Tag Archives: location

Soviet Probe’s Imminent Crash with Earth: The Impact Location Remains Unknown

Posted on by
Reply

Model of Kosmos 482, originally set for Venus

Wikimedia Commons

Over 50 years after its launch, the Soviet spacecraft Cosmos 482 is set to return to Earth. Initially designed to land on Venus, it began to disintegrate in low Earth orbit, never completing its intended mission. After orbiting our planet for decades, it is finally on a path to re-enter.

Kosmos 482 was launched in 1972; however, much about its mission and structure remains classified due to its Cold War origins. The intention to reach Venus is inferred from other Soviet missions focused on the planet at that time, and indications suggest that the spacecraft attempted a maneuver in orbit before fragmenting. The exact reason for its failure is unclear, but three out of four pieces landed in New Zealand shortly after launch.

The last fragment has drifted into a higher orbit, approximately 210 km at its closest to Earth and as far as about 9,800 km. Over time, particles from the Earth’s upper atmosphere have slowed its descent, gradually bringing it closer to re-entering. It is projected to crash on May 9th or 10th.

The capsule remains of the spacecraft are estimated to be over one meter wide and weigh nearly 500 kilograms. Given its size and the possibility that it was engineered to withstand the intense conditions during a Venusian descent, impact speeds may exceed 200 km/h.

Predicting the exact impact site for Kosmos 482 is challenging. Based on its current trajectory, it could land anywhere between the latitudes of 52° south and 52° north, covering a vast area from the southern tip of South America to parts of Canada and Russia. Fortunately, despite the extensive range of potential landing sites, the likelihood of it striking a populated area is minimal. “The numbers are infinitesimally small,” stated Marsin Pilinsky from the University of Colorado Boulder. statement. “The ocean is a likely landing zone.”

Pilinsky is part of a team monitoring the debris. As the re-entry date approaches, landing predictions will become more accurate. Instances of space debris falling to Earth are not rare; for instance, NASA tracks one orbital object entering the atmosphere daily, with most either burning up or landing in oceans. However, Kosmos 482 is notably larger and more robust than typical space debris.

Topics:

Source: www.newscientist.com

The Ideal Location of Our Milky Way Galaxy for Discovering Extraterrestrial Life

Posted on by
Reply

CrackerClips Stock Media/Alamy

All life as we know it in the entire universe is tucked away on a tiny rock floating in a tiny branch of the Milky Way galaxy. There are billions of other planets that could potentially support life, but how does our location affect our chances of finding it?

So far, the search for life elsewhere has only scratched the surface. “The bubble of space we've been able to explore around the Sun is tiny compared to the size of our galaxy,” he said. Jesse Christiansen“But we've already discovered more than 5,000 planets, called exoplanets, that orbit other stars,” says John F. Kennedy, an astrophysicist at the California Institute of Technology. Some of these have been found throughout our galaxy and even in other galaxies, but most are within a few hundred light years of the sun, a stone's throw in the scheme of the universe.

Our Galactic Neighborhood

Astronomers are beginning to look at different types of stars in the galactic outskirts and how they affect the habitability of planets around them. We live in an arm of the Milky Way galaxy called Orion, inside the main plane of the galaxy called the thin disk. We are surrounded by stars in the Orion arm. Further outwards, we are surrounded by the dense bulge of the galaxy's dense core on one side, and the sparser outer parts of the other arms of the galaxy on the other side.

Thin, disk-shaped stars, like our Sun and other stars in the constellation Orion, generally…

Source: www.newscientist.com

Physicists showcase novel technique for pinpointing 3D location of individual atoms

Posted on by
Reply

Developed by a team of physicists from the University of Bonn and the University of Bristol, this new method makes it possible to precisely determine the position of atoms in 3D in a single image and is based on an original physical principle.

The different directions of rotation of the various “dumbbells” indicate that the atoms are in different planes. Image credit: Institute of Applied Physics, University of Bonn.

