Science News Thread (for articles that don't relate to ongoing discussions)

[steve9728]

CGTN: China's FAST telescope detects proof of nanohertz gravitational waves

Same thing was reported by SCMP

[AckSed]

How long could you live in a 3D-printed structure on Mars? Let's test this test!

 

[kerbiloid]

Another Mars-500.

[kerbiloid]

***

I believe, they should continue the (I believe, just for a while) abandoned Martian colony experiment.

Spoiler

As you can see, it's just the place to study space.

A compact, very sleek design, exactly right what they need on Mars.
A natural and cheap, local materials.
A robust geometry, no fancy stuff from modern hipsters, only the strong, conservative design.
The reliability, proven by decades of practical experience. Walls for men, not for chickens.

Spoiler

 

Have you read The Martian, where they were living in soft balloons, peeing from fear a full spacesuit, every hurricane?
Forget that delusion. THIS is what a Martian colony should be. The honest, solid,  heavy stone. 

Spoiler

 

There is a flat concrete landing pad for the hoppers.
A light beacon, to navigate in a Martian dust storm.

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A water collector.

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The underground infrastructure, tunnels, storehouses.
A real isolation. Nobody can disturb the crew here.

A little bit cramped, but totally realistic design of the crew apartments.
Accurately reproduced interiors and dimension of a real interplanetary ship and extraplanetary base. No Holy Wood fake palaces.
The water and sewers management system, constructed in highest attention to the details.
Highly ergonomic and effetive design, recommended by its testers.
"All you need on Mars, Mars... All you need on Mars!"

Spoiler

See, every room is connected to the life support systems. Theoretically, you can reach Saturn and return back, without leaving your room, in case of propulsion failure.

Pay attention to the safety lattices everywhere.

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The designers were always keeping in mind, that it is designed for zero-g or low-g.
So, you won't fly away if something happens, the lattice will stop you long before you can get high speed.

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(Do you see? These wonderful lattices are just everywhere!
Feel free to attach a tether of your spacesuit, grab them with hand, or do whatever else you need.)

Additionally, you can use the lattice as railings and stairs, to move in the low-g environment.

Spoiler

The daily life of Martian crew. Clean showels, fresh papers (to read them, too), meditation rooms.

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Attention to the low-gravity needs.

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Here, on Earth, these stairways would be bloody uncomfortable. 
But at 1/3 g that's what you need.

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Space food. Notice the tube in the hand. That's to prevent the liquids from floating around.

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Experimental low-g chickens from ISS, and horsecrab smoothie (the blue).

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Everything is lightweight, ergonomic, designed for space.

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Pay attention to the bedroom pot above.

Every time you take a tray of food, they give you an emergency pot, to let you prevent an unexpected deck pollution if something goes wrong.
Hygiene is important in space, but it's sometimes hard to get to a restroom in time.

Also, you can grow potatoes right inside.

 

High-contrast robes are necessary to quickly find you in the Martian desert.
The field personnel likes these robes and tries to wear them everywhere.

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The longest known experiment was performed by Mr. Karpis.
He had spent in this space emulator twenty six years, what is enough to reach Uranus by Hohmann trajectory.

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Destination	Orbital radius (AU)	Δv (km/s)
		to enter Hohmann orbit from Earth's orbit	exiting LEO	from LEO
Sun	0	29.8	31.7	24.0
Mercury	0.39	7.5	13.3	5.5
Venus	0.72	2.5	11.2	3.5
Mars	1.52	2.9	11.3	3.6
Jupiter	5.2	8.8	14.0	6.3
Saturn	9.54	10.3	15.0	7.3
Uranus	19.19	11.3	15.7	8.0
Neptune	30.07	11.7	16.0	8.2
Pluto	39.48	11.8	16.1	8.4
Infinity	∞	12.3	16.5	8.8

Edited June 29, 2023 by kerbiloid

[steve9728]

 

Fun fact is, that a considerable proportion of the old aa guns retired from the troops, apart from being dismantled and destroyed, were handed down to local meteorological units to fire silver iodide shells at cumulonimbus clouds to induce rain when needed and were placed under the management of local militia and reserve units. This brings me to my thinking: in some ways, it might not be that much more expensive, or perhaps even cheaper, for two or three neighboring provinces to jointly maintain a fleet of several such UAVs to replace the previous aa gun duties when needed.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2367286-crystal-impervious-to-radiation-could-be-used-in-spaceship-computers/

[steve9728]

Huawei: Prestigious science journal Nature publishes paper about Pangu Weather AI Model authored by HUAWEI CLOUD researchers

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

This is the perfect combination of smart, mercenary and well positioned. 

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/avi-loeb-harvard-professor-alien-technology-fragments-us/

Dude is getting all kinds of money to do (possibly) legit science by playing on 

 

[darthgently]

We maybe could stop computing digits of pi and use the computing cycles toward tracking earth crossing objects or something useful

https://twitter.com/fermatslibrary/status/1677714039713964032?t=tIn77Lru1h2k-U-LjsGobQ&s=19

[DDE]

Does anyone know what RATO the XQ-58 uses? I'm seeing very NTOish brown smoke.

https://t.me/xronikabpla/4979

[kerbiloid]

6 hours ago, DDE said:

Does anyone know what RATO the XQ-58 uses? I'm seeing very NTOish brown smoke.

https://t.me/xronikabpla/4979

Based on the video...

