NASA

In 1995, NASA began to drug spiders with amphetamines, marijuana and the most devastating: caffeine

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We carry decades experimenting with animals. Despite the Ethical issueand that we see more and more vegan products that imply that there has been no experimentation in animals, until Large technological ones resort to this method. And in 1995, NASA made one of the more curious experiments To measure the drug toxicity. And they did it drugs. Measuring toxicity. It is not that someone woke up one day and wondered what would happen if we die LSD to spiders. Or well, exactly that is what happened, but for a good reason and not for fun. In 1948, the researcher Peter N. Witt He wanted to help his colleague HM Peters, a zoologist who wanted to modify the schedule in which his laboratory spiders began to weave the nets. To do this, he administered substances such as LSD, Mescalina (hallucinogen), amphetamines, caffeine and strychnine (stimulating such as cocaine) To the arthropods and discovered something: the schedule did not change the least, but the patterns of the cobwebs. Depending on the drug Administered, the pattern changed, and that revelation served as an economic model to prove the neurological impact of drugs and toxic on living systems. Why spiders? The problem is that the nervous system of arthropods is different from ours, so it is useless to draw conclusions when we want to try effects on humans, but it is interesting to know how these psychoactive substances influence their organism. In 1995, NASA, inspired by Witt’s experiment, chose spiders for new research, but also did it for An ethical issue. They wanted to measure the toxic effect of different compounds, but without resorting to mammals or “higher organisms.” They needed a sensitive and reliable organism, but not controversial. In addition, spiders are perfect because their cobwebs follow fixed and instinctive patterns that, as Witt already demonstrated, was extremely sensitive to chemical alterations. The experiment. Baptized as “Using Spider-Web Patterns to Determine Toxicity“, he experiment It consisted of exposing different European garden spiders to different drugs. To do this, they dissolved a certain amount of drugs in sugary water and administered it directly to the spider through the mouth or by means of flies previously fed with the solution. Once administered, they let each spider weave their air and, later, photographed the web that had been fabric, comparing that creation with cobwebs photographs that those same spiders had made before applying the drug. If you get drugs, don’t tile. The results They speak for themselves: In addition, the methodology was stricter than the one carried out by Witt half a century earlier when using statistical tools to measure changes in the number of complete sides of the ‘cells’ of each web and the general regularity of the design. In other words: high doses of caffeine, for example, and because it is the one that produces the most chaotic result, generated disorganized and incomplete patterns. Until the lowest doses they already allowed irregularities to be observed in the web that allowed researchers to correlate toxicity with tissue morphology. Consequences. We must not be a genius for this, but the greater the toxicity, the more incomplete and chaotic the web was. But the most important thing is that this thorough methodology of NASA converted the experiment In an alternative to traditional toxicity tests, especially in a scenario that, as we said, had less tolerance to tests with other types of animals. They were biological evidence, yes, and chemicals were also administered to living beings, but in a little invasive way and without losing rigor. And, precisely, the visibility of this work helped the debate on animal ethics to increase even more, evidencing that alternative, but economic methods could be used, with rigorous and replicable results, being more ethical than other models that were made -and they continue to do. Like Witt’s, NASA’s experiment provided very valuable information, but not applicable to humansdue to the differences between the nervous system of a human and other animals … and that of arthropods. For example, caffeine causes total chaos in spiders, but in humans, although It is not good if we want to make certain decisionsIt does not produce the same effects. Image | Das Morton In Xataka | If the question is “how much caffeine each cup of coffee or tea has”, this graph offers revealing responses

Solar storms are increasingly threatening for the earth. NASA wants to prepare with a “digital twin” of the sun

