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NASA Prepares to Develop Its Next Large Space Telescope

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(Image: Jonny Gios/Unsplash)

You’d think NASA would want to take a breather after its successful launch of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), but that isn’t the case. NASA is already gearing up to develop its next big telescope using the insights gleaned from last year’s launch.

When the National Academies published Astro2020 (short for “ Pathways to Discovery in Astronomy and Astrophysics for the 2020s”) in 2021, the decadal survey urged NASA to pursue the development of a future space telescope that would operate at ultraviolet, visible and near-infrared wavelengths. The goal, according to the survey, was for this telescope to pave the way for far-infrared and X-ray telescopes. All of these projects could be housed under one umbrella program.

NASA appears to have taken Astro2020’s recommendation to heart. Last year the agency kicked off the Great Observatory Technology Maturation Program (GOMAP), a tech development initiative that would focus on what are commonly called the “New Great Observatories.” According to NASA officials who spoke at the 241st Meeting of the American Astronomical Society earlier this month, GOMAP’s first task is to develop a 6.5-meter UV, visible, and near-infrared space telescope—the very one Astro2020 recommended just over a year ago. It will be called the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO)...

More: https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/342340-nasa-prepares-to-develop-its-next-large-space-telescope

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US Marines Defeat DARPA Robot by Hiding Under a Cardboard Box

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The Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has invested some of its resources into a robot that’s been trained—likely among other things—to identify humans. There’s just one little problem: The robot is cartoonishly easy to confuse.

Army veteran, former Pentagon policy analyst, and author Paul Scharre is gearing up to release a new book called Four Battlegrounds: Power in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. Despite the fact that the book isn’t scheduled to hit shelves until Feb. 28, Twitter users are already sharing excerpts via social media. This includes The Economist‘s defense editor, Shashank Joshi, who shared a particularly laughable passage on Twitter.

In the excerpt, Scharre describes a week during which DARPA calibrated its robot’s human recognition algorithm alongside a group of US Marines. The Marines and a team of DARPA engineers spent six days walking around the robot, training it to identify the moving human form. On the seventh day, the engineers placed the robot at the center of a traffic circle and devised a little game: The Marines had to approach the robot from a distance and touch the robot without being detected.

DARPA was quickly humbled. Scharre writes that all eight Marines were able to defeat the robot using techniques that could have come straight out of a Looney Tunes episode. Two of the Marines somersaulted toward the center of the traffic circle, thus using a form of movement the robot hadn’t been trained to identify. Another pair shuffled toward the robot under a cardboard box...

MORE: https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/342413-us-marines-defeat-darpa-robot-by-hiding-under-a-cardboard-box

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CHINA SAYS THEY ARE SOLVING A MAJOR HYPERSONIC HURDLE WITH METAMATERIALS AND WIFI

At hypersonic speeds, communication is impossible. Or, at least it was...

MJ BANIAS·JANUARY 20, 2023

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The Chinese government recently announced it has allegedly solved the issue of communication for hypersonic missiles and aircraft using WiFi and metamaterials, according to an article published in the South China Morning Post.

Hypersonic weapons and aircraft are considered to be the next big step in warfare. Traveling at speeds exceeding Mach 5 (five times the speed of sound), a hypersonic missile can hit a target from a massive distance and, due to speed, is virtually impossible to shoot down by air defences.

The surface temperature of a hypersonic weapon or aircraft can exceed 3,600 degrees Fahrenheit, or 2,000 degrees Centigrade, creating a hot cocoon of scorching radio-blocking plasma around it. Basically, at those speeds, the hypersonic system can’t communicate and goes dark.

For any possible future travel via hypersonic aircraft, this becomes an obvious problem. Future patrons may want to send a text message on the five minute flight between London and New York, or check their socials for the latest celebrity gossip. The more immediate and real issue is the inability to call off a hypersonic attack.

Traditional large scale missile-based weapons have failsafes designed to explode the weapon prior to contact with a target, allowing the attacker to call off a strike for any number of reasons. Send up a weapon travelling at hypersonic speeds, the ability to shut it down, blow it up, or alter its course is not possible; or at least it wasn’t.

