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Wednesday 31 July 2019

VIDEO: THE LANGUAGE OF LYING


We hear anywhere from 10 to 200 lies a day. And although we’ve spent much of our history coming up with ways to detect these lies by tracking physiological changes in their tellers, these methods have proved unreliable. Is there a more direct approach? In this video by TED-Ed, Noah Zandan uses some famous examples of lying to illustrate how we might use communications science to analyze the lies themselves.


Top image: Screenshot from the video.

[Source: TED-Ed/YouTube.]

TOP 10 MOST CATASTROPHIC COMPUTER FAILURES IN HISTORY


Top 10 Most Catastrophic Computer Failures In History
By Oliver Hackett,
Listverse, 30 July 2019.

We rely on computers for an ever-increasing proportion of our day-to-day lives. As such, it can sometimes be hard to imagine how something so common and well-understood could ever lead to errors costing hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars.

Nevertheless, severe security flaws affect almost every single device on the planet (yes, likely including the one you’re reading this on right now), and rushed designs can claim hundreds of lives. Let’s take a look at ten times computers failed - or were made to fail - in expensive, sometimes even deadly, ways.

10. Mars Climate Orbiter

Photo credit: NASA/JPL/Corby Waste

The Mars Climate Orbiter was a small space probe launched on December 11, 1998, by NASA to enter Martian orbit and both study the atmosphere of the Red Planet and provide valuable insight into its climate and any surface changes that might occur. The launch went as planned, and the probe traveled toward Mars with seemingly no issues, but unknown to the mission control team on Earth, the spacecraft was being put on a trajectory that would lead to the failure of the mission.

The orbiter was being navigated by various teams of people - some who used metric units, and others who used imperial units. Due to this simple conversion error - and the misconfiguration of the computer systems on the part of Lockheed - a course correction sent the Mars Climate Orbiter far too close to the planet, and it was likely violently burned up and destroyed in the atmosphere.

9. Ariane 5


Ariane 5 is a class of heavy-lift space rocket utilized in Europe. Jointly created by 20 European nations - including Belgium, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom - it has been continuously refined and altered to be more efficient, reliable, and powerful and is still in use today.

Following its initial development, the first fully completed Ariane 5 rocket lined up on the launchpad and prepared for its maiden flight on June 4, 1996. The rocket fired up the engines on both its core stage and its gigantic boosters and took to the skies, accelerating upward and beginning to turn at a much greater rate than its predecessor, the Ariane 4, as expected. Unfortunately, this was exactly why the rocket failed.

The internal computers and software responsible for monitoring speed and orientation aboard the Ariane 5 were reused from the Ariane 4, but the greater speed of the new rocket caused the computers to experience a “hardware exception” while converting a 64-bit floating point number to a 16-bit integer. Essentially, the more powerful rocket exceeded the limits of the older systems in just 37 seconds, causing the stored numbers to flip from 32,768 to –32,768, confusing the rocket and initiating a sudden turn downward that resulted in a catastrophic breakup and aerial explosion, destroying both the rocket and its payload.

8. Knight Capital Group


Knight Capital was a American-based financial services firm buying and sharing stocks of huge value in large quantities on the global stock market. It was the dominant trader in the United States, with a share of approximately 17 percent on NASDAQ.

This all came crashing down at practically a moment’s notice on August 1, 2012. That morning, when the stock market opened, the automated computer systems based at Knight Capital began rapidly buying and selling millions and millions of shares distributed among hundreds of stocks for a total of 45 minutes, before the systems were isolated and stopped. Knight Capital was forced to sell these shares back at low prices, which resulted in a total net loss of over $440 million - or roughly $10 million per minute.

New trading software had been installed improperly on one of the computers by a technician, which caused the fault and destabilized the entire stock market for a short period. Following this debacle, Knight Capital had to be acquired by another financial firm, Getco, as the company simply lacked the money to continue and had to be “rescued” by other firms.

