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30.11.2023 - 02:23 / wccftech.com / Many
This is not investment advice. The author has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Wccftech.com has a disclosure and ethics policy.
SpaceX's Falcon 9 rockets, which have flown nearly 90 times this year, are now causing astronomers to worry about the impact that they are making on the Earth's ionosphere. After launching its payload into space, the Falcon 9 fires up its Merline engines to reorient itself and reduce its speed for landing on land or in the sea. Similarly, after the second stage has finished its mission, it also fires up its engines to return to Earth.
These engines create holes in the ionosphere, a layer of charged gas surrounding the Earth that plays a crucial role in satellite communication. These holes generate red light, which can further affect astronomy and astronomers' efforts to study the sky.
SpaceX's Falcon 9 is the world's only reusable medium-lift rocket, and while the first-stage booster lands on Earth after most missions, the second stage is not recovered. After a mission, once the Falcon 9's second stage has delivered its payload, the rocket fires up its Merlin vacuum engine to reduce its altitude and burn up in the atmosphere, sometimes weeks after its launch.
The ionosphere starts from 60 kilometers from the Earth's surface and extends as high as 300 kilometers. It is one of the highest regions of the atmosphere, and after it, only one additional layer is present before the vast emptiness of space begins. Within the ionosphere, several layers are 'ionized', which is scientific speak for charged particles. Particles within the ionosphere are energized due to their height, which leaves them exposed to the Sun's radiation. This radiation also helps humans on Earth since it helps radio waves travel further.
Now, according to Stephen Hummel of the University of Texas's Austin Laboratory, the Falcon 9 second stage is making holes in the ionosphere. Exhaust from a rocket can remove the charge from the ionospheric particles to create an empty area. As part of its descent journey, the second stage fires up its Merlin engine roughly an hour and a half after launch. The engine's exhaust is made up mostly of water vapor, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide. Hummel explains to Spaceweather that since the Falcon 9 second stage's engine firings take place higher in the ionosphere, it makes large holes due to a lack of overall atmospheric density.
While the researcher is uncertain about the effects of these holes on astronomy, he is worried that once SpaceX steps up its launch cadence, they could become more common than they are now. However, other researchers are excited, since the rocket launches allow them to properly observe ionospheric deionization.
2023 has seen SpaceX set a new
This is not investment advice. The author has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Wccftech.com has a disclosure and ethics policy.
The American company Blue Origin plans to launch its rocketv Big Shepard Monday for the first time since an accident more than a year ago, as the firm founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos heads back into space. The launch window from the pad in west Texas opens at 8:30 am local time (14H30 GMT), said Blue Origin, which plans to live stream the event.
Researchers have discovered the limits to ChatGPT's ability to provide location-specific information about environmental justice issues, which they said possibly hint at the chatbot's geographic biases. The researchers at Virginia Tech University in the US asked ChatGPT to answer a prompt about the environmental justice issues in each of the 3,108 counties across the states of the country. ChatGPT is a generative artificial intelligence (AI) tool, developed by OpenAI, that is trained extensively on massive amounts of data in natural language. Such AI tools, also called large language models, can process, manipulate and generate textual responses based on users' requests, or "prompts".
Jenn Wexler’s holiday horror movie The Sacrifice Game is full of surprises. The story, about a group of killers hoping to enact a demonic ritual at an elite boarding school at Christmas, feels a little like a home-invasion thriller, and a little like other period-piece boarding-school horror movies, from the classic Suspiria to Simon Barrett’s Seance. (And coincidentally, a whole lot like 2023 critical darling The Holdovers.)
The next film from the director of Annihilation, Ex Machina, and Men looks like a bad time at the movies. Civil War is writer-director Alex Garland pivoting from the intimate, provocative horror of Men to explosive, politically charged dread. The first trailer of Civil War, released Wednesday by A24, hints at what the studio is calling “an adrenaline-fueled thrill ride through a near-future fractured America balanced on the razors edge.”
Sean Durkin’s A24 drama The Iron Claw, based on the true story of a legendary family of pro wrestlers, revives a great American Christmas tradition: opening presents under the tree, eating a decadent meal, then driving the whole family to the local movie theater to watch a new prestige-season release that turns out to be the year’s most depressing film. PSA for those planning their holiday family viewing: The Iron Claw is not the overcoming-the-odds sports movie the trailers would have you believe.
As the viral horror franchise continues to grow, Damien Leone teases plans for a video game and haunted house experience. The slasher movies center on the menacing Art the Clown as he enjoys a bloody streak of murders in a fictional New York town, as well as survivors Victoria Heyes and Sienna Shaw as they grapple with the trauma of encountering the killer. Though the first movie garnered mixed reviews, its 2022 sequel was a critical and commercial hit, opening the door for 2024's and potentially further installments.
A new video game is on the horizon, another addition to a selection of titles focused on Marvel heroes like the games and the upcoming from Insomniac Games. and have been confirmed to take place in the same universe, establishing the closest current video game equivalent to the shared worlds represented by Marvel Cinematic Universe films or any given comic continuity. It might be easy to assume that will fall into the same category, but the situation isn't necessarily that simple.
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If you hope to complete this week's challenge, the Slice & Dice Challenge, you must be prepared to get your hands dirty. That's because, for this challenge, you will need to obtain some weapons and perform some very hostile actions with them. As a result, some people may find the Slice & Dice weekly challenge unsettling. However, to reap those sweet rewards, you must do whatever it takes.
Since the release of the Forsaken Expansion, guardians have been holding onto their Thorn hand cannons, while waiting patiently for them to receive some more love from Bungie. Well, our hopes have been answered with a new Exotic Catalyst for the beloved weapon in Destiny 2: Season of the Wish.
In our solar system, we are aware that Jupiter is the biggest planet due to its size and mass however, beyond that there are several other planets that are far bigger. Unfortunately, under the current state of things, we cannot say for sure that there is one specific planet that is the biggest. In fact, there are several candidates there. The reason behind that is the uncertainty regarding their sizes and how we define a planet. Check out what Thayne Currie, an associate professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Texas, San Antonio said.