“If you have ever used a microscope to study plant cells in your biology class, you can probably recall a similar situation,” said Tanguy Legrand and colleagues at the University of Bonn.

“It's easy to see that a particular chloroplast is located above and to the right of the nucleus. But are they both on the same plane?”

“However, when we adjust the focus of the microscope, we find that the images of the nuclei become clearer, while the images of the chloroplasts become blurred.”

“One of them has to be a little higher than the other, and the other a little lower than the other. However, this method doesn't give you exact details about the vertical position.”

“The principle is very similar if you want to observe individual atoms rather than cells. So-called quantum gas microscopes can be used for this purpose.”

“This allows us to directly determine the x and y coordinates of atoms.”

“However, it is much more difficult to measure its z-coordinate, and thus its distance to the objective lens. To find out in which plane an atom lies, we need to take multiple images by moving the focus to various different planes. I need to take a picture of a plane. This is a complex and time-consuming process. ”

“We have developed a method that completes this process in one step,” Dr. Legrand said.

“To achieve this, we use an effect that was already known in theory since the 1990s but had not yet been used in quantum gas microscopy.”

To experiment with atoms, you must first cool them down significantly until they barely move.

It is then possible to confine them to a standing wave of laser light, for example.

The egg then slides into the trough of the waves so that it fits inside the egg box.

After being captured, it is exposed to an additional laser beam and stimulated to emit light to reveal its location.

The resulting fluorescence appears as slightly blurred round spots in quantum gas microscopy.

“We have now developed a special method to transform the wavefront of light emitted by atoms,” said Dr. Andrea Alberti, also from the University of Bonn.

“Instead of a typical round spot, the deformed wavefront produces a dumbbell shape on the camera, which rotates itself.”

“The direction this dumbbell points is determined by the distance light travels from the atom to the camera.”

Professor Dieter Meschede from the University of Bonn said: “The dumbbell acts like a compass needle, and depending on its direction we can read the Z coordinate.”

This new method could be used to develop new quantum materials with special properties.

“For example, we can find out what quantum mechanical effects occur when atoms are arranged in a particular order,” said physicist Dr Carrie Widener from the University of Bristol.

“This allows us to simulate the properties of three-dimensional materials to some extent without having to synthesize them.”

team's work It was published in the magazine Physical review A.

_____

Tanguy Legrand other. 2024. His three-dimensional imaging of single atoms in optical lattices by helical point spread function engineering. Physics. Rev.A 109 (3): 033304; doi: 10.1103/PhysRevA.109.033304

Source: www.sci.news

Google Commits to Removing Abortion Clinic Visit Location Data Despite Research Findings

Posted on by
Reply

Google made a promise in July 2022 to remove location data of users who visited abortion clinics. However, little progress has been made in fulfilling this promise. This move would make it more difficult for law enforcement to use this information to investigate and prosecute people seeking abortions in states where abortion is banned or restricted. Recent research shows that Google still retains location history data in 50% of cases.

Google originally made this promise shortly after the Supreme Court’s decision to end federal abortion protections. The company stated it would remove entries for locations considered “private” or sensitive, including “health care facilities such as counseling centers, domestic violence shelters, and abortion clinics.” However, as of now, there has been no implementation of this policy. A study conducted by tech advocacy group Accountable Tech found that Google does not mask location data in all cases, even after claiming to prioritize user privacy and implement changes to its location retention policy “as promised” in early 2022.

Accountable Tech’s latest study revealed that while Google’s location retention rates had improved slightly, the company was still not deleting location history in all cases as promised. Google Maps’ Director of Products, Marlo McGriff, disputed this finding and stated that any claims of non-compliance are false.

Researchers used her latest Android device to guide her to an abortion clinic and tested what location data it stored about her trip in the latest study. The study also found that Google still holds data on the location search queries and other criminal data as well, from emails to Google search data. Law enforcement’s use of reverse search warrants and geofence location warrants have raised new concerns about user data privacy.