7. Stuxnet


Stuxnet is the name given to a piece of malware discovered in 2010 and thought to have been in joint development by the Americans and the Israelis as a cyberweapon since 2005. Targeting real-world mechanical systems, Stuxnet is generally regarded as the first known piece of malware intended to cause real-world, tangible damage.

Stuxnet appears to have mostly been employed against Iran’s nuclear program - infiltrating the nuclear facility at Natanz and infecting its computer systems, manipulating machinery in a destructive manner. It appears to have been snuck in via a simple, easily detectable USB drive, of all things. Between November 2009 and late January 2010, it is estimated that this malware caused 1,000 nuclear centrifuges - ten percent of the facility’s total number - to violently tear themselves apart by forcing changes in rotor speed. Stuxnet forced the centrifuges to first increase in rotation speed and then decrease in a highly effective attempt to cause instability. It is estimated that this destruction resulted in a 30-percent decrease in nuclear enrichment efficiency for Iran - a huge impact that undoubtedly hindered Iranian nuclear efforts.

6. WannaCry

Photo credit: Wikipedia

In May 2017, a worldwide cyberattack was launched that infected Windows-based computers with ransomware. Ransomware is a form of malicious software that encrypts user data, making it unusable, and demands a payment to decrypt it and give it back to the user. WannaCry most significantly affected older Windows systems like Windows XP and spread to over 200,000 computers in 150 countries.

The ransom demanded between $300 and $600 per computer. Data was returned safely to those who paid the ransom. The United Kingdom’s National Health Service was especially badly affected, and tens of thousands of computers controlling MRI scanners, theater equipment, and more were attacked, causing some non-emergency cases to be turned away while the attack was contained. Worldwide, the cost is estimated at up to an enormous $4 billion, and the West has placed the blame squarely on North Korea’s shoulders.

5. Dhahran Patriot Missile Interception


The Patriot missile system is a United States-developed surface-to-air missile system capable of shooting down both aircraft and ballistic missiles, should they be detected and confirmed as enemy targets. It is widely employed today by both the United States and several of its allies, including Germany. It was also widely used in the Gulf War of 1991 to protect American soldiers and aircraft, which is where it failed due to a known software error.

A Patriot missile system installed in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, had been operational for 100 hours, causing its internal clock to drift by 0.34 seconds. The Israelis had detected this issue two weeks earlier and advised the US to periodically reboot the system’s computers. This was not conducted. On February 25, 1991, a “Scud” ballistic missile launched by Iraq hit the US Army barracks in Dhahran, killing 28 American soldiers. The Patriot missile system had activated and detected the missile, predicting where to look for it next - due to the drifting internal clock, the system looked in the wrong place and found no missile, so it shut down and did not attempt an intercept, which could have saved many lives.

4. Meltdown


Meltdown is a vulnerability present in all Intel CPUs released between 1995 and October 2018, as well as some ARM processors. Given that the vast majority of all computers run Intel CPUs, security analysts describe the vulnerability as “catastrophic” and initially didn’t believe the reports of the vulnerability to be true, due to how severe they were.

Meltdown exploits the way modern CPUs function and allows processes running on a computer to see all information currently being used by the CPU by avoiding security measures designed to stop this. The implications of this are terrible - someone using Meltdown to attack a computer could see passwords, sensitive financial information, images, and practically anything they wanted without users’ knowledge, all while avoiding antivirus software. Intel has released emergency security patches to fix this exploit, as has Microsoft, but this has reportedly come at a cost of performance - from five percent to a whopping 30 percent. Given how widespread this exploit is, it is most definitely destructive.

3. Spectre


Spectre is similar in nature to Meltdown. It was also uncovered in 2018, but it’s even more widespread. While Meltdown is only effective against Intel CPUs for the most part, Spectre affects practically every single computer system as of 2019. It has been reported that some variants of Spectre cannot be mitigated to any reasonable degree by software changes at all and will require hardware changes which are currently being implemented.

