NASA Announces Launch Delay for Psyche Asteroid Mission

NASA announced Friday the Psyche asteroid mission, the agency’s first mission designed to study a metal-rich asteroid, will not make its planned 2022 launch attempt.

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‍It's time!! NASA is about to go back to the Moon!! It will start off with a small 25 kg CubeSat called #CAPSTONE; a collaboration between TerranOrbital, AdvancedSpace, and it's delivery service, RocketLab!

Learn more about CAPSTONE's unique mission! https://everydayastronaut.com/capstone-electron/
Source: @Erdayastronaut

Mars Has So Much Radiation, Any Signs of Life Would Be Buried At Least Two Metres Under

While rovers such as Curiosity and Perseverance scour the surface looking for traces of ancient life, new evidence reveals we may have to dig much deeper to find them. Any evidence of amino acids left over from a time when Mars may have been habitable are likely buried at least 2 meters (6.6 feet) under the ground.

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How might we explore subsurface oceans on distant worlds? One answer – being developed at JPL – is dozens of tiny swimming robots!

The early-stage concept is illustrated here. Learn more: http://go.nasa.gov/3nmtTM2
Source: @NASAJPL

NASA Scientists Say Images From The Webb Telescope Nearly Brought Them To Tears

The images are being taken right now," said Thomas Zurbuchen, who leads NASA's scientific programs, during a news conference on Wednesday. "There is already some amazing science in the can, and some others are yet to be taken as we go forward. We are in the middle of getting the history-making data down."

NASA said it plans to release several images beginning at 14:30 UTC on July 12, the result of Webb's "first light" observations.

On Wednesday, space agency officials said the images and other data would include the deepest-field image of the universe ever taken—looking further into the cosmos than humans ever have before—as well as the spectrum of an atmosphere around an exoplanet.

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The Last Human – A Glimpse Into The Far Future

The future of humanity seems insecure. Rapid climate change, political division, our greed and failings make it hard to look at our species with a lot of optimism and so many people think our end is in sight. But humans always thought they lived in the end times. Every generation assumes they’re important enough to witness the apocalypse and then life just goes on.

This is a problem because it leads to short term thinking and prevents us from creating the best world for ourselves and our descendants. What makes this worse is that we actually may live at an extremely critical moment in human history. To understand why, let us look at the temporal window of humanity and ask:

When will the last human be born and how many people will there ever be?

Video (Kurzgesagt)
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BINARY DREAMS: How A.I. Sees the Universe

What happens when machines begin to question their origins?

In this short film created with generative art, we explore how artificial intelligence sees the universe, its creators, and its potential futures. We believe the emergence of artistic A.I. has touched off a new era for art that could be as profound as the first cave paintings, 50,000 years ago. If these artistic capabilities are possible after only a few decades of A.I., research, what will the next 50,000 years hold? What will we become?

Stream in 4K
Video (Melodysheep)
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Large Hadron Collider Finds Evidence of 3 Never-Before-Seen Particles

Physicists say they've found evidence in data from Europe's Large Hadron Collider for three never-before-seen combinations of quarks

The three exotic types of particles – which include two four-quark combinations, known as tetraquarks, plus a five-quark unit called a pentaquark – are totally consistent with the Standard Model, the decades-old theory that describes the structure of atoms.

In contrast, scientists hope that the LHC's current run will turn up evidence of physics that goes beyond the Standard Model to explain the nature of mysterious phenomena such as dark matter. Such evidence could point to new arrays of subatomic particles, or even extra dimensions in our Universe.

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NASA: Contact lost with spacecraft on way to test moon orbit

After one successful communication and a second partial one on Monday, the space agency said it could no longer communicate with the spacecraft called Capstone. Engineers are trying to find the cause of the communications drop-off and are optimistic they can fix it, NASA spokesperson Sarah Frazier said Tuesday.

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NASA CAPSTONE Update:
Communications Re-Established

Mission operators have re-established contact with NASA’s Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE) spacecraft. Additional updates will be provided.

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