The agency was finally able to take a picture of the charcoal-like space gravel of the Bennu asteroid sample after getting the canister’s last two stubborn screws out.
The picture presented here is nowhere near as interesting as the detailed and very zoomable full-res download you can grab from NASA’s site, though.
The country’s Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) used vision-based navigation (hence its nickname) to help it land on Friday. Ars Technica has a detailed explanation for how this all worked, while a translated video published on The Independent’s YouTube channel offers insight, as well.
Unfortunately, the craft’s solar panels malfunctioned, leaving it with only hours of battery left. A disappointing facet of the story. In the meantime, please enjoy this perfectly 80s arcade-style logo from Moon Sniper’s press materials (PDF).
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) says it reestablished contact by having the Perseverance rover “perform long-duration listening sessions for Ingenuity’s signal.” The agency had lost contact with Ingenuity on Thursday, just as it was ending its 72nd Mars flight.
It’s good news for the bots, which are part of the Mars Sample Return mission that’s been beset by budget cuts and layoffs at JPL.
The Ingenuity helicopter, which has been fluttering around the red planet for almost three years now, fell out of contact with Perseverance, the rover that brought it to the planet (and that it communicates with using Zigbee!).
NASA wrote yesterday that the flight, its 72nd, was a test of its systems after it was forced to land it early during its previous flight. The agency is working toward reestablishing contact.
While we wait, here’s a recent video of the helicopter in action.
The OpenAI CEO said during an event in Davos this week that “We still don’t appreciate the energy needs of this technology,” which is expected to consume an enormous amount of electricity as it matures. “There’s no way to get there without a breakthrough. We need [nuclear] fusion or we need like radically cheaper solar plus storage or something at massive scale,” Altman said.
Altman and Microsoft are both backers of the startup Helion, which is trying to develop a nuclear fusion generator — considered the Holy Grail of clean energy. But after more than 70 years of research punctuated with limited breakthroughs, many experts expect that the world will be chasing that Holy Grail for decades longer. Luckily, solar energy is already the cheapest source of electricity in history — the world just needs better batteries to store it.
Japan’s space agency JAXA is attempting a soft landing of its Moon Sniper mission. After alighting, the lander will eject SORA-Q, a transforming robot roughly the size of a baseball that was made with the help of toy company Takara Tomy.
But don’t get too attached —the robot’s battery life is only two hours.
Watch JAXA’s livestream, which is scheduled to start at 9AM ET on Friday. The landing is estimated to occur at 10:20AM ET.
It expanded a tax credit today that can shave up to 30 percent off the cost of an EV charger in low-income communities and rural areas. The Departments of Transportation and Energy also announced $325 million in investments this week to fix broken EV chargers, train a workforce to expand the network of chargers across the US, and fund R&D for EV technologies.
To crack down on greenwashing, members of the European Parliament adopted a new law that bans “generic environmental claims and other misleading product information.” That includes vague labels like “environmentally friendly,” “natural,” “biodegradable,” “climate neutral,” and “eco” if companies can’t show proof of their environmental benefits. It also stops brands from fooling customers with schemes to offset greenhouse gas emissions, which don’t actually reduce pollution.
Fitbit is working with Quest Diagnostics to see whether metrics like heart rate, heart rate variability, sleep cycles, and stress can be used to detect early signs of metabolic deterioration — a leading cause of high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and Type 2 diabetes.
To do that, WEAR-ME study participants will need their blood drawn so Fitbit can draw correlations and develop algorithms for assessing metabolic health. Not a typical step for these kinds of studies! This could be very cool, or perhaps end up as vaporware, but you can find more information here.
The satellite internet company has announced a new program that lets internet service providers deliver symmetrical download and upload speeds of up to 10Gbps to remote areas.
One remote town in Alaska is already using the gateway to provide connectivity across the community — the only catch is that it costs ISPs $1.25 million upfront on top of a $75,000 / Gbps per month fee.
After years of opposition from the Havasupai Tribe and environmental advocates, a contested mine near the Grand Canyon started producing uranium in December. It’s one of three mines in Arizona and Utah that started operations thanks to rising uranium prices and increased interest in nuclear energy as a carbon-free alternative to fossil fuels, despite uranium’s legacy of pollution and contaminated water. Two more mines in Colorado and Wyoming could also start producing uranium over the next year.
