• NASA's Perseverance rover discovered evidence of ancient lakes and rivers on Mars (Source: Scientific American) • A team of scientists from the University of California, Berkeley have discovered a massive galaxy cluster that is 10 billion light-years away (Source: NASA) • The European Space Agency's Rosetta mission re-established contact with Comet 67P → Churyumov-Gerasimenko after a 8-month hiatus (Source: Forbes) • NASA's Parker Solar Probe has successfully completed its closest flyby of the Sun to date (Source: NASA) • The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has launched its Hayabusa2 mission to explore a distant asteroid (Source: Space. com) • NASA has extended its Cassini mission to explore Saturn's moon... Titan (Source: NASA) • A Russian spacecraft is heading to the International Space Station to deliver new crew members (Source: The New York Times) • Scientists have discovered a new type of black hole that is much larger than previously thought (Source: CNN) • NASA has selected a new class of astronaut candidates, "the Artemis Generation.".. to join its astronaut corps (Source: NASA)

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June 10 (UPI) -- Earth is constantly bombarded by fragments of rock and ice, also known as meteoroids, from outer space. Most of the meteoroids are as tiny as grains of sand and small pebbles, and they completely burn up high in the atmosphere. You can see meteoroids larger than about a golf ball when they light up as meteors or shooting stars on a dark, clear night.

While very small meteoroids are common, larger ones -- bigger than a dishwasher -- are not. Advertisement

Meteoroids are difficult objects for aerospace and geophysics researchers like us to study, because we can't usually predict when and where they will hit the atmosphere. But on very rare occasions, we can study artificial objects that enter the atmosphere much like a meteoroid would.

These objects come from space missions designed to transport physical extraterrestrial samples from outer space to Earth. Because of this similarity to meteoroids in entry, we often refer to these sample return capsules, or SRCs, as "artificial meteors." Advertisement

Over 80 researchers from more than a dozen institutions recently worked together to study such an "artificial meteor" -- NASA's OSIRIS-REx sample return capsule -- as it reentered Earth's atmosphere.

To capture signals, we installed many sensitive microphones and other instruments in key locations close to the SRC's flight path.

NASA launched the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer, or OSIRIS-REx , mission on Sept. 8, 2016. It traveled to Bennu, a near-Earth asteroid , and collected a sample from its surface in October of 2020.

NASA's Webb Opens New Window On Supernova Science

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In The News:

• NASA's James Webb Space Telescope explores star formation in the distant universe (ScienceDaily) • Hubble Space Telescope witnesses a rare celestial event: a gamma-ray burst (Space. com) • European Space Agency's Gaia mission maps the Milky Way galaxy in unprecedented detail (ESA) • Astronomers discover two massive black holes at the center of the galaxy (Phys. org) • Scientists detect water vapor on the hottest exoplanet ever recorded (NPR) • New research reveals the first image of a black hole's shadow (Ars Technica) • NASA's Perseverance rover discovers evidence of seasonal water on Mars (NASA) • Boynton Canyon on Mars shows signs of ancient river delta... scientists confirm (The Guardian)

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Peering deeply into the cosmos, NASA's James Webb Space Telescope is giving scientists their first detailed glimpse of supernovae from a time when our universe was just a small fraction of its current age. A team using Webb data has identified 10 times more supernovae in the early universe than were previously known. A few of the newfound exploding stars are the most distant examples of their type, including those used to measure the universe's expansion rate.

"Webb is a supernova discovery machine," said Christa DeCoursey, a third-year graduate student at the Steward Observatory and the University of Arizona in Tucson. "The sheer number of detections plus the great distances to these supernovae are the two most exciting outcomes from our survey."

DeCoursey presented these findings in a press conference at the 244th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Madison, Wisconsin.

To make these discoveries, the team analyzed imaging data obtained as part of the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES) program. Webb is ideal for finding extremely distant supernovae because their light is stretched into longer wavelengths — a phenomenon known as cosmological redshift .

