The Zen of Technology & Scientific Discovery! (& Robots)

[Jundo]

More on the Webb Telescope ... one of humankind's greatest achievements in history, by the way ... if it all works ...

'29 days on the edge:' What's next for NASA's newly launched James Webb Space Telescope

"The Webb observatory has 50 major deployments … and 178 release mechanisms to deploy those 50 parts," Webb Mission Systems Engineer Mike Menzel, of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, said in a deployment-explaining video called "29 Days on the Edge" that the agency posted in October.

"Every single one of them must work," Menzel said. "Unfolding Webb is hands-down the most complicated spacecraft activity we’ve ever done."

Webb has notched a few major milestones already. About half an hour after liftoff, for example, it deployed its solar panels and started soaking up energy from the sun. And last night, the big telescope performed a crucial 65-minute engine burn that put it on course for L2.

The following is a brief rundown of the big steps yet to come.

...

One day after launch, Webb will rotate its high-gain antenna toward Earth to further facilitate communications with its handlers. A day after that, the spacecraft will perform another engine burn to refine its trajectory toward L2. And three days after launch, the pallet holding Webb's huge sunshield — a five-layer structure designed to keep the infrared telescope and its instruments cool — will be lowered.

Each of the shield's five sheets is about the size of a tennis court when fully extended, far too wide to fit inside the payload fairing of any currently operational rocket. So the sunshield launched in a compact configuration and must be unfurled.

This is an incredibly complex process. The sunshield structure has 140 release mechanisms, 70 hinge assemblies, 400 pulleys, 90 cables and eight deployment motors, all of which have to work properly for the five layers to deploy as planned, NASA officials said in the video.

... more here:

https://www.livescience.com/nasa-jam...ope-next-steps

Gassho, J

STLah

[Tomás ESP]

Incredible stuff, even though I do not understand half of what I read, the news regarding this telescope is very exciting! Thanks for sharing

Gassho, Tomás
Sat

[Seibu]

Such amazing technology! I am deeply grateful to all the people involved in the project and I'm looking forward to all the beauty in the universe it will capture.

Gassho
Seibu
Sattoday/lah

[Jundo]

So far, all systems go with Webb ...

Webb telescope successfully unfurls its tennis court-size sunshield in space

The James Webb Space Telescope, which launched on Christmas Day, successfully completed the deployment of its 70-foot (21-meter) sunshield on Tuesday. This critical milestone is one of several that must occur for the NASA observatory to function properly in space, and having achieved it was a big relief for the Webb team.
"Unfolding Webb's sunshield in space is an incredible milestone, crucial to the success of the mission," said Gregory L. Robinson, Webb's program director at NASA Headquarters, in a statement. "Thousands of parts had to work with precision for this marvel of engineering to fully unfurl. The team has accomplished an audacious feat with the complexity of this deployment -- one of the boldest undertakings yet for Webb."

The massive five-layer sunshield will protect Webb's giant mirror and instruments from the sun's heat. Both the mirror and instruments need to be kept at a very frigid negative 370 degrees Fahrenheit (negative 188 degrees Celsius) to be able to observe the universe as designed. Each of the five sheets is as thin as a human hair and is coated with reflective metal.


When Webb launched, the sunshield was folded up to fit inside the Ariane 5 rocket that carried the telescope into space. The eight-day process to unfold and tighten the protective shield began on December 28. This included unfolding the support structure for the shield over the course of multiple days before the tensioning, or tightening, of each layer could begin.
https://us.cnn.com/2022/01/04/world/...scn/index.html

Here is a time lapse film of when they tested the sunshield deployment on earth, very different conditions from in space, of course ...

https://youtu.be/PVAe9Ovca5Q

Gassho, J

STLah

[Hōkan]

Not many people really understand what the sun shield is for. From XKCD:

sunshield.png


Sat today.

[Jundo]

Not many people really understand what the sun shield is for. From XKCD:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]7343[/ATTACH]


Sat today.

[Jundo]

We are even in the air.

DNA can now be pulled from the very air we breathe. It could help track endangered animals

Scientists are now able to collect and analyze DNA pulled from thin air, and the groundbreaking new techniques used to do it could transform the way endangered animals and natural ecosystems are studied and protected.

Two groups of researchers working independently, one based in Denmark and the other in the UK and Canada, tested whether airborne DNA could be used to detect different animal species by collecting samples at Copenhagen Zoo in Denmark and Hamerton Zoo Park in the UK.

All living organisms, including humans, leach genetic material known as eDNA into the environment when they excrete waste, bleed, and shed skin or fur. In recent years, conservation scientists have sequenced waterborne eDNA to track certain species, such as the UK's great crested newt population, in aquatic environments.
However, monitoring airborne eDNA was more of a challenge because it's more diluted in air than it is in water.

...

"In just 40 samples, we detected 49 species spanning mammal, bird, amphibian, reptile and fish," Bohmann said. "In the Rainforest House (at the Copenhagen Zoo) we even detected the guppies in the pond, the two-toed sloth and the boa. When sampling air in just one outdoor site, we detected many of the animals with access to an outdoor enclosure in that part of the zoo, for example kea, ostrich and rhino."
https://us.cnn.com/2022/01/06/europe...scn/index.html

It reminds me of this old calculation ...