Spoiler

[magnemoe]

On 6/30/2023 at 5:00 PM, steve9728 said:

 

Fun fact is, that a considerable proportion of the old aa guns retired from the troops, apart from being dismantled and destroyed, were handed down to local meteorological units to fire silver iodide shells at cumulonimbus clouds to induce rain when needed and were placed under the management of local militia and reserve units. This brings me to my thinking: in some ways, it might not be that much more expensive, or perhaps even cheaper, for two or three neighboring provinces to jointly maintain a fleet of several such UAVs to replace the previous aa gun duties when needed.

UAV or simply planes sounds way cheaper.  Exception might be if both the gun and shell is taken out of service, it could also be seen as training for the gun crews but training on outdated guns is of little use even if its just feeding shells to the gun, you also have simulators for this the rear of the gun is real but it just dumps the dummy shell downward then you fire, perhaps setting off some blank for effect. 
Now you have guns used to trigger avalanche in an controlled manner, close road fire until you get the avalanche, clean road if needed and reopen the road but here you need much larger precision than hitting an cloud. 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Anthropocene declared 

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/07/11/world/anthropocene-epoch-geological-time-unit-scn/index.html&ved=2ahUKEwj-3c6QuoeAAxVHBTQIHTVPDXMQr_oDKAB6BAhPEAE&usg=AOvVaw0WJXFHrS7zHW38Obuh4Xai

 

CANADA immediately apologizes. 

[steve9728]

On 12/24/2022 at 8:37 PM, steve9728 said:

The successor of it is Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory

Surprisingly to me, there's something new about it:

The plexiglass sphere of the central detector of the Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory completes the installation of the equatorial layer. It is expected that the construction of the entire detector will be completed by the end of this year and start to read the numbers next year.

"... Its core detection equipment - neutrino detector is located in the center of the 44m deep pool in the underground experimental hall, consisting of a 41m diameter stainless steel frame, a 35.4m diameter plexiglass sphere, as well as 20,000t of liquid scintillators, 45,000 photomultiplier tubes, and other key components. It is reported that the entire detector is made up of a total of 263 plexiglass panels spliced together, each with a thickness of 120 mm, which is currently the world's largest single plexiglass structure."

The original CCTV news report about this, if you want to practice your Chinese: https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1Gx4y1o7vZ/?spm_id_from=333.880.my_history.page.click&vd_source=6fef304b8d0c4737896e6b702ddfbfb3

Edited July 14, 2023 by steve9728

[darthgently]

More pebbles is good pebbles

https://twitter.com/GovNuclear/status/1680022727250399232?t=AiP0KJAD4fkHmRQHCaXbtw&s=19

[steve9728]

 

 

[StrandedonEarth]

A prehistoric duel to the death (for both). Fossil reveals the moment a cat-size mammal took on a dinosaur three times its size | CNN

[darthgently]

25 minutes ago, StrandedonEarth said:

A prehistoric duel to the death (for both). Fossil reveals the moment a cat-size mammal took on a dinosaur three times its size | CNN

Whitetail deer have been observed scavenging from corpses and cows have been reported to snap up startled field mice.  A very hungry vegetarian dinosaur could have taken a nip at an ancient cat-badger 1/10 its size.  Who knows?  It is a bit annoying when such a detailed "analysis" is put out there.  As if we know.  Cat-badger could have attacked baby and mother was defending.  The point is that we don't know the cat-badger stalked and attacked a dino 10x its size.   Extremely cool find nonetheless.  A snapshot that leaves questions 120M years later for us to ponder

Edited July 18, 2023 by darthgently

[kerbiloid]

RIP, brave kitty warrior. You saved us from another scary lizard.

[kerbiloid]

New plutonium batteries, better than classic RTG, up to 500 W and 80 years.

(The English subtitles are enablable).

Spoiler

 

 

[darthgently]

3 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

New plutonium batteries, better than classic RTG, up to 500 W and 80 years.

(The English subtitles are enablable).

  Hide contents

 

 

I want one of these on my small sailboat.  500W continuous would be too much really, but nice.   Unfortunately, pesky regulations prevent this off-grid avenue for mere peasants

[DDE]

8 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

RIP, brave kitty warrior. You saved us from another scary lizard.

The unsung hero of the ancient war between the Rus' and lizardmen.

[kerbiloid]

13 hours ago, StrandedonEarth said:

Fossil reveals the moment a cat-size mammal took on a dinosaur three times its size | CNN

Khajiite vs Argonian

[darthgently]

2 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Khajiite vs Argonian

OMG.  You nailed it.   It is now settled.  Half serious here as your explanation fits better than the one at the link given the available fiction-lore

[steve9728]

An electromagnetic ejection microgravity experimental setup. Original link: https://weibo.com/7796311117/NaC9rgnsX

"In terms of experimental efficiency, the traditional drop tower can only do 2-3 experiments per day on average, and the parabolic aircraft can fly more than 30 trips each time, but the experimental preparation cycle is about 2-3 months. This device can achieve a frequency of hundreds of experiments per day, with a preparation time of 1-2 days, which improves the efficiency of scientific experiments. In terms of the strength requirements of the experimental load, the traditional drop tower in the landing recovery phase, the test module, and the experimental load to withstand the impact of about 20G, largely limiting the use of conventional scientific instruments. In this device, the experimental module subjected to the electromagnetic driving force is controlled throughout the whole process, whether it is microgravity, lunar gravity, or Martian gravity simulation experiments. The experimental module's recovery acceleration can be controlled at about 3G - so conventional scientific instruments can be used for experiments. In terms of operating costs, the device adopts energy storage and electromagnetic drive technology, and only consumes electric energy for its operation, with a single experiment consuming only about 1 kWh of electric energy, which is low in operating costs and convenient for carrying out large-scale scientific experiments."

2-3 experiments per day by traditional drop tower before... wait did you guys send someone to bring the stuff to climb up the tower?