Science
The latest science news.
Latest
Help NASA name its Mars 2020 rover
NASA's Mars 2020 rover is beginning to take shape. Earlier this month, crews installed some of its legs and six of its wheels. Now, the vehicle needs a name, and for that, NASA is turning to students. Beginning in fall 2019, NASA will run a nationwide "Name the Rover" contest open to K-12 students in the US. The spacecraft will need a name by July 2020, when it's expected to launch.
NASA just witnessed its biggest methane gas emission on Mars
NASA has confirmed that the Curiosity rover recently detected the "largest amount of methane ever measured during the mission." The levels were enough to pause the rover's activities as scientists sought more answers: Methane is a gas typically produced by life as we know it, after all, and it could be a sign of life on the planet. Curiosity's methane reading came to 21 parts per billion units by volume, which is thrice the amount it sniffed out during a surge in 2013.
SpaceX's 'challenging' Falcon Heavy mission launch goes 2/3 on booster landings
Last year SpaceX launched its massive Falcon Heavy rocket for the first time, but the company describes tonight's STP-2 mission as one of the "most challenging" launches in its history. It's also the first Falcon Heavy launch to reuse side boosters, which previously took flight just 74 days ago on the Arabsat-6A mission. The tricky part is after it takes off, with a planned "four separate upper-stage engine burns, three separate deployment orbits, a final propulsive passivation maneuver and a total mission duration of over six hours." SpaceX's mission animation video shows what we're expecting to see:
Carnegie Mellon will help Argo AI advance its self-driving vehicle tech
Ford's autonomous vehicle arm Argo AI is already testing self-driving vehicles in a handful of cities. But the company has a few key puzzles to solve before it can deploy its fleets on a large scale. To help answer the remaining questions -- like how can autonomous vehicles reason in highly unstructured broken-traffic conditions -- Argo is partnering with Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). The newly formed Carnegie Mellon University Argo AI Center for Autonomous Vehicle Research will work to advance the next-generation of self-driving tech.
NASA's Astrobee cube robot flies in space for the first time
NASA's Astrobee cube robots are finally earning their space wings... in a manner of speaking. The agency has confirmed that one of the bots, Bumble, flew on its own for the first time aboard the International Space Station on June 14th. While the trip involved only basic movements like flying forward and rotating, it was proof machine could work in its intended microgravity environment.
Curiosity rover finds gas levels on Mars hinting at possibility of life
It's easy to get jaded about potential signs of life on Mars, but a recent discovery might raise eyebrows. The New York Times has learned that NASA's Curiosity rover has detected "startlingly high" levels of methane -- the gas typically produced by life as we know it. The quantities are still tiny at 21 parts per billion, but that's three times the amount Curiosity spotted during a surge in 2013. The rover's operators were reportedly surprised enough to pause regularly scheduled studies to obtain follow-up data, with the additional findings slated to arrive on June 24th.
NASA could see more delays for SpaceX and Boeing private space flights
When NASA awarded Boeing and SpaceX contracts to develop vehicles that can take astronauts to the ISS, it was hoping they'll be done by 2017. Unfortunately, both companies grappled with technical challenges that forced them to delay their timelines. A new Government Accountability Office report even wants NASA to prepare for even more delays, as neither company is near to meeting all the agency's requirements for manned spaceflight.
Japan will send a rover to Martian moons with help from Germany and France
We might be able to study the Martian moons Phobos and Deimos a lot more closely in the coming decade. Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has teamed up with Germany's and France's space agencies to send a spacecraft with a rover to the red planet's faithful companions. In fact, JAXA has just finalized its agreement to work with the German Aerospace Center (DLR) on the study-phase activities for its Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission.
NASA gives the Mars 2020 rover its legs and wheels
The Mars 2020 rover is looking more and more like an actual rover, now that there's only a year left before its target launch date. NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory engineers have installed the vehicle's starboard legs and six wheels (aka its mobility suspension) on June 13th. The machine's wheels are made of aluminum with 48 cleats machined onto their surface. Those metal projections will give the vehicle the traction it needs to be able to drive on both sandy and rough, rocky surfaces.
NASA will study solar weather in two new missions
Solar winds are no threat to people on Earth, but can pose a danger to astronauts and spacecraft. NASA has selected two new missions that aims to better our understanding of how the Sun drives extreme space weather. The first mission, Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere (or PUNCH) will consist of four suitcase-shaped satellites that will track solar wind as it leaves the sun. The second, Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites (or TRACERS) will use two spacecraft to study how magnetic fields around Earth interact with the Sun.
