Tva Ganir

Kamis, 30 April 2020

What happens to microplastics in the ocean? - BBC News

UK scientists have identified the highest levels of microplastics ever recorded on the seafloor.

The contamination was found in sediments pulled up from the bottom of the Mediterranean, off Italy.

The analysis, led from the University of Manchester, counted up to 1.9 million plastic pieces per square metre.

It is some of the first insight into the fate of the 10 million tonnes of plastic waste estimated to enter the ocean every year.

Digital video by Victoria Gill and David Cheeseman

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2020-05-01 03:14:48Z
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What happens to microplastics in the ocean? - BBC News

UK scientists have identified the highest levels of microplastics ever recorded on the seafloor.

The contamination was found in sediments pulled up from the bottom of the Mediterranean, off Italy.

The analysis, led from the University of Manchester, counted up to 1.9 million plastic pieces per square metre.

It is some of the first insight into the fate of the 10 million tonnes of plastic waste estimated to enter the ocean every year.

Digital video by Victoria Gill and David Cheeseman

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What happens to microplastics in the ocean? - BBC News

UK scientists have identified the highest levels of microplastics ever recorded on the seafloor.

The contamination was found in sediments pulled up from the bottom of the Mediterranean, off Italy.

The analysis, led from the University of Manchester, counted up to 1.9 million plastic pieces per square metre.

It is some of the first insight into the fate of the 10 million tonnes of plastic waste estimated to enter the ocean every year.

Digital video by Victoria Gill and David Cheeseman

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Musk's SpaceX, Bezos' Blue Origin land contracts to build NASA's astronaut moon lander - Windsor Star

NASA on Thursday selected space firms SpaceX, Blue Origin and Dynetics to build lunar landing systems that can carry astronauts to the moon by 2024, the White House’s accelerated deadline under the space agency’s moon-to-Mars campaign.

The three companies, which include firms of tech billionaires Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, will share US$967-million from NASA, though specific amounts each company will receive were not immediately known.

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Musk's SpaceX, Bezos' Blue Origin land contracts to build NASA's astronaut moon lander Back to video

Boeing Co proposed a lander concept last year but was not selected.

“This is the last piece that we need in order to get to the moon,” NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine told reporters on Thursday, calling the agency’s first lunar lander procurement since 1972 “historic.”

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Unlike the Apollo program that put astronauts on the moon nearly 50 years ago, NASA is gearing up for a long-term presence on Earth’s satellite that the agency says will eventually enable humans to reach Mars, leaning heavily on private companies built around shared visions for space exploration.

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2020-05-01 00:05:58Z
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High microplastic concentration found on ocean floor - BBC News

Scientists have identified the highest levels of microplastics ever recorded on the seafloor.

The contamination was found in sediments pulled from the bottom of the Mediterranean, near Italy.

The analysis, led by the University of Manchester, found up to 1.9 million plastic pieces per square metre.

These items likely included fibres from clothing and other synthetic textiles, and tiny fragments from larger objects that had broken down over time.

The researchers' investigations lead them to believe that microplastics (smaller than 1mm) are being concentrated in specific locations on the ocean floor by powerful bottom currents.

"These currents build what are called drift deposits; think of underwater sand dunes," explained Dr Ian Kane, who fronted the international team.

"They can be tens of kilometres long and hundreds of metres high. They are among the largest sediment accumulations on Earth. They're made predominantly of very fine silt, so it's intuitive to expect microplastics will be found within them," he told BBC News.

It's been calculated that something in the order of four to 12 million tonnes of plastic waste enter the oceans every year, mostly through rivers.

Media headlines have focussed on the great aggregations of debris that float in gyres or wash up with the tides on coastlines.

But this visible trash is thought to represent just 1% of the marine plastic budget. The exact whereabouts of the other 99% is unknown.

Some of it has almost certainly been consumed by sea creatures, but perhaps the much larger proportion has fragmented and simply sunk.

Dr Kane's team has already shown that deep-sea trenches and ocean canyons can have high concentrations of microplastics in their sediments.

Indeed, water tank simulations run by the group have demonstrated just how efficiently flows of mud, sand and silt of the type occurring in canyons will entrain and move fibres to even greater depths.

"A single one of these underwater avalanches ('turbidity currents') can transport tremendous volumes of sediment for 100s of kilometres across the ocean floor," said Dr Florian Pohl from Durham University.

"We're just starting to understand from recent laboratory experiments how these flows transport and bury microplastics."

There is nothing atypical about the study area in the Tyrrhenian basin between Italy, Corsica and Sardinia.

Many other parts of the globe have strong deep-water currents that are driven by temperature and salinity contrasts. The issue of concern will be that these currents also supply oxygen and nutrients to deep-sea creatures. And so by following the same route, the microplastics could be settling into biodiversity hotspots, increasing the chance of ingestion by marine life.

Prof Elda Miramontes from the University of Bremen, Germany, is a co-author on the Science journal paper describing the Mediterranean discovery.

She says the same effort shown in the battle against coronavirus must now take on the scourge of ocean plastic pollution.

"We're all making an effort to improve our safety and we are all staying at home and changing our lives - changing our work life, or even stopping work," she told BBC News. "We're doing all this so that people are not affected by this sickness. We have to think in the same way when we protect our oceans."

Roland Geyer is professor of industrial ecology at the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, University of California at Santa Barbara.

He has been at the forefront of investigating and describing the waste streams through which plastic gets into the oceans.

He commented: "We still have a very poor understanding of how much total plastic has accumulated in the oceans. There seems to be one emerging scientific consensus, which is that most of that plastic is not floating on the ocean surface.

"Many scientists now think that most of the plastic is likely to be on the ocean floor, but the water column and the beaches are also likely to contain major quantities.

"We really should all be completely focused on stopping plastic from entering the oceans in the first place."

Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk and follow me on Twitter:.

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2020-04-30 23:01:35Z
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Alabama student names NASA's first Mars helicopter - TheSpec.com

NORTHPORT, Ala. - An Alabama high school student named NASA’s first Mars helicopter that will be deployed to the red planet later this summer.