Spectre works by tricking a program into accessing innocent-seeming memory but actually allowing an attacker to read this data and potentially retrieve sensitive information without user approval. As of this writing, only a very small amount of CPUs are immune to this exploit - most notably the recently released AMD Zen 2 processors and Intel Ice Lake processors. Software patches, like with Meltdown, are applicable but again introduce performance drops comparable to Meltdown, in addition to causing sudden, unexpected reboots as patches are applied. It is unlikely that Spectre will disappear completely for a very long time, until hardware mitigations are employed within every single computer system - and it is likely affecting you right now.

2. ILOVEYOU

Photo credit: F-Secure

Starting on May, 5, 2000, tens of millions of people around the world received an e-mail with the subject “ILOVEYOU.” The e-mail generally contained a small sentence like “Please read the attached LOVELETTER from me” and would have a file attached. The file was called “LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.TXT.vbs,” and millions of people opened it out of curiosity - perhaps searching for love - causing the script contained within it to activate.

The hidden script would destructively overwrite random files on the computer and automatically send a copy of itself to every single address in Microsoft Outlook, causing it to spread extremely quickly. ILOVEYOU began in the Philippines and spread to Hong Kong, Europe, and finally the US. It is estimated that the malware caused approximately $8 billion in damages worldwide and cost around $15 billion to remove from computer systems. Ten percent of all Internet-connected computers in the world were affected, and 50 million infections were reported in just a span of ten days.

1. Boeing 737 MAX


The Boeing 737 MAX is a variant of the aging Boeing 737 line of narrow-body, twin-engine passenger airliners originally developed in the late 1960s. Since then, the 737 has been routinely updated and upgraded to fit in the modern world of aviation. However, it could be argued that the 737-MAX took this a step too far.

Rushed into development and production, the 737-MAX needed greater efficiency to keep its fuel costs as low as possible. To do this, it needed larger engines that could not be traditionally mounted on its wings. As a workaround, the larger engines were mounted further forward than normal, introducing a number of differences in the way it flies. To avoid the increased cost of pilot retraining for these new characteristics, Boeing instead implemented a system known as MCAS to mitigate these differences by automatically pushing the nose of the aircraft down when excessive angle of attack is detected. It was this software acting erroneously that led to the crash of two 737 MAX flights months apart: Lion Air flight 610 in October 2018 and Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 March 2019, claiming a combined total of 346 lives as the aircraft were forced into the ground by the MCAS system. Since these two crashes, the 737-MAX has been grounded worldwide and is not allowed to fly passengers due to safety concerns.

Top image: Boeing 737 Max 8’s Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS). Credit: Salim Taher/YouTube.

[Source: Listverse. Top image added.]

Monday 29 July 2019

VIDEO: WHY A CAT ALWAYS LANDS ON ITS FEET


In 1894, a French scientist, Étienne-Jules Marey, used a camera to solve a physics problem: why do cats always lands on their feet? As shown in the video below, Marey recorded the stages of a cat orienting or righting itself in midair as it falls in order to land on its feet.


Top image: The falling cat - how a cat always lands on its feet. Credit: Étienne-Jules Marey/Wikimedia Commons.

[Source: Vox/YouTube. Top image added.]

Saturday 27 July 2019

7 INTERESTING KINEMATIC PROJECTS THAT CAN CHANGE THE FUTURE OF ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN


7 Interesting Kinematic Projects That Can Change the Future of Architecture and Design
By Donovan Alexander,
Interesting Engineering, 26 July 2019.

When the world of kinematics and architecture come together some interesting things are bound to happen. Brought to life in both practical and interesting ways, the world of kinematic architecture has equally produced both mesmerizing art installations and equally practical but interesting adaptive architecture techniques. For the uninitiated, in the simplest form kinematics centers around the science of motion.

