Chasing an Asteroid - How NASA defied incredible odds to get its asteroid-hunting osiris-rex mission off the ground and in the process upended what we know about our solar system.
Popular Mechanics US|September - October 2024
Dante Lauretta sat in the backseat of a helicopter hovering high above a remote patch of Utah desert, waiting for a small, twinkling speck in the sky to plunge toward earth.If you didn't know better, you might think what was beginning to burn through the skies above the American southwest in the early hours of September 24, 2023, was a shooting star. But it wasn't a shooting star. Or a meteor. It was a dishwasher-size capsule filled with bits of ancient asteroid-priceless matter from the dawn of the solar system. In other words, it was a treasure chest moving at 27,000 miles per hour and sizzling at a temperature half that of the sun's surface.
By Robin George Andrews
Chasing an Asteroid - How NASA defied incredible odds to get its asteroid-hunting osiris-rex mission off the ground and in the process upended what we know about our solar system.

Dante Lauretta sat in the backseat of a helicopter hovering high above a remote patch of Utah desert, waiting for a small, twinkling speck in the sky to plunge toward earth.

If you didn't know better, you might think what was beginning to burn through the skies above the American southwest in the early hours of September 24, 2023, was a shooting star. But it wasn't a shooting star. Or a meteor. It was a dishwasher-size capsule filled with bits of ancient asteroid-priceless matter from the dawn of the solar system. In other words, it was a treasure chest moving at 27,000 miles per hour and sizzling at a temperature half that of the sun's surface.

That small streak of light represented the end of a NASA-led interplanetary mission suffused with peril. Lauretta and his colleagues had spent nearly 20 years building a spacecraft designed to collect material from an asteroid and return to Earth. From these precious grains, they hoped to gain insight about the formation of the solar system, of Earth, and maybe even of life itself.

What the capsule had to do now, completely autonomously, was simple: stay in one piece as it reentered the atmosphere, open its parachutes, and softly touch down on an Air Force bombing range without detonating any unexploded ordnance nearby.

By 8:44 a.m., the capsule was 102,300 feet above the ground, and its drogue parachute-the canopy meant to stabilize its plunge-should have opened by now. But no one could see it. Throngs of scientists and engineers who had worked on the spacecraft, spread out across mission control rooms in Arizona and Colorado, were now deathly quiet.

It looked like something had gone wrong. And all Lauretta, the mission's leader, could do was watch, and hope, that his life's obsession wasn't about to be scattered across the desert. He wasn't even supposed to oversee the mission.

هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة September - October 2024 من Popular Mechanics US.

ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.

هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة September - October 2024 من Popular Mechanics US.

ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.

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Henrietta Lacks - It's not surprising that Henrietta Lacks-whose
Popular Mechanics US

Henrietta Lacks - It's not surprising that Henrietta Lacks-whose

It's not surprising that Henrietta Lacks-whose "immortal" HeLa cells were pivotal in developing treatments for diseases such as polio, HIV/AIDS, and COVID19-is referred to as "the mother of modern medicine." But Lacks's legacy is complicated due to the ethical concerns surrounding the use of her special cells. Lacks, who died of cancer at age 31 in 1951, was never aware that her cells led to significant medical advancements or that they had been taken without her consent. And even now, her strange case raises questions about the morally dubious methods through which we achieved unquestionably positive breakthroughs in medicine.

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September - October 2024
Chasing an Asteroid - How NASA defied incredible odds to get its asteroid-hunting osiris-rex mission off the ground and in the process upended what we know about our solar system.
Popular Mechanics US

Chasing an Asteroid - How NASA defied incredible odds to get its asteroid-hunting osiris-rex mission off the ground and in the process upended what we know about our solar system.

Dante Lauretta sat in the backseat of a helicopter hovering high above a remote patch of Utah desert, waiting for a small, twinkling speck in the sky to plunge toward earth.If you didn't know better, you might think what was beginning to burn through the skies above the American southwest in the early hours of September 24, 2023, was a shooting star. But it wasn't a shooting star. Or a meteor. It was a dishwasher-size capsule filled with bits of ancient asteroid-priceless matter from the dawn of the solar system. In other words, it was a treasure chest moving at 27,000 miles per hour and sizzling at a temperature half that of the sun's surface.

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Whether We Live in a Simulation - scientist Melvin Vopson, PhD, studies this exact thing- the possibility that the universe might indeed be a digital facsimile. And he claims to have evidence.
Popular Mechanics US

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In the 1999 film the Matrix, Neo discovers A truth to end all truths-the universe is a simulation. While this premise provides fantastic sci-fi fodder, the idea isn't quite as relegated to the fiction section as one might expect. . In fact, University of Portsmouth scientist Melvin Vopson, PhD, studies this exact thing- the possibility that the universe might indeed be a digital facsimile. And he claims to have evidence.

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Popular Mechanics US

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Underwater UFOs - A retired U.S. Navy admiral believes that the government should look to the oceans to help solve a mystery in the skies.
Popular Mechanics US

Underwater UFOs - A retired U.S. Navy admiral believes that the government should look to the oceans to help solve a mystery in the skies.

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Popular Mechanics US

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SKINWALKER RANCH REVEALED
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Popular Mechanics US

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Popular Mechanics US

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Popular Mechanics US

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