So President Trump was nearly assassinated today….on a golf course. And I’m not saying anyone over at Time Magazine was involved or had any involvement or inside information of any kind, but I am…

Readers, Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.…

The FBI said Sunday it was assessing the credibility of threats against Haitians at Wittenberg University following baseless claims by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump that the migrants…

The level of hatred the Far-Left Deep State has for President Trump is off the charts…. And it’s starting to seep through, worse than ever before. They can barely camouflage it anymore. After President…

Readers, Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.…

Why does the Secret Service keep failing? First they couldn’t possibly be bothered to cover that roof in Butler, PA. Now they can’t secure the perimeter of the golf course where President Trump is…

The problems with illegal immigration have been ongoing for years. Much like the stabbings of kids at a Taylor Swift dance class sparked riots and protests in the U.K., it appears Springfield, OH may…

Of all the mysteries facing astronomers and cosmologists today, the “Hubble Tension” remains persistent! This term refers to the apparent inconsistency of the Universe’s expansion (aka. the Hubble Constant) when local measurements are compared to those of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). Astronomers hoped that observations of the earliest galaxies in the Universe by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) would solve this mystery. Unfortunately, Webb confirmed that the previous measurements were correct, so the “tension” endures. Since the JWST made its observations, numerous scientists have suggested that the existence of Early Dark Energy (EDE) might explain the Hubble Tension. In a recent study supported by NASA and the National Science Foundation (NSF), researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) suggested that EDE could resolve two cosmological mysteries. In addition to the Hubble Tension, it might explain why Webb observed as many galaxies as it did during the early Universe. According to current cosmological models, the Universe should have been much less populated at the time. The research was led by Xuejian Shen and his colleagues from the Department of Physics and the Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research (MTK) at MIT. They were joined by researchers from the NSF AI Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Fundamental Interactions (IAIFI) at MIT, the University of Texas at Austin, and the Kavli Institute for Cosmology (KICC) and Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge. The paper detailing their findings was recently published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. The Cosmic Distance Ladder, which relies on different methods to gauge distance, has led to the realization that measurements of cosmic expansion don’t agree. Credit: NASA/ESA/A. Feild (STScI)/A. Riess (STScI/JHU) To recap, Dark Energy is the theoretical form of energy that is believed to be driving the expansion of the Universe today. The theory first emerged in the 1990s to explain observations by the venerable Hubble Space Telescope, which showed that cosmic expansion appeared to be accelerating over time. EDE is similar but is thought to have briefly appeared shortly after the Big Bang, which disappeared after influencing the expansion of the early Universe. Like Dark Energy, this force would have counteracted the gravitational pull of early galaxies and temporarily accelerated the expansion of the Universe. The existence of this energy would also explain why measurements of the Hubble Constant are inconsistent with each other. Short of General Relativity being wrong (despite being proven repeatedly for over a century), EDE is considered the most likely solution to the Hubble Tension. Similarly, Webb’s 2023 observations uncovered a surprising number of bright galaxies just 500 million years after the Big Bang that were comparable in size to the modern Milky Way. These findings challenge conventional models of galaxy formation, which predict that galaxies take billions of years to form and grow. For their study, the team focused on the formation of “Dark Matter Halos,” the hypothetical region that allows protogalaxies to accumulate gas and dust, leading to star formation and growth. As when said in a recent MIT News story: “The bright galaxies that JWST saw would be like seeing a clustering of lights around big cities, whereas theory predicts something like the light around more rural settings like Yellowstone National Park. And we don’t expect that clustering of light so early on. We believe that dark matter halos are the invisible skeleton of the universe. Dark matter structures form first, and then galaxies form within these structures. So, we expect the number of bright galaxies should be proportional to the number of big dark matter halos.” Early Dark Energy could have caused early seeds of galaxies (depicted at left) to sprout many more bright galaxies (at right) than theory predicts. Credit: Josh Borrow/Thesan Team The team developed an empirical framework for early galaxy formation that incorporated the six main “cosmological parameters”—the basic mathematical terms that describe the evolution of the Universe. This includes the Hubble Constant, which describes cosmic expansion, while parameters describe density fluctuations immediately after the Big Bang, from which dark matter halos formed. The team theorized that if EDE affects early cosmic expansion, it could also affect other parameters that might explain the appearance of many large galaxies shortly thereafter. To test their theory, the team modeled the formation of galaxies within the first few hundred million years of the Universe. This model incorporated EDE to determine how early dark matter structures evolved and gave rise to the first galaxies in the Universe. As study co-author Rohan Naidu, a postdoc with MKI, explained: “You have these two looming open-ended puzzles. We find that in fact, early dark energy is a very elegant and sparse solution to two of the most pressing problems in cosmology. What we show is, the skeletal structure of the early universe is altered in a subtle way where the amplitude of fluctuations goes up, and you get bigger halos, and brighter galaxies that are in place at earlier times, more so than in our more vanilla models. It means things were more abundant, and more clustered in the early universe.” “We demonstrated the potential of early dark energy as a unified solution to the two major issues faced by cosmology,” added co-author Mark Vogelsberger, an MIT professor of physics. “This might be an evidence for its existence if the observational findings of JWST get further consolidated. In the future, we can incorporate this into large cosmological simulations to see what detailed predictions we get.” Further Reading: MIT News, MNRAS The post Early Dark Energy Could Resolve Two of the Biggest Mysteries in Cosmology appeared first on Universe Today.