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The sun, that star that gives us life, also has an unpredictable character and potentially destructive. So much so that A large solar storm It could return to us technologically to the stone age in the blink of an eye. To avoid this, NASA and IBM They have joined forces To create a model that simulates the behavior of the sun. And how could it be otherwise, it has been generated with artificial intelligence. A authentic twin of the sun to understand it better. The union of forces of these two institutions has resulted in the creation of Surya, an artificial intelligence Designed to act as a digital twin of the sun and anticipate their violent outbursts with precision that with the models that are currently used cannot be achieved. Training an AI with the heart of a star. The challenge of predicting the space climate is undoubtedly a great challenge For scientists. To build Surya, the engineers turned to an inexhaustible data source: the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) NASA Hala. For nine years, this probe has State watching the sun without restcapturing images of very high resolution every 12 seconds in different wavelengths and measuring its complex magnetic field. Once you have all this information is where artificial intelligence comes into action to be able to organize and interpret them for experts. That is why the first thing Surya did is standardize all data formats to be able to process them together. Intelligent filtering of all this information. Once the data was unified, the next step was to use a long -range vision transformer, an architecture capable of analyzing gigantic images to identify patterns and relationships between points of solar activity, regardless of how far they are from each other. But he did not stay here, because thanks to a mechanism known as ‘spectral door’, the system was able to filter the ‘noise’ of the data to reduce memory use and improve the quality of the information with which it worked. Therefore, researchers were removed a lot of work to have to label all the images, causing it to adapt rapidly. More precision and twice as much time to react. The results of the initial tests are very promising. Until now, Traditional models barely gave us an hour in advance before a solar eruption. With Surya it has been shown to be able to launch a reliable warning two hours in advance, doubleing the humanity preparation window. But it is not only faster, but also accurate. The IBM and NASA team recorded a 16% improvement in precision when classifying solar rashes compared to the models used right now. Something that is also thanks to the ability to integrate information from other missions such as Parker solar probe or the Soho Observatory. An open tool for the science of the future. Far from saving this powerful tool in a key drawer, IBM and NASA have made it available to the entire scientific community. Surya is now available on platforms such as Hugging Face, GITHUB or even the Terratorch library. Kevin Murphy, NASA scientific data director, is clear: “We facilitate the analysis of the complexity of our star’s behavior with unprecedented speed and precision. This opens the door to a better understanding of the impact of solar activity on the systems on which our daily life depends.” The goal is for the Earth to be prepared. Although we see the central star of our system as harmless, the reality is that at any time this sensation can change. In this way, preparation and anticipation is fundamental and for the moment all hopes are put in this model of where it is possible to learn from the processes behind the evolution of the sun with the aim of having a greater amount of information. Images | Javier Miranda In Xataka | How the Solar System was formed: So that the Earth was born, a star had to die

Spacex is on its way to having more money than NASA. He has succeeded, in part, because he does not pay taxes

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A few weeks ago, Elon Musk made public that Spacex’s income They were on their way to exceed NASA’s annual budgeta milestone that showed the spectacular commercial success of Starlink. Now, an investigation of the New York Times has revealed the least known face of that success: Spacex has been not paying taxes for more than 20 years. The other type of engineering that Spacex makes. Although it is not obliged to present results, because it does not quote on the stock exchange, the company’s internal documents show that Spacex accumulated almost 5.4 billion dollars in tax losses Until the end of 2021. Thanks to US fiscal legislation, these losses can be used to compensate for future benefits, which in practice means that Elon Musk’s company has avoided the payment of billions of dollars in federal taxes on income. The situation is even more favorable for Spacex since 2017 for a change introduced during the first presidency of Donald Trump, which eliminated the 20 -year limit for the use of tax losses. This allows Spacex to apply almost 3,000 million dollars of its losses against future benefits indefinitely. A company that grew with public money. The paradox that is most commented on these days in the American press is that Spacex owes a good part of its growth to NASA contracts and the United States Department of Defense, among other government agencies. Some of these contracts were crucial at the beginning of Spacex. According to an analysis of Washington PostElon Musk companies have received at least 38,000 million dollars in public contracts, loans, subsidies and tax credits in the last two decades. In the case of Spacex, which was founded in 2000, almost all its income came from federal contracts until the arrival of Starlink. In 2020, almost 84% of its income, a figure that in 2021 stood at 76%. The golden eggs. With Starlink, the SpaceX business is more buoyant than ever. The satellite Internet network has more than 6 million subscribers and has become the main source of income of the company, surpassing the rocket division. Thanks to Starlink, Spacex plans to enter 15.5 billion dollars in 2025, a figure that is dangerously approaching the annual NASA budget, which by 2026 is estimated at 18.8 billion. This growth has triggered the SpaceX assessment up to 350,000 million dollars, making it the largest non -quoted company in the United States. But you can still use those tax losses to be exempt from paying taxes.