Understanding the World of Kinematic Architecture

Taking you back to your days as a student, kinematics is the branch of classical mechanics that describes the motion of points, objects, and systems of groups of objects, without reference to the causes of motion. In short, you could happily describe kinematics as geometry in motion.


Depending on who you ask, physics and design or art and technology come together in the world of kinematic architecture. In a world in which computational design and digital fabrication technologies are rapidly emerging, the realms of kinematic architecture are truly exciting.

Think of kinematic architecture as architecture that moves and comes to life interacting with its surrounding environment or people. In this world, you might come across an art installation or sculpture that moves, folds, and flies while mimicking and reacting to human movement. Or you might even see a building that adapts to the weather, changing its form to keep residents, dry, warm, etc.

Yet, rather than simply tell you today. We decided to show you. Today you are going to take a peek at some of the most interesting kinematic and adaptive architecture projects.

1. The Origami-Like Pavilion


This interdisciplinary project beautifully captures how the world of kinematics and architecture can elegantly come together to create something both beautiful and equally useful. Created by the architecture firm, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM), the project itself embodies how integrated design can be used to foster new and architectural solutions.

The project is something to be experienced as guests were treated to the movement of the structure, moving as if it were carefully folded piece of origami.

2. Hexi Wall

Credit: Thibaut

Another example of geometry in motion, this mounted 60-panel project does something very cool when you interact with it. Though it may look simple, the Thibaut Sld project is far from it. The hexagonal panels utilize real-time data collected from motion-tracking technology to decode and interpret your gestures and actions within close range.

What you get with this kinematic project is a wall that cleverly explores our relationship with artifacts, space, and technology.

3. The Transforming Material


Perhaps this would be something similar to what Optimus Prime might use to transform. Created by IAAC students Ramin Shambazati, Ece Tankal, and Efilena Baseta, they created a new architectural responsive project that looks like something out of a science fiction movie. Their project explores the transformations between forces, material phases, people, spaces, and functions.


The material very literally adapts and changes, transforming to fit the needs of the people or structures around it. In the near future, the building you live in could become something that easily adapts to your own personal needs. Think of it as a transforming building.

4. The Kinetic Parking Garage


Speaking of transforming buildings, you should definitely add this place of places to see even if it is just a parking garage by an airport. This unique garage creates the illusion that water is rippling across its exterior. Created by American Artist Ned Kahn alongside Hassell Architecture, the effect is created by the 118,000 suspended aluminum panels interacting with the wind.

5. Unum/Portal


Bewegende Architektur wanted to do something different for the human management capital group HCM ADVICE whilst creating a kinematic installation that embodied the core philosophy of their client.


Similar to the way a great team of employees compared to just one single person can dramatically change a company, the multi-piece structure comes together in the company’s conference room both improving the lighting and acoustics of the rooms, elevating the atmosphere in the room as a single piece.

6. The Sliding House


Imagine how cool it would be to have a home that evolved over time, changing as you see fit. Created by DRMM, the massive home - called The Sliding House - can shed its outer wooden layers to create a unique outdoor home or epic transparent living room with the ultimate view of the night sky.

The home moves via electric motors on tracks similar to the train, giving you multiple living options.

7. The Dynamic Façade System


Created by Urbana architecture, the new Eskenazi Hospital parking structure has some impressive moves. The building itself is equipped with 7,000 angled metal panels in conjunction with an “articulated east/west color system.” Onlookers are treated to both a mesmerizing and engaging visual experience that is hard to forget.

Top image: Hexi Wall (left) and Translated Geometries (right).

[Source: Interesting Engineering. Some links added.]

VIDEO: WHAT REALLY CAUSES A MIGRAINE?


Migraines are more than just headaches. They’re pre-headaches, post-headaches, sensitivities, nausea, fatigue, and can even bring on food cravings. But most of all they are painful and frustrating for those who suffer from them. For years they were misunderstood, but now we know it comes down to two main things, your genes and your brain.


Top image: Anatomy of a migraine. Credit: DeeAshley/Flickr.

