Curiositytherover - I Like Space.
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7 Technologies Super Soldiers Will Be Using in Future Warfare
Read more at: http://futurism.com/images/
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So there’s supposed to be this amazing meteor shower tonight, but it’s raining and cloudy where I am and I’m pretty disappointed. I’ll have to watch the live stream.
A new study (published in PLOS Biology) investigated how bats make sharp turns in the air, particularly when they have to grab the ceiling. It turns out aerodynamics have very little to do with it - it’s all about inertia. Just as a figure skater clutches his arms to his chest to increase his speed, bats pull in their wings to help them make turns.
You can read all about it (and see more video) in this piece by my friend Nsikan Akpan over at PBS Newshour.
Well, it had to come to an end some time. There’s been a whole lot of buzz over KIC 8462852 - a star located about 1,500 light-years away between the Cygnus and Lyre constellations of our Milky Way galaxy. It’s displaying such weird behaviour, one scientist even threw the possibility of an advanced alien civilisation building a giant Dyson sphere nearby.
But new research has come up with the most plausible explanation yet for KIC 8462852’s weirdness - a barrage of comet fragments are spinning in a tight orbit around the star. […] But despite the evidence, they’re still not ready to discount the alien megastructure idea entirely. “We can’t really say it is, or is not,” said Marengo. “But what the star is doing is very strange. It’s interesting when you have phenomena like that - typically it means there’s some new physical explanation or a new concept to be discovered.”
Continue Reading.
‘Gene drive’ mosquitoes could end malaria once and for all
Artificial Intelligence Program Passes Entrance Exam, Can Be Accepted Into University
The National Institute of Informatics has developed an Artificial Intelligence (AI) program that was able to achieve an above-average score on a college entrance exam for the first time ever. The test covered five subjects including Math, Physics, and English.
Ultimately, the Institute is attempting to develop an AI that could perform well enough on Japan’s standardized college entrance exam to be accepted into the University of Tokyo, Japan’s highest-ranked university. And they hope to complete their task by 2021.
To date, the AI received a top score of 511 points out of 950, which is above the national average of 416 points.
According to the institute, the AI has at least an 80% chance of being accepted to 441 private universities and 33 national universities with that score, odds that would make any aspiring student quite happy.
Find out more at: http://futurism.com/links/artificial-intelligence-program-passes-entrance-exam-can-be-accepted-into-university/
What’s Up for March 2016?
In March, Jupiter, it’s moons and moon shadows will all be visible in the sky. Find out when and where to look up:
Jupiter dominates the evening sky this month, rising at sunset and setting at dawn. On March 8, Jupiter reaches what is called “opposition”. Imagine that Jupiter and the sun are at opposite ends of a straight line, with the Earth in between. This brings Jupiter its closest to Earth, so it shines brighter and appears larger in telescopes.
On the nights of March 14 – 15, March 21 – 22 and March 29, two of Jupiter’s moons will cross the planet’s disk.
When the planet is at opposition and the sun shines on Jupiter’s moons, we can see the moon’s shadow crossing the planet. There are actually 11 of these double shadow transits in March!
The next six months will be awesome times for you to image Jupiter when it’s highest in the sky; near midnight now, and a little earlier each night through the late summer.
Even through the smallest telescopes or binoculars, you should be able to see the two prominent belts on each side of Jupiter’s equator made up of the four Galilean moons: Io, Europa Ganymede and Calisto. If you have a good enough view, you may even see Jupiter’s Red Spot!
Our Juno spacecraft will arrive at Jupiter on July 4th of this year and will go into orbit around the giant planet. Right now, the Juno mission science team is actively seeking amateur and professional images of the planet. These images are uploaded to a Juno website, and the public is invited to discuss points of interest in Jupiter’s atmosphere.
Locations will later be voted on and the favorites will be targets for JunoCam, the spacecraft’s imaging camera. Once JunoCam has taken the images, they’ll be posted online. Imaging participants can then process these raw mission images and re-upload them for others to view.
Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com
Practical Advice for Aspiring Space Explorers
Washington DC (SPX) Feb 12, 2016 If you’ve read past the title, you’ve probably consumed a lot of books and movies about space. Guess what? Flying in space isn’t just for science fiction characters. It’s a real job. Real people can apply for it, and real people-like you-can get hired to do it. Applying to be an astronaut is easy and costs you nothing. Like any other federal government job, the astronaut application is onl Full article
A New Era in Astronomy: The James Webb Space Telescope is One Step Closer to Completion
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) was just seen the installation of the first of its eighteen flight mirrors, marking the beginning of the final assembly phase of the successor to the 25-year-old Hubble Space Telescope.
The significance of this project cannot be overstated, as Hubble is arguably one of mankind’s greatest inventions, and the James Webb is set to be 100 times more powerful.
Indeed, this telescope will be more sensitive by a factor of about 100, than all the other telescopes that came before it. It could help us see some of the first stars forming in the universe. It could allow us to image planets orbiting alien stars. It will open up a world (a universe) of possibilities.
We will be able to see farther and deeper than ever before, and completion is coming ever closer.
Know more at: http://futurism.com/links/a-new-era-in-astronomy-the-james-webb-space-telescope-is-one-step-closer-to-completion/
Astronomers have found a nearby galaxy that’s roughly the same mass as the Milky Way, but somehow contains less than 1 percent of its stars.
The galaxy is so dim, it’s evaded detention for decades, and now the team behind its discovery has figured out how its lack of stars hasn’t ripped it apart - it’s made from 99.99 percent dark matter.
Read more…
