Lifeboat Foundation

Scientists shared the latest results from the DART mission this week, six months after its impact into the asteroid Dimorphos.

In 2022, the physics Nobel prize was awarded for experimental work showing that the quantum world must break some of our fundamental intuitions about how the Universe works.

Many look at those experiments and conclude that they challenge “locality” – the intuition that distant objects need a physical mediator to interact. And indeed, a mysterious connection between distant particles would be one way to explain these experimental results.

Others instead think the experiments challenge “realism” – the intuition that there’s an objective state of affairs underlying our experience. After all, the experiments are only difficult to explain if our measurements are thought to correspond to something real.

An international team of planetary scientists has characterized some of the features of an exoplanet named HD-207496-b, located approximately 138 light years from Earth. In their paper accepted for publication in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, and currently posted on the arXiv preprint server, the group describes their study of the exoplanet and the two theories regarding its likely makeup.

The exoplanet HD-207496-b was discovered as part of a larger effort to characterize naked core planets. As such, the team was analyzing HARPS spectroscopic observations of HD-207496—a bright k dwarf. By adding TESS photometry data, the group was able to measure the stars’ brightness and wavelength, and by studying the exoplanet’s transit characteristics, the team was able to calculate its period, mass, radius and density. That led them to a bit of a conundrum—was the exoplanet gaseous or watery?

The researchers calculated that the exoplanet had a radius 2.25 times that of Earth, with an orbit of 6.44 days. And it had a mass that was approximately 6.1 times Earth’s. Simple math showed that the exoplanet had a density of 3.27 grams per cubic centimeter, which is less than that of Earth.

Dr. Emily Rice, an Associate Professor of Astrophysics at the Macaulay Honors College of CUNY and resident research associate in the Department of Astrophysics at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH), is one of the keynote speakers at the TEDxCUNY conference to be hosted on March 10, 2023.

Dr. Rice is extremely involved in the scientific community through her role as a researcher and professor. Dr. Rice co-founded the research group Brown Dwarfs in New York City (BDNYC) with Dr. Kelle Cruz from CUNY Hunter College and Dr. Jackie Faherty from AMNH. Brown Dwarfs are objects that have masses between giant exoplanets and low mass stars. Dr. Rice explained there was a lot about Brown Dwarfs that scientists were yet to explore and understand.

“The three of us started this research group following a small project we had collaborated on,” Dr. Rice said. In 2010, Dr. Cruz had started their work with Hunter College, Dr. Rice was wrapping up her postdoctoral work, and Dr. Faherty was finishing up graduate school. “We all happened to be in New York City at the time, and we were all working with Brown Dwarfs, so we decided to create a research group focused on these substellar objects,” Dr. Rice remarked.

A high-resolution camera mounted on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has snapped pictures of unusual, almost perfectly circular sand dunes on the Red Planet’s surface.

AI or bust. Right now, AI is what everyone is talking about, and for good reason. After years of seeing AI doled out to help automate the processes that make businesses run smarter, we’re finally seeing AI that can help the average business employee working in the real world. Generative AI, or the process of using algorithms to produce data often in the form of images or text, has exploded in the last few months. What started with OpenAI’s ChatGPT has bloomed into a rapidly evolving subcategory of technology. And companies from Microsoft to Google to Salesforce and Adobe are hopping on board.

What started with ChatGPT has bloomed into an entire subcategory of technology with Meta, AWS, Salesforce, Google, Microsoft all racing to out innovate and deliver exciting generative AI capabilities to consumers, enterprise, developers, and more. Exploring the rapid progress in the AI space.

International Space Station’s time in orbit ends on 2030.

The International Space Station’s time in orbit will end in 2030. It’ll have to be taken out of its orbit through controlled disintegration into the Earth’s atmosphere. For this, NASA is developing a spacecraft that will maneuver safe disposal of the station.

This was revealed when the Biden administration allocated a budget of $27.2 billion to NASA for the fiscal year 2024, which includes $180 million “to initiate the development of a new space tug” that could deorbit the ISS.

Sand dunes are not uncommon on the surface of Mars. However, during observations to see how the frost from winter melts on the planet, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured images of strange Martian dunes that appear almost completely circular. This almost perfectly circular appearance is unusual, which has sparked the interest of NASA and astronomers worldwide.

According to NASA’s page detailing the image, the strange Martian dunes appear to have steeper sides on the south side. NASA says this is because the windows on Mars generally move towards the south. Of course, they can vary, but the effect is clearly seen in these images, where the southern side of the circular dunes is steeper.

The images of these strange Martian dunes were made possible thanks to the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE), an instrument on the MRO. HiRISE is the largest and the most powerful camera that humanity has ever sent to another planet, and it has delivered exceptional observations about the surface of the Red Planet.

Compare news coverage. Spot media bias. Avoid algorithms. Be well informed. Download the free Ground News app at https://ground.news/HOTU

Researched and Written by Leila Battison.
Narrated and Edited by David Kelly.
Animations by Jero Squartini https://www.fiverr.com/share/0v7Kjv.
Incredible thumbnail art by Ettore Mazza, the GOAT: https://www.instagram.com/ettore.mazza/?hl=en.

Continue reading “What Is Beyond The Edge?” »