Taking spectacular photographs of the Perseids seems impossible. NASA has a guide to demonstrate otherwise

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The Perseids are already here and, although there are still a few days to reach their peak of activity, it is convenient to keep in mind some clues and tricks if our intention is to capture them in a photograph. Because as more than one will have proven, this is not always easy. AND Who better than NASA to point to any of these tricks. The first step: plan. If we want to get a good image of this rain of stars, the first thing is to think where and when. The Perseids or Tears of San Lorenzo can be seen for several weeks of summer, approximately between June 17 and August 24, and reach their peak of activity around August 11 and 12. Where and when it is also important when it comes to circumventing the great enemy of astrophotography: light pollution. First, it is convenient Avoid full moon And the phases in which it reflects the most light, since, although we do not perceive this light, it reduces the contrast that our eyes require to see the fleeting stars. It is also important flee from light pollution that generate the lights of cities and other settlements, so perhaps we should plan a trip to the field if we want to see these stars. Finally, we must also know where to look. Perseids owe their name that seem to radiate The constellation of Perseus. Knowing how to locating this constellation in the sky is very useful when restricting the angle to which to aim the objectives of our cameras and increase the probability of capturing some of these flashes. Second step: the team. A tripod can be helpful. Photography will require a long exposure. Maybe they are just a few seconds, but our pulse or any other involuntary movement could spoil a perfect shot. If we do not have a tripod we may resort to a “homemade” solution, such as supporting our camera on some rocks, but that will subtract maneuvering capacity. It can also be useful pertrech In order not to have the chamber trigger and thus avoid additional vibrations, but we can also dodge this requirement with the camera timer. Regarding the lens, NASA’s recommendation is in angular. Since we do not know when and where the next flash will happen, it will be best to cover a lot to increase our chances of success. Third step: Prepare. Once in position, we can start looking The constellation of Perseus. Orient our camera towards it will increase the chances of capturing the flashes of this rain of stars. The approach, best manual. The reason is that cameras self -effect systems can be lost in night darkness. Since we will not have to change the focal point, this does not imply any problem once we have taken the ideal approach. We will have, of course, to walk with an eye: sometimes focusing on infinity is not the best option, so it is a good idea to try small adjustments until you find the ideal approach. There is still a detail. We had said that capturing a rain of stars requires long exhibitions. Calculate how long can also require adjustments, but NASA also has a trick to facilitate work: Rule 500. It is about dividing 500 by the focal distance of the lens, and using the figure as time, in seconds, that our open shutter will remain. This value represents the maximum time that we can maintain the exposure before the terrestrial rotation makes the background stars begin to spread. If we have a 20 mm lens, we will have that 500/20 = 25 seconds of maximum. Experiment, enjoy. Rule 500 can be a good start, but we will still have to adjust our ISO and opening values, which will also allow us to play with shorter exhibitions. We can make small changes and verify how each one affects the quality of the image or its aesthetics. He last advice that NASA It has for those who are encouraged to photograph the persistes (or any other rain of stars) is simple: enjoy. These astronomical events offer us an opportunity to see the night sky in a different way, in advance generated by the unexpected flashes that cross the night sky on some summer nights. In Xataka | What are they and how exactly the Perseids are formed, the most fascinating astronomical phenomenon that we can see today Image | Fatih Turan

NASA ignores Harvard’s study on an alleged extraterrestrial ship: “It is an interstellar kite”

