Lifeboat Foundation

A study published by The Planetary Science Journal in 2020 suggests that Psyche is made almost entirely of iron and nickel. This metallic composition sets it apart from other asteroids that are usually comprised of rock or ice, and could suggest it was originally part of a planetary core. That would not only represent a momentous discovery, it’s key to Psyche’s potential astronomical value: NASA scientist Lindy Elkins-Tanton calculated that the iron in the asteroid alone could be worth as much as $10 quintillion, which is $10,000,000,000,000,000,000 (yes, a 20-figure sum). For context, the entire global economy is worth roughly $110 trillion as of writing. However, more recent research out of the University of Arizona suggests that the asteroid might not be as metallic or dense as once thought. Psyche could actually be closer to a rubble pile, rather than an exposed planetary core, the research claims. If true, this would devalue the asteroid. NASA’s upcoming mission should settle the debate about Pysche’s composition for once and all.

Of course, Psyche isn’t the only valuable rock in space. NASA has previously said the belt of asteroids between Mars and Jupiter holds mineral wealth equivalent to about $100 billion for every individual on Earth. Mining the precious metals within each asteroid and successfully getting them back down to earth is the hard part. Then you have the whole supply and demand conundrum that could drive the price of specific metals up or down. We’ll leave the complexities of space mining for another day.

Continue reading “This Rare Asteroid May Be Worth 70,000 Times the Global Economy. Now NASA Is Sending a Spaceship to Explore It” »

Our lifespans might feel like a long time by human standards, but to the Earth it’s the blink of an eye. Even the entirety of human history represents a tiny slither of the vast chronology for our planet. We often think about geological time when looking back into the past, but today we look ahead. What might happen on our planet in the next billion years?

Written and presented by Prof David Kipping, edited by Jorge Casas.

Continue reading “Beyond Human: A Billion Years of Evolution and the Fate of Our Species” »

But is biocontamination a possibility?

The European Space Agency (ESA) is using a unique robotic arm to bring back Martian samples to Earth, according to a statement by the organization published on Thursday (Jan .26).

Continue reading “This robotic arm will help return Martian samples back to Earth” »

The whole world has been awestruck by the magnificent images produced by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Webb has already turned astronomy on its head and renewed debate about how the cosmos first formed and evolved. But there were years of delays in its development that frustrated both researchers and the public at large.

So, at the 241st meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) this month in Seattle, a major topic of discussion was lessons learned from Webb’s extended gestation period. And, specifically, how to take this hard-won experience and use it to proceed with the next generation of revolutionary space telescopes.

NASA and the astronomical community at large have already started initial planning on the next generation of space telescopes. Three new large space observatories could all see operation by 2045.

Continue reading “After Webb? NASA Is Already Planning New Great Space Observatories” »

The standard model of particle physics tells us that most particles we observe are made up of combinations of just six types of fundamental entities called quarks. However, there are still many mysteries, one of which is an exotic, but very short-lived, Lambda resonance known as Λ(1405). For a long time, it was thought to be a particular excited state of three quarks—up, down, and strange—and understanding its internal structure may help us learn more about the extremely dense matter that exists in neutron stars.

Investigators from Osaka University were part of a team that has now succeeded in synthesizing Λ(1405) for the first time by combining a K^- meson and a proton and determining its complex mass (mass and width). The K⁻ meson is a negatively charged particle containing a strange quark and an up antiquark. The much more familiar proton that makes up the matter that we are used to has two up quarks and a down quark. The researchers showed that Λ(1405) is best thought of as a temporary bound state of the K^- meson and the proton, as opposed to a three-quark excited state.

In their study published recently in Physics Letters B, the group describes the experiment they carried out at the J-PARC accelerator. K⁻ mesons were shot at a deuterium target, each of which had one proton and one neutron. In a successful reaction, a K⁻ meson kicked out the neutron, and then merged with the proton to produce the desired Λ(1405).

Every spacecraft glitches occasionally, and even the most powerful space telescope ever launched isn’t immune.

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST or Webb) launched in December 2021 and has been conducting science observations since July 2022, stunning the world with its gorgeous images and revolutionary data. But on Jan. 15, JWST’s Near Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS) instrument “experienced a communications delay within the instrument, causing its flight software to time out,” according to a Jan. 24 statement (opens in new tab) from NASA. NIRISS can’t currently be used for science, the statement noted.

This video covers Mars in 2050 and 10 future technologies in the first Mars city. Watch this next video about the world in 2050: https://bit.ly/3J23hbQ.
► Support This Channel: https://www.patreon.com/futurebusinesstech.
► Udacity: Up To 75% Off All Courses (Biggest Discount Ever): https://bit.ly/3j9pIRZ
► Brilliant: Learn Science And Math Interactively (20% Off): https://bit.ly/3HAznLL
► Jasper AI: Write 5x Faster With Artificial Intelligence: https://bit.ly/3MIPSYp.

SOURCES:
• https://scitechdaily.com/mars-settlement-likely-by-2050-says…-elon-musk.
• https://www.news18.com/news/buzz/elon-musk-and-nasa-may-fina…79184.html.
• https://2050.earth/predictions/a-sustainable-civilization-of-humans-on-mars.
• https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-plans-1-million-pe…2020-1
• https://www.inverse.com/innovation/spacex-mars-city-codex.
• https://www.inverse.com/article/54358-elon-musk-explains-how…rs-by-2050
• https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-million-people-mars-2050
• https://www.lpi.usra.edu/V2050/presentations/Tuesday/6_8236_Ehlmann.pdf.
• https://www.mars-one.com.
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_Mars.
• https://www.nationalgeographic.org/hires/human-settlement-mars/
• https://www.spacex.com/human-spaceflight/mars/
• https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20070008279/downloads/20070008279.pdf.
• https://www.space.com/how-feed-one-million-mars-colonists.html.
• https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/nation/2020/12/30/col…091010001/
• https://eatlikeamartian.org/

Continue reading “Mars in 2050: 10 Future Technologies In The First Mars City” »

Compare news coverage. Spot media bias. Avoid algorithms. Be well informed. Download the free Ground News app at https://ground.news/isaacarthur.
Asteroids may serve as future bases and colonies for humanity as we travel into space, but could they also be converted into spaceships to take us strange new worlds around distant stars?

Visit our Website: http://www.isaacarthur.net.
Join Nebula: https://go.nebula.tv/isaacarthur.
Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/IsaacArthur.
Support us on Subscribestar: https://www.subscribestar.com/isaac-arthur.
Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1583992725237264/
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/IsaacArthur/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Isaac_A_Arthur on Twitter and RT our future content.
SFIA Discord Server: https://discord.gg/53GAShE

Continue reading “Using Asteroids As Spaceships” »

Whether conscious of it or not, when entering a new space, we use our sense of smell to assess whether it is safe or a threat. In fact, for much of the animal kingdom, this ability is necessary for survival and reproduction. Researchers at the Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience at the University of Rochester are finding new clues to how the olfactory sensory system aids in threat assessment and have found neurons that “learn” if a smell is a threat.

“We are trying to understand how animals interact with smell and how that influences their behavior in threatening social and non-social contexts,” said Julian Meeks, Ph.D., principal investigator of the Chemosensation and Social Learning Laboratory. “Our recent research gives us valuable tools to use in our future work and connects specific sets of neurons in our olfactory system to the memory of threatening smells.”

How the brain responds to a social threat may be guided by smell. In mice, researchers have identified a specific set of neurons in the accessory olfactory system that can learn the scent of another mouse that is a potential threat. These findings are described in a paper recently published in The Journal of Neuroscience.