According to Chinese media, a Shanghai research team designed a sleek antenna that could allow hypersonic missiles to communicate while travelling between Mach 5 and Mach 20. While the Chinese military has claimed they have been able to communicate with hypersonic missiles for over a year now during tests, the current system, which uses satellite and ground based networks, costs a fortune to build and operate.

In the January edition of Journal of Microwaves, a peer-reviewed publication run by the Chinese Institute of Electronics, researchers said this new system would utilize low frequencies to aid in “target identification, positioning and other critical functions.”

The team created a soft and slim antenna that attaches to the cooler aft of the weapon. According to the team, the ground tests indicated that the antenna achieved “remarkable” performance at frequencies between 5.2 to 5.8 gigahertz, the same low frequencies usually used for 5G smartphones, high-speed Wi-Fi routers, and other internet-based devices. Moreover, compared to the military’s work in hypersonic communications, the Shanghai team says it’s really cheap.

According to the paper, the team developed a thin membrane metamaterial composed of wires arranged with maze-like gaps between each one that can trap or alter electromagnetic waves. Since communication is happening at the lower frequencies, more “noise” is produced over the missile’s surface, leading to a drop in signal strength and quality.

In simple terms, the metamaterial’s complex wire labyrinth is able to soak up more signal and increase communication quality. In turn, the antenna can convert that low frequency signal and focus it into a beam, creating an effective communication system between the hypersonic weapon and the operator.

Unfortunately, the state-run journal did not provide the ground test data, making it impossible to verify the claims made by the team.

Here: https://thedebrief.org/china-hypersonic-metamaterial-wifi/

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On 1/22/2023 at 9:46 PM, UCyborg said:

Speaking of useless, how 'bout sports? On TV, they just won't shut up about Luka Dončić. Dončić this, Dončić that, blah, blah, blah...seriously, can no one else play basketball? How are they advancing society? All I see is few individuals earning absurd amounts of money. The world's backwards.

Agreed with you! This is exactly what I am thinking too.

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On 1/22/2023 at 9:46 PM, UCyborg said:

On absurd, founders of Outfit7 made one of the most silly games in existence, Talking Tom. They have shitload of money because of it.

Yeah, it is a silly and boring game as well. I'm glad I stopped playing it years ago.

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8 hours ago, msfntor said:

The Bubble Nebula – a Hubble Telescope mosaic

http://astrophoto.net/wp/wp-content/uploads/bubbleHST_NHO_crop-1800x1112.jpg

http://astrophoto.net/wp/2018/06/02/the-bubble-nebula-a-hubble-telescope-mosaic/

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This image is from esahubble.org: https://esahubble.org/images/heic1608a/

This new NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image, released to celebrate Hubble’s 26th year in orbit (in 2016), captures in stunning clarity what looks like a gigantic cosmic soap bubble. The object, known as the Bubble Nebula, is in fact a cloud of gas and dust illuminated by the brilliant star within it. The vivid new portrait of this dramatic scene wins the Bubble Nebula a place in the exclusive Hubble hall of fame, following an impressive lineage of Hubble anniversary images.

Twenty six years ago (in 2016), on 24 April 1990, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope was launched into orbit aboard the space shuttle Discovery as the first space telescope of its kind. Every year, to commemorate this momentous day in space history, Hubble spends a modest portion of its observing time capturing a spectacular view of a specially chosen astronomical object.

This year’s anniversary object is the Bubble Nebula, also known as NGC 7635, which lies 8 000 light-years away in the constellation Cassiopeia. This object was first discovered by William Herschel in 1787 and this is not the first time it has caught Hubble’s eye. However, due to its very large size on the sky, previous Hubble images have only shown small sections of the nebula, providing a much less spectacular overall effect. Now, a mosaic of four images from Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) allows us to see the whole object in one picture for the first time.

