Lifeboat Foundation

NASA is proposing to wind down its Chandra X-ray Observatory. And astronomers are pissed.

The robot is controlled by a neural network trained in deep reinforcement learning via simulation.

Students at ETH Zurich are creating a robot that can move around in extremely low gravity by hopping like a human.

Continue reading “Spacehopper: Three-legged jumping robot to study asteroids in space” »

The idea of a static universe would mean our cosmos is eternal, and it isn’t expanding after all.

For the first time, astronomers have measured the speed of fast-moving jets in space, crucial to star formation and the distribution of elements needed for life.

The jets of matter, expelled by stars deemed ‘cosmic cannibals’, were measured to travel at over one-third of the speed of light — thanks to a groundbreaking new experiment published in Nature today.

The study sheds new light on these violent processes, making clever use of runaway nuclear explosions on the surface of stars.

Last September, the James Webb Space Telescope, or JWST, discovered JWST-ER1g, a massive ancient galaxy that formed when the universe was just a quarter of its current age. Surprisingly, an Einstein ring is associated with this galaxy. That’s because JWST-ER1g acts as a lens and bends light from a distant source, which then appears as a ring—a phenomenon called strong gravitational lensing, predicted in Einstein’s theory of general relativity.

Astronomers have produced the largest 3D map of the universe, which can be explored in an interactive VR video. In the process, they’ve uncovered some tantalizing hints that our understanding of physics, including the ultimate fate of the cosmos, could be wrong.

The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) is a huge international project to map out the universe in three dimensions, which began collecting data in 2021. This early version of the map only includes data collected during the first year – 5.7 million galaxies and quasars out of the planned goal of 40 million. This data allows the scientists to peer as far as 11 billion light-years into deep space and time, providing a glimpse into the very early universe with an unprecedented precision of less than 1%.

Continue reading “Video: Largest 3D map of the universe reveals hints of new physics” »

The laws of nature or physics are assumed to be everywhere the same, on the far side of the universe as sure as on the far side of your house. Otherwise science itself could not succeed. But are these laws equally constant across time? Might the deep laws of physics change over eons of time? The implications would be profound.

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Continue reading “Lee Smolin — Are the Laws of Nature Always Constant?” »

Neil deGrasse Tyson and Matt O’Dowd discuss their favorite scientific discoveries in astrophysics and the universe, as well as their roles as science communicators and teachers Questions to inspire discussion What do Neil deGrasse Tyson and Matt O’Dowd discuss in the video? —They discuss their favorite scientific disco.

When a bug in the ointment is a good thing.