Ingenuity, the name submitted by Vaneeza Rupani, was selected for the 4 pound (1.8 kilograms) solar-powered helicopter, NASA said in a statement on Wednesday. The name coined by the junior at Tuscaloosa County High School in Northport was just one of 28,000 names submitted in NASA’s “Name the Rover” essay contest for K-12 students across the United States.

“The ingenuity and brilliance of people working hard to overcome the challenges of interplanetary travel are what allow us all to experience the wonders of space exploration,” Rupani wrote in her essay. “Ingenuity is what allows people to accomplish amazing things, and it allows us to expand our horizons to the edges of the universe.”

In March, the space agency selected the name Perseverance for the Mars Rover based on a Virginian student’s essay, but decided to come back to the submitted essays to also pick a name for the helicopter that will accompany the Rover.

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said Ingenuity “encapsulates the values that our helicopter tech demo will showcase.“ Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby also congratulated Rupani for the honour.

“It was really cool I got to be a part of something like this,” she told the AP.

Ingenuity has already completed testing in a NASA simulation chamber in Southern California. Next, it will be attached to the belly of the Perseverance, which will take off for Mars in July or August. After it arrives on the red planet, the helicopter will remain under a protected covering to protect it from debris until the timing is right for the aircraft to be deployed.

It will then have a 31-day flight window to prove that powered flights can be accomplished on Mars, NASA said.

This year’s mission is part of a program that also includes missions to the moon to prepare for a possible human exploration of Mars. NASA plans to land the first woman and the next man on the moon in 2024, and set up a continued human presence “on and around” the moon in eight years so they can use it to send astronauts to Mars.

___

This story has been corrected. Rupani’s first name is Vaneeza, not Vaneera.

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2020-04-30 20:03:48Z
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NASA selects SpaceX among 3 companies to build next moon landers - CBC.ca

On Thursday, NASA selected space firms SpaceX, Blue Origin and Dynetics to build lunar landing systems that can carry astronauts to the moon by 2024, the White House's accelerated deadline under the space agency's moon-to-Mars campaign.

The three companies, which include firms of tech billionaires Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, will share $967 million from NASA.

Details on specific amounts each company will receive were not immediately known.

Boeing, a NASA contractor and one of the companies that bid for this contract, was not selected.

Unlike the Apollo program that put astronauts on the moon 50 years ago, NASA is gearing up for a long-term presence on Earth's satellite that the agency says will eventually enable humans to reach Mars.

[embedded content]

The next manned mission to the moon will require leaps in robotic technologies and a plan for NASA to work with the three companies to design and develop human landing systems.

"We are following through on the president's space policy directive," NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said, calling the selection "historic."

Big News! The <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Artemis?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Artemis</a> generation is going to the Moon to stay. I’m excited to announce that we have selected 3 U.S. companies to develop human landers that will land astronauts on the Moon: <a href="https://twitter.com/blueorigin?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@BlueOrigin</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/Dynetics?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Dynetics</a> & <a href="https://twitter.com/SpaceX?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@SpaceX</a>. <a href="https://t.co/mF6OzFqJJC">https://t.co/mF6OzFqJJC</a> <a href="https://t.co/nuMQlDIyGS">pic.twitter.com/nuMQlDIyGS</a>
—@JimBridenstine

Picking three providers allows NASA to have redundancy in case one company falls behind in development, Lisa Watson-Morgan, NASA's human landing system program manager, told reporters on Thursday.

Last year, Bezos unveiled Blue Origin's design for the lunar lander, Blue Moon, it intends to build as a prime contractor with Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Draper. Blue Origin plans to launch its landing system using its own heavy-lift rocket, New Glenn.

Musk's SpaceX, which is on the cusp of launching its first manned mission for NASA next month, will develop its Starship landing system to send crew and up to 100 pounds of cargo to the moon.

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2020-04-30 19:47:00Z
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News Aircraft Helicopters Mars Helicopter named Ingenuity - wingsmagazine.com

The Mars Helicopter, which will be the first aircraft to attempt powered flight on another world, has been named Ingenuity by Vaneeza Rupani, a high-school junior from Alabama, who won an essay contest organized by NASA. The 4-pound Ingenuity test vehicle will be stowed in the belly of NASA’s Perseverance rover that is part of the Mars 2020 mission scheduled to launch in July 2020 – arriving at the Red Plant in February 2021 under the current timeline.

This timeline is an optimum – cost-saving – launch window based on the relative positions of Mars and Earth, which has driven NASA to stay on schedule despite the coronavirus pandemic.

“The ingenuity and brilliance of people working hard to overcome the challenges of interplanetary travel are what allow us all to experience the wonders of space exploration,” Rupani wrote in her contest submission. “Ingenuity is what allows people to accomplish amazing things, and it allows us to expand our horizons to the edges of the universe.”

NASA describes Ingenuity as a high-risk, high-reward technology demonstration, which will not impact the overall mission. If the helicopter does take flight, future Mars missions could enlist second-generation helicopters to add an aerial dimension to their explorations.

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“Since our helicopter is designed as a flight test of experimental technology, it carries no science instruments. But if we prove powered flight on Mars can work, we look forward to the day when Mars helicopters can play an important role in future explorations of the Red Planet,” said JPL’s MiMi Aung, Ingenuity project manager. At the end of March 2020, NASA was completing final tests on Ingenuity before launch.

NASA engineers working on the flight model, comprised of more than 1,500 individual pieces, in early 2019. (Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

Ingenuity employs twin, counter-rotating blades rotating at almost 3,000 rpm, a rate that is about 10 times faster than a helicopter on Earth in order to bite into the Martian atmosphere. “Getting our helicopter into an extremely thin atmosphere is only part of the challenge,” said Teddy Tzanetos, test conductor for the Mars Helicopter, back in mid-2019. “To truly simulate flying on Mars we have to take away two-thirds of Earth’s gravity, because Mars’ gravity is that much weaker.”

