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First 3D-printed rocket fails
A rocket made almost entirely of 3D-printed parts made its launch debut recently, lifting off amid fanfare but failing three minutes into flight — far short of orbit. Though the it failed to reach orbit, the launch proved that the rocket—whose mass is 85 percent 3D-printed—could withstand the rigors of lift-off. The successful launch came on the third attempt. The rocket was 110 feet (33.5 meters) tall with a diameter of 7.5 feet (2.2 meters). Eighty-five percent of its mass was 3D-printed with metal alloys, including the nine Aeon 1 engines used in its first stage and the one Aeon Vacuum engine employed in the second. It is the largest ever 3D-printed object and was made using the world’s largest 3D metal printers, according to the Long Beach-based company.
Astronomers discover helium-burning white dwarf
Astronomers studying stellar evolution have stumbled on an unexpected discovery: a new type of star that seems to break the mold of star formation. Most stars have surfaces made up of hydrogen and helium, but these new stars observed by German astronomers are covered in carbon and oxygen, the ashes left over from helium fusion, something a press release called “an exotic composition for a star.” While carbon and oxygen can be brought to the surface by a sudden, brief resurgence of explosive helium fusion, our current understanding of that process doesn’t work for these new stars. That’s because the size and temperature of these new stars indicates that helium is still burning steadily at the core, said scientists.
Large asteroid passes between Earth and Moon
The asteroid, named 2023 DZ2, estimated to be 40 to 70 meters (130 to 230 feet) wide, roughly the size of the Parthenon, and big enough to wipe out a large city if it hit our planet. It came within a third of the distance from the Earth to the Moon, said Richard Moissl, the head of the ESA’s planetary defence office. Though that is “very close”, there is nothing to worry about.
Small asteroids fly past every day, but one of this size coming so close to Earth only happens around once every 10 years. The asteroid will pass 175,000 kilometers (109,000 miles) from Earth at a speed of 28,000 kilometers per hour (17,400 miles per hour). The moon is roughly 385,000 kilometers away. An observatory in La Palma, one of Spain’s Canary Islands, first spotted the asteroid on February 27.
Oldest sea reptile found on Arctic island
A team of Swedish and Norwegian palaeontologists has discovered remains of the earliest known ichthyosaur (fish-lizard) on the remote Arctic island of Spitsbergen. Ichthyosaurs are an extinct group of marine reptiles whose fossils have been recovered worldwide. They were among the first land living animals to adapt to life in the open sea, and evolved a fish-like body shape similar to modern whales. Ichthyosaurs were at the top of the food chain in the oceans while dinosaurs roamed the land, and dominated marine habitats for over 160 million years.
Webb captures rarely seen prelude to a supernova
The rare sight of a Wolf-Rayet star—among the most luminous —was one of the first observations made by the James Webb Space Telescope. The star is 15,000 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius. A Wolf-Rayet star is a rare prelude to the famous final act of a massive star: the supernova. The James Webb Space Telescope captured in unprecedented detail – A distinctive halo of gas and dust frames the star and glows in the infrared light, displaying knotty structure and a history of episodic ejections.
Despite being the scene of an impending stellar “death,” astronomers also look to Wolf-Rayet stars for insight into new beginnings. Cosmic dust is forming in the turbulent nebulas surrounding these stars, dust that is composed of the heavy-element building blocks of the modern universe, including life on Earth.
Venus: Proof of active volcanoes – at last
Venus is almost the same size, mass and density as Earth. So it should be generating heat in its interior at much the same rate as the Earth does. On Earth, one of the main ways in which this heat leaks out is via volcanic eruptions. During an average year, at least 50 volcanoes erupt. But despite decades of looking, we’ve not seen clear signs of volcanic eruptions on Venus—until now.
A new study by geophysicist Robert Herrick of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, has at last caught one of the planet’s volcanoes in the act. Now, Venus’s surface has a dense atmosphere – an unbroken cloud layer at a height of 45-65km that is opaque to most wavelengths of radiation, including visible light. A technique known as aperture synthesis was used to build up an image of the surface. The resulting image looks rather like a black and white photograph, except that the brighter areas usually correspond to rougher surfaces and the darker areas to smoother surfaces.
