Tag Archives: Science

TechNews

Google Maps 3D Immersive View launched

London’s Big Ben, Alcatraz and then the Empire State Building: the new 3D view from Google Maps provides a bird’s-eye view of well-known sights.

At least planning the next sightseeing tour is made easier with the new map view from Google Maps: photo realistic aerial photos of almost 100 of the world’s most popular sights in cities such as Barcelona, ​​London, New York, San Francisco and Tokyo – this is what the new Google Maps function delivers. Immersive View, a 3D view of the Maps platform that has now been rolled out in the Maps app for Android and iOS.

Google Maps Immersive View”provides impressive and very authentic images of numerous sights. (Image: Google)

In addition to the conventional street view, users can now view many images of the earth from a satellite view, partly from an airplane perspective or via user photos. These are collages created from thousands of images taken from Google Street View, aircraft footage and artificial intelligence. A virtual tour of some of the world’s metropolises – via smartphone, tablet or laptop.

Explore cities in wind and weather

Other and very handy updates that the feature brings: For easier route planning, Google has updated Maps’ bike navigation with more detailed route information, including heavy car traffic, stairs, steep hills and road types (e.g. a main road vs. a side road). The “live traffic” feature, including traffic jam forecasts, is also planned.

In addition, you can call up different weather displays (including live weather) or times of day. There are also plans to extend the application to include AI-generated views of restaurants and other popular places; so you can plan better before the trip and see opening times or occupancy.

Science, TechNews

Nasa to send 2 more Ingenuity drones to Mars

Two more drones are scheduled to land on Mars in 2027 bring samples to Earth.

Nasa announced that it plans to send two more Ingenuity drones to Mars aboard its upcoming Sample Retrieval Lander. As early as 2020, the US space agency sent a model to Mars along with the Perseverance rover, which landed on the red planet in February last year. The small helicopter made a total of 29 flights – scanning the surface and taking lots of photos. The new Ingenuity drones not only have additional wheels, but also a slightly different task: They are supposed to collect samples from the surface of Mars so that they can be sent back to Earth.

Image: Nasa/JPL-Caltech

First Ingenuity drone has exceeded expectations

It’s no surprise that NASA is using two Ingenuity drones for its next big mission. After all, the almost 1.20 meter tall helicopter exceeded the expectations of the researchers. The first flight was a hover at a height of three meters. The drone only flew over the surface of Mars for 40 seconds – but successfully. Subsequent flights became increasingly ambitious as the time allotted to operate the helicopter became increasingly scarce. No one at NASA expected the drone to survive a full 29 flights, making it a year older than planned. That’s why two successors to the Ingenuity model are now to be sent to Mars.

First time to bring Mars samples to Earth

This time, however, the drones have a different mission: instead of taking photos, soil samples are to be collected from the surface of Mars. The Sample Fetch Rover and the associated second lander will therefore have to stay at home for the next mission. The Mars Sample Retriever, which – as the name might suggest – accepts and collects the samples from the two Ingenuity drones is also allowed to come along . Also part of the Retriever is the Mars Ascent Vehicle . Here, too, the creative naming can be traced back to the function: the rocket is to take off from Mars together with rock and oil samples and bring them safely to Earth.

Anyone who is looking forward to being able to hold a Mars sample in their hands in a short time will have to be disappointed. The joint mission of NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) is not scheduled to start until autumn 2027. A second launch is scheduled for summer 2028. We’ll have to wait a lot longer for rehearsals. If everything goes according to plan, it will take more than ten years until 2033 for the samples to arrive on Earth. However, once the samples are here, we can learn a lot more about the history of the planet. One can only hope that no grim discovery is made in the process.

Business, Financial, Science, TechNews

SpaceX is already breaking the record from the previous year

At the weekend, SpaceX brought its number of rocket launches to 33 with two more missions. Elon Musk’s group broke its record from the previous year – and that in July. 

Elon Musk’s space company SpaceX launched 31 rockets last year. In 2022, the group already exceeded this number when the Falcon 9 rocket sent a load of 46 Starlink satellites into space on Friday, setting off on its 32nd mission. On Sunday, SpaceX added 53 satellites – rocket launch number 33.

The company has already broken its existing record for most rocket launches in a year, as confirmed by Elon Musk on Twitter , where he congratulated his team. In addition, there are still several months left to further expand the record.

Screenshot: Twitter

Elon Musk’s goal for 2022: 52 rocket launches

SpaceX intends to do the same, because at the beginning of the year the ambitious goal was announced of sending 52 rockets into space this year. So far, SpaceX is on track to meet its schedule. This is made possible by the reusable rocket stages of the Falcon 9. The rocket, which was launched on Sunday, has already completed four missions. Another rocket already has 13 missions under its belt. These cycles allow SpaceX to ramp up its rocket launch cadence every year except for 2019, when the number dropped.

In addition, SpaceX is its own customer for a large number of the rocket launches. The company is using the missions to increase its fleet of Starlink Internet satellites. Around 2,900 have been sent into orbit so far, of which around 2,600 are currently active. SpaceX has approval for a total of 12,000 but is seeking to relax international rules to allow up to 30,000 satellites into orbit.

SpaceX has big plans

But even without its Starlink project, SpaceX will not run out of work. Thanks to the cooperation with NASA, the company repeatedly sends off Dragon-type space capsules to send people and cargo to the ISS. There are also SpaceX’s commercial space flights, which take tourists into space, and launches for the US Department of Defense.

In the long term, Elon Musk is pursuing particularly ambitious plans with SpaceX. The billionaire has never made a secret of the fact that he has set himself the goal of populating Mars – and even wants to outperform NASA in the race for the red planet . 

Science, TechNews

Amazing glimpses of the Universe captured by the James Webb Space Telescope

The James Webb Space Telescope is perhaps mankind’s greatest achievement (so far). It is a magnificent space telescope originally designed and planned in the late 1990s but not completed and launched until late 2021.

Now the giant telescope is 930,000 miles out of Earth orbit, collecting data using its light-gathering technique, which is 25 square meters and consists of 18 hexagonal mirrors made of gold-plated beryllium.

It aims to give scientists the opportunity to study the history of the universe and explore distant worlds and stars that we have not been able to observe before. Now some of the first images have been revealed and the results are stunning.

Image Comparison

Image: NASA/JPL-CALTECH (LEFT), NASA/ESA/CSA/STSCI (RIGHT)

Before the official images from the James Webb Telescope were released, Nasa released this image to give a taste of what’s to come.

The image shows part of the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. Shown on the left is an image taken by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope’s infrared camera. On the right you can see the same area taken by the James Webb telescope. The JWST promises an unprecedented level of detail that we have never seen before.