Scientists make a lifelike robotic fish using multipurpose 'blood'
There's no question that robots have come a long way since their cold, clunky, cumbersome inception. Nowadays they're smart, agile and responsive -- but they're still missing the tactile, multipurpose elements that make living creatures flexible and autonomous. Until now. In a bid to make robots more lifelike, scientists have created a soft robotic lionfish and have pumped it full of life-giving "blood."
Decades of spy satellite images help track melting Himalayan glaciers
You don't need cutting-edge satellite data to make sense of Earth's changing climate. Researchers have published a study of melting Himalayan glaciers that takes advantage of 40 years' worth of satellite imagery posted by the US Geological Survey, including declassified KH-9 Hexagon spy satellite photos from the 1970s and 1980s. The info not only let researchers cover a vast territory (about 650 glaciers over 1,240 miles), but made it possible to automatically create 3D models that reflected declining glacier elevations.
European astronauts plan to take pics of a comet from the dawn of time
The European Space Agency (ESA) hopes to photograph a yet-to-be-discovered comet as it approaches Earth's orbit for the first time. To do so, it's developing "Comet Interceptor," a composite made of three individual spacecraft, which will separate to snap photos of the comet from multiple perspectives. The photos will be used to create a 3D model, and ESA hopes to spot material from the dawn of the Solar System.
MIT is turning AI into a pizza chef
Never mind having robots deliver pizza -- if MIT and QCRI researchers have their way, the automatons will make your pizza as well. They've developed a neural network, PizzaGAN (Generative Adversarial Network), that learns how to make pizza using pictures. After training on thousands of synthetic and real pizza pictures, the AI knows not only how to identify individual toppings, but how to distinguish their layers and the order in which they need to appear. From there, the system can create step-by-step guides for making pizza using only one example photo as the starting point.
Your smart speaker could tell if you're experiencing cardiac arrest
Cardiac arrest frequently happens at home, and victims don't always have someone around to call for help. Your smart speaker might one day fill that role, though. University of Washington researchers have crafted a proof-of-concept AI that can detect the audio cues of cardiac arrest and respond accordingly. The system is trained on 911 call samples to listen for the telltale sounds of agonal breathing (that is, distinctive gasps for air) that come with cardiac arrest. It initially asks for help from people nearby to provide CPR, but will call 911 if there's no response.
NASA's Deep Space Atomic Clock leaves Earth on June 24th
NASA JPL's Deep Space Atomic Clock, the navigation clock that could lead to self-driving spacecraft, is finally heading to space. The toaster-sized device will fly on the Orbital Test Bed satellite, which will be ferried to orbit along with two dozen other military, government and research satellites aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket on June 24th, 2019. It took two decades for JPL scientists to develop the technology, making sure it's 50 times more accurate than GPS clocks and that it'll be only off by 1 second every 10 million years.
MIT's new robot can identify things by sight and by touch
For humans, it's easy to predict how an object will feel by looking at it or tell what an object looks like by touching it, but this can be a big challenge for machines. Now, a new robot developed by MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) is attempting to do just that.
India plans to launch space station by 2030
India's broadening spaceflight ambitions now include a longer-term presence in Earth's orbit. Indian Space Research Organization chief K Sivan (above) recently revealed plans to launch a space station around 2030. It will be a relatively small station where astronauts would only stay for 15 to 20 days, but that should be enough to allow microgravity experiments. India won't lean on other countries for help, Sivan said.
Your sleep tracker might make insomnia worse
Sleep tracking can help you determine if you're getting a good night's rest, but it might exacerbate your problems in some circumstances. Scientists talking to the New York Times have warned that sleep tracker apps and devices can worsen insomnia both through inaccurate data and by making your anxieties that much worse. In a study, for instance, it led to people both spending too much time in bed (to boost their sleep stats) and reporting non-existent conditions that resulted in wasted treatment.
VR and microscopy help scientists see 'inside' diseases
You can only learn so much about cells by studying 2D pictures, and 3D microscope technology can produce an abundance of data that might be hard to decipher. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and Virginia Mason have an answer, though: let scientists walk 'inside' the cells. They've combined virtual reality with expansion microscopy (which grows samples by over 100 times) to explore cell data that would otherwise be too complex to handle. Once the cells have been imaged, labeled and compiled into data, a custom technique turns the 2D info into 3D environments.