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On July 1, 2025 he will go down in history as the day that astronomers confirmed the presence of an interstellar third object In the Solar System. 3i/Atlas is, according to NASA, a kite from another star. But for Harvard Avi Loeb teacher, it could be something much more disturbing: a piece of extraterrestrial technology, possibly hostile. Wait, what? In a series of articles and a Paper scientist Not yet reviewed by pairs, Avi Loeb and its collaborators pose a hypothesis that touches science fiction. Known for his controversial position on ‘oumuamua, The first interstellar object ever discoveredwhich also described as possible alien technology, Loeb bases his new theory on a series of characteristics that he considers “anomalous” on the path and nature of 3i/Atlas. The anomalies of 3i/Atlas. Loeb Point out in your blog that the retrograde path of 3i/Atlas is inclined only about five degrees with respect to the plane in which the earth orbit. The director of the Harvard Astronomy Department estimates that the probability that this occurs by chance is only 0.2%. His career about Venus, Mars and Jupiter unusually. An orbit like this, it argues, would be ideal for a probe that would like to observe the planets of the interior solar system. On the other hand, Loeb highlights its huge size, initially estimated at 20 kilometers in diameter. According to his article, we should have seen a million objects of the size of ‘oumuamua (about 100 meters) for each object of the 3I/Atlas caliber. To top it off, the new interstellar visitor will reach its closest point to the sun (its perihelium) on October 29, 2025, at which time it will have been hidden from our view by the sun itself. The dark forest hypothesis. Loeb suggests that becoming invisible from our point of view is intentionally, since the perihelium is the optimal point to perform an inverse Oberth maneuver: a high efficiency braking to be gravitationally trapped by the solar system without being detected from the earth. To round his hypothesis, Loeb is part of this idea in the dark forest hypothesis, popularized by the author of “The problem of the three bodies”, Cixin Liu. The hypothesis, One of the explanations of the Fermi paradoxsuggests that advanced civilizations remain silent to avoid being detected by other potentially predatory civilizations. In this scenario, 3i/Atlas would be a recognition probe exploring the solar system. NASA does not believe it is an alien ship. Although Loeb’s arguments are intriguing, they face Ockham’s Navaja, who says that the simplest explanation is usually correct. In this case, the simplest explanation is that 3i/Atlas is a kite, As NASA says. And the astronomical community has more and more evidence to support this conclusion, refuting, point by point, alleged anomalies. Telescope images such as North Gemini or the Vera C. Rubin Observatory They show what a coma looks like, A diffuse gas and dust cloud surrounding the kite ice cream When heated by the sun. This should invalidate the argument of the size of 20 km, since the real core is much smaller. Loeb himself He later recognized That the elongated appearance is due to the movement of the object during the photographic exposure, not to its shape. Disassembling the Avi Loeb hypothesis. Loeb said that no specific gases were detected. However, as explained by astronomer Darryl Seligman, the object was still far from the sun when those statements were made. It is normal for comime activity (basically, sublimation of ice) is weak to those distances. It is expected that as he approaches the sun, The spectral firms of gases They become visible. Loeb’s hypothesis has been received with strong skepticism. Chris Lentott, Astronomo of Oxford, described the suggestion In Live Science as “a nonsense about stilts and an insult to the exciting work that is being done to understand this object.” This reaction is not by closure, but because the overwhelming evidence available points in another direction. The reality is that 3i/Atlas is a fascinating object, a piece of another solar system that visits us very far, and that has probably more years than the Sun. Studying its composition and trajectory will give us very valuable information about how the planets are formed in other places of the galaxy. In Xataka | These real images were unthinkable before the Webb Telescope: they are planets orbiting other stars to 130 light years Image | Gemini Observatory/Noirlab/NSF/Aura/K. Meech (Ifa/U. Hawaii); Processing: Jen Miller, Mahdi Zamani (NSF/Noirlab)

NASA lost the best camera in Jupiter. A suicide plan has served to recover it successfully

