Science

The Rosetta Spacecraft Is About to Intercept a Comet Going Mach 47

The European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft will finally complete its 10 year journey to intercept the comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko on Wednesday. Now comes the hard part. The Rosetta spacecraft is currently travelling at about 36,000 mph—that’s roughly mach 47. Comet 67P, meanwhile, is moving through space at 34,175 mph. In order for the Rosetta to intercept…

Can Atoms Ever Touch?

There’s a very commonly held view that atoms can never touch: bring them together slowly, and you reach a point where they begin to repel. But in this video, Professor Philip Moriarty explains that really isn’t the case. Philip is a little irritated by many of the discussion online about how molecules repel, never to…

See What It’s Like To Be Hunted By A Shark — From the POV of a Seal

Last year, a research team from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution deployed a robotic “SharkCam” off the coast of Mexico’s Guadalupe Island to film great white sharks in the wild. But the sharks had other ideas. The underwater vehicle, called REMUS, was basically a swimming torpedo outfitted with five cameras: one that faced behind the…

This may look like some kind of rainbow top hat, but in fact you’re looking at the changing state of quantum bit—a qubit—over time. This experiment helps predict how quantum systems evolve, and may help us steer and control them more effectively in the future. [Nature via New Scientist]

A New Thruster Pushes Against Virtual Particles! …or is a Lab Error

Which is more likely: that NASA broke the laws of physics, or that an early experiment on propellant-free microwave thrust technology has a measurement flaw? If you opted for the latter, you have a solid grasp of the cycle of elation and chagrin that characterizes the practice of science. Above: Spaceship concept art by L.A.-based…

Scientists Have Figured Out How To Make Organisms Transparent

It’s like wearing X-ray goggles, but better. Caltech researchers have created two new techniques that allow them to identify individual cells within 3D, intact organisms or tissues. And the results are jaw-droppingly beautiful. Researchers have already applied the techniques to a biopsy of skin from a human patient. By staining cancer cells and making everything…

Particle Fever Makes Me Feel Like a Physicist

Understanding the inner workings of existence is a challenge not everyone is equipped for. In my high school physics class, I learned a handful of Newtonian laws and something about a quark, and that was about it. But during Particle Fever‘s 120-minute runtime, I felt like a physicist. The documentary centers around the discovery of…

A Map of How Much Pollution Trees Have Scrubbed From Our Air

In 2010, trees removed more than 17 million metric tons of pollution from the air. In doing so, they saved more than $6.8 billion dollars in health care costs associated with pollution-related diseases, like bronchitis and asthma. In a recent paper in the journal Environmental Pollution, US Forest Service researcher David J. Nowak explains: Most…

Giant Panda Breeding Efforts Have Actually Been Really Successful

Pandas are typically thought of as a lost cause. They’re one of the most endangered species on the planet; just 2500 giant pandas live in the wild. They’re notoriously difficult to breed; zoos keep them around primarily to attract tourists rather than for any ostensible conservation benefit. At least, that’s the perception. Until as recently…

We Just Found the Most Distant Lensing Galaxy Ever

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has just found the most distant lensing galaxy (which are massive enough to act as their own intergalactic microscopes) ever. And thanks to a rare alignment, it might just give us a peak at how our very own galaxy formed all those billions of years ago. This “lensing galaxy” is so…

Massive Collection of Ancient Amber Finally Gives Up Its Secrets

In the late 1950s, an entomologist named Milton Sanderson collected some 160 pounds of 20 million year old amber in the Dominican Republic. Now, 50 years later, that amber is finally giving up its secrets, including a fascinating insect named for David Attenborough. As most stories like this go, the amber sat for years collecting…

Russia’s Space Agency Is Helping Geckos Get It On In Microgravity

Animals in space just can’t get a break. First, everything from kittens to snakes were sent on the vomit comet to confusedly tumble around in zero-gravity. Then, mice were recruited to live aboard the International Space Station. Now, Russia sent a harem of geckos to get lucky in orbit. https://gizmodo.com/a-brief-history-of-sending-animals-to-space-1613532794 https://gizmodo.com/ejector-seats-weightless-kittens-and-heat-chamber-tes-1586971531 https://gizmodo.com/heres-what-happens-to-snakes-in-microgravity-1606171884 https://gizmodo.com/mice-in-the-dragons-hold-1580993195 Love nest…

NASA Will Make Oxygen From CO2 On the Surface of Mars

NASA just announced what the Mars 2020 rover will carry to the Martian surface, and one of them sounds like pure sci-fi: MOXIE, a machine that sucks in carbon dioxide from the Martian atmosphere and pumps out pure oxygen for use in rocket fuel—or someday, for humans to breathe. The Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization…

This Is What the Costa Concordia Rescue Looked Like From Space

After two years, the Costa Concordia was finally righted, refloated and towed to the safe harbors of Genoa. This is what the rescue mission looked like from the European Space Agency’s new Sentinel-1A satellite. https://gizmodo.com/watch-the-costa-concordia-being-refloated-now-right-he-1604550195 The Sentinel-1A is in fact the first satellite launched as part of Europe’s Copernicus environment monitoring programme: it’s brand new,…

Why Snot Is Green and Yellow

Snot is an essential part of a healthy body (no, really), and its color and consistency can give you a lot of information about what’s going on in yours at any given time. What is mucus? Produced in the lining of the sinuses, nose, throat, mouth, lungs and even digestive tract, mucus provides a protective…

These Microshutters Will Power NASA’s Telescopes of the Future

You’re looking at the bleeding edge of space imaging. The wonderful pictures of our Universe, that we all love, are made possible by the likes of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope—and in the future, such devices will be driven by arrays of microshutters like these. A little like pixels, these are tiny shutters that allow…

The Moon Is Actually Shaped Like a Lemon

We might think that we know our closest celestial neighbour well, but it’s kept one secret hidden until now: it’s not round. In fact, it’s shaped like a lemon. New research, published in Nature this week, reveals that the moon is less like a ball and more like squashed sphere, with a distinct lump. Ian…

A Brief History of Sending Animals to Space

Last week at w00tstock, Matt Inman (aka The Oatmeal) spoke about the storied history of our species’ habit of sending other animal species into space. Here’s a video of the very excellent talk, which is well worth the thirteen minutes you’ll need to watch it. [The Oatmeal]

A Better First Aid Kit That Makes Suggestions and Knows What’s Missing

Even a well-stocked first-aid kit is all but useless if you crack it open but have no idea what’s actually needed for a particular emergency. So these aptly-named Clever Medkits feature a series of buttons and LED lighting that only illuminates the medical supplies needed for a specific injury, and it will even remind you…

Forget What Your Teacher Said: Mass and Weight Are the Same

At high school, your physics teacher probably drummed it into you that mass and weight are completely different things—but actually, they were wrong all along. In this video, Professor Mike Merrifield from the University of Nottingham—along with Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton—explains the equivalence principle. It say that mass and weight are, really, the same…