[Source: Seeker/YouTube. Top image added.]

Friday 26 July 2019

10 HISTORICAL FIRST IMAGES CAPTURED OF SPACE


10 Historical First Images Captured Of Space
By A. C. Lura,
Listverse, 26 July 2019.

Neil Armstrong once said, “I think we’re going to the Moon because it’s in the nature of the human being to face challenges. It’s by the nature of his deep inner soul. We’re required to do these things just as salmon swim upstream.”

Just as powerful as our urge to face challenges, we humans also have the drive to record what we’ve seen. During our earlier ages of exploration, such as the Polynesian exploration of the Pacific or the age of European sailing ships, we recorded our discoveries through stories or the written word or paintings.

But the exploration of space has been unique. During our entire venture into the heavens, we have had access to photography. We can take living pictures for every new boundary broken and every new horizon. These are 10 such images, the first of their kind, taken in and about the infinite expanse of space.

10. The Very First Image Taken From Space

Photo credit: airspacemag.com

In October 1946, 15 years before humans visited space in person and less than a year after the conclusion of World War II, a team of scientists and soldiers in New Mexico launched a V-2 missile 105 kilometers (65 mi) into the sky. This rocket was equipped with a 35mm camera and snapped a photo every second and a half.

It achieved a height five times higher than the previous highest photo taken. When the V-2 missile’s photos were developed, what appeared on them affected the responsible team powerfully.

“They were ecstatic, they were jumping up and down like kids,” said Fred Rulli, an enlisted man involved in the camera recovery team. “The scientists just went nuts.”

And for good reason. The photos captured a sight that no human had ever seen before - Earth as viewed from beyond our atmosphere, Earth as seen from space. Many such missile launches were conducted in the coming years, and over 1,000 Earth pictures were recorded from space between 1946 and 1950.

But those pictures taken in 1946 would forever be our first view from outside our home.

9. The First Image Taken Of The Sun

Photo credit: NASA

The Sun has been a constant companion for the entirety of human existence, but its very nature limited our understanding of it for much of history. The details of the Sun were often difficult to perceive because even looking at it was a strain. Features such as the corona and sunspots were usually painful to behold with the naked eye.

But in 1845 at the dawn of photography, two French physicists captured the first image of the Sun. Louis Fizeau and Lion Foucault recorded the image on a 12.7-centimeter (5 in) daguerreotype photograph. Though naked eye observations of sunspots date back to as early as 28 BC, this photo clearly depicted that day’s sunspots and allowed for a permanent record of the Sun’s cycles and changes.

In fact, by 1858, a daily record of the Sun was being kept by means of photography. Between 1858 and 1872, over 3,000 images of the Sun were captured and cataloged by Warren de la Rue at England’s Kew Observatory.

Even a solar eclipse was captured by de la Rue’s team in Spain in 1860. Today, you can check on the Sun whenever you’d like via NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, which posts nearly live images of the Sun captured through many different means and wavelengths.

8. The First Image Taken From The Surface Of Our Moon

Photo credit: si.edu

After a number of failed attempts, the Soviet Union succeeded in landing an unmanned spacecraft, Luna 9, on our Moon. The craft touched down on February 3, 1966, on an area of the Moon called Oceanus Procellarum (“Ocean of Storms”).

Luna 9 used airbags to cushion its rocky landing and was equipped with a turret camera that made history. This camera was the first of all time where a picture was taken on the surface of a celestial body besides Earth.

Luna 9 had limited power provided only through batteries, and it died three days after landing. But that was enough time to take and transmit a panorama from the Moon. The first image transmitted was intercepted and published in England even before the Soviet Union could publicize their success.

7. First Image Of Auroras And Lightning On Another Planet

Photo credit: futurecdn.net

Two of the most brilliant and luminous phenomena on planet Earth were captured on a different celestial body for the first time during the historic flyby of Jupiter performed by the Voyager 1 spacecraft on March 5, 1979. The image - a grainy window of black and white - shows the curved horizon of our massive neighbor being lit by the planet’s own powerful auroras.