This complete view of the Bubble Nebula allows us to fully appreciate the almost perfectly symmetrical shell which gives the nebula its name. This shell is the result of a powerful flow of gas — known as a stellar wind — from the bright star visible just to the left of centre in this image. The star, SAO 20575, is between ten and twenty times the mass of the Sun and the pressure created by its stellar wind forces the surrounding interstellar material outwards into this bubble-like form.

The giant molecular cloud that surrounds the star — glowing in the star’s intense ultraviolet radiation — tries to stop the expansion of the bubble. However, although the sphere already measures around ten light-years in diameter, it is still growing, owing to the constant pressure of the stellar wind — currently at more than 100 000 kilometres per hour!

Description (and more): https://esahubble.org/news/heic1608/

 

**reading now** :)

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Edible Bugs or Weapon?

by Celeste Solum January 23, 2023

 

WHO REALLY DEPLOYS A PLAGUE OF INSECTS?.....

MODERN HISTORY OF INSECT WARFARE (EW)

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The Colorado potato beetle

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The U.S. dropped over 300,000 uninfected mosquitoes on its own population........

WEAPONIZATION OF BUGS

Fleas create fear.

Ticks instill psychological impacts.

Terrorize with the cockroach.

Insects can carry radioactive isotopes turning them into dirty bombs, and much more.

Bioterrorism

GENETICALLY ENGINEERED INSECTS

DARPA INSECT ALLIES

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IN SUMMARY

Considering the amount of evidence from academia, military, and the private sector on the weaponization of insects- I know that I am not to keen on eating them myself.  I have seen the documentation on what they are feeding those creepy crawlies. .....

ALL THIS (and MORE)https://shepherdsheart.life/blogs/news/eatable-green-bugs-or-weapon

Blessings,

Celeste

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Celeste Solum is a broadcaster, author, former government, organic farmer and is trained in nursing and environmental medicine.  Celeste chronicles the space and earth conditions that trigger the rise and fall of modern & ancient civilizations, calendars, and volatile economies. Cycles are converging, all pointing to a cataclysmic period between 2020 to 2050 in what many scientists believe is an Extinction Level Event.  

HOME pages: 

https://shepherdsheart.life/blogs/news/

https://celestialreport.com/

____________________________________________

 

Why Tiny Cactus Bugs In Red Food Dye Are A $35 Billion Industry | Big Business | Insider Business

 

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Ladies! Stop Cleaning Your House!

It is official, research published online in the American Thoracic Society's American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine shows that cleaning your house lead to decreased lung function. Cleaning your house is the equivalent of smoking 20 packs of cigarettes a year. 

The culprit is not cleaning per se, but cleaning with household cleaners or sprays....

MORE: https://shepherdsheart.life/blogs/health-and-beauty/ladies-stop-cleaning-your-house

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On 1/23/2023 at 12:13 AM, D.Draker said:

This all is so damn complicated, why do you need to stuff your head with it ? Any ways to give a flying (4 letter word) ? Just ignore and live for yourself, no ?

Sometimes I watch news to not be completely oblivious to what goes on around. My memory is good at self-clearing, so no worries that my head'll explode from it.:buehehe:

On 1/24/2023 at 12:25 AM, mina7601 said:
On 1/22/2023 at 8:46 PM, UCyborg said:

Speaking of useless, how 'bout sports? On TV, they just won't shut up about Luka Dončić. Dončić this, Dončić that, blah, blah, blah...seriously, can no one else play basketball? How are they advancing society? All I see is few individuals earning absurd amounts of money. The world's backwards.

Agreed with you! This is exactly what I am thinking too.

Welp, we have to get through the day somehow. Journalists have to report something. It is what it is. :}

23 hours ago, mina7601 said:
On 1/22/2023 at 8:46 PM, UCyborg said:

On absurd, founders of Outfit7 made one of the most silly games in existence, Talking Tom. They have shitload of money because of it.

Yeah, it is a silly and boring game as well. I'm glad I stopped playing it years ago.

Related - https://venturebeat.com/games/talking-tom-managing-a-franchise-with-8-billion-downloads/

 

Don't know what else to say, so leaving the quote I came by:

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Edited by UCyborg
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