Showing posts with label Moon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Moon. Show all posts

Sunday, December 12, 2021

December 12: Metaverse, Moon, Maps

Virtual Land in the Metaverse Is Selling for Millions of Dollars The trading volume of NFTs reached $10.67 billion in the third quarter of this year, with more people apparently willing to shell out huge sums of money for art that will never actually hang on their walls or adorn their homes in any way (with the exception of artist Beeple’s newest piece, which lives in a 3D box the buyer can put wherever he chooses). Now there’s a related, equally bizarre item selling for millions of dollars online: virtual land. It’s like real land, sort of, except you’ll never set foot on it because it only exists in the metaverse. ........

virtual land is becoming as much of an investment as physical land

........ Facebook, now Meta, aims to rule the metaverse of the future, but it seems likely that people will gravitate towards platforms like Decentraland precisely because they’re not owned or controlled by a centralized authority. ....... we’re in for a future where more of the things that populate our lives start to have digital counterparts


Scientists Model What Would Happen if a Mini Black Hole Punched Through the Moon The lunar surface is a record of the solar system’s violent origins. But look closely enough and we may find something even more exotic there—the cratered remains of an impact with a black hole the size of an atom, birthed in the first moments of the universe. ...... Stars orbit their galaxies much too fast given all the matter we can see. This invisible component, whose gravity can clearly be observed in stellar orbits, is called dark matter. To this day, no one knows what it is. ........ Star-sized black holes commonly form when a giant star, many times the size of our sun, exhausts its internal fuel and collapses in on itself. The star’s outer shell is blasted away in a brilliant explosion called a supernova, while the core, unable to resist gravity, implodes into a point of extreme density. Gravity becomes so strong near the center of a black hole that, beyond a threshold called the event horizon, nothing, not even light, can escape. ........ the very smallest black holes—those with masses below your average asteroid—would have evaporated by now .......... Hawking famously established that black holes radiate energy away, and given a long enough time, they disappear in a flash. But primordial black holes with slightly larger masses, yet still not much larger than atoms, would have lifespans longer than the current age of the universe and wouldn’t otherwise be detectable. ........ “They’re going at incredible speeds, 200 kilometers a second,” Caplan told New Scientist.

“It’s like a bullet punching through cotton candy.”

....... primordial black hole craters ought to be at least a meter across, within the resolution of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. ...... training a machine learning algorithm to scour orbiter images of the moon’s surface for just the right ones. ......... Even if all dark matter were explained by mini primordial black holes, Caplan and Yalinewich calculate the odds of a lunar impact at 10 percent. So, the real likelihood is lower than that.


PEOPLE HAVE SOME WILD THEORIES ABOUT THE CUBE CHINA FOUND ON THE MOON “By the time Elon shows up he’ll find a Tim Hortons every two kilometers”



These Maps Reveal the Profound Progress and Peril of Modern Civilization The growing demand for energy and meat helps explain the steady rise in carbon and methane emissions. Coal-belching factories and burning forests are in turn speeding up global warming, increasing the frequency of storms, deepening food insecurity, and imperiling flood-prone cities. The interdependent nature of our biggest challenges and most promising solutions is hard to conceive.

Maps can help bring clarity to complexity.

......... Satellite images, especially when layered with additional data, offer insight into how we are changing the planet and paths to a more sustainable future. .......... In 1950, less than half of humanity had a formal education. By 2050, a century later, most of the world will have acquired at least secondary education. ......... Maps show how just a handful of countries are responsible for most emissions. In the 1980s, the US and Western Europe were the biggest culprits. Today, China releases more greenhouse gases than the US, EU, and Russia combined. There are other culprits too, including Australia, Canada, India, Japan, Mexico, and Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile,

just 100 companies extract, process, sell, and use the fossil fuels behind roughly 70 percent of global emissions.

............ there are signs of real action on achieving zero carbon and zero deforestation in the coming decades ........ Investors with assets of trillions are demanding that governments speed up action on decarbonization, and not a moment too soon. ......... The sheer dimensions of today’s cities are unlike anything we’ve ever witnessed. In 1950, there were just three cities with ten million residents or more. Today, there are over 30 and another 500 cities with one million people or more. ....... Just a few hundred of them account for over two thirds of global GDP. ....... When fully recognized nation states emerged in the 17th century, less than one percent of the world lived in a city. Today, more than 55 percent of people are urban, and by 2050, the proportion will rise to almost 70 percent. Cities are exerting diplomatic overtures and forging alliances—over 300 of them—to channel their interests ......... Cities, companies, and citizens are also increasingly digitized. Today, there are over 4.6 billion active internet users, up from 3.9 billion in 2019. Over 60 percent of all inhabitants on Earth are connected to some digital device. The Covid-19 pandemic underlined the critical importance of connectivity and the fact that

data, more than ever, is the most important strategic asset of the 21st century

. ............ The internet is the world’s digital nervous system: download and upload speeds have increased tenfold every five years since the early 1990s. ...........

The internet, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and 5G are giving rise to highly integrated networks and connected systems crisscrossing the planet.

......... almost half of jobs in the US and up to two thirds of jobs in some developing countries could be automated in the coming decades. ............ Inequality within countries and globally has increased as the wealth of the top one percent has soared, while nearly 125 million people around the world have fallen into extreme poverty (having to live with incomes of below $1.90 per day). ..........

New York state alone consumes more energy than 48 countries in Africa.

......... New York consumes 392 gigawatts of electricity a day compared to just 5 gigawatts for all of Nigeria, a country of 200 million. ........... For about 150,000 years, average human life expectancy averaged between 20 and 25 years. Then something extraordinary happened. Between the 19th and 21st centuries, life expectancy almost quadrupled. This is due to better diets, medicine, reproductive health, and education. ..........


How DeepMind’s AI Helped Crack Two Mathematical Puzzles That Stumped Humans for Decades

Robots Evolve Bodies and Brains Like Animals in MIT’s New AI Training Simulator

Why It’s Still a Scientific Mystery How Some Live Past 100—and How to Crack It

A Plane Powered by Cooking Oil Just Flew Across the US the global fleet of aircraft could nearly double by 2039, from 25,900 in 2019 to 49,405. .......... The flight’s fuel was made by World Energy and Virent Inc., and was composed of cooking oil and fat mixed with synthetic compounds made from the sugar in plants like corn, beets, and sugar cane. This fuel reportedly creates 80 percent less carbon emissions than regular jet fuel. ........... The existing jet fuel industry didn’t spring up overnight; it’s taken decades to reach its current state, with oil companies, airlines, aircraft makers, regulators, and others all acting as pieces of a finely-tuned machine.

Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Space Travel And Showing Skin

Planets of the Solar System
Planets of the Solar System (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Space travel damages skin but makes hair grow FASTER: 'Astromice' study discovers the lesser-known impacts on astronauts
some astronauts experience skin dryness and itching after spending time in space - making them more vulnerable to scratches and irritation...... the astronaut underwent an accelerated skin ageing process in space...... ‘Weightlessness as experienced by astronauts during space flights affects physiological functions of the human organism that has evolved, like other organisms living on Earth, through continuous adaptation to the permanent gravitational field.’ ...... a study on 19 crew members of six Nasa-Mir missions from 1995 to 1998 indicated small skin injuries were the most frequent medical incidents including dryness and itching. ..... several cutaneous physiological changes were recorded after the mission such as coarsening and decreased skin elasticity ....... there might be more detrimental effects than thought on missions into deep space, such as to Mars

I have known this all along. We are not supposed to travel vast distances. We are supposed to take good care of earth. Maybe moon, maybe Mars. But there is nothing much going on either on Moon or Mars. Other than having a backup plan that might be needed a million years from now, I don't see the point. What would it take to recreate Tribeca or Chinatown on the moon or Mars? A lot. You will probably ended up creating a parking lot up there.

There is a reason why everything out there is measured in light years. We are supposed to stay back and measure, use telescopes and things, take in the incoming information if we ever got so curious. We are not supposed to go there. We are supposed to stay put.

I get the impression we experimented on people before we experimented on mice. Beware, time travels faster for the skin out there.

But if this is only about gravity, Mars has gravity. As long as you can survive the journey and make it fast, you should be okay. Right?

Saturday, May 23, 2015

Saturday, July 28, 2012

The Moon Does Not Have Water

Full Moon view from earth In Belgium (Hamois)....
Full Moon view from earth In Belgium (Hamois). Français : Pleine Lune vue de la Terre en Belgique à Hamois. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
But it has energy.

Moon has enough helium-3 to power Earth for five millenniums
25 tons of helium-3 per year will more than suffice to meet mankind’s energy needs....... On Earth, helium-3 is measured in grams, while its reserves on the Moon are estimated at 500,000 tons.
Helium-3 - Wikipedia Hydrogen-1 and helium-3 are the only stable nuclides in existence that contain more protons than they have neutrons.... a light, non-radioactive isotope of helium with two protons and one neutron .... sought for use in nuclear fusion research ..... The abundance of helium-3 is thought to be greater on the Moon (embedded in the upper layer of regolith by the solar wind over billions of years ..... The helion, the nucleus of a helium-3 atom, consists of two protons but only one neutron, in contrast with two neutrons in common helium ..... Its hypothetical existence was first proposed in 1934 ..... Helium-3 is proposed as a second-generation fuel for nuclear fusion in hypothetical fusion power plants, but such plants are still very early in their development -- especially since the first generation has not entered service anywhere, yet.


Helium-3 is a very rare gas with the potential to fuel clean nuclear fusion power plants. However, one of the problems is that the nearest supply of helium-3 is on the Moon.
Lunar Helium-3 as an Energy Source - The Artemis Project
Jun 27, 1999 .... The total supply in the U.S. strategic reserves of helium is about 29 kg ..... In their 1988 paper, Kulcinski, et al. (see ref note below), estimate a total of 1,100,000 metric tonnes of He3 have been deposited by the solar wind in the lunar regolith. Since the regolith has been stirred up by collisions with meteorites, we'll probably find He3 down to depths of several meters. ..... The highest concentrations are in the lunar maria; about half the He3 is deposited in the 20% of the lunar surface covered by the maria...... To extract He3 from the lunar soil, we heat the dust to about 600 degrees C....... We get most of the other volatiles out at the same time, so we'll be heating up the rocks anyway. (To get the oxgyen out, we'll turn up the furnace to about 900 deg C
Enhanced by Zemanta

Hit And Run


Moon Formed In Interplanetary Hit-and-Run Incident, Say Astronomers
It turns out that our interplanetary companion has a similar composition to Earth, including an iron core. The consensus is that this rules out the possibility that the Moon formed elsewhere and was later captured by the Earth's gravity. Instead, it must have formed from the debris created by giant collision between the Earth and a Mars-sized body..... a model consisting of about 500,000 particles in which the Moon ends up being made of some 10,000 particles ..... the conditions on Earth at the time of the impact, about 4.5 billion years ago .... the more energetic impact would have heated the Earth's mantle to temperatures of about 10,000 Kelvin and heated the debris that formed the Moon to higher temperatures too

Enhanced by Zemanta