Dominique Luchart's Blog, page 588

Lenovo’s new ThinkPad X1 Extreme Gen 4 launches in August for $2,149, Monica Chin

Here’s the ThinkPad X1 Extreme Gen 4. | Lenovo

ThinkPad power users have a new option in Lenovo’s ThinkPad X1 Extreme Gen 4. The new 16-inch workstation will be available this upcoming August for a starting price of $2,149.

The X1 Extreme Gen 4 is powered by Intel’s latest 11th Gen processors, up to a Core i9 H-Series chip with vPro. It can also be configured with up to a Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080, 64GB of RAM, two 2TB SSDs, a 90Wh battery, and optional 5G support. The screen is 16:10 (finally), and Lenovo claims it can reach up to 600 nits of brightness. The X1 Extreme Gen 3 had an OLED option, but OLED wasn’t mentioned in this announcement.

Finally, there’s a new FHD webcam, along with the ThinkPad line’s signature camera shutter.

Image: LenovoThis is the…

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On This Day in Space! June 22, 2000: Possible evidence of liquid water found on Mars, ,

On June 22, 2000, NASA announced possible evidence of present-day liquid water on Mars.

Scientists analyzed data from NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft and found what appeared to be gullies formed by flowing water.

They also found debris and mud deposits these flows may have left behind. Spacecraft on and around the planet had already seen evidence that vast oceans of water existed on Mars a long time ago, but researchers have yet to confirm that liquid water still exists on the planet today.

They have, however, found water ice at Mars’s north and south poles.

Gullies and other dark streaks on the Martian surface known as recurring slope lineae look like they might contain super-salty water brine, but so far no real data has confirmed the presence of liquid water anywhere on the Martian surface.

Catch up on our entire “On This Day In Space” series on YouTube with this playlist.

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China’s moon rocks are ready to be loaned out for science research, ,

China’s Chang’e 5 spacecraft returned fresh moon rock samples late last year, but the main science of the mission is still just getting underway.

Applications to borrow lunar samples delivered to Earth by Chang’e 5 in December are under review and will be decided soon, according to Jing Peng, deputy chief designer of the Chang’e-5 spacecraft system at the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST).

“There was a conference one week ago in China regarding the applications for lunar samples,” Peng said, speaking on Thursday (June 17) at the Global Space Exploration (GLEX) conference held last week in St. Petersburg, Russia. The June 11 meeting reviewed 85 applications from 23 universities and scientific research institutes in China, according to China’s Lunar Sample Management Office. International applications will also be considered.

Related: The latest news about China’s space program

Samples available for loan can also be viewed and requested online at the Lunar Sample Information Database, hosted by the National Astronomical Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC). Available samples include breccias, which are made of various fragments cemented together, as well as fine-grained soil, volcanic basalts and glass beads.

Peng said that while he has not been involved in analyzing the samples, colleagues at the Chinese Academy of Sciences have told him that the “age of the samples may be younger than the samples returned by the Apollo program. I think there will be more results in the near future.” Confirming that rocks from this region are much younger would provide valuable new insights into the history of our nearest neighbor. Although Apollo moon rocks have allowed scientists to decipher the moon’s early history in detail, without younger samples on Earth, more recent lunar activity is something of a blur.

In his presentation, Peng described the Chang’e 5 mission as China’s most sophisticated space project to date. Peng detailed the exactly challenges of the complex, 23-day mission, including getting to and from the moon, landing in the targeted area in Oceanus Procellarum, blasting off from the lunar surface, docking two spacecraft in orbit around the moon, and executing a “skip” reentry, in which the return capsule first bounced off the Earth’s atmosphere to slow down before reentering and landing.

Other key technologies Peng highlighted included automatic sampling using a scoop and a drill, transferring samples between spacecraft, and developing miniaturized, lightweight and durable components capable of performing exacting tasks.