Continuous human habitation of the Moon is the state aim of many major space-faring nations in the coming decades. Reaching that aim requires many tasks, but one of the most fundamental is feeding those humans. Shipping food consistently from Earth will likely be prohibitively expensive shortly, so DLR, Germany’s space agency, is working on an alternative. This semi-autonomous greenhouse can be used to at least partially feed the astronauts in residence on the Moon. To support that goal, a team of researchers from DLR released a paper about EVE, a robotic arm intended to help automate the operations of the first lunar greenhouse, at the IEEE Aerospace conference in March. The EDEN Versatile End-effector (or EVE) is only possibly named as an homage to the life-seeking robot from WALL-E. But it is designed to interface with the EDEN LUNA greenhouse, a project at DLR meant to result in a fully functional greenhouse for use on the lunar surface. The advantages of such a greenhouse have been discussed in other articles, but needless to say, the EDEN LUNA is the best-supported project that will likely result in a fully functional system on the Moon when the time is right. But as any gardener would tell you, greenhouses are a lot of work. And any time an astronaut spends on greenhouse maintenance is time they can’t spend doing other tasks, like scientific research. So, it would be extremely beneficial if there was a robot to assist with greenhouse operations, even if that robot had to be remotely controlled by an operator back on Earth. Fraser discusses how to grow crops on the Moon. Enter EVE, which consists of three main components. The transport rails allow the robot to move to the correct location in the greenhouse. Its robotic “arm” enables the robot to position itself effectively to complete its assigned task, and the end effector can push, pull, pick up, or perform other manual tasks. The system uses about 700W and weighs about 170 kg fully installed. First, let’s look at the transport trails. It’s actually an off-the-shelf commercial system for use in industrial automation. The eXtended Transport System, made by Beckhoff, an industrial automation company, can be mounted in different configurations. It allows whatever is attached to it to be driven to various locations based on a series of signals that control the “mover” to which the robotic arm would be connected. The robotic arm is based on DLR’s “This Is Not an Arm” (TINA) project. It has seven degrees of freedom, which allows for precise positioning of its end effector. Each of its three joints has around three electronic controllers for motor control, power management, and communication. It’s supported by a camera system that senses its surroundings and allows remote operators to tell where the end effector is positioned. Isaac Arthur discusses how the Moon could support a biosphere.Credit – Isaac Arthur YouTube Channel The Compliant Low-Cost Antagonistic Servo Hand (CLASH) is the end effector. It has two “fingers” and a “thumb” to grip soft objects using force feedback sensors in its fingertips. It can also sense pressure from other components, such as the hand’s “tendons” and thumb and figure position. These positioning and end-effector systems can work effectively together to perform the greenhouse’s daily maintenance tasks. For now, at least, it will require a skilled operator to do so, but that operator doesn’t have to be co-located with the greenhouse on the Moon – it could be back on Earth or even on the Lunar Gateway station orbiting above the lunar surface. Continuous operation is essential, though, as the first stages of the permanent occupation of the Moon involve temporary stays, where there will be long stretches with no human inhabitants. DLR is fully backing the development of the EDEN LUNA greenhouse and the EVE robotic arm. Later this year, EVE will be fully integrated into the greenhouse at the Institute of Space Systems in Bremen, followed by a specially designed facility for the greater LUNA project of ESA/DLR in Cologne. As of now, both EVE and EDEN LUNA seem on track to be put through their paces before officially supporting the continual human occupation of the Moon within the next decade. Learn More:Prince et al. – EDEN Versatile End-effector (EVE): An Autonomous Robotic System to Support Food Production on the MoonUT – Plants Could Grow in Lunar Regolith Using BacteriaUT – A Greenhouse on the Moon by 2014?UT – Practical Ideas for Farming on the Moon and Mars Lead Image:Greenhouse concept art on the Moon.Credit – DLR The post Can a Greenhouse with a Robotic Arm Feed the Next Lunar Astronauts? appeared first on Universe Today.