The Sci Tech World

A 15-year-old boy, from Seaford, East Sussex, has succeeded in capturing an awesome picture of Saturn using a telescope in his back garden that several experienced astronomers would be proud of. Marcus Reed managed to take this clear image of the gas giant, including its entire rings, using a 102mm diameter reflector telescope. According to Marcus Reed, he stayed up until 4am, using an iPhone app called Sky Guide to locate the gas giant planet in the sky. He said: “I took the picture at about four in the morning. I had turned on the app and saw that Saturn was visible, so straight away I put my slippers on and ran downstairs, setting up my telescope on the back lawn in my pyjamas. I was pleasantly surprised when I looked back and saw I had such a clear picture - Saturn is my favourite planet. 'I have been interested in astronomy and photography for a long time, and I really enjoy it - I use my telescope every night when it's clear.” The Gas Giant Saturn, is the sixth planet fro...

According to new calculations, we may have a little less time to prepare for a star on course to kiss the edges of our Solar System. Yep. Dwarf star Gliese 710, which we've known about for some time, could now arrive in 1.29 million years, instead of the previously calculated 1.36 million years. Gliese 710 is what is classified as a rogue star - one that has gone roaming across the galaxy, free of the gravitational chains that normally hold stars in position. At a speed of 51,499 kilometres per hour (32,000 miles per hour), it's not quite fast enough to be considered a runaway star, but it's still travelling at a hefty clip. We've known Gliese 710 was on a trajectory that would bring it close to the Solar System since at least 1996, but it wasn't until late 2016 that we had a decent ballpark on the timeframe. Based on the first release of data from the ESA's Gaia mission, astronomers Filip Berski and Piotr A. Dybczyński calculated that Gliese 710, then around 63...

A chemistry professor has found a way to trigger the process of photosynthesis in a synthetic material, turning greenhouse gases into clean air and producing energy all at the same time. The process has great potential for creating a technology that could significantly reduce greenhouse gases linked to climate change, while also creating a clean way to produce energy. The findings of his research are published in the Journal of Materials Chemistry A . “This work is a breakthrough,” said UCF AssistantProfessor Fernando Uribe-Romo. “Tailoring materials that will absorb a specific color of light is very difficult from the scientific point of view, but from the societal point of view we are contributing to the development of a technology that can help reduce greenhouse gases.” Uribe-Romo and his team of students created a way to trigger a chemical reaction in a synthetic material called metal–organic frameworks (MOF) that breaks down carbon dioxide into harmless organic materials. Think of...

We humans like to create a big deal of things - climate alters, new viruses, the death of our favorite TV characters (guilty). But this magnificent video is here to be reminiscent you that the Universe is actually a pretty simple place, and can be explain in its entirety in less than 4 minutes. And all that bullsh*t you're feeling bad about today doesn't even get a talk about, so presently chill out, okay? Sure, this efficient breakdown of all that exists, ever, by You Tuber exurb1a might be completely apathetic and even a little bit bigot at times (dude, get over your ex girlfriend by now), but it's also hilarious and surprisingly perceptive. Who would have thought that the Universe and all the physics that govern it in fact kind of create sense? The whole thing start with the "Tyrion Lannister of physics", also recognized as the Planck Length, which is the negligible thing you can sensibly talk about (as far as we know). Then we get together the subatomic partic...

Physicists have presently discovered a new form of light that doesn't follow our existing rules of lanky momentum, and it could shake up our understanding of the electromagnetic emission and lead to faster, additional secure optical communication. Because of how well-studied and, well, all over, light is, you might assume that we've pretty much learnt all there is to know about it. But presently last year, researchers identified a fundamental new property of light, and now a side of Irish scientists has shown that light can take on unexpected new forms. One of the ways we measure a beam of light is from side to side its angular momentum - a constant quantity that measures how a great deal light is rotating. And until now, it was thought that for all forms of light, the angular momentum would be a whole number (known as an integer) multiple of Planck's constant - a physical constant that sets the scale of quantum belongings. But researchers led by Trinity College Dublin have...