New ‘camera’ with shutter speed of 1 trillionth of a second
Understanding ‘dynamic disorder’ in materials could lead to more energy-efficient thermoelectric devices, and also to better recovery of useful energy from waste heat by converting it directly to electricity. When materials function inside an operating device, parts of the material respond and change in amazing and unexpected ways. This dynamic disorder is difficult to study because the clusters are not only so small and disordered, but they also fluctuate in time.
Until now, it has been impossible to see the relevant dynamic disorder from the background of less relevant static disorder. Researchers at Columbia Engineering and Université de Bourgogne have developed a new “camera” with incredibly fast shutter speed of around 1 picosecond. It can see the local disorder. Its key feature is a variable shutter speed. The new method, which they call variable shutter PDF or vsPDF, doesn’t work like a conventional camera—it uses neutrons from a source to measure atomic positions with a shutter speed of around one picosecond, or a million million (a trillion) times faster than normal camera shutters.
Newly discovered enzyme turns air into electricity
Australian scientists have discovered an enzyme that converts air into energy. The finding reveals that this enzyme uses the low amounts of the hydrogen in the atmosphere to create an electrical current. This finding opens the way to create devices that literally make energy from thin air. Recent work by the team has shown that many bacteria use hydrogen from the atmosphere as an energy source in nutrient-poor environments. The researchers extracted the enzyme responsible for using atmospheric hydrogen from a bacterium called Mycobacterium smegmatis. They showed that this enzyme, called Huc, turns hydrogen gas into an electrical current.
Purifying water with just a few atoms
Scientists are now exploring the use of nanotechnology to purify water in a new and innovative way. Researchers are focusing on using just a few atoms to remove impurities and contaminants from water. By creating small sensors that can detect specific pollutants, scientists can create materials that effectively remove them from water. This process is known as nanotechnology-enabled water treatment, and it has the potential to revolutionize the way we purify water. One example of this technology in action is the use of graphene-based filters. Graphene is a one-atom-thick material that is incredibly strong and conductive. By creating filters out of graphene, scientists have been able to remove impurities from water with extreme efficiency. The filters are also incredibly durable and long-lasting, making them an ideal solution for areas with limited access to clean water.
Astronomers discover metal-rich galaxy in early universe
Scanning the first images of a well-known early galaxy taken by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), Cornell astronomers were intrigued to see a blob of light near its outer edge. A deeper dive into the early JWST data released found the galaxy to be super-chemically abundant. The JWST has opened new venues to study how stars and galaxies formed in the early universe. The “Discovery of a Dusty, Chemically Mature Companion to z~4 Starburst Galaxy in JWST” was published Feb. 17 in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, with eight co-authors who are current or former members of the Department of Astronomy in the College of Arts and Sciences. Earlier images of the same Einstein ring captured by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile contained hints of the companion resolved clearly by JSWT, but they couldn’t be interpreted as anything more than random noise.
Steel being used in Europe 2,900 years ago
Using geochemical analyses, the researchers were able to prove that stone stelae on the Iberian Peninsula that date back to the Final Bronze Age feature complex engravings that could only have been done using tempered steel. This was backed up by metallographic analyses of an iron chisel from the same period and region that showed the necessary carbon content to be proper steel. A study by an international and interdisciplinary team headed by University of Freiburg archaeologist Dr. Ralph Araque Gonzalez from the Faculty of Humanities has proven that steel tools were already in use in Europe around 2,900 years ago. Using geochemic analyses, the researchers were able to prove that stone stelae on the Iberian Peninsula that date back to the Final Bronze Age feature complex engravings that could only have been done using tempered steel.
Egypt unveils hidden corridor in Giza pyramid
An international research team has discovered a previously unknown chamber in the Cheops pyramid of Gizeh. As early as 2016, measurements had given reason to assume the existence of a hidden hollow space in the vicinity of the chevron blocks over the entrance. Now scientists from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have used ultrasound and endoscopy to make an important contribution to confirming this assumption. The status of the Egyptian pyramid as one of the best investigated structures in the world makes this find particularly important. The Cheops pyramid is considered the largest and oldest of the pyramids of Gizeh. As part of one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World it has been thoroughly explored; however, the structure still holds many undiscovered secrets. TUM researchers have now solved one more of the pyramid’s mysteries.
-Team ScienceNow Digital
