Image Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble Heritage (STScI / AURA) / Hubble-Europe Collaboration
Acknowledgment: D. Padgett (GSFC), T. Megeath (University of Toledo), B. Reipurth (University of Hawaii)
"Though the difference between man and the other animals is enormous, yet one might say reasonably that it is little less than the difference among men themselves . . . Such differences depend upon diverse mental abilities, and I reduce them to the difference between being or not being a philosopher; for philosophy, as the proper nutrient of those who can feed upon it, does in fact distinguish that single man from the common herd in a greater or less degree of merit according as his diet varies." - Galileo
- Blue Origins and now SpaceX have successfully landed their rockets back on earth. This makes for increased reusability and to dramatically lower the cost of spaceflight. One could imagine space elevators to reduce space access even more, but that's maybe ten or more years down the road(yes, times goes by fast!). Here's some youtubes that show these historic events.
Blue Origins was first,
SpaceX just landed their's . . . after like two or three failures. It'll be exciting to see how fast a turnaround time these companies relaunch these space rockets. There's also other exciting space companies to make space colonization/exploration more possible and free of governments who are politically tied down. There's Bigalow inflatable space stations, there's asteroid mining companies. Anyways, the SpaceX video,
Some more science news of note. This isn't a confirmed discovery; so, I'll keep it in the comments section!
ReplyDeleteThe LHC particle accelerator of CERN think they've got another particle detected. They're not sure what it is; or, that it will still be there when they turn the Large Hadron Collider back on. But, they will definitely check it out.
A possibly exciting development of 2016 could be dna nanotech being able to assemble things atom by atom. Certainly, they couldn't build a space rocket, or your car, house, or whatever. But, they've demonstrated a certain amount of single atom assembly now, and progress should be fast after some combining with other ideas. The nano era could really quicken next year.
ReplyDeleteThen there's quantum computers, the James Webb space telescope, which will quickly be made obsolete!