We're not wired to feel safe all the time, but maybe one day we could be. A recent study investigating the neurological basis of anxiety in the brain has identified 'anxiety cells' located in the hippocampus – which not only regulate anxious behaviour but can be controlled by a beam of light. The findings, so far demonstrated in experiments with lab mice, could offer a ray of hope for the millions of people worldwide who experience anxiety disorders (including almost one in five adults in the US), by leading to new drugs that silence these anxiety-controlling neurons. "We wanted to understand where the emotional information that goes into the feeling of anxiety is encoded within the brain," says one of the researchers, neuroscientist Mazen Kheirbek from the University of California, San Francisco. To find out, the team used a technique called calcium imaging, inserting miniature microscopes into the brains of lab mice to record the activity of cells in the hippoca...

Though close to home, the space immediately around Earth is full of hidden secrets and invisible processes. In a new discovery reported in the journal Nature, scientists working with NASA’s Magnetospheric Multiscale spacecraft — MMS — have uncovered a new type of magnetic event in our near-Earth environment by using an innovative technique to squeeze extra information out of the data. Magnetic reconnection is one of the most important processes in the space — filled with charged particles known as plasma — around Earth. This fundamental process dissipates magnetic energy and propels charged particles, both of which contribute to a dynamic space weather system that scientists want to better understand, and even someday predict, as we do terrestrial weather. Reconnection occurs when crossed magnetic field lines snap, explosively flinging away nearby particles at high speeds. The new discovery found reconnection where it has never been seen before — in turbulent plasma. “In the plasma uni...

You can't manage what you don't measure. The adage is especially relevant for climate-warming greenhouse gases, which are crucial to manage—and challenging to measure. In recent years, though, satellite and aircraft instruments have begun monitoring carbon dioxide and methane remotely, and NASA's Carbon Monitoring System (CMS), a $10-million-a-year research line, has helped stitch together observations of sources and sinks into high-resolution models of the planet's flows of carbon. Now, President Donald Trump's administration has quietly killed the CMS, Science has learned. The move jeopardizes plans to verify the national emission cuts agreed to in the Paris climate accords, says Kelly Sims Gallagher, director of Tufts University's Center for International Environment and Resource Policy in Medford, Massachusetts. "If you cannot measure emissions reductions, you cannot be confident that countries are adhering to the agreement," she says. Canceling th...

Even before Einstein theorized that time is relative and flexible, humanity had already been imagining the possibility of time travel. In fact, science fiction is filled with time travelers. Some use metahuman abilities to do so, but most rely on a device generally known as a time machine. Now, two physicists think that it’s time to bring the time machine into the real world — sort of. “People think of time travel as something as fiction. And we tend to think it’s not possible because we don’t actually do it,” Ben Tippett, a theoretical physicist and mathematician from the University of British Columbia, said in a UBC news release. “But, mathematically, it is possible.” Essentially, what Tippet and University of Maryland astrophysicist David Tsang developed is a mathematical formula that uses Einstein’s General Relativity theory to prove that time travel is possible, in theory. That is, time travel fitting a layperson’s understanding of the concept as moving “backwards and forwards thr...

For centuries, astronomers and scientists have sought to understand how our Solar System came to be. Since that time, two theories have become commonly-accepted that explain how it formed and evolved over time. These are the Nebular Hypothesis and the Nice Model, respectively. Whereas the former contends that the Sun and planets formed from a large cloud of dust and gas, the latter maintains the giant planets have migrated since their formation. This is what has led to the Solar System as we know it today. However, an enduring mystery about these theories is how Mars came to be the way it is. Why, for example, is it significantly smaller than Earth and inhospitable to life as we know it when all indications show that it should be comparable in size? According to a new study by an international team of scientists, the migration of the giant planets could have been what made the difference. For over a decade, astronomers have been operating under the assumption that shortly after the for...