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The Earth and moon viewed by Chang’e 5 from Sun-Earth Lagrange point 1. (Image credit: CNSA/CLEP)

The mission was also demanding in terms of the large amounts of fuel needed to overcome gravity to escape bodies like the Earth and the moon. The Long March 5 that launched the 18,078-lb. (8,200 kilograms) spacecraft weighed more than 940 tons (850 metric tons). However the final payload delivered by the Chang’e 5 return capsule was just 3.82 lbs. (1.73 kgs) of lunar samples.

While science is being conducted on the ground, the Chang’e 5 orbiter — which released the return capsule just before arriving back to Earth — is also still in action. Instead of reentering the atmosphere, the spacecraft headed to a gravitationally balanced area in space.

The spacecraft is now orbiting a region known as Sun-Earth Lagrange point 1, which is about 932,000 miles (1.5 million kilometers) away from Earth in the direction of the sun where it is carrying out observations and tests.

Asked if there are further plans for the orbiter, Peng said that the spacecraft may not have enough propellant to travel to destinations such as Venus.

“I don’t think there will be many opportunities for the orbiter to perform more complex orbit maneuvers with other bodies,” he said. “I think it will stay in Lagrange point 1 or the Earth-moon system.”

Next, China is planning a sample return mission to near-Earth asteroid 469219 Kamo’oalewa (2016 HO3). That mission will build on Chang’e 5 technologies. Meanwhile, the Chang’e 5 backup mission, Chang’e 6, will launch around 2024 to collect more lunar samples, possibly from the lunar far side or south pole.

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‘Giant arc’ stretching 3.3 billion light-years across the cosmos shouldn’t exist, ,

A newly discovered crescent of galaxies spanning 3.3 billion light–years is among the largest known structures in the universe and challenges some of astronomers’ most basic assumptions about the cosmos.

The epic arrangement, called the Giant Arc, consists of galaxies, galactic clusters, and lots of gas and dust. It is located 9.2 billion light-years away and stretches across roughly a 15th of the observable universe.

Its discovery was “serendipitous,” Alexia Lopez, a doctoral candidate in cosmology at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) in the U.K., told Live Science. Lopez was assembling maps of objects in the night sky using the light from about 120,000 quasars — distant bright cores of galaxies where supermassive black holes are consuming material and spewing out energy.

Related content: Cosmic record holders: The 12 biggest objects in the universe

As this light passes through matter between us and the quasars, it is absorbed by different elements, leaving telltale traces that can give researchers important information. In particular, Lopez used marks left by magnesium to determine the distance to the intervening gas and dust, as well as the material’s position in the night sky.

In this way, the quasars act “like spotlights in a dark room, illuminating this intervening matter,” Lopez said.

In the midst of the cosmic maps, a structure began to emerge. “It was sort of a hint of a big arc,” Lopez said. “I remember going to Roger [Clowes] and saying ‘Oh, look at this.'”

Clowes, her doctoral adviser at UCLan, suggested further analysis to ensure it wasn’t some chance alignment or a trick of the data. After doing two different statistical tests, the researchers determined that there was less than a 0.0003% probability the Giant Arc wasn’t real. They presented their results on June 7 at the 238th virtual meeting of the American Astronomical Society.

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A depiction of the structure of the Giant Arc shown in grey, with neighborhood quasars superimposed, shown in blue. A tentative association can be seen between these two datasets. (Image credit: Alexia Lopez/UCLan)

But the finding, which will take its place in the list of biggest things in the cosmos, undermines a bedrock expectation about the universe. Astronomers have long adhered to what’s known as the cosmological principle, which states that, at the largest scales, matter is more or less evenly distributed throughout space.

The Giant Arc bigger than other enormous assemblies, such as the Sloan Great Wall and the South Pole Wall, each of which are dwarfed by even larger cosmic features.

“There have been a number of large-scale structures discovered over the years,” Clowes told Live Science. “They’re so large, you wonder if they’re compatible with the cosmological principle.”

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The fact that such colossal entities have clