Termite-like robots could build on Mars.

 Scientists have developed automated robots capable of working together to build complex structures.

In much the same way as termites are able to build massive columns hundreds of times larger than themselves, the new robots developed at Harvard University operate without the need for direct instructions or a central leader telling them what to do.

At around the size of a brick, the robots function by assessing what work has already been done and then adding to it with only the knowledge of the completed structure to go by. The process continues until all the pieces are in place and the structure has been completed.

Scientists believe that in the future, small armies of independent robots such as these could prove invaluable in the construction of buildings in places inhospitable to humans such as on the surface of Mars or at the bottom of the sea. 

 Source: Washington Post

Ganymede, Solar System's Largest Moon, Gets 'On The Map'.

When it comes to the multitude of moons that exist in our solar system, we often hear a lot about the few big stars of today’s scientific stage: Titan, Europa, Enceladus, Pluto’s most recently-discovered companions Kerberos and Styx, Mars’ moon Phobos… and of course our very own lovely moon, The Moon. But in the vast pantheon of heavenly satellites there’s one that looms above all the rest: Ganymede, the seventh moon of Jupiter and the largest moon in the entire solar system.

But just because Ganymede doesn’t make the headlines as often as its smaller cousins doesn’t mean it lacks fans in the scientific community, as evidenced by a brand-new geologic map released today by the USGS.

The comprehensive (and very colorful) map is the result of a project led by Geoffrey Collins of Wheaton College, and uses the most detailed images obtained of Ganymede by NASA’s Voyager 1 and 2 and Galileo spacecraft, executing imaging flybys of Jupiter and its moons in 1979, and the late 90s and early 2000s, respectively.
Using colors to differentiate the incredibly varied terrain on Ganymede, the illustrative map provides planetary scientists with the first solid evidence for distinct periods in the massive moon’s history: ancient, heavy cratering; tectonic upheaval; and then more recent settling and geologic decline.

Watch a 360-degree rotation of Ganymede and its new map above:

“This map illustrates the incredible variety of geological features on Ganymede and helps to make order from the apparent chaos of its complex surface,” said Robert Pappalardo of JPL. “This map is helping planetary scientists to decipher the evolution of this icy world and will aid in upcoming spacecraft observations.”
ESA’s upcoming Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) mission is slated to launch in 2022 and orbit Ganymede around 2032, and this map will undoubtedly aid in mission planning and the targeting of specific objectives.

“The surface of Ganymede is more than half as large as all the land area on Earth, so there is a wide diversity of locations to choose from. Ganymede also shows features that are ancient alongside much more recently formed features, adding historical diversity in addition to geographic diversity.” – Geoffrey Collins, Geology Professor at Wheaton College, Norton, Mass.

The largest of Jupiter’s 63 named satellites, Ganymede has twice the mass of our moon and is even larger than the planet Mercury. In fact, at 3,280 miles wide Ganymede is bigger than Mercury and almost as large as Mars! Its complex icy surface is crisscrossed by dark regions covered with craters and lighter areas lined with grooves and ridges.

Ganymede even has a very thin oxygen atmosphere as well as its very own magnetosphere, generated by a molten core made up of heavy conductive metals. It’s been said that if Ganymede were to be orbiting the sun instead of Jupiter, it would easily be classified as a planet in its own right.

Discovered by Galileo in 1610, Ganymede is visible from Earth as one of the four Galilean moons seen alongside Jupiter (with Callisto, Io and Europa). With Jupiter so bright in the sky right now it’s fairly easy to spot Ganymede for yourself. All that’s needed is a small telescope or decent pair of binoculars (preferably mounted on a tripod) and a clear night sky… and a way to know what you’re seeing.
Source: DN

New tracking technology to spot smaller asteroid threats.

The dream of detecting every potentially dangerous near Earth asteroid could be a step closer to reality, thanks to a new technique called synthetic tracking.

A report in the Astrophysical Journal, claims the system, which combines high-speed computers and low-noise cameras, has the potential to find every near Earth object down to 10 metres in size.
Currently, only a tiny fraction, possibly as little as two per cent of the estimated quarter of a million small asteroids near Earth have been found, according to the study's lead author Dr Michael Shao of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.
"Only a very small fraction of those asteroids are detectable with current techniques," says Shao.
Small dark asteroids in the 10-metre range are only discovered when they're very close to the Earth.
"When they're that close, they appear to be moving very fast, making them hard to track," says Shao.
"We think we have a new mouse trap that can detect all of them. If they fall into our field of view we will find them."

Better data

The synthetic tracking system developed by Shao and colleagues uses a 5 mega-pixel camera that can snap a hundred images a second with a very low noise-to-picture ratio.
The camera is matched with graphic processing units capable of computational rates of four teraflops (trillion operations per second), allowing a huge amount of data to be processed in real time.
The software acts as an artificial tracking system, combining data from different pixels as an object moves across the camera's line of sight.
"It lets us detect and track asteroids which would normally be too faint to see," says Shao.
It also allows better measurements to be made of their orbits.
"Up to 95 per cent of asteroids are lost because they're observable over only a short period of time," says Shao.
"The higher sensitivity [of the synthetic tracking system] means we can keep track of an object for a longer period of time as it swings by Earth, so it won't be subsequently lost."
In April 2013, Shao and colleagues successfully tested the technique on two known asteroids, 2013FQ10 and 2009BL2.

Major danger

Near Earth asteroids pose a significant threat to life on Earth, prompting a recent United Nations vote to develop an asteroid defence plan.
Several times a year, an object of the size of a small car hits Earth's atmosphere. Larger asteroids occasionally also crash into Earth, producing impact sites, such as Arizona's kilometre-wide Meteor Crater.
Another impact, off the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, caused a mass extinction event 65 million years ago, which wiped out 75 per cent of all life on Earth.
So far more than 10,000 near Earth asteroids have been discovered, with nearly 1000 of these objects being greater than a kilometre wide. However the smaller they are, the harder they are to detect.
The danger was highlighted a year ago, when a 17-metre wide asteroid exploded in the skies over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk injuring more than 2000 people.
Over the past five years, only about 150 near Earth asteroids in the ten metre range have been discovered.

"If we get the funding to build our ideal camera, we could increase the number of small asteroids over say seven meters, detected per night by several hundred," says Shao.

Source: ABC