NASA recently delivered $10 million in funding to Ad Astra Rocket Company of Texas for further development of its Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR), an electromagnetic thruster proficient of propelling a spaceship to Mars in just 39 days. NASA’s funding was part of the “12 Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnership.” Ad Astra’s rocket will travel ten times quicker than today’s chemical rockets while using one-tenth the amount of fuel. The VASIMR system would cut the trip to Mars by months according to Franklin Chang Diaz, a former MIT student, NASA astronaut, and now CEO of Ad Astra. According to Diaz, “this is like no other rocket that you may have seen in the past. It is a plasma rocket. The VASIMR Rocket is not used for launching things; it is used for things already in orbit. This is called “in-space propulsion.” VASIMR heats plasma, an electrically charged gas, to exceptionally high temperatures using radio waves. The system then offers thrust by fun...

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, which is currently on its way to grab a chunk of an asteroid, has returned a stunning image of Earth and the Moon in the process. The spacecraft snapped the image on October 2, 2017, just after it made a flyby of Earth, although the image has only just been released by NASA. At this time the Moon was about 390,000 kilometers (240,000 miles) from Earth. OSIRIS-REx took this image from a distance of more than 5 million kilometers (3 million miles) from Earth, or more than 13 times the Earth-Moon distance. It was taken by combining three images from different color wavelengths. The Moon was brightened to make it more visible. The spacecraft was launched on September 8, 2016, but in order to reach its target, it then orbited the Sun for a year before flying past Earth to get a speed boost from our planet’s gravity. It made its closest approach to our planet – an altitude of 17,000 kilometers (11,000 miles) – on September 22, 2017, and took this image 10 days l...

Thought at first it was a plane but the sun is ‘reacting’ to this. It definitely does defy any explanation. I have watched 1000+ hours of UFO material, and this one is probably the best. What the hell is this? Analyzing the Objects I caught beside the sun. I have LIVE FOOTAGE and I have Photography. I have a special way of showing photography though. It looks LIVE. That’s how I show a lot of detail. Let us take a CLOSE look at the planet crossing paths with our sun and more. Looking through YouTube comments, there seem to be several plausible theories: “I so appreciate you! You’re the best channel on this subject. You speak in terms that a person who is fairly new to the subject, like me, can understand. I’m learning so much and I thank you sincerely. ” “ONE THING TO SAY TO ALL OF YOU WHO THINK THIS IS A PLANE. LMFAO HA HA THE VIDEO STARTS OFF WITH A FIREBALL APPROACHING THE SUN REMEMBER? THAT FIREBALL WAS TOO FAST FOR ME TO SEE IT WITH MY EYES. THE PLANE YOU ALL SAW WAS THANKS TO ME S...

We’ve become used to looking at unclear images of the Moon’s surface taken about 50 years ago, but the newest collection of photos issued by the Chinese space agency comprise some of the clearest pictures ever taken. These stunning pictures were taken by the Chinese Space Agency’s Yutu lunar rover. Yutu lunar rover is also known as the “Jade Rabbit”. It landed on the Moon on 14 December 2013 as part of the Chang’e-3 Moon mission. Yutu captured photographs in stunning HD quality, displaying the rocky lunar surface, rover tracks and remarkable rock formations. The rover became motionless on 25 January 2014 – just 42 days into a three-month mission – due to technical glitches. The main problem was that it was unable to replenish its solar power supplies. Despite this problem, the Yutu’s tools continued to work, letting it to record data and take these astonishing pictures from a stationary position. Unlike NASA or the European Space Agency, the China National Space Administration (CNSA) i...

Renowned scientist Stephen Hawking passed away yesterday in his home at the age of 76. According to his family he encountered death peacefully. He has been called one of the most intelligent people ever born, and even bound to a wheelchair he made waves. These are some of the last known photos of the man. In one of Hawking’s last public appearances with Neil DeGrasse Tyson on his show Star Talk, he said “The boundary condition of the universe … is that it has no boundary.” He was known for saying things just like this. In other words he means, there is no such thing as time before time started, because time has never ceased to exist. It’s quite a good thing to chew on with the mind. Stephen Hawking would describe such things as his belief that against a nearly infinitely small “quantum foam” of the singularity he believes took place in the early universe before the Big Bang, time existed in a “bent” state. He believes at that moment, time was distorted along another dimension, always i...