To put the planned helicopter demonstration into perspective, NASA explains a helicopter on the Martian surface is already at the Earth equivalent of 30,480 metres in altitude – with the altitude record for a helicopter flying on Earth at about 12,192 metres. “NASA has a proud history of firsts,” said NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine, in August 2019 as engineers were testing the attachment of Ingenuity to Perseverance. “The idea of a helicopter flying the skies of another planet is thrilling. The Mars Helicopter holds much promise for our future science, discovery and exploration missions to Mars.”

Ingenuity will be deployed a few months after landing on Mars as the Perseverance rover finds a suitable location to place it on the ground. NASA explains the rover then will be driven away from the helicopter to a safe distance and begin to relay commands. Its batteries will then be charged, tests performed, and controllers on Earth will command the first flight on another planet.

NASA is planning for a 30-day flight test campaign with up to five flights of incrementally farther distances, up to a few hundred metres and durations as long as 90 seconds. On its first flight, NASA explains Ingenuity will make a vertical climb to about three metres, where it will hover for approximately 30 seconds.

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2020-04-30 19:36:23Z
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Musk's SpaceX, Bezos' Blue Origin land contracts to build NASA's astronaut moon lander - Regina Leader-Post

“We are following through on the president’s space policy directive,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said, calling the selection “historic.”

Picking three providers allows NASA to have redundancy in case one company falls behind in development, Lisa Watson-Morgan, NASA’s human landing system program manager, told reporters on Thursday.

Last year, Bezos unveiled Blue Origin’s design for the lunar lander, Blue Moon, it intends to build as a prime contractor with Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Draper. Blue Origin plans to launch its landing system using its own heavy-lift rocket, New Glenn.

Musk’s SpaceX, which is on the cusp of launching its first manned mission for NASA next month, will develop its Starship landing system to send crew and up to 100 pounds of cargo to the moon.

Dynetics, a space firm recently acquired by Leidos Holdings Inc, will manage a team of 25 partners to develop its human landing system that Boeing-Lockheed joint venture United Launch Alliance will launch on its Vulcan launch system. (Reporting by Joey Roulette, additional reporting by Munsif Vengattil; Editing by Maju Samuel and Ramakrishnan M.)

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2020-04-30 18:38:50Z
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Space firms of Musk, Bezos land contracts to build NASA's astronaut moon lander - Regina Leader-Post

NASA on Thursday selected three companies, including the space firms of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, to build lunar landing systems that can carry astronauts to the moon by 2024, the White House’s accelerated deadline under the space agency’s moon-to-Mars campaign.

The three companies will share $967 million from NASA. (Reporting by Joey Roulette; Editing by Maju Samuel)

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2020-04-30 17:35:45Z
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Here’s what NASA’s Mars helicopter will look like when it makes history with the first extraterrestrial powered flight - TechCrunch

[embedded content]

NASA is getting ready to send its next Mars rover to the Red Planet later this year, and that mission will also carry Ingenuity, a brand new helicopter robot that will attempt to make history by becoming the first vehicle to perform a powered atmospheric flight on another planet. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) created a trailer of sorts to show you approximately what that flight will look like, when it takes place sometime after the targeted February 18, 2021 arrival date for the Mars 2020 mission.

Ingenuity may look like a simple dual rotor drone, but it’s actually a groundbreaking piece of engineering that has to overcome significant technical challenges in order to complete its mission of performing short-altitude “hops” on Mars. That’s its sole goal, and the 4-lb craft doesn’t have any other instruments on board, as it’s essentially a demonstrator that will set up the design and development of future aerial exploration craft to help with the study of Mars.

Even flying the softball-sized main body of Ingenuity is an achievement, because flying on Mars requires much more lift than it does here on Earth due to the nature of the planet’s atmosphere. Accordingly, the helicopter’s test flights will only last around 90 seconds each, and climb to a height of just 16.5 feet — easy here at home, but roughly equivalent to flying at around 100,000 feet on Earth — much higher than most commercial aircraft.

NASA’s Mars 2020 mission is currently scheduled to launch between July 17 and August 5 this year, and NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine has reiterated multiple times that the mission remains a top priority despite restrictions and workarounds necessitated by COVID-19, because the optimal window for making the trip to Mars only recurs once every two or so years.

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2020-04-30 14:35:19Z
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Alabama student names NASA's first Mars helicopter - CTV News

NORTHPORT, ALA. -- An Alabama high school student named NASA's first Mars helicopter that will be deployed to the red planet later this summer.

Ingenuity, the name submitted by Vaneeza Rupani, was selected for the 4 pound (1.8 kilograms) solar-powered helicopter, NASA said in a statement on Wednesday. The name coined by the junior at Tuscaloosa County High School in Northport was just one of 28,000 names submitted in NASA's "Name the Rover" essay contest for K-12 students across the United States.

"The ingenuity and brilliance of people working hard to overcome the challenges of interplanetary travel are what allow us all to experience the wonders of space exploration," Rupani wrote in her essay. "Ingenuity is what allows people to accomplish amazing things, and it allows us to expand our horizons to the edges of the universe."

In March, the space agency selected the name Perseverance for the Mars Rover based on a Virginian student's essay, but decided to come back to the submitted essays to also pick a name for the helicopter that will accompany the Rover.

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said Ingenuity "encapsulates the values that our helicopter tech demo will showcase." Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby also congratulated Rupani for the honour.

"It was really cool I got to be a part of something like this," she told the AP.

It will then have a 31-day flight window to prove that powered flights can be accomplished on Mars, NASA said.

This year's mission is part of a program that also includes missions to the moon to prepare for a possible human exploration of Mars. NASA plans to land the first woman and the next man on the moon in 2024, and set up a continued human presence "on and around" the moon in eight years so they can use it to send astronauts to Mars.

Correction:

This story has been corrected. Rupani's first name is Vaneeza, not Vaneera

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2020-04-30 12:38:00Z
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'Uphill battle': SpaceX overcame obstacles on road to historic 1st crew launch - Space.com

Like most historic achievements, this one will be hard-won.