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It seemed the premature end of the mission. The Junocam, the camera that has given us the most spectacular images of Jupiter and his moons, was dying. The relentless radiation of the gaseous giant had degraded the sweat sensor Juno turning his photos into a noise knead and corrupt lines. We had to try. With an overfruit of the moon ío just around the corner, the NASA team played the whole for the whole with a risky maneuver: cook the camera slowly at 600 million kilometers away to try to repair it. Although all at the control center endured breathing, the play worked. And not only that, but the miraculous rescue has sat a precedent for future space missions. Jupiter’s best photographer. Trying it was worth it because Junocam is not any camera. Is responsible for those Jupiter images that seem impressionist paintings and that, curiously, they are prosecuted by a community of fans on Earth. But its location is priced: it is out of titanium “bunker” that protects the main electronics of the Juno probe. NASA engineers knew that their useful life would be limited in one of the most radioactive environments of the solar system. The Calvary of the Junocam. The juno probe, that arrived in Jupiter in July 2016was designed to last until 2018, but its success has led NASA to extend the mission several times. During the first 34 orbits, Junocam worked perfectly. From orbit 47, radiation ravages began to be evident. For orbit 56, in November 2023, the situation was critical. “Almost all the images were corrupt,” admits NASA In a statement. The planet Jupiter and the moon ío photographed by Juno before and after repair A repair to all or nothing. Diagnosing the failure of a component at millions of kilometers is a titanic task. Repairing is a miracle. The clues pointed to a damaged voltage regulator at the camera power supply. With few options, the team resorted to a process called annealing or Annealing. The idea was, in essence, to heat the material and then cool it slowly, with the hope that heat would repair microscopic defects at the atomic level. “The annealing can sometimes alter a material such as silicon at the microscopic level, but we did not know if this would solve the damage,” explains Jacob Shaffner, chamber engineer. Forged on fire. NASA sent a command to Juno so that the only heater in the Junocam raised its temperature at about 25 ° C, much more than usual. The result was a success … temporary. The camera sent sharp images for several orbits. But Jupiter does not forgive. As the probe entered the radiation belts, the damage returned more strongly. “After orbit 55, our images were full of stripes and noise,” says Michael Ravine, head of the instrument. With an upcoming one Near Iro of íoonly one option was left. The only thing they had not tried was to take Junocam heater to the fullest and see if a more extreme recovery would save us. The reward. The first week there were no improvements. The tension in the equipment was maximum. But just a few days after the encounter with ío, the images began to improve dramatically. By the time Juno went to just 1,500 kilometers of the most volcanic moon in the solar system, the camera worked almost as well as the day of its launch. The success of the maneuver allowed Juno to capture very unprecedented and unprecedented images of the northern pole. The images revealed mountains covered with sulfur dioxide frost and Lava rivers that allowed scientists to rebuild geological formations as fascinating as A lava lake with a glass mountain Inside. This achievement is the culmination of an extended mission that has led Juno to explore Jupiter’s great moons. First it was Ganímedes in 2021the largest satellite of the solar system, and then Europe in 2022. I was as follows on the list, and losing the main camera would have been a hard blow. The repair, of course, is not eternal. NASA informs that noise has begun to reappear in orbit 74. But the lesson learned is incalculable. Images | NASA/JPL-CALTECH/SWRI/MSS In Xataka | The NASA Juno probe sends six photos of its passage through ío, the most inhospitable moon of the solar system

NASA set out to send a woman to the moon before China does. It is getting more and more

