Lifeboat Foundation

A cornerstone of the US fusion research program, the DIII-D National Fusion Facility, has accomplished a major achievement. The nuclear fusion facility has completed its 200,000th experimental cycle.

“While completing 200,000 shots is impressive in its own right, this achievement is far more than a mere number,” said Dr Richard Buttery, Director of the DIII-D National Fusion Facility.

Nuclear fusion has long been hailed as the “holy grail” of clean energy. It is the process of nuclear fusion itself that powers the sun and stars. Unlike nuclear fission, which splits atoms and generates radioactive waste, fusion involves combining lighter atoms to form heavier ones.

The reason? While sunny regions naturally provide enough light to grow crops, areas with colder winters often need grow lights and greenhouses part of the year. This increases energy consumption, logistical headaches, and ultimately, food costs.

In their paper, Jiao and colleagues argue for a new method that could dramatically revamp farming practices to reduce land use and greenhouse gas emissions.

Dubbed “electro-agriculture,” the approach uses solar panels to trigger a chemical reaction that turns ambient CO₂ into an energy source called acetate. Certain mushrooms, yeast, and algae already consume acetate as food. With a slight genetic tweak, we could also engineer other common foods such as grains, tomatoes, or lettuce to consume acetate.

Considering the future: What Voyager 2 has in store

According to Miller (2024), even though this instrument has been deactivated, engineers anticipate that Voyager 2 will have at least one operable instrument for exploration through the 2030s. The spacecraft continues to operate and transmit data. NASA is also hoping that the spacecraft continues to provide valid information about the interstellar medium too.

The seamless continuation of activities was made possible by the confirmation that the instrument was operating normally. In 2018, it was confirmed that Voyager 2 had crossed the heliosphere’s border and entered interstellar space thanks in large part to the plasma science instrument. Significant changes in atoms, particles, and magnetic fields that are detectable by the instruments of the Voyager probes define this barrier.

Scientists used a supercomputer to simulate nuclear fission with unprecedented accuracy, confirming the existence of scission neutrons.

Dr. Lauren Schurmeier: “The methane clathrate crust warms Titan’s interior and causes surprisingly rapid topographic relaxation, which results in crater shallowing at a rate that is close to that of fast-moving warm glaciers on Earth.”

How does Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, have such a methane-rich atmosphere? This is what a recent study published in The Planetary Science Journal hopes to address as a team of researchers investigated how methane that resides with Titan’s crust could be responsible for the lack of depth in Titan’s impact craters, which could explain why Titan’s atmosphere has so much methane, as well. This study holds the potential to help researchers better understand the formation and evolution of Titan and whether it could host life as we know it.

For the study, the researchers used computer models to simulate the formation and evolution of impact craters on Titan, of which only approximately 90 have been identified via satellite imagery from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft.

Continue reading “Titan’s Atmosphere and Climate: Lessons from an Alien World” »

Black holes are some of the most mysterious and awe-inspiring celestial objects in science, and while pairs of black holes or a black hole orbiting another object like a star, known as binary black holes, have been confirmed to exist, what about triple systems? This is what a recent study published in Nature hopes to address as a team of researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) announced the discovery of a “black hole triple”, meaning three black holes are orbiting each other simultaneously. This study holds the potential to help researchers better understand the formation and evolution of black holes and what this can teach us about the universe, overall.

For the study, the researchers examined the binary black hole system V404 Cygni, which consists of a central black hole being orbited by two stars, with one orbiting in 6.5 days while the other takes approximately 70,000 years to complete one orbit. It is this second object that has scientists scratching their heads, as it is confounding how an object so far away can be influenced by a black hole’s gravity. While black holes are often created from a supernova, or the collapse and explosion of a large star, this means the explosion should have pushed away the farther star in this system. Therefore, the team postulates this black hole was formed by what’s known as a “direct collapse”, which is a smaller and gentler process when a star collapses in on itself as opposed to producing an outward explosion.

“We think most black holes form from violent explosions of stars, but this discovery helps call that into question,” said Dr. Kevin Burdge, who is a Pappalardo Fellow in the MIT Department of Physics and lead author of the study. “This system is super exciting for black hole evolution, and it also raises questions of whether there are more triples out there.”

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NASA recently evaluated initial flight data and imagery from Pathfinder Technology Demonstrator-4 (PTD-4), confirming proper checkout of the spacecraft’s systems including its on-board electronics as well as the payload’s support systems such as the small onboard camera. Shown above is a test image of Earth taken by the payload camera, shortly after PTD-4 reached orbit. This camera will continue photographing the technology demonstration during the mission.

Payload operations are now underway for the primary objective of the PTD-4 mission – the demonstration of a new power and communications technology for future spacecraft. The payload, a deployable solar array with an integrated antenna called the Lightweight Integrated Solar Array and anTenna, or LISA-T, has initiated deployment of its central boom structure. The boom supports four solar power and communication arrays, also called petals. Releasing the central boom pushes the still-stowed petals nearly three feet (one meter) away from the spacecraft bus. The mission team currently is working through an initial challenge to get LISA-T’s central boom to fully extend before unfolding the petals and beginning its power generation and communication operations.

Continue reading “NASA Begins New Deployable Solar Array Tech Demo on Pathfinder Spacecraft” »

Suspended in the relic of an ancient sea beneath southern Arkansas, there may be enough lithium for nine times the expected global demand for the element in car batteries in 2030.

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A collaborative national and state government research team trained a machine learning model to predict and map the lithium concentrations of salty water deep within the porous limestone aquifer beneath southern Arkansas, known as the Smackover Formation brines.