[ad_1] NASA’s quest to explore the Solar System’s many moons might include one of the most distant. Researchers have proposed a NASA mission that would explore Neptune’s eccentric moon Triton. Nicknamed Trident for its “three-pronged” goals, the mission would probe the magnetic field to determine the presence of an ocean, map the entirety of the […]
Category: Science
Almost a fifth of Earth’s ocean floor has been mapped
[ad_1] Us humans know more about the surface of the Moon than we do Earth’s oceans, but there’s progress on closing that gap. The Seabed 3030 Project reports (via BBC News) that scientists have mapped 19 percent of ocean floors to contemporary standards, or a huge leap over the six percent from Seabed’s launch in […]
Scientists propose tethering asteroids to prevent Earth impacts
[ad_1] Many proposed anti-asteroid solutions involve knocking them off-course, which carries its own problems — what if you create a fragment that hits Earth regardless? Researchers might have a safer solution. They’ve proposed a system (spotted by Parabolic Arc) that would tether a threatening asteroid to a smaller rock, throwing off the larger body’s center […]
AI recreates the painting techniques of famous artists
[ad_1] You can’t go back in time to see how Monet or Van Gogh made their masterpieces, but AI might give you the next best thing. MIT CSAIL researchers have created a machine learning system, Timecraft, that can deduce how a painting was produced and recreate the likely brushstrokes, even for famous artists. The design […]
A robot sloth will (very slowly) survey endangered species
[ad_1] The robot will start by watching over the Atlanta Botanical Garden for several months, hanging from a lone 100-foot cable. In the long run, though, researchers hope to have SlothBot covering wide areas with multiple cables. It could be vital for tracking endangered species and changes to their environments, such as orchid pollination by […]
Astronomers find the first known regular pattern of fast radio bursts
[ad_1] Just what’s causing the bursts isn’t certain. The scientsists know that it’s coming from a “star-churning” area on the outskirts of a giant spiral galaxy, but not what it is. Neutron stars are believed to be a frequent source, but there are a number of possible explanations. They may be coming from a single […]
Scientists locate the first fast radio burst in the Milky Way
[ad_1] The discovery could shed much more light on the nature of the bursts. This burst’s proximity to Earth made it possible to detect bursts in other wavelengths, like X-rays, that weren’t practical with more distant examples. It might be possible to determine the cause, whether it’s the product of the magnetic fields themselves or […]
Scientists confirm the basis of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity
[ad_1] If you simultaneously drop a feather and a bowling ball in a vacuum, they’ll hit the ground at the same time. In other words, despite their mass, they’re affected by a gravitational field in exactly the same way. The same goes for massive objects like stars, according to Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, and astrophysicists […]
New 3D printing technique could make shapeshifting robots more practical
[ad_1] It just got a little easier to create soft robots that adapt to the world around them. Rice University researchers have developed a 3D printing technique (they call it “4D”) for material that automatically changes to an alternate shape when subjected to an electric current, changes in temperature or simple stress. The team produced […]
Scientists find a likely Earth-like planet orbiting a Sun-like star
[ad_1] Astronomers have found Earth-like planets before, but usually around red dwarf stars. That’s a rather large problem when their flares and radiation could make orbiting planets uninhabitable. Thankfully, there may be a much more viable candidate in the pipeline. Researchers have found (via MIT Technology Review) a likely exoplanet, KOI-456.04, that’s less than twice […]