176212891
submission
JoeRobe writes:
Scientists associated with the Kilometer Cube Neutrino Telescope, or KM3NeT, have reported detection of an ultra-high energy neutrino deep in the Mediterranean sea. The neutrino reportedly had an energy of 120 million billion electron volts (1.2x10^17 eV, or 120 PeV). This is similar to the energy of ping-pong ball travelling ~5 m/s, but all that energy was packed into a single subatomic particle. According to the New York Times, "Here, squeezed into one of the tiniest flecks of matter in our universe, that energy amounted to tens of thousands of times more than what can be achieved by the world’s premier particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider at CERN."
According to the authors of the Nature paper, the direction of the neutrino "is compatible with the extension of the galactic interstellar medium", but they did not find any catalogued source that would produce such a high energy neutrino, within the Milky Way or from about 40 other galaxies that could be candidates.
Phys.org describes the impressive scale of the KM3NeT detector array:
"It is located at 3,450 m depth, about 80 km from the coast of Portopalo di Capo Passero, Sicily. Its 700 m high detection units (DUs) are anchored to the seabed and positioned about 100 m apart.
Every DU is equipped with 18 Digital Optical Modules (DOM) each containing 31 photomultipliers (PMTs). In its final configuration, ARCA will comprise 230 DUs. The data collected are transmitted via a submarine cable to the shore station at the INFN Laboratori Nazionali del Sud."
171306046
submission
JoeRobe writes:
After 63 days of silence Ingenuity helicopter on Mars has communicated with the Perseverance rover. This blackout was anticipated, as the helicopter had landed ahead of the rover in a position that blocked communication between them. Once the rover maneuvered into a better position it quickly re-established comms. The duo will continue exploring together, with the potential for more blackouts in the rugged Jezero crater.
132093876
submission
JoeRobe writes:
Space.com and other outlets are reporting on new pictures of Wolf 359 and Proxima Centauri sent back from New Horizons. The images show clear parallax between the view from Earth and from the spacecraft 6.9 billion km away. In effect, New Horizons is looking up at a visually different star field than we are.
This is not the first time stellar parallax has been observed (Hipparcos did this regularly), but thanks to the enormous distance between New Horizons and Earth it is the first time the parallax can be clearly seen with the naked eye. NASA has even created stereoscopic pairs to get a 3D view.
125665298
submission
JoeRobe writes:
Multiple news agencies are reporting that "Mad" Mike Hughes, daredevil and flat-earthier, died in a rocket launch in a California desert. From the BBC: "With the help of his partner Waldo Stakes, Hughes was trying to reach an altitude of 5,000ft (1,525m) while riding his steam-powered rocket, according to Space.com.
In the video of the launch, a parachute can be seen trailing behind the rocket, apparently deployed too early, seconds after take-off."
95357015
submission
JoeRobe writes:
A few weeks ago an interstellar asteroid, now named "Oumuamua", was discovered passing through our solar system. Being the first interstellar asteroid to ever be observed, a flurry of observations soon followed. This week, an accelerated article in Nature reveals that Oumuamua is more bizarre than originally though: it is elongated, with a 10:1 aspect ratio, and rapidly rotating. This conclusion is based upon comparisons of its time-dependent light curve to those from 20,000 known asteroids.
30102247
submission
JoeRobe writes:
According to spaceweather.com, a major X5 solar flare is on it's way to deliver a glancing blow to the Earth's magnetic field. This is the second x-class flare to be released by the same sunspot in the past few days, the first being an X1. In both cases, the sunspot (spot 1429) was not directly facing Earth, but it is still active, and poses a threat for a large, Earth-directed flare in the next few days.
29069745
submission
JoeRobe writes:
For the first time in 30 years, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved licenses to build two new nuclear reactors in Georgia. These are the first licenses to be issued since the Three Mile Island incident in 1979. The pair of facilities will cost $14 billion and produce 2.2 GW of power (able to power ~1 million homes). They will be Westinghouse AP1000 designs, which are the newest reactors approved by the NRC. These models passively cool their fuel rods using condensation and gravity, rather than electricity, preventing the possibility of another Fukushima Daiichi-type meltdown due to loss of power to cooling water pumps.
26502742
submission
JoeRobe writes:
Researchers at Harvard have developed a pneumatically-controlled rubber robot that combines undulation and quadrupedal "crawling", allowing it to maintain a low profile while moving. In a paper in published in PNAS, they describe it as "A soft robot, composed exclusively of soft materials (elastomeric polymers), which is inspired by animals (e.g., squid, starfish, worms) that do not have hard internal skeletons." The robot is solely powered by relatively low pressures (10 psi), and controlled by 5 pneumatic actuators. The research was funded by DARPA.