NASA will be unable to defend our planet against a doomsday asteroid that could smash into Earth in 2135, a chilling study has revealed. Researchers found that it might be impossible to stop the space rock - which is the size of the Empire State building - from careering into Earth next century. Scientists revealed that even their most advanced technology would prove 'inadequate' for deflecting such a space rock, which has been dubbed Bennu. The consequences would be 'dire' experts have warned, and the asteroid has sparked fears that it could even wipe out life for good. Scientists are investigating the possibility of using a specially designed spacecraft to nuke approaching cosmic objects, in hopes that doing so could deflect the threat. While it could be possible to divert a near-Earth object (NEO) by slamming into it with a so-called impactor, experts say a nuclear explosion may be the best bet when time is running out. In a new paper, scientists from NASA and the Na...

The idea that the Earth is ‘Flat’ is, in fact, a relatively new theory. In fact, before anyone came up with the idea we live on a flat plane, people knew very well the Earth was round. Even though there are countless images of our planet, and numerous videos which have been recorded from space, there are still some who argue the Earth is in fact flat. One of them is a Ph.D. student who rocked the Arab scientific community when she presented her thesis claiming the Earth is FLAT, stationary, the center of the universe and only around 13,500 years old. Yup, you read right. Not only did she suggest we live on a flat Earth, she also rejected scientific theories presented by Newton and Einstein, astronomical discoveries made by Copernicus and Kepler, the Big Bang theory, atmospheric and geological activity, most of modern climatology, and basically all other scientific teachings made in the past. According to an article written by the Gulf News, the student presented her thesis after a stag...

When a cigar-shaped interstellar object, `Oumuamua, entered our skies in October 2017, it caused quite a stir. There were even suggestions(however spurious) it could be an alien spaceship. Well, sorry to put a dampener on any ET-type fantasies you may be harboring, but scientists have been listening out for radio signals emanating from the space rock – and heard nothing (results published in The Astrophysical Journal). So unless there are some very sneaky aliens on board keeping suspiciously quiet, we can safely assume it is definitely not an alien spacecraft. At least it means we won't have to worry about any "Independence Day" -style alien invasion just yet. (Especially as there are plenty of other things closer to home to worry about.) Oumuamua is our first known interstellar visitor, and while its origins remain a bit of a mystery, we do know that it is roughly 10 times as long as it is wide, it measures 400 meters (1,300 feet) or more tip-to-toe, and it is a dark, re...

One of the strangest aspects of quantum physics is entanglement: If you observe a particle in one place, another particle—even one light-years away—will instantly change its properties, as if the two are connected by a mysterious communication channel. Scientists have observed this phenomenon in tiny objects such as atoms and electrons. But in two new studies, researchers report seeing entanglement in devices nearly visible to the naked eye. “There really is an interesting open question, which is: ‘How far can you go up in scale?’” says Andrew Armour, a physicist at the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom who wasn’t involved in the work. The advance could also pave the way for ultrasensitive measurements of gravity and a hack-proof quantum internet. Albert Einstein colorfully dismissed quantum entanglement—the ability of separated objects to share a condition or state—as “spooky action at a distance.” Over the past few decades, however, physicists have demonstrated the reali...

One of biology's great mysteries is how a single fertilized egg gives rise to the multitude of cell types, tissues, and organs that fit together to make a body. Now, a combination of single-cell sequencing technologies and computational tools is providing the most detailed picture yet of this process. In three papers online in Science this week, researchers report taking multiple snapshots of gene activity in most of the cells in developing zebrafish or frog embryos. They then assembled those data, taken at intervals of just minutes to hours, into coherent, cell-by-cell histories of how those embryos take shape. "My first reaction was, ‘Wow!’" says developmental biologist Robert Zinzen of the Berlin Institute for Medical Systems Biology. Just last week, two other papers online in Science traced cell-by-cell gene activity in planaria, simple flatworms, as they regenerated after being cut into pieces. In vertebrates, "the complexity is much higher," Zinzen notes. ...