Caught in the same image, which was a three-minute-and-12-second exposure with a wide-angle lens, are the bright bursts of light from lightning churned into existence by Jupiter’s planet-wide storms.

The Voyager 1 flyby also found the first active volcanoes beyond Earth, the Jovian ring system, and two new moons of Jupiter. However, these images were only the beginning of its discovery.

Voyager 1 went on to visit Saturn and is the most far-flung man-made object. As of this writing, the craft is approximately 21.9 billion kilometers (13.6 billion mi) from our Sun.

6. First Image Of An Interstellar Visitor To Our Solar System

Photo credit: NASA

On October 19, 2017, an object (first called 1I/2017 U1) was detected by the Pan-STARRS1 telescope at the University of Hawaii, and this object defied definition. Originally, it was classified as a comet. But when no signs of comet-like activity (for example, no evidence of dust, ice, or water of any sort) were noted, it was reclassified as an asteroid.

However, that didn’t make sense, either. The object was measured to be accelerating as no asteroid would. On top of that, its brightness increased by a factor of 10 as it rotated. This was due to its shape, which was unlike anything ever seen in our solar system. It was long and cylindrical.

What was it?

Further observations determined that this object was not from our solar system. It was the first, and so far only, object confirmed to originate outside the domain of our Sun. A more fitting name was given to it - Oumuamua (pronounced “oh MOO-uh MOO-uh”) - a Hawaiian term meaning “a messenger from afar arriving first.”

Orbital calculations of Oumuamua suggest that it traveled to us by way of what is now the Vega star system. However, when Oumuamua was in that neck of the woods (300,000 years ago), Vega was not there. So its actual point of origin is still a mystery.

The image captured of Oumuamua shows only a tiny glimpse of this visitor. As it passed us, it traveled 315,000 kilometers per hour (196,000 mph), so the telescope capturing its image had to track its movement. This resulted in a picture of a small white dot surrounded by stars that were smeared by the movement of the telescope. An uninspiring picture of a very inspiring traveler.

5. First Image Of A Comet Hitting A Planet

Photo credit: internapcdn.net

Shoemaker-Levy 9 was a comet discovered in March 1993 by Eugene and Carolyn Shoemaker and David Levy. This group of veteran trackers had discovered many other comets before this one, but this Shoemaker-Levy comet was something special.

After watching this fuzzy celestial body for some months, it became clear that this was the first comet discovered that did not revolve around our Sun. Instead, it orbited the planet Jupiter. Though it had likely been in orbit there for decades, we found it toward the end of its adventure. A little over a year later, Shoemaker-Levy 9 collided with the planet it orbited.

Between July 16 and July 22, 1994, Shoemaker-Levy 9 broke into 21 distinct fragments that slammed into the surface of Jupiter. At that time, the Galileo spacecraft was en route to Jupiter and too far away to observe the event. But astronomers the world over were watching.

Though the collisions occurred on the far side of Jupiter that was facing away from Earth, the impact site spun into view shortly thereafter. Astronomers were able to get a view of the impact site, sometimes mere minutes after the collisions.

Shoemaker-Levy 9 left massive dark smudges painted over the arch of Jupiter’s surface that lasted for at least a month before being consumed by the planet’s ever-turning storms.

4. First Image Of An Exoplanet

Photo credit: NASA

We’ve always known that there must be planets outside our own solar system. Unlike the massive and luminous stars they orbit, however, these exoplanets are small and dark by comparison. They are difficult to see, even with incredibly powerful telescopes. To view an exoplanet, we needed something even better.

Enter the accurately named Very Large Telescope (VLT) array which consists of four main 8.2-meter-diameter (26.9 ft) telescopes (named Antu, Kueyen, Melipal and Yepun) and four 1.8-meter-diameter (5.9 ft) auxiliary telescopes which could work independently of each other or in unison.

