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On May 6, 2021 NASA published 4K UHD image from Ingenuity Mars Helicopter’s onboard camera and video footage during flight at Airfield B. Successful 4th flight on Mars for 133 meters distance by Ingenuity happened on April 30. New Ingenuity’s location called Airfield B. Previous location is Wright Brothers Field. The helicopter climbing to an altitude of 16 feet (5 meters) before flying south approximately 436 feet (133 meters) and then back, for an 872-foot (266-meter) round trip. In total, we were in the air for 117 seconds. NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter’s fourth flight path is superimposed here atop terrain imaged by the HiRISE camera aboard the agency’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter took 4K color image during its fourth flight. “Airfield B,” its new landing site, can be seen below. The helicopter will seek to set down there on its fifth flight attempt to 10 meters altitude on May 7th.

Credit: nasa.gov, NASA/JPL-Caltech, NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU

Source for Ingenuity latest 4K image from Mars at Airfield B: https://mars.nasa.gov/resources/25889/ingenuitys-color-camera-spies-helicopters-new-airfield/

Source for Ingenuity’s fifth flight update: https://mars.nasa.gov/technology/helicopter/status/299/why-ingenuitys-fifth-flight-will-be-different/

#mars #ingenuity #helicopter

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@AlexGatopoulos looks at how hypersonic missiles are emerging as a key tool in the race to dominate the next frontier — outer space.

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Maybe not lol.

If we ever found life on another planet it would probably be the biggest news of the millennium, and you’d expect the evidence to be published in a highly prestigious journal like Nature or Science. So, when a study claiming that mushrooms are growing on Mars appears in an obscure and largely discredited publication, you have to be more than a little skeptical.

Earlier this week, a preprint of a new study appeared online, bearing the eyebrow-raising title Fungi on Mars? Evidence of Growth and Behavior From Sequential Images. Unfortunately, the paper is due for publication in the journal Advances in Microbiology, which is part of the Scientific Research Publishing (SCIRP) portfolio. Given that SCIRP has a history of plagiarizing articles from other journals, it’s pretty difficult to take any of its content seriously.

The study itself comprises an analysis of images taken by NASA’s Opportunity and Curiosity rovers, which have been carrying out observations on the Red Planet, in addition to photographs taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Using red circles and arrows to highlight certain features, the study authors point out a series of structures that look a lot like rocks but also maybe a tiny bit like puffball mushrooms.

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Physics has long looked to harmony to explain the beauty of the Universe. But what if dissonance yields better insights?

Quantum physics is weird and counterintuitive. For this reason, the word ‘quantum’ has become shorthand for anything powerful or mystical, whether or not it has anything whatsoever to do with quantum mechanics. As a quantum physicist, I’ve developed a reflexive eyeroll upon hearing the word applied to anything outside of physics. It’s used to describe homeopathy, dishwasher detergents and deodorant.

If I hadn’t first heard of Quantum Music from a well-respected physicist, I would have scoffed the same way I did at the other ridiculous uses of the word. But coming from Klaus Mølmer it was intriguing. In the Quantum Music project, physicists and musicians worked together to unite ‘the mysterious worlds of quantum physics and music for the first time’. They developed a device that attaches to each key of a piano so that, when the pianist plays, the information is piped to a computer and synthesiser, which plays ‘quantum’ tones in addition to the familiar reverberations in the piano.

Among the tones used are those that represent a very quantum object: a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC). This is a cloud of atoms that have been cooled down to just above absolute zero. At this low temperature, the microscopic quantum properties of the individual particles can all be treated collectively as a single, macroscopic quantum entity. Studying BECs is a way of examining the consequences of quantum mechanics on a larger scale than is typically possible.

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Researchers have demonstrated a record-high laser pulse intensity of over 1023 W/cm2 using the petawatt laser at the Center for Relativistic Laser Science (CoReLS), Institute for Basic Science in the Republic of Korea. It took more than a decade to reach this laser intensity, which is ten times that reported by a team at the University of Michigan in 2004. These ultrahigh intensity light pulses will enable exploration of complex interactions between light and matter in ways not possible before.

The powerful laser can be used to examine phenomena believed to be responsible for high-power cosmic rays, which have energies of more than a quadrillion (1015) electronvolts (eV). Although scientists know that these rays originate from somewhere outside our solar system, how they are made and what is forming them has been a longstanding mystery.

“This high intensity laser will allow us to examine astrophysical phenomena such as electron-photon and photon-photon scattering in the lab,” said Chang Hee Nam, director of CoReLS and professor at Gwangju Institute of Science & Technology. “We can use it to experimentally test and access theoretical ideas, some of which were first proposed almost a century ago.”

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NASA’s Parker Solar Probe just took its closest pass to the Sun yet, veering so close that it “touched” the star’s blisteringly hot outer atmosphere — and gave NASA an unprecedented firsthand look at it.

The car-sized spacecraft has zoomed past the Sun a few times now, veering closer and closer each time, according to CNET. Each time, it uses nearby Venus’ gravitational pull as a sort of slingshot that helps it travel closer to the Sun and propels it at higher and higher speeds each time.

The slingshot is working so well that the space probe broke two records during its most recent solar approach last week.

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Past physics theories introduced several fundamental constants, including Newton’s constant G, which quantifies the strength of the gravitational interaction between two massive objects. Combined, these fundamental constants allow physicists to describe the universe in ways that are straightforward and easier to understand.

In the past, some researchers wondered whether the value of changed over cosmic time. Moreover, some alternative theories of gravity (i.e., adaptations or substitutes of Einstein’s theory of general relativity), predict that the constant G varies in time.

Researchers at the International Centre for Theoretical Sciences of the Tata Institute for Fundamental Research in India recently proposed a method that can be used to place constraints on the variation of G over cosmic time. This method, outlined in a paper published in Physical Review Letters, is based on observations of merging binary neutron stars.

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A team of international scientists, led by the Galician Institute of High Energy Physics (IGFAE) and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery (OzGrav), has proposed a simple and novel method to bring the accuracy of the Hubble constant measurements down to 2% using a single observation of a pair of merging neutron stars.

The universe is in continuous expansion. Because of this, distant objects such as galaxies are moving away from us. In fact, the further away they are, the faster they move. Scientists describe this expansion through a famous number known as the Hubble constant, which tells us how fast objects in the universe recede from us depending on their distance to us. By measuring the Hubble constant in a precise way, we can also determine some of the most fundamental properties of the universe, including its age.

For decades, scientists have measured Hubble’s constant with increasing accuracy, collecting electromagnetic signals emitted throughout the universe but arriving at a challenging result: the two current best measurements give inconsistent results. Since 2015, scientists have tried to tackle this challenge with the science of gravitational waves, ripples in the fabric of space-time that travel at the speed of light. Gravitational waves are generated in the most violent cosmic events and provide a new channel of information about the universe. They’re emitted during the collision of two —the dense cores of collapsed —and can help scientists dig deeper into the Hubble constant mystery.

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