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While the possibilities for NASA to step on the moon again in 2027 fades, China advances with a firm and methodical step without changing its goal: sending astronauts to the lunar surface in 2030. Any of the two countries could end putting the first woman on the moonthe symbolic objective that the United States had marked with Artemis III. Another blow to Artemis. NASA depends on Spacex to achieve the first moaning manned since 1972. In the Artemis III mission, scheduled for mid -2027, two astronauts descend to the lunar surface in a starship ship adapted to land and take off on the moon. But Spacex has delay. He could not Demonstrate fuel transfer in orbit With a cistern starship, much less a loan without crew. With the catastrophic explosion of the starship 36 During a motor test, the program trial zone will have to be repaired. It is the fourth consecutive failure for the Spacex ship-cohete, which will undoubtedly add new delays to its commitments to NASA. Move the goal. The rumors of which Artemis III It could be reconfigured as a mission without alunsing They return to the fore. I would leave NASA with less maneuvering margin to arrive before China does it for the first time. Maybe that’s why the narrative has changed under the new administration: now the political objective is to plant a flag on Mars before China does. With the excuse of eliminating the diversity programs of federal agencies, the references to send to the first woman and the first man of color to the moon They have been erased of the NASA website. China follows its roll. For its part, the Crewing Space Agency of China (CMSA) has completed this week a crucial test of the ship that will take its astronauts to the moon. The early morning of June 17, in the Gobi desert, the Mengzhou ship’s escape system furiously turned on its solid fuel engines. The ship without crew was propelled at full speed from the platform, as it would do if there was an emergency with the rocket. At 20 seconds, He separated from the escape system and opened his parachute To perch again on land. It was a perfect abortion test. China did not perform a since 1998, with its current Shenzhou ship, which routinely carries astronauts to the Chinese space station. The second country on the moon. China wants to become the second country to step on the moon, before one of NASA’s partners in the Artemis missions, such as Jaxa or ESA. The calendar is clear And it has remained so far: in 2027, China will first launch the new heavy rocket CZ-10. In 2028, he will make a manned mission around the Moon (in this case, as a third country to do so, because Canada has a seat on the Artemis II mission). The first moonwill is scheduled by the end of 2030. The Mengzhou ship It will take three Chinese astronauts to the lunar orbitwhile the Lanyue ship, designed to be coupled with Mengzhou in orbit, will descend to the surface in the role of Alunizer. The firm steps of CMSA towards this objective reinforce the image of a robust program, well financed and with an immovable political objective, which increasingly contrasts with NASA Artemis. Image | CMSA, Xinhua In Xataka | After three failures, Spacex needed the new Starship to work out well. I was waiting for the worst explosion of all

While NASA faces the cancellation of 41 missions, China is making authentic virguerías in space

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The Tianwen-2 probe is the first of those launched by China with ionic propulsion. Not only is it on the way to a nearby asteroid to bring samples to the Earth: its one -decade trip also includes exploring a main belt kite, as far as a Chinese ship will have arrived. China does not give truce. Just when NASA expects 24% of its budget cuts and the cancellation of 41 space missions, China has launched an extraordinarily ambitious scientific program that will take it throughout the solar system throughout the next decades. Robotic Tianwen missions, which are just part of these plans, focus on exploring and bringing samples from other worlds. Tianwen-1 deployed on May 22, 2021 The first Chinese rover on the surface of Mars. Tianwen-2 will bring the first samples of the Kamo’oalewa miniluna at the end of 2027. Tianwen-3 will take advantage of what has been learned In previous missions to bring Martian soil samples, a milestone that the Chinese Space Administration Wait before the United States. Tianwen-4 will explore Jupiter and one of his moons. Double objective. The Tianwen-2 probe took off on board a CZ-3B rocket from the Xichang space center on May 28. After successfully deploying its circular solar panels and performing an escape maneuver, it is directed to Asteroid 469219 Kamo’oalewawith which it will be found for the first time on July 4, 2026, and that will explore closely until April of the following year. In November 2027, after releasing the reentry capsule with asteroid samples, Tianwen-2 will continue on its second goal: 311P/2013 P5 (PANSTARRS). It is a main belt kite, an active object with the orbit of an asteroid and the appearance of a kite that the Chinese ship plans to reach in 2035. Crossing outstanding tasks. To achieve its objectives, Tianwen-2 will not be the first space mission to bring samples of an asteroid (Japan has done it twice and The United States got it in 2023 With Asteroid Bennu), nor the first probe to explore a comet (the European Space Agency landed in Comet 67p in 2014), but the first to do both. China’s space administration is taking advantage of its previous experience to continue crossing outstanding tasks of the list: the Chang’e 2 mission visited an asteroid in 2012 and the Chang’e 5 and Chang’e 6 They brought samples of the visible face and the hidden face of the moon, respectively. When moving so fast, China begins to advance the rest of the nations in some of these milestones, as in the case of samples of the hidden face of the moon. What are these objectives special. Tianwen-2 will not only serve to prepare the recovery of Mars samples. Kamo’oalewa is an interesting object in itself for being a minilun It can be a fragment of the true moon. Tianwen-2 will deploy two small robots: a nanoorbital and a nanoatrizer that will make detections closely. Then, without landing, you will take asteroid samples with an extensible tube and a small excavator wheel to bring them to Earth. Next, it will take advantage of the gravitational assistance of the Earth to travel to the strange comet, which in photos of the Hubble telescope appears with six queues. It will be the Chinese probe that best moves away from the Sun until the arrival of Tianwen-4 to Jupiter. A second probe, launched at the same time 2029, will arrive in Uranus in 2045. But China plans to go further with two missions to Neptune, whose launch is scheduled for 2029 and 2033, with the difference that the second would display an atmospheric probe on its Triton moon. Image | Cnsa In Xataka | No one has advanced NASA in the exploration of other planets from the USSR. China plans to do it even in Neptune