Independently, these mirrors can perceive light four billion times fainter than the naked human eye can. When the equipment works as a team, astronomers can see details 25 times greater than possible with each individual telescope.

Using this incredible piece of technology, the first image of an exoplanet was captured. The technology allowed this history-making photo, although the exoplanet was primed to be discovered because it was truly gigantic.

This exoplanet, which orbits a brown dwarf 230 light-years from us, is five times the size of Jupiter. Although other exoplanets have been found, this was the first one large enough to be directly imaged. As of this writing, over 4,000 exoplanets have been discovered.

3. First Image Of An Unborn Exomoon

Photo credit: almaobservatory.org

If exoplanets are difficult to find, you can imagine how difficult it is to see an exomoon. But an exomoon in the process of forming may be significantly easier. Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), astronomers were able to capture an image of a ring of debris around a planet. This is known as a circumplanetary disk.

Unlike the rings around Saturn, which are icy and formed by comets, a circumplanetary disk is created in the same forge as the planet itself. Similar disks have been observed around stars. Called circumstellar disks, they give rise to planets.

This was the first such disk imaged around an exoplanet (or any planet for that matter as no circumstellar disks are in our own solar system). Given time, this disk will coalesce into one or more moons to accompany this new planet.

2. First Image Of A Black Hole

Photo credit: NASA

Black holes are celestial phenomena that have reached almost mythological status because of their mysterious nature and place in pop culture. These objects have so much mass and gravity that it becomes impossible for anything, including light, to escape from their unrelenting gravitational pull.

To capture an image of a black hole is impossible because no light, radio waves, or anything else can escape from its event horizon. So it is more accurate to say that this is the first image of a black hole’s silhouette - a shadow, as it were, of a black hole in contrast to the glowing hot material that it is consuming.

Capturing this image took a team of telescopes working simultaneously. Earlier, we discussed the VLT array and how its many telescopes worked in unison with each other. Capturing the image of a black hole’s silhouette took the same basic approach on a global basis.

A network of telescopes called the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) was put to work. Many telescopes from across the planet were synchronized to look at a single object in space. The two most distant from each other were located in the South Pole and in Spain. The aperture of the EHT was almost the size of the Earth’s diameter.

In total, eight telescopes from around the world were used to capture this image of a supermassive black hole (6.5 billion times more massive than our own Sun) in the center of a galaxy 53 million light-years away.

1. First Image Of A Survivor After A Supernova

Photo credit: hubblesite.org

Supernovae are the most powerful explosions known to exist in space. They unleash such terrifying might that a supernova, even at a huge cosmological distance away from us, can still be so bright as to be distinctly visible during daylight.

Recorded in 1054, one such supernova was visible during the day for almost a month and visible at night for almost two years. Sometimes, these explosions happen at the end of a star’s life cycle. Particularly interesting is the Type IIb stripped-envelope supernova which happens when most of a star’s hydrogen is stripped away prior to exploding.

The cause of a Type IIb stripped-envelope supernova?

Many stars exist in pairs or triplets (unlike our Sun which is alone). In such a system, a star can begin eating away at the hydrogen of its partner. This was the case with supernova SN 2001ig, which exploded about 40 million light-years away (and 40 million years ago) in the galaxy NGC 7424.

Over the course of millions of years, a companion star robbed its partner of its outer sheath of hydrogen, which is used to channel energy from the core outward. Without this outer shell, the star became unstable and eventually exploded in a supernova, which scientists on Earth watched.

A decade after the explosion when the light from the blast dimmed, the Hubble Space Telescope was able to capture an image unlike any before it. The picture showed a survivor of a supernova that was also the thief star that had caused its partner to explode in the first place.

Top image: Artist’s impression of the interstellar asteroid `Oumuamua. Credit: ESA/Hubble, NASA, ESO, M. Kornmesser.

[Source: Listverse. Top image added.]