SpaceX is scheduled to launch its first crewed flight on May 27, sending NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard the company's Crew Dragon capsule.

The mission, known as Demo-2, will mark the return of orbital human spaceflight to American soil for the first time since July 2011, when NASA retired its space shuttle fleet after 30 years of service. The plan was to have private vehicles such as Crew Dragon fill the shuttle's shoes, but it was far from clear that everything would work out, said former NASA astronaut Garrett Reisman.

"It was an uphill battle," said Reisman, a professor of astronautics practice at the University of Southern California who spent three months aboard the ISS in 2008 and also flew on a shuttle mission in 2010.

"If I'd had to bet" back then, he told Space.com, "I probably would have bet against it."

Reisman was in the trenches for this uphill battle. He joined SpaceX after leaving NASA, working for Elon Musk's company from 2011 to 2018 and serving as director of crew operations during the latter part of that run. He remains a consultant for SpaceX (but stressed that his views are his own; he does not speak for the company).

The transition to the post-shuttle era began in 2010, when NASA's Commercial Crew Program awarded its first contracts to private companies. (SpaceX didn't get a contract in that first round but did snag money the next year, and in the major rounds that followed.) This type of public-private partnership represented a new approach to human spaceflight for the nation, and not everyone was on board with it.

"There were a lot of skeptics back in the day, and a lot of uncertainty about whether or not this model was a good idea even," Reisman said. "You had government, industry and NASA administration all, at various different times, looking like they were going to shut this down."

For example, Congress repeatedly granted far less money for commercial crew than had been allocated in federal budget requests. NASA officials have identified these budget shortfalls as a major cause of delays for the program, which originally envisioned its first crewed flight in 2015.

It was also difficult to get everybody on the same page, at least initially. A significant cultural gap existed between NASA and the private sector, which tended to approach problems in different ways, Reisman said.

"Frankly, there was a lot of mutual distrust and suspicion," he said. "And difficulty bridging that gap, I think, was the most challenging thing."

But the gap was bridged, in what appears to be a lasting fashion, Reisman said. Much of the credit for that success, and the overall progress that commercial crew has made to date, goes to NASA's commercial cargo program, he added.

That program, which was announced in 2006, helped get two private robotic resupply craft up and running. SpaceX's cargo Dragon and Northrop Grumman's Cygnus freighter first visited the ISS in 2010 and 2013, respectively, and both vehicles routinely resupply the orbiting lab today.

Commercial cargo "really paved the way," Reisman said. "I think if that program was not successful, we wouldn't be here getting ready to put Bob and Doug into space on a SpaceX rocket."

And that success has snowballed. SpaceX isn't the only company prepping to fly NASA astronauts; Boeing holds a similar commercial crew deal, which the aerospace giant will fulfill using its CST-100 Starliner capsule.

And there's much more going on in the world of private human spaceflight. For example, both Virgin Galactic and Jeff Bezos' company Blue Origin have flown multiple test missions with their suborbital crew-carrying vehicles; both could begin flying paying customers soon.

Blue Origin also has plans to launch people to orbit or beyond, and Colorado-based company Sierra Nevada has crewed ambitions for its Dream Chaser space plane. And we could soon have commercial space stations operating in Earth orbit, run by companies such as Axiom Space.

"The time is right for private companies to take a more active role in human spaceflight," Reisman said. "It's really been a team effort."

Mike Wall is the author of "Out There" (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.

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2020-04-30 11:58:48Z
CAIiEEUPkTCgOk2-KZeqY7ZaA_YqMwgEKioIACIQiaYKTaVj4jekEifjHCx8jCoUCAoiEImmCk2lY-I3pBIn4xwsfIww5brKBg

Ancient 'crazy beast' which broke 'evolutionary rules for mammals' discovered - Sky News

Scientists have discovered a "crazy beast" mammal which lived alongside dinosaurs on Madagascar approximately 66 million years ago.

It was about the size of a modern cat or an opossum, according to researchers at Stony Brook University in the US, and the skeleton is the most complete for any mammal ever discovered from this era in the southern hemisphere.

The animal is also surprisingly large for mammals of its time, which were believed to be about the size of mice, and is expected to have burrowed to hunt for food and avoid dinosaurs.

It is officially called Adalatherium hui, which literally translates from Malagasy - the national language of Madagascar - and Greek as "crazy beast" and was announced in the journal Nature.

Professor David Krause said: "Knowing what we know about the skeletal anatomy of all living and extinct mammals, it is difficult to imagine that a mammal like Adalatherium could have evolved; it bends and even breaks a lot of rules."

Despite the reconstruction showing the crazy beast's appearance to be similar to a badger, scientists say the animal's skeleton is actually "outlandish" - with primitive features in its snout which haven't "been seen for a hundred million years" in modern mammals.

"Its nasal cavity exhibits an amazing mosaic of features, some of which are very standard for a mammal, but some that I've never seen in anything before," explained Dr James Rossie.

Adalatherium had more holes, or foramina, on its face than any known mammal - passageways through the skull for nerves and blood vessels for what must have been a sensitive snout,covered with whiskers.

And bizarrely there is one very large hole on the top of its snout for which the scientists say there is simply no parallel in any known mammal, living or extinct.

Its teeth are also unlikely anything ever seen before in a mammal, and it had more vertebrae in its back than any other mammal from the same period.

The researchers believe that it would have evolved into such a strange creature thanks to how isolated Madagascar was from any other land, due to plate tectonics.

Separated from mainland populations, animals on the island had more than 20 million years to develop "many ludicrous features" according to Professor Krause.

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2020-04-30 10:07:29Z
52780755501280

Asteroid protection: Globe must 'prepare' for impacts to avoid deadly disaster says expert - Express.co.uk

NASA announced that the 1998 OR2 asteroid would be within a close distance of Earth on April 29. The asteroid is classified as a near-Earth object and is one of many space rocks hurling around in our solar system. While the space agency has explained the asteroid is not expected to impact the planet, Times columnist Matthew Parris noted there were similarities between asteroid and pandemic preparedness.

