Terraforming Mars is widely discussed but rarely studied rigorously. This Perspective advocates for more research on the topic, ranging from warming methods to biological engineering, to clarify feasibility, costs, ethics and planetary impacts before any ambitious, large-scale attempts.
Quantum scientists have cracked a longstanding problem by devising a method to speed up measurements without losing accuracy, a key hurdle for quantum technology. By cleverly adding extra qubits, they traded “space” for time, gathering more information faster without destabilizing the fragile qua
Posted in nuclear energy, quantum physics, robotics/AI, space | Leave a Comment on “Mining the Moon Begins”: US Firm’s Robot to Extract Rare Helium-3 and Launch Payloads Back to Earth for Futuristic Energy Use
IN A NUTSHELL 🌕 Interlune, a Seattle-based startup, plans to extract helium-3 from the moon, aiming to revolutionize clean energy and quantum computing. 🚀 The company has developed a prototype excavator capable of digging up to ten feet into lunar soil, refining helium-3 directly on the moon for efficiency. 🔋 Helium-3 offers potential for nuclear
Deepnight’s Algorithm-intensified image enhancement for NIGHT VISION
Instead of using expensive image-intensification tubes, this startup is using ordinary low light sensors coupled with special computer algorithms to produce night vision. This will bring night vision to the general public. At present, even a generation 2 monocular costs around $2000, while a generation 3 device costs around $3500. The new system has the added advantage of being in color, instead of monochromatic. Hopefully, this will pan out, and change the situation for Astronomy enthusiasts worldwide.
Lucas Young, CEO of Deepnight, showcases how their AI technology transforms a standard camera into an affordable and effective night vision device in extremely dark environments.
Discover Lockheed Martin’s vision for how a water-based lunar architecture will help us settle permanently and sustainably on the Moon.
Scientists teleported light for the first time, opening doors for quantum communication and the possibility of sending data to another far-off galaxy.
Researchers at Nagoya University in Japan have discovered that Cepheid variable stars in our neighboring galaxy, the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), are moving in opposing directions along two distinct axes. They found that stars closer to Earth move towards the northeast, while more distant stars move southwest.
This newly discovered movement pattern exists alongside a northwest-southeast opposing movement that the scientists previously observed in massive stars.
These complex bidirectional movements along two different axes indicate that the SMC is being stretched by multiple external gravitational forces—its larger neighbor, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), in one direction and another currently unknown mechanism in the other. The findings are published in the journal The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
“Space weather can impact systems that use IT for critical functions and everyday processes,” James Spann, a senior scientist at the Office of Space Weather Observations at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) department, told Space.com in an email. “These space weather impacts can have the same symptoms as a cyberattack, where systems will be brought down, or lockup, or transmit erroneous information.”
NESDIS oversaw a tabletop space weather exercise conducted in May 2024, the first such drill testing the U.S. preparedness for a major solar storm. Results of the exercise, which brought together 35 US government agencies, were published in a report in April.
In one of the simulations during the exercise, NOAA and the U.S. Air Force reported a severe solar flare and radio burst, but another federal department or agency “reported contradictory information, suggesting that the radio and communications disruptions were possibly the result of a cyberattack,” according to the report. Above all, it showed the need for effective communication following such events.
For decades, astronomers have discovered hundreds of protoplanetary disks—structures believed to represent the early stages of our own solar system. However, most of these discoveries lie within our neighborhood, which may not reflect the extreme conditions found in other parts of the Milky Way.
Among the most dynamic and turbulent regions is the Central Molecular Zone (CMZ) near the Milky Way galactic center, where high pressure and density may shape star and planet formation in fundamentally different ways. Studying protoplanetary systems in the CMZ provides a rare opportunity to test and refine our theories of solar system formation.
An international team of researchers have conducted the most sensitive, highest-resolution, and most complete survey to date of three representative molecular clouds in the Milky Way’s CMZ. Their observations revealed over five hundred dense cores—the sites where stars are being born.
Astronomers have developed a computer simulation to explore, in unprecedented detail, magnetism and turbulence in the interstellar medium (ISM)—the vast ocean of gas and charged particles that lies between stars in the Milky Way galaxy.
Described in a study published in Nature Astronomy, the model is the most powerful to date, requiring the computing capability of the SuperMUC-NG supercomputer at the Leibniz Supercomputing Center in Germany. It directly challenges our understanding of how magnetized turbulence operates in astrophysical environments.
James Beattie, the paper’s lead author and a postdoctoral researcher at the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics (CITA) at the University of Toronto, is hopeful the model will provide new insights into the ISM, the magnetism of the Milky Way galaxy as a whole, and astrophysical phenomena such as star formation and the propagation of cosmic rays.