NASA engineers have repaired in extremis lost engines 20 years ago

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When we thought we had seen everything from Voyager 1, NASA surprises us with a new feat. The venerable space probe, which has been moving away from the earth almost half a century, has recovered engines that were considered lost since 2024; A crucial repair that arrives just in time. Miracle? Nothing of the sort. It has been a mixture of ingenuity and risk that allowed NASA engineers Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) Not only promises to exhaust the useful life of the probe, but was made just before the only land antenna capable of sending commands to enter a long maintenance period. Context. The Voyager 1 probe, launched in 1977 with its twin Voyager 2, is located in the interstellar space, about 25,000 million kilometers from the earth. Traveling almost 56,000 kilometers per hour, to keep your main antenna pointing towards us and being able to send us your data, the ship needs to make subtle orientation settings. These movements, remember Paraspacial procesthey are of three types: nod (up and down), wink (left and right) and praise. The latter, the “roll” movement, turns the ship on its axis, and is essential to keep a guide star that Voyager uses to orient and calibrates its magnetometer. They threw the towel. The main propellers of Alabeo de la Voyager 1 stopped working in 2004 for the loss of energy of two small internal heater. Without heater, the fuel of the propellers (hydrazine) is freezing and can cause an explosion in the ship’s nozzle. At that time, NASA engineers concluded that the ruling was irreparable and decided to move on to the reserve praise, they have been working to guide the ship since then. “They probably did not think that the Voyager would continue to run another 20 years,” Kareem Badaruddin, leader of the Voyager Mission in the JPL, said in a statement. 20 years later. The ducts of the reserve propensors are beginning to obstruct due to hydraction residues. According to NASA estimates, they could be completely blocked this autumn, which would make Voyager 1 lose the ability to control alabeo, making the mission seriously danger. Given this perspective, the Voyager team began a career to counter to reexamine the 2004 ruling. The suspicion was that a disturbance in the circuits that control the energy supply of the heater had “moved a switch” to the incorrect position. If they could return that switch to their original state, perhaps the heaters would work again and, with them, the alabus thrusters. A doubly risky plan. It involved lighting the inactive propellants and then trying to fix and restart the heaters. If during this process, the ship’s tracker was too diverted from its guide star, the inactive propellers would firing automatically. And if the heaters were still turned off at that time, an explosion could have occurred. To top it off, NASA only had a margin until May 4 for a scheduled maintenance of antenna 43 of the deep space network. The 70 -meter antenna, located at the Cambberra station, is the only take a whole day to arrive and another to returnthey played to counterreloj. Success. In spite of everything, the team sent the necessary commands on March 18. March 20, They received telemetry with the results. For relief and euphoria of the team, at 20 minutes of starting to receive the data, the temperature of the heater increased drastically. The plan had worked. With this repair, the mission team breathes calmer. If current alabeous propellants are obstructed in the coming months, Voyager 1 may be changed without problems to these newly reactivated propellers and continue working normally. Image | NASA-JPL In Xataka | The rescue of Voyager 1 has begun. With 8 kb of memory, a programming language of 1957 and an unimportant LAG