While on Sky News, Mr Parris explained that if a large asteroid was set to hit the Earth, questions would then be asked why we weren't prepared.

He likened this to how countries have dealt with the coronavirus pandemic.

Mr Paris argued the globe had to find a perfect balance of adequate preparation for disastrous events and an understanding of their probability.

Mr Parris said: "Not a very near miss, the asteroid is coming within a few million miles of us.

DON'T MISS: NASA Asteroid OR2: Slight change' in orbit make asteroid 'a hazard'

"If a big asteroid did hit us, there would be columns saying how foolish we all were.

"These things can happen, it has happened and we should prepare for it."

Mr Parris also discussed the issue of investing everything into preventative measures against an unknown threat.

He continued: "The fact is once something has happened, one becomes acutely aware of the possibility that it might have happened in the past.

He said: "I think the point is that we need to rebalance this balance.

"These epidemics can really happen, this one has happened and we need to learn the lessons."

At its closest, NASA said Asteroid OR2 would come within 3.9 million miles (6.29 million km) of our planet.

Asteroids that make close approaches to Earth of less than 0.05 astronomical units (au) are tracked by NASA's Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) and can be viewed on their website.

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2020-04-30 09:40:00Z
52780754344294

Rabu, 29 April 2020

NASA's Mars Helicopter receives its name from 17-year-old Alabama student - The Jerusalem Post

NASA's Mars Helicopter has officially been given a name: Ingenuity, thanks to Alabama High School student Vaneeza Rupani, 17, according to NASA.The Tuscaloosa County student recommended the name, and her "motivation" behind choosing the name through the NASA "Name the Rover" essay contest. NASA states that the helicopter, manufactured by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, will be the first aircraft to "attempt powered flight on another planet," and is set to arrive on our solar system's red planet February 21, 2021."The ingenuity and brilliance of people working hard to overcome the challenges of interplanetary travel are what allow us all to experience the wonders of space exploration," Rupani said in her essay. "Ingenuity is what allows people to accomplish amazing things, and it allows us to expand our horizons to the edges of the universe." Rupani's essay was 1 of 28,000 that were submitted to NASA by kindergarten to twelfth grade students stemming from each of the fifty United States. The rover that will accompany the helicopter was named by seventh-grade student Alexander Mathers, which he dubbed: Perseverance."Ingenuity encapsulates the values that our helicopter tech demo will showcase for everyone when it takes off next year as the first aircraft on another planet’s surface," said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, who chose the name of the helicopter from the list of 28,000 essays. "It took a lot of hard and ingenious work to get the helicopter ready and then placed on the rover, and there’s a lot more going to be required. I was happy we had another great name from the naming contest finalists from which I was able to select something so representative of this exciting part of our next mission to Mars," he added.The news of the official naming by one of Alabama's own made it all the way up to one of the highest-sitting legislators in the state."I am proud that NASA’s Mars Helicopter will be named by Vaneeza Rupani of Northport, Alabama," said Alabama Senator Richard Shelby, according to NASA. "This is a unique privilege. Ms. Rupani’s essay on why she chose the name 'Ingenuity' highlights her creativity, originality, and intelligence. Her grasp on the importance of exploration is extraordinary, and I am confident that she has a bright future ahead. Congratulations to Ms. Rupani on being selected for this prestigious honor."As per NASA, Ingenuity will accompany Perseverance to Mars, with the helicopter strapped to the rover's belly "encapsulated in a protective cover to shield it from debris during entry, descent and landing" - which will launch near Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in July or August and arrive at the red planet six to seven months later.When NASA deems the mission a go, the four-pound solar-powered aircraft will leave its protected capsule on the rover to be tested against Mars' cold dark nights. If it survives the cold, the team intends to proceed onto flight testing the helicopter to prove if powered flight can take place on Mars, which will compile vital information for NASA engineers for their future missions to Mars. The aircraft has already tested in a chamber meant to simulate the conditions on Mars at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California - they are currently undergoing "final assembly and checkout" at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida."In the early days of this project, the feasibility of flying at Mars was questioned," said MiMi Aung, Mars Helicopter project manager at JPL, according to NASA. "But today we have a helicopter down at the launch site, installed on the rover and waiting to board the rocket which will carry us to the Red Planet. Like Vaneeza said in her essay, ingenuity and hard work led us to see beyond what was logical to what was possible. Now Ingenuity will have its chance to fly at Mars."As per the release, the Perseverance rover mission is part of a larger plan, which includes missions to the Moon. NASA intends to send the first woman and next man to the Moon by 2024, to hopefully establish a human presence there by 2028 - eventually sending astronauts to Mars, piggybacking off of the information gathered through the upcoming Moon missions.

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2020-04-30 06:20:00Z
52780755407609

Alabama High School Student Names NASA's Mars Helicopter - Space Ref

Destined to become the first aircraft to attempt powered flight on another planet, NASA's Mars Helicopter officially has received a new name: Ingenuity.

Vaneeza Rupani, a junior at Tuscaloosa County High School in Northport, Alabama, came up with the name and the motivation behind it during NASA's "Name the Rover" essay contest.

Q&A with the student who named Ingenuity

"The ingenuity and brilliance of people working hard to overcome the challenges of interplanetary travel are what allow us all to experience the wonders of space exploration," Rupani wrote in her contest submission. "Ingenuity is what allows people to accomplish amazing things, and it allows us to expand our horizons to the edges of the universe."

Rupani's was among 28,000 essays submitted to NASA by K-12 students from every U.S. state and territory recommending names for the the next Mars rover. In March, the agency announced that seventh-grader Alexander Mather's essay earned him the honor of naming the rover Perseverance. But with so many good essays, it seemed fitting to also choose a name for the helicopter that will accompany the rover to Mars. So NASA officials went back to the submitted essays to choose a name for the helicopter. Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate, made the choice for the rover's name, and NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine chose the name for the helicopter.