The story goes that in 44 BC in Rome, Julius Caesar was assassinated by a group of his own senators, crumpling to the floor with a final gasp. This last breath contained around 25 sextillion (that’s 25 followed by 21 zeroes) air molecules, which would have spread around the globe within a couple of years. A breath seems like such a small thing compared to the Earth’s atmosphere, but remarkably, if you do the math, you’ll find that roughly one molecule of Caesar’s air will appear in your next breath.

And it doesn’t stop there. In the same way, you might currently be inhaling Cleopatra’s perfume, German mustard gas and even particles exhaled by dinosaurs.

...

At standard room temperature and pressure, you’re breathing in roughly 25 sextillion molecules every time you take a breath. That’s 25 with 21 zeroes behind it. That’s a gargantuan number! If you took every human being alive today on the planet—all 7 billion of us—and imagined each one having 7 billion descendants, 7 billion times 7 billion, you’d still be 500 times short of that number. And you inhale that every time you take a breath.

When Caesar exhaled that last breath, all those molecules got spread across the Earth, first in a band of prevailing winds around the same latitude as Italy, then over the northern hemisphere. In the course of about two years, given air currents and circulation, it would probably have spread across the entire world.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/s...reath-sam-kean

Gassho, J

STLah

[Jundo]

Even the stars are not forever ...

Giant dying star explodes as scientists watch in real time — a first for astronomy

Ground-based telescopes provided the first real-time look at the death throes of a red supergiant star. While these aren't the brightest or most massive stars, they are the largest in terms of volume.
...
... the star at the heart of this new research, located in the NGC 5731 galaxy about 120 million light-years away from Earth, was 10 times more massive than the sun before it exploded.

Before they go out in a blaze of glory, some stars experience violent eruptions or release glowing hot layers of gas. Until astronomers witnessed this event, they believed that red supergiants were relatively quiet before exploding into a supernova or collapsing into a dense neutron star. Instead, scientists watched the star self-destruct in dramatic fashion before collapsing in a type II supernova. This star death is the rapid collapse and violent explosion of a massive star after it has burned through the hydrogen, helium and other elements in its core.

All that remains is the star's iron, but iron can't fuse so the star will run out of energy. When that happens, the iron collapses and causes the supernova. A study detailing these findings published Thursday in The Astrophysical Journal.

"This is a breakthrough in our understanding of what massive stars do moments before they die," said lead study author Wynn Jacobson-Galán, a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow at University of California, Berkeley, in a statement.

https://us.cnn.com/2022/01/06/world/...scn/index.html

Gassho, J

STLah

[Jundo]

Another Webb milestone ...

After decades of planning, NASA's $10 billion space telescope has 'taken its final form'

All systems are go for NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, which deployed its full gold-plated, sunflower-shaped mirror display Saturday.

Now, the $10 billion successor to the Hubble telescope has five months of alignment and calibration procedures before it is expected to start sending images back to Earth, the space agency said Saturday.

"Two weeks after launch, @NASAWebb has hit its next biggest milestone: the mirrors have completed deployment and the next-generation telescope has taken its final form," NASA announced Saturday.

The news marked the completion of a "remarkable feat," said Gregory Robinson, NASA's Webb program director, in a statement.

Check out the unfolding from the 1:00 mark in the video ...

https://youtu.be/XlUjCbfmW18

Gassho, J

STLah

[Jundo]

In a medical first, a man with terminal heart disease gets a transplant of genetically modified pig heart

A 57-year-old Maryland man is doing well three days after receiving a genetically modified pig heart in a first-of-its-kind transplant surgery, University of Maryland Medicine said in a news release Monday.

David Bennett had terminal heart disease, and the pig heart was "the only currently available option," according to the release. Bennett was deemed ineligible for a conventional heart transplant or an artificial heart pump after reviews of his medical records.

... Three genes that are responsible for rejection of pig organs by human immune systems were removed from the donor pig, and one gene was taken out to prevent excessive pig heart tissue growth. Six human genes responsible for immune acceptance were inserted.

Bennett's doctors will need to monitor him for days to weeks to see whether the transplant works to provide lifesaving benefits. He'll be monitored for immune system problems or other complications.

"There are simply not enough donor human hearts available to meet the long list of potential recipients," surgeon Dr. Bartley P. Griffith said in a statement. "We are proceeding cautiously, but we are also optimistic that this first-in-the-world surgery will provide an important new option for patients in the future."

Pig heart valves have been transplanted into humans for many years.

In October, surgeons successfully tested the transplant of a genetically modified pig kidney into a woman in New York who was brain-dead.

https://us.cnn.com/2022/01/10/health...ant/index.html

Gassho, J

STLah

[Tomás ESP]

Another Webb milestone ...