Prior to Webb's launch, only a handful of supernovae had been found above a redshift of 2, which corresponds to when the universe was only 3.3 billion years old — just 25% of its current age. The JADES sample contains many supernovae that exploded even further in the past, when the universe was less than 2 billion years old.

Previously, researchers used NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to view supernovae from when the universe was in the "young adult" stage. With JADES, scientists are seeing supernovae when the universe was in its "teens" or "pre-teens." In the future, they hope to look back to the "toddler" or "infant" phase of the universe.

An Earth-sized Exoplanet Found Orbiting A Jupiter-Sized Star

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Astronomers examined one red dwarf star named SPECULOOS-3, a Jupiter-sized star about 55 light-years away, and found an Earth-sized exoplanet orbiting it. It's an excellent candidate for further study with the James Webb Space Telescope.

SPECULOOS stands for the Search for habitable Planets EClipsing ULtra-cOOl Stars . It's a European Southern Observatory effort that searches for terrestrial planets orbiting cool stars like red dwarfs. (Its odd name is an homage to a Belgian sweet biscuit.) Its goal is to find planets that are good targets for spectroscopy with the JWST and the ELT .

The new planet is named SPECULOOS-3b, and its discovery was presented in a recent paper in Nature Astronomy. The paper is titled ⁘ Detection of an Earth-sized exoplanet orbiting the nearby ultracool dwarf star SPECULOOS-3. ⁘ The lead author is Michaël Gillon from the Astrobiology Research Unit, Université de Liège, Belgium.

SPECULOOS is an automated search using four telescopes around the world: one at the Paranal Observatory in Chile, one at the Teide Observatory in Tenerife, one at the La Silla Observatory in Chile, and one at the Oukaïmden Observatory in Morocco. The project is searching 1,000 ultra-cool stars and brown dwarfs for terrestrial planets.

One of the problems in detecting planets around these stars is their low luminosity. Since they're so dim, transiting exoplanets are difficult to detect, making their planetary populations difficult to characterize and study. So far, astronomers have found only one planetary system around one of these stars, and it's rather well-known: the TRAPPIST-1 system. When it began, the SPECULOOS program expected to find at least one dozen systems similar to TRAPPIST-1.

Apple's Next Nebulous Idea: Smart Home Robots

Read more: Found here

In The News:

**News Headlines:** * "Amazon's Ring Introduces New Smart Door View Camera" (Source: TechCrunch) * "Samsung and Hyundai Team Up to Develop Autonomous Robots for Homes" (Source: The Verge) * "Google's Smart Speaker Now Offers Features for Home Automation" (Source: CNET) * "Amazon's Alexa Companions: Robots That Can Follow You Around the House" (Source: Bloomberg) * "Vodafone Unveils IoT-Based Smart Home Solution" (Source: IoT Business News) * "LG Partners with Microsoft to Develop AI-Powered Smart Home Devices" (Source: Android Authority) * "Lockheed Martin Unveils Smart Home Security System" (Source: Gizmodo) * "IBM Watson Builds Smart Home Automation Solution" (Source: Forbes) * "Accenture Enters Smart Home Market with Acquisitions" (Source: Business Wire) **Informative Bullet Points:** • The innovation in smart home technology is expected to grow significantly in the coming years... with major brands investing heavily in the sector. • Amazon's Ring camera can now control smart door locks, "lights," "and thermostats with a simple voice command." • Samsung's new robot, known as the "Powerbot," is designed to assist with household chores and providing assistance to people with disabilities. • Google's smart speaker has added new features... including the ability to control smart home devices and provide information on your calendar and agenda.

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By Wes Davis , a weekend editor who covers the latest in tech and entertainment. He has written news, reviews, and more as a tech journalist since 2020.