"Ingenuity encapsulates the values that our helicopter tech demo will showcase for everyone when it takes off next year as the first aircraft on another planet's surface," said Bridenstine. "It took a lot of hard and ingenious work to get the helicopter ready and then placed on the rover, and there's a lot more going to be required. I was happy we had another great name from the naming contest finalists from which I was able to select something so representative of this exciting part of our next mission to Mars."

"I am proud that NASA's Mars Helicopter will be named by Vaneeza Rupani of Northport, Alabama," said Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama. "This is a unique privilege. Ms. Rupani's essay on why she chose the name 'Ingenuity' highlights her creativity, originality, and intelligence. Her grasp on the importance of exploration is extraordinary, and I am confident that she has a bright future ahead. Congratulations to Ms. Rupani on being selected for this prestigious honor."

High Risk, High Reward

As a technology demonstration, Ingenuity is a high-risk, high-reward experiment. The helicopter will ride to Mars attached to the belly of the Perseverance rover, which is preparing for launch in July or August. For several months following the rover's landing, Ingenuity will remain encapsulated in a protective cover to shield it from debris during entry, descent and landing. When the timing in the rover mission is right, Ingenuity will be deployed to stand and operate on its own on the surface of the Red Planet. If the 4-pound (2-kilogram), solar-powered craft -- a combination of specially designed components and off-the-shelf parts -- survives the cold Martian nights during its pre-flight checkout, the team will proceed with testing.

If successful during its 30-Martian-day (31-Earth-day) experimental flight test window, the small craft will prove that powered flight can be achieved at Mars, enabling future Mars missions to better utilize second-generation helicopters to add an aerial dimension to their explorations.

The helicopter successfully completed its flight-testing program using the 25-foot space simulation chamber at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. The next flight attempt will be in the actual environment of Mars. And if Ingenuity encounters difficulties, engineers will apply the lessons learned to future technology demonstrations. The science-gathering portion of the Mars 2020 mission will not be impacted.

"In the early days of this project, the feasibility of flying at Mars was questioned," said MiMi Aung, Mars Helicopter project manager at JPL. "But today we have a helicopter down at the launch site, installed on the rover and waiting to board the rocket which will carry us to the Red Planet. Like Vaneeza said in her essay, ingenuity and hard work led us to see beyond what was logical to what was possible. Now Ingenuity will have its chance to fly at Mars."

Along with investigating difficult-to-reach targets, such as cliffs, caves and deep craters, future aircraft could carry small science instruments or act as scouts for human and robotic explorers on Mars or other celestial bodies.

NASA's Perseverance rover and Ingenuity helicopter are currently undergoing final assembly and checkout at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. They will launch on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Space Launch Complex 41 at nearby Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in July and land at Mars' Jezero Crater on Feb. 18, 2021.

Members of the public and media interested in learning more about the Ingenuity helicopter can ask questions on social media using the hashtag #AskNASA. JPL will share some of these questions with Aung, the helicopter project manager, and release a video at 1 p.m. PDT (4 p.m. EDT) today, April 29, with a live moderated chat. The video will premiere at: https://www.youtube.com/NASAJPL/live

JPL is building and will manage operations of Perseverance and Ingenuity for the agency. NASA's Launch Services Program, based at Kennedy, is responsible for launch management. Lockheed Martin Space in Boulder, Colorado, provided the Mars Helicopter Delivery System. Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages JPL for NASA.

The "Name the Rover" contest partnership was part of a Space Act Agreement in educational and public outreach efforts between NASA, Battelle of Columbus, Ohio, and Future Engineers of Burbank, California. Amazon Web Services is an additional prize provider for the contest.

The Mars 2020 Perseverance rover mission is part of a larger program that includes missions to the Moon as a way to prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet. Through its Artemis program, NASA intends to land the first woman and the next man on the lunar surface in 2024 and establish a sustained human presence on and around the Moon by 2028, using it as a stepping stone to sending astronauts to Mars.

For more information about Ingenuity, go to: https://mars.nasa.gov/technology/helicopter

Please follow SpaceRef on Twitter and Like us on Facebook.

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2020-04-30 04:32:00Z
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A massive asteroid (and some smaller ones) just passed close to Earth - CNET

asteroid20161103-16-3 — Artist's impression of one big space rock.
NASA/JPL-Caltech

An asteroid the size of a mountain cruised through our cosmic neighborhood Wednesday and humanity survived, because even a close pass in space terms isn't actually that close.

In fact, asteroid 1998 OR2 was always no closer than 3.9 million miles (6.3 million kilometers), putting it over 16 times farther away than the moon.

Still, 1998 OR2 was a rare monster of a space rock, at 1.5 miles (2 kilometers) wide. It was large enough to allow a number of astronomers to catch it as it took a little jaunt through our domain.

Asteroid 1998 OR2 (the central dot) as it traversed the constellation Hydra five days before its closest approach to Earth. It was about 4.4 million miles (7.08 million kilometers) away from Earth at the time.

Virtual Telescope Project

The object made its close approach at 2:55 a.m. Pacific and safely whizzed back out to deeper space. This is the first close approach by such a large asteroid since 2017.

Interestingly, this week in space was also punctuated by a handful of far smaller asteroids coming much closer to our planet. According to NASA's database, at least five asteroids have come closer to our planet than the moon over the last seven days.

None of these asteroids were much bigger than a house, but one -- asteroid 2020HS7 -- did come nearly as close as geosynchronous orbit, where many of our larger satellites hang out.

We get such close visitors multiple times a year, so it's really nothing to worry about, but always worth keeping an eye (and lots of telescopes) on the sky.

Now playing: Watch this: How NASA's DART could save the planet from a killer asteroid

3:17

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2020-04-30 01:00:35Z
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'RIVER MONSTER': Huge Spinosaurus thrived in the waters of Africa - CANOE

WASHINGTON — The huge African predator Spinosaurus spent much of its life in the water, propelled by a paddle-like tail while hunting large fish — a “river monster,” according to scientists, that showed that some dinosaurs invaded the aquatic realm.

