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Category: space – Page 272

Vertical farms could take over the world | Hard Reset by Freethink

Vertical farming saves water, land, and energy — and it could be how we grow food on Mars.

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Vertical farming is a type of indoor farming where crops are grown in stacked layers, rather than spread out across large plots of land. These farms offer many benefits over traditional ones, including the prospect of better access to healthy foods in underserved communities.

Because vertical farms use LED lighting, their output isn’t subject to the natural elements that typically affect plant production such as adverse weather, insects, and seasons.

They’re better for the environment because they require less energy and put out less pollution, without a need for heavy machinery, pesticides, or fertilizers. Additionally, soil-less farming methods like aeroponics require just 10% of the amount of water consumed by outdoor farms.

Adopting these sustainable farming practices could lead to a monumental shift in how we produce food on Earth, and enable us to create a reliable food source beyond our planet.

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Neutrinos: ‘Ghost Particles’ Can Interact With Light After All

Neutrinos, the tricky little particles that just stream through the Universe like it’s virtually nothing, may actually interact with light after all.

According to new calculations, interactions between neutrinos and photons can take place in powerful magnetic fields that can be found in the plasma wrapped around stars.

It’s a discovery that could help us understand why the Sun’s atmosphere is so much hotter than its surface, say Hokkaido University physicist Kenzo Ishikawa and Yutaka Tobita, a physicist from Hokkaido University of Science – and, of course, to study the mysterious ghost particle in greater detail.

Electrons from Earth may be forming water on the Moon

A team of researchers, led by a University of Hawai’i (UH) at Manoa planetary scientist, discovered that high energy electrons in Earth’s plasma sheet are contributing to weathering processes on the Moon’s surface and, importantly, the electrons may have aided the formation of water on the lunar surface. The study was published today in Nature Astronomy.

Understanding the concentrations and distributions of water on the Moon is critical to understanding its formation and evolution, and to providing water resources for future human exploration. The new discovery may also help explain the origin of the water ice previously discovered in the lunar permanently shaded regions.

Due to Earth’s magnetism, there is a force field surrounding the planet, referred to as the magnetosphere, that protects Earth from space weathering and damaging radiation from the Sun. Solar wind pushes the magnetosphere and reshapes it, making a long tail on the night side. The plasma sheet within this magnetotail is a region consisting of high energy electrons and ions that may be sourced from Earth and the solar wind.

Researchers suggest how to make space telescopes cheaper and better

The JWST is just the beginning of a new era of space astronomy.

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has been a spectacular success so far, revealing new insights into the cosmos with its powerful vision. But the JWST also has a history of cost overruns, delays, and near-cancellations that have raised questions about the feasibility of future space telescopes.

Source: Northrop Grumman/NASA via Flickr.

Is there a way to make space telescopes more affordable?

Answering AI’s biggest questions requires an interdisciplinary approach

When Elon Musk announced the team behind his new artificial intelligence company xAI last month, whose mission is reportedly to “understand the true nature of the universe,” it underscored the criticality of answering existential concerns about AI’s promise and peril.

Whether the newly formed company can actually align its behavior to reduce the potential risks of the technology, or whether it’s solely aiming to gain an edge over OpenAI, its formation does elevate important questions about how companies should actually respond to concerns about AI. Specifically:

Webb telescope spots star spewing bright supersonic jets

The space observatory has observed a dynamic environment around a young protostar as it accumulates mass on its path to becoming a Sun-like celestial body.

Since its launch, the advanced James Webb Space Telescope.

One example is star-forming regions, often challenging to observe due to their location within densely populated clouds of gas and dust.

Earth’s health is depleting on six of nine parameters

Human intervention right now holds the key.

How do we assess the health of our planet? In 2009, a group of 28 scientists wanted a definite answer to this question. So, they outlined nine planetary boundaries, which are critical for Earth’s stability.

A reassessment in 2023 says that six of these nine planetary boundaries have been transgressed, suggesting that Earth is “well outside of the safe operating space for humanity.”

James Webb telescope stumbles onto signs of possible life on Earth-like planet

(WTAJ) — Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope say they have stumbled onto possible signs of life coming from a massive Earth-like exoplanet, NASA confirmed in a release.

K2-18 b is an exoplanet — a planet outside our solar system — that’s 8.6 times as massive as Earth. A new investigation with the JWST revealed the presence of “carbon-bearing molecules” that include methane and carbon dioxide. The findings add to recent studies that suggest that K2-18 b could be a Hycean exoplanet, meaning it has the potential to hold a hydrogen-rich atmosphere and a water-covered surface, NASA reported.

Astronomers first studied K2-18 b’s atmosphere with NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope in 2019. The results prompted further studies of the massive exoplanet that have changed experts understanding of the system.