Month: February 2024

What is Dark Energy? Inside our accelerating, expanding Universe

NeRD

11 min read What is Dark Energy? Inside our accelerating, expanding Universe Some 13.8 billion years ago, the universe began with a rapid expansion we call the big bang. After this initial expansion, which lasted a fraction of a second, gravity started to slow the universe down. But the cosmos wouldn’t stay this way. Nine billion years after the universe began, its expansion started to speed up, driven by an unknown force that scientists have named dark energy. But what exactly is dark energy? The short answer is: We don’t…

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What’s Made in a Thunderstorm and Faster Than Lightning? Gamma Rays!

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3 min read What’s Made in a Thunderstorm and Faster Than Lightning? Gamma Rays! A flash of lightning. A roll of thunder. These are normal stormy sights and sounds. But sometimes, up above the clouds, stranger things happen. Our Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has spotted bursts of gamma rays – some of the highest-energy forms of light in the universe – coming from thunderstorms. Gamma rays are usually found coming from objects with crazy extreme physics like neutron stars and black holes. So why is Fermi seeing them come from thunderstorms? About a thousand times a…

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NASA Ingenuity Mars helicopter, broken and alone, spotted by Perseverance rover on Martian dune (photo, video)

NeRD

NASA’s Perseverance Rover took a photo of its broken companion, the Ingenuity helicopter, as it sat alone on a dune. In this most recent photo of Ingenuity, the dual-rotor ‘copter can be seen motionless on a sandy dune in the background, as a barren, rocky Mars landscape fills the foreground.  The photo was taken on Feb. 4, 2024, at 1:05 p.m. local mean solar time, a little over two weeks since it suffered its mission-ending damage. Related: NASA to ‘wiggle’ broken Ingenuity Mars helicopter’s blades to analyze damage NASA and…

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Earth isn’t the only planet with seasons, but they can look wildly different on other worlds

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Spring, summer, fall and winter – the seasons on Earth change every few months, around the same time every year. It’s easy to take this cycle for granted here on Earth, but not every planet has a regular change in seasons. So why does Earth have regular seasons when other planets don’t? I’m an astrophysicist who studies the movement of planets and the causes of seasons. Throughout my research, I’ve found that Earth’s regular pattern of seasons is unique. The rotational axis that Earth spins on, along the North and South poles, isn’t…

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NASA’s Laser Navigation Tech Enables Commercial Lunar Exploration

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5 Min Read NASA’s Laser Navigation Tech Enables Commercial Lunar Exploration Navigation Doppler Lidar is a guidance system that uses laser pulses to precisely measure velocity and distance. NASA will demonstrate NDL’s capabilities in the lunar environment during the IM-1 mission. Credits: NASA / David C. Bowman Later this month, NASA’s commercial lunar delivery services provider Intuitive Machines will launch its Nova-C lunar lander carrying several NASA science and technology payloads, including the Navigation Doppler Lidar (NDL). This innovative guidance system, developed by NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia,…

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‘Halo’ Season 2 charges back onto Paramount Plus this week with plenty to prove

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Few TV shows have incited the ire of loyal fanbases more than Paramount+’s live-action, non-canon adaptation of Bungie and 343 Industries’ revered “Halo” gaming franchise, when their helmet-less Master Chief first appeared in March 2022 dragging major revisions to the property’s core mythology with him. Using the overarching narrative of “Halo’s” dense sci-fi worldbuilding as a starting point and launching into an alternate timeline with revised characters and story elements that enflamed hardcore gamers out of their Mjolnir power armor, the show’s executive producers went their own way with a…

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Major ‘magnetic anomaly’ discovered deep below New Zealand’s Lake Rotorua

NeRD

New maps have revealed a hidden hydrothermal system beneath a legendary lake in New Zealand, which serves as the setting for a famous Māori love story.  Lake Rotorua sits at the heart of a massive ancient crater of a dormant volcano on New Zealand’s North Island. The lake has a storied history: it is where the daughter of an influential chief is said to have overcome forbidden love by swimming across the lake to be with a young warrior.  The Rotorua area is also well known for hydrothermal activity, with…

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SLIM lander’s precise ‘moon sniper’ tech will lend itself to future lunar missions

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This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Space.com’s Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. Mariel Borowitz is an Associate Professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at the Georgia Institute of Technology and director of the Nunn School Program on International Affairs, Science, and Technology. Japan landed its Smart Lander for Investigating the Moon, or SLIM, craft on the surface of the moon on Jan. 20, 2024. Despite a power issue with the lander, the event holds both political and technical importance. It’s Japan’s first lunar…

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SpaceX to launch NASA’s PACE ocean-monitoring satellite this week

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A NASA satellite is about to take flight to map out the ocean’s many hues. NASA’s PACE spacecraft, which will help scientists gauge the health of oceans around the world, is set to launch atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Tuesday (Feb. 6) at 1:33 a.m. EST (0633 GMT). You can watch the liftoff live here at Space.com, courtesy of NASA, or directly via the space agency. Coverage will begin at 12:45 a.m. EST (0545 GMT). Related: Earth is getting hotter at…

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