Scientists on Wednesday announced the discovery of fossil bones from the tail of Spinosaurus in southeastern Morocco that provided a deeper understanding of the appearance, lifestyle and capabilities of the longest meat-eating dinosaur on record.

“Spinosaurus had a highly specialized tail — a propulsive structure that would have allowed this river monster to actively pursue prey in the water column,” said University of Detroit Mercy paleontologist and anatomist Nizar Ibrahim, lead author of the study published in the journal Nature.

Spinosaurus, which lived 95 million years ago during the Cretaceous Period, was a highly unusual dinosaur, and not just because of its staggering dimensions — up to 50 feet (15 metres) long and seven tons.

A reconstruction of the tail skeleton of Spinosaurus (missing bones shown in white) at top, cross sections through the tail showing changes in the vertebrae, tail volume, and arrangement of major muscles at centre and the new look of Spinosaurus (black, soft parts/body outline; red, bones collected in 2008 by a local fossil collector; green, bones from recent scientific excavations; yellow, bone fragments collected in the debris around the main excavation area) at bottom are seen in an illustration provided April 29, 2020. Marco Auditore, Gabriele Bindellini / Handout via REUTERS

The anatomy of Spinosaurus had remained mysterious for decades after crucial fossils were destroyed during the Second World War until the 2008 discovery of the Morocco skeleton, with the additional tail bones dug up since 2015.

Its tail was flexible with a large surface area thanks to a series of tall neural spines — different from the stiff and tapering tails of other carnivorous dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurus rex — indicating Spinosaurus and its close relatives engaged in tail-propelled locomotion unlike any other dinosaurs.

Laboratory experiments in which a plastic model of the Spinosaurus tail was attached to a robotic swimming device showed that the tail could move laterally to create thrust and power the animal through water like a crocodile, said Harvard University fish biologist and biomechanist George Lauder, a study co-author.

A Spinosaurus, with long narrow jaws with conical teeth and a unique tail for aquatic locomotion, is seen in an illustration provided April 29, 2020. Davide Bonadonna / Handout via REUTERS

This indicates Spinosaurus terrorized rivers and river banks as a semi-aquatic animal, not merely wading into the water waiting for fish to swim by. It may have eaten huge fish, including sharks.

“This discovery overturns decades-old ideas that non-bird dinosaurs were restricted to terrestrial environments,” said Harvard University vertebrate paleontologist and biomechanist Stephanie Pierce, a study co-author. “So, yes, we believe that this discovery does indeed revolutionize our understanding of dinosaur biology.”

Spinosaurus still was able to move on land and lay eggs there, perhaps walking on four legs rather than two like other meat-eating dinosaurs.

“But it had so many adaptations to an aquatic existence — nostrils high on the skull and further back from the tip, flat bottomed-toe bones and claws, dense and thickened bone for buoyancy control, and this newly discovered tail form — that it would have been at least as aquatic as Nile Crocodiles,” University of Portsmouth paleontologist and study co-author David Martill said.

“It just might topple T. rex,” Pierce said, “as the most famous and exciting meat-eating dinosaur.”

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2020-04-29 22:24:00Z
52780755501263

'River monster': Huge African dinosaur Spinosaurus thrived in the water - National Post

WASHINGTON — The huge African predator Spinosaurus spent much of its life in the water, propelled by a paddle-like tail while hunting large fish – a “river monster,” according to scientists, that showed that some dinosaurs invaded the aquatic realm.

“Spinosaurus had a highly specialized tail – a propulsive structure that would have allowed this river monster to actively pursue prey in the water column,” said University of Detroit Mercy paleontologist and anatomist Nizar Ibrahim, lead author of the study published in the journal Nature.

Spinosaurus, which lived 95 million years ago during the Cretaceous Period, was a highly unusual dinosaur, and not just because of its staggering dimensions – up to 50 feet (15 meters) long and seven tons.

The anatomy of Spinosaurus had remained mysterious for decades after crucial fossils were destroyed during World War Two until the 2008 discovery of the Morocco skeleton, with the additional tail bones dug up since 2015.

Its tail was flexible with a large surface area thanks to a series of tall neural spines – different from the stiff and tapering tails of other carnivorous dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurus rex – indicating Spinosaurus and its close relatives engaged in tail-propelled locomotion unlike any other dinosaurs.

This indicates Spinosaurus terrorized rivers and river banks as a semi-aquatic animal, not merely wading into the water waiting for fish to swim by. It may have eaten huge fish, including sharks.

Spinosaurus still was able to move on land and lay eggs there, perhaps walking on four legs rather than two like other meat-eating dinosaurs.

“But it had so many adaptations to an aquatic existence – nostrils high on the skull and further back from the tip, flat bottomed-toe bones and claws, dense and thickened bone for buoyancy control, and this newly discovered tail form – that it would have been at least as aquatic as Nile Crocodiles,” University of Portsmouth paleontologist and study co-author David Martill said.

“It just might topple T. rex,” Pierce said, “as the most famous and exciting meat-eating dinosaur.” (Reporting by Will Dunham; Editing by Sandra Maler)

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2020-04-29 20:38:00Z
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NASA's Mars Helicopter Q&A with Project Manager MiMi Aung - NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

[unable to retrieve full-text content]

NASA's Mars Helicopter Q&A with Project Manager MiMi Aung NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Meet Ingenuity: Alabama teen names NASA's pioneering Mars Helicopter Space.com
NASA’s Mars Helicopter gets its official name – and it’s perfect SlashGear
NASA's Mars Helicopter, Ingenuity (UHD Trailer) NASA 360
NASA's daring Mars helicopter gets a fitting name CNET
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2020-04-29 20:00:10Z
52780755407609

NASA's Mars Helicopter Q&A with Project Manager MiMi Aung - NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

[unable to retrieve full-text content]

NASA's Mars Helicopter Q&A with Project Manager MiMi Aung NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Meet Ingenuity: Alabama teen names NASA's pioneering Mars Helicopter Space.com
NASA's daring Mars helicopter gets a fitting name CNET
NASA's Mars Helicopter, Ingenuity (UHD Trailer) NASA 360
NASA’s Mars Helicopter gets its official name – and it’s perfect SlashGear
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2020-04-29 19:20:18Z
52780755407609

'CRAZY BEAST': Madagascar's prehistoric critter sheds light on mammalian evolution - CANOE

WASHINGTON — A prehistoric opossum-sized critter dubbed the “crazy beast” that inhabited Madagascar at the end of the age of dinosaurs is providing scientists insight into early mammalian evolution even as they scratch their heads over its bewildering anatomy.