Check out the unfolding from the 1:00 mark in the video ...

https://youtu.be/XlUjCbfmW18

Gassho, J

STLah

Absolutely mind-blowing. I am amazed at what humanity is capable of achieving when we coordinate properly

Gassho, Tomás
Sat&LaH

[Jundo]

Oh, we are spared again! Otherwise, a Brontosaur would be typing these words ...

A massive asteroid will zip past Earth next week. Here's how to spot it.

The space rock is more than twice as massive as the Empire State Building.

The stony asteroid, known as (7482) 1994 PC1, will pass at its closest on Jan. 18 at 4:51 p.m. EST (2151 GMT), traveling at 43,754 mph (70,415 km/h) and hurtling past Earth at a distance of 0.01324 astronomical units — 1.2 million miles ( nearly 2 million kilometers), according to NASA JPL-Caltech's Solar System Dynamics (SSD).
https://www.livescience.com/asteroid...s-january-2022

Reminds me of this movie I watched this week which, while not the greatest movie ever, was just so true ...

https://youtu.be/RbIxYm3mKzI

Gassho, J

STLah

[Jundo]

Hole-y cow ... And yet, it is all still a Wholeness ...

40 quintillion stellar-mass black holes are lurking in the universe, new study finds

"Small" black holes are estimated to make up 1% of the universe’s matter.

... Using a new method, outlined Jan. 12 in The Astrophysical Journal, a team of astrophysicists has produced a fresh estimate for the number of stellar-mass black holes — those with masses 5 to 10 times that of the sun — in the universe. And it’s astonishing: 40,000,000,000,000,000,000, or 40 quintillion, stellar-mass black holes populate the observable universe, making up approximately 1% of all normal matter, according to the new estimate.

So how did the scientists arrive at that number? By tracking the evolution of stars in our universe they estimated how often the stars — either on their own, or paired into binary systems — would transform into black holes, said first author Alex Sicilia, an astrophysicist at the International School of Advanced Studies (SISSA) in Trieste, Italy.

"This is one of the first, and one of the most robust, ab initio [ground up] computation[s] of the stellar black hole mass function across cosmic history," Sicilia said in a statement.

,,, Astrophysicists hope to use the new estimate to investigate some perplexing questions that arise from observations of the very early universe — for instance, how the early universe became so quickly populated by supermassive black holes — often with masses millions, or even billions, of times greater than the stellar-mass holes the researchers examined in this study — so soon after the Big Bang.

Because these gigantic black holes came from the merging of smaller, stellar-mass black holes — or black hole 'seeds' — the researchers hope that a better understanding of how small black holes formed in the early universe could help them to unearth the origins of their supermassive cousins.

https://www.livescience.com/research...ny-black-holes

Gassho, J

STLah

[Jundo]

More black hole news ... they doth not only taketh, they doth giveth too ...

A black hole fueling star birth has scientists doing a double-take

Black holes are best known for shredding stars, devouring light and acting like massive garbage disposals in space.

In a twist, astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have discovered that these energetic celestial objects have a nurturing side, too.

Hubble's observation of a dwarf starburst galaxy, called Henize 2-10, revealed a gaseous umbilical cord stretching from a black hole at the center of the galaxy to a stellar nursery where stars are born.

A dwarf starburst galaxy is a small galaxy with an intense amount of star formation.

Star birth requires a dense cloud of gas and dust. The stream of gas provided by the black hole actually triggered a fireworks show of star birth as it interacted with the cloud, which led to a cluster of forming stars.

... It's a rare case of a black hole helping stars to form, rather than tearing them apart. In large galaxies, black holes spew out superheated jets of material that nearly reach the speed of light. Any gas clouds unfortunate enough to be in the way of these jets would become so hot, they wouldn't be able to cool down enough to form stars.
https://us.cnn.com/2022/01/21/world/...scn/index.html

Gassho, J

STLah

[Jundo]

Webb made it! A million mile trek ...

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope reaches new home a million miles from Earth

After a nail-biting 29 days of travel and ultra-precise deployments, the James Webb Space Telescope fired its thrusters one more time Monday to reach its final parking spot a million miles from Earth.

"Webb, welcome home," NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement after a five-minute burn added just 3.6 mph to the telescope's speed. "Congratulations to the team for all of their hard work ensuring Webb’s safe arrival at L2 today."

L2 refers to a kind of stable orbit known as a Lagrange point. Technically, Webb is now orbiting the sun and is staying in line with Earth about a million miles away.

"We’re one step closer to uncovering the mysteries of the universe. And I can’t wait to see Webb’s first new views of the universe this summer," Nelson said.

... Every single thing had to work perfectly in order to launch, deploy mirror segments, and reach its final position. ... Mission partners NASA, the European Space Agency, and Canadian Space Agency described the process as "29 days on the edge." Officials before launch said there were potentially 344 points of failure during that period.

Moving forward, engineers will spend about three months aligning Webb's 18 gold-coated hexagonal mirrors to the final configuration.

More here: https://us.cnn.com/2022/01/24/world/...scn/index.html

Gassho, J

STLah