NASA has revealed why no astronaut has left the Earth’s atmosphere. Not even when they went to the moon

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From time to time, NASA reminds us with some anecdote or study that things are never how they seem or, failing that, that can always be questionable or have more than one answer. Recently they gave us such a simple explanation about our inability to find extraterrestrial signs that scared. They also clarified why We hadn’t returned To the moon before. The latest: remember that, technically, no human has ever left the earth’s atmosphere. And yes, I don’t even want when we went to the moon. A technically true provocation. To say that no astronaut in history has ever left the earth’s atmosphere may sound to a joke or little less than a conspiracy theory, but, from a scientific perspective and following what atmospheric models say, it is more than us A correct statement. To place ourselves in perspective and following this line of explanation, even iconic figures Like Yuri Gagarin either Neil Armstrongor contemporary space travelers Like William Shatnerhave remained, in physical terms, within the most extreme (although diffuse) limits of the Earth’s atmosphere. The key lies in how the end of that atmosphere is defined: a more complex and expansive issue of what is commonly believed. The atmosphere does not end where we imagine. All this reasoned recently Doug RowlandNASA heliophysics expert. Contrary to the popular idea that the atmosphere ends in a finite layer that dissipates before reaching the terrestrial orbit, the reality is that the atmosphere does not have a clearly defined “roof”. On the contrary, it becomes progressively more dim, but continues to spread. As Rowland toldeven hundreds of kilometers on the surface, where the International Space Station (EEI) orbits, there is still a sufficient air density to gradually stop the station. In fact, if it were not periodically driven with rockets, the EEI would end up falling by atmospheric drag. The artificial border: Kárman. For practical reasons (such as spatial treaties or legal definitions) an international convention has been adopted: The karm linelocated 100 kilometers above sea level, which marks the point where the space begins theoretically. This line serves as a technical threshold, since 99,99997% of atmospheric mass terrestrial is below. Said that, and how Explain the space agency itselfthis definition is useful for regulations and classifications, not so much to describe with physical precision the real limits of the atmosphere. The geocorone: atmosphere that reaches the moon. In 2019, A study based on data from Soho Solar Observatory (NASA/ESA), revealed that the exosphere of the Earth (specifically, a diffuse cloud of known hydrogen atoms Like geocorone) extends to about 629,000 kilometers, that is, beyond the orbit of the moon. What happens? That on that limit there are still about 0.2 hydrogen atoms per cubic centimeter. That means that, technically, even the Apollo missions that alunizarized in the 60s and 70s did not abandon the earth’s atmosphere. “The moon flies through the Earth’s atmosphere,” Igor Baliukin came to saymain author of the study, referring to the unsuspected magnitude of this invisible layer. The sun also contains us. The thing is even more complicated when both the Earth and the Moon are Inside the solar atmosphere. This extends to the edge of the helosphere, the limit beyond which the interstellar space begins. At this point it must be remembered that between the atmosphere of the earth and that of the sun there is no emptiness, but a structure of progressive and overlapping layers that contain particles, energy and electromagnetic dynamics. Therefore, and seen thus, the concept of “being in space” is less a matter of abrupt border and more a matter of progressive gradient. So where the space begins? As Rowland explainedthe answer depends on the point of view. If you ask where the atmosphere ends in a practical sense, probably about 400 kilometers, where air density ceases to have significant effect on objects. But from a more rigorous scientific perspective, that atmosphere does not disappear: it only dissipates and dilutes to barely measurable extremes, without disappearing at all. Therefore, “exterior space” is not an empty place, but a continuous environment full of particles, fields and subtle structures. In that sense, all space trips made by humans have elapsed within that extended wrapping that is still part of the planet that launched them. Image | Jasbond007 In Xataka | The last eeuu slap to Europe has sounded up to space: NASA has just left ESA with Artemis In Xataka | NASA is being very complicated to return to the moon. Your auditor no longer trusts that it can fly over for 2025

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