Researchers on Wednesday described an exquisitely preserved fossil of the plant-eating mammal named Adalatherium hui, which lived 66 million years ago during the Cretaceous Period and superficially resembled a badger with its long torso and stubby tail.

Scientists had known precious little about southern hemisphere mammals during the Mesozoic Era, the age of dinosaurs, with the fossil record from the northern hemisphere much more extensive.

Adalatherium offers by far the most complete skeleton of a Mesozoic mammal from Gondwana, which was Earth’s southern supercontinent encompassing Africa, South America, India, Australia and Antarctica. It also is the fullest fossil representing an enigmatic mammal group called gondwanatherians that thrived for tens of millions of years but died out about 45 million years ago leaving no living relatives.

Its name means “crazy beast,” with good reason.

Life-like reconstruction of the opossum-sized mammal Adalatherium hui that lived 66 million years ago alongside dinosaurs on the island of Madagascar during the Cretaceous Period. Andrey Atuchin / Denver Museum of Nature & Science / Handout via Reuters

“Its many uniquely bizarre features defied explanation in terms of relationships to other mammals. In this sense, it was a ‘crazy beast,’” said Denver Museum of Nature and Science paleontologist David Krause, lead author of the study published in the journal Nature.

“We suspect some of this bizarreness might be due to evolution in isolation on an island,” added New York Institute of Technology paleontologist and study co-author Simone Hoffmann.

Life on islands develops differently than on the mainland, isolated with idiosyncratic food sources, competitors and predators. Madagascar at the time boasted other oddballs including a huge 16-inch (40-cm) frog named Beelzebufo that may have eaten baby dinosaurs and a pug-nosed plant-eating crocodile named Simosuchus.

Mammals first appeared during the Triassic Period more than 200 million years ago and remained bit players until an asteroid struck Earth 66 million years ago, eradicating the dinosaurs and paving the way for mammals to dominate.

The fossil represented an individual not fully grown, at about 20 inches (52 cm) long and 6.8 pounds (3.1 kg). Most Mesozoic mammals were mouse-sized, about 100 times smaller than Adalatherium.

“Adalatherium was a giant in its time,” Krause said.

Adalatherium would have moved differently from today’s mammals, with it back legs in a more sprawling posture – extending away from the body like reptiles – while its front legs where placed underneath the body like most other mammals. When Adalatherium walked, its spine would have bent side to side in a reptile-like manner.

Its body was elongated with more back vertebrae than any other Mesozoic mammal. Its strong back and hind limb muscles and its long claws on its back feet indicated Adalatherium was an adept digger that possibly excavated burrows.

Its rodent-like front teeth may have helped it gnaw on roots or other plant material while its molars were unlike any other mammal. Its cranium had more facial holes than any other mammal, serving as passageways for nerves and blood vessels supplying a sensitive whisker-covered snout.

Madagascar was a dangerous place. Adalatherium may have been hunted by meat-eating dinosaurs, large crocodiles and a huge constrictor snake.

“Figuring out how Adalatherium might have moved or eaten with basically no modern analog is one of the most intriguing parts of this project,” Hoffmann said.

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2020-04-29 18:07:00Z
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Elon Musk plans to dim the Starlink satellites to reduce light pollution in the night sky - DIYphotography

SpaceX’s Starlink satellites have been controversial since before the first round of them were launched. Having recently launched more, which is going to keep happening for a while, the debates have sparked up again. There are currently 422 of the anticipated 12,000 (with 30,000 more applied for) Starlink satellites floating around our planet, and they’re already upsetting people.

The two main reasons (if we remove all the tinfoil hat conspiracies) are that they will ruin our view of the night sky, which really sucks for astrophotography, and that it will make certain scientific studies all but impossible due to their overpowering brightness relative to the dim lights littered throughout the universe. Elon Musk has now said, though, they’re working on making them dimmer.

Essentially, the light we see from the satellites is sunlight reflecting off its huge solar panels. Even though it might be night time for us down here on earth, for the satellites orbiting the earth it’s not unless the earth is directly in a path between it and the sun – which isn’t going to be happening for most of them. It’s why we can see much of the moon on most nights, too.

Around the time of the latest launch, Musk made a tweet announcing some of the ways SpaceX plans to tackle the brightness of the Starlink satellites in the night sky.

Thanks! We are taking some key steps to reduce satellite brightness btw. Should be much less noticeable during orbit raise by changing solar panel angle & all sats get sunshades starting with launch 9.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 22, 2020

Musk says that they’ll be changing the solar panel angle to help counter the reflection during certain times of the day, and that they’ll be getting sunshades starting with the ninth launch – the most recent launch on April 22nd was the seventh.

By all accounts, the light reflected off the satellites isn’t as bright as was initially expected, although it’s still quite shockingly bright compared to the other lights in our night sky. Lights that astrophotographers want to capture and scientists want to study.

Starlink’s goal is to provide superfast broadband across the entire planet, with services planned to begin this summer. So far, 420 of the satellites have been launched of a minimum of 12,000 in total. But that figure may eventually exceed 30,000 if the current plans are approved. For reference, humankind has sent around just 9,400 objects into space in all of history so far.

[via Engadget]

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2020-04-29 17:11:51Z
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Kamis, 30 April 2020

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Correction:

Rabu, 29 April 2020