Recently, Google announced plans to change the way it stores location history data for all its users. This change includes storing location data on users’ devices by default and encrypting and deleting all location data backed up to Google’s cloud storage after three months. However, Accountable Tech remains skeptical of Google’s promises to protect location data, based on its history of unfulfilled commitments.

Source: www.theguardian.com

The Location of the Coldest Place on Earth

Posted on by
Reply

These places are less popular as holiday hotspots, but are known for their extreme cold. If you’re planning a visit, bring a blanket and be prepared to curl up. A record remains for the lowest temperature ever recorded.

  1. East Antarctic Plateau (-94°C) The East Antarctic Plateau claims the title of the coldest place on Earth. Satellite data collected between 2004 and 2016 across Dome Argus and Dome Fuji, an area roughly the size of Australia, suggests temperatures could be around -94C. If these telemetry measurements are correct, this would be the coldest temperature on Earth, the researchers believe. Surface temperature could drop to -98 degrees Celsius.

  2. Vostok Station, Antarctica (-89.2°C) The Vostok Research Station is located in the Antarctic region, an area with the lowest surface temperatures in the Southern Hemisphere, and was established by the Soviet Union in 1957. Click here for thermometer The minimum temperature reached -89.2℃ July 1983 recorded the lowest temperature ever directly recorded. It is also one of the driest places on earth, with an annual rainfall of around 20 millimeters, all of which is snow.

  3. Amundsen-Scott Station, Antarctica (-82.8°C) Amundsen-Scott Station, located in Antarctica, was built in 1956 and receives six months of sunlight in the summer and six months of complete darkness in the winter. The highest temperature ever recorded in this part of the East Antarctic Plateau was Christmas Day 2011, when the thermometer soared to a positive and mild -12.3°C. The coldest on record was June 1982 -82.8℃.

  4. Denali, Alaska, USA (-73°C) Denali, formerly known as Mount McKinley, is North America’s highest mountain, rising more than 6,000 meters above sea level. The average temperature is around -10 degrees Celsius, and only half of those who attempt to climb this mountain actually reach the top. Between 1950 and 1969, temperatures at weather stations here reached around -73°C, but wind chills can reach -83.4°C.

  5. Klink Station, Greenland (-69.6°C) The Klink weather station holds the record for the coldest place in the Arctic Circle. Located in central Greenland, it beat the record held by Oymyakon in December 1991 (see below) by about two degrees. Reach -69.6℃. Despite these low temperatures, much of Greenland’s ice is melting rapidly.

  6. Oymyakon, Siberia, Russia (-67.7°C) Oymyakon is coldest permanent residence on earth And it is found in the cold Arctic. In 1933, the lowest temperature recorded was -67.7℃. If the population is less than 500, schools will only close if the average winter temperature falls below -55 degrees Celsius.

  7. Northern Ice, Greenland (-66.1°C) The research station was established during the British expedition to North Greenland in the 1950s, which set record low temperatures in North America at the time. In 1954, the temperature dropped to -66.1℃.

  8. Yakutsk, Siberia, Russia (-64.4°C) Yakutsk is one of the coldest cities on earth and is located on permafrost. The region has some short but warm summers, with temperatures reaching a maximum of 38.4°C in 2011, but also long and very cold winters. In 1891, the temperature dropped to -64.4°C. It is located on the Lena River, and during the winter it is often cold enough that the river freezes hard enough to be used as a road.

  9. Snug, Yukon Territory, Canada (-62.8°C) In 1947, the small village of Snug in Canada’s northwestern Yukon Territory was home to about 10 First Nations people. The village was used as an emergency landing site during World War II and then as a weather observatory. The lowest temperature recorded was -62.8℃. researchers are urging the equipment to be retested to ensure it is working properly.

  10. Prospect Creek, Alaska, USA (-62.1°C) Built in the late 1970s as a settlement for workers on the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System, the village is now largely deserted. It was January 1971 and the weather was extremely cold. -62.1℃ was recorded And this settlement still claims some of the coldest winter temperatures in the United States.

Source: www.newscientist.com