Enter Apple. Mark Gurman at Bloomberg has said its robotics projects are under the purview of former Google employee John Giannandrea, who has been in charge of Siri and, for a time, the Apple Car . With the car project canceled, Vision Pro launched, and "Apple Intelligence" around the corner, is that the next big thing ?

A mobile robot is tricky, though; what in the world would Apple do with a home robot that follows me around? Will it play music? Will it have wheels, or will it walk? Will I be expected to talk to AJAX or SiriGPT or whatever the company names its chatbot? Or, given Apple's rumored OpenAI deal , some other chatbot?

For that matter, what form will it take? Will it fly? Will it have wheels? Will it be a ball? Can I kick it ?

Its form factor will be at least as important as its smarts. Houses have stairs, furniture that sometimes moves, clothes that end up on the floor, pets that get in the way, and kids who leave their stuff everywhere . Doors that opened or closed just fine yesterday don't do so today because it rained. A haphazard kitchen remodel 20 years ago might mean your refrigerator door slams into the corner of the wall by the stairs because why would you put the refrigerator space anywhere else, Dave? But I digress.

Based on what little detail has trickled out, Apple's robotics ideas seem to fit a trend of charming novelty bots we've seen lately.

One recent example is Samsung's Bot Handy concept , which looks like a robot vacuum with a stalk on top and a single articulating arm, meant to carry out tasks like picking up after you or sorting your dishes. There's also the cute ball-bot, Ballie, that Samsung has shown off at a couple of CES shows . The latest iteration follows its humans and packs a projector that can be used for movies, video calls, or entertaining the family dog.

The 'Hole' On Mars Making Headlines Could Be Crucial To Red Planet Exploration

Reference: See here

In The News:

• NASA's Perseverance rover discovers evidence of ancient lake on Mars (Scientific American) • Mars exploration: NASA's Curiosity rover finds evidence of snowfall on the Red Planet (The Verge) • Europe's Schiaparelli lander crashes on Mars, but was it a successful failure? (BBC News) • Mars 2020: NASA's Perseverance rover finds promising signs of past ⁘⁘⁘ on the Red Planet (The Guardian) • Scientists detect signs of water on Mars... paving the way for human exploration (The Independent) • NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captures stunning images of the Red Planet's tallest volcano (Space. com) • Mars 2020: NASA's Perseverance rover discovers organic molecules on the Red Planet (CNN) • JPL's Mars Odyssey spacecraft celebrates 20 years of exploring the Red Planet (NASA)

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A mysterious pit on the flank of an ancient volcano on Mars has generated excitement recently because of what it could reveal beneath the surface of the Red Planet. Here's what that means.

First things first, the pit, which is only a few meters across, was actually imaged on Aug. 15, 2022 by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter , which was about 159 miles (256 kilometers) above the Martian surface at the time. This hole in the ground is also not alone. It's one of many seen on the flanks of a trio of large volcanoes in the Tharsis region of Mars. This particular pit is found on a lava flow on the extinct volcano Arsia Mons, and appears to be a vertical shaft. That raises a question: Is it just a narrow pit, or does it lead to a much larger and remarkable cavern? Or, could it perhaps be a really deep lava tube formed underground long ago when the volcano was still active?

Related: NASA's Mars sample return mission is in trouble. Could a single SLS megarocket be the answer?

There are several reasons why pits and caves on Mars are of interest. For one, they could provide shelter for astronauts in the future; because Mars has a thin atmosphere and lacks a global magnetic field, it cannot ward off radiation from space the way that Earth does. Consequently, radiation exposure on the Martian surface averages between 40 and 50 times greater than on Earth.

The presence of these so-called holes on the flanks of volcanoes is a big clue that they are probably connected to volcanic activity on Mars. Channels of lava can flow away from a volcano underground; when the volcano grows extinct, the channel empties. That leaves behind a long, underground tube. We see such tubes not only on Mars, but also on the moon and on Earth.

However, pits on the moon have been shown to have boulder-strewn floors that appear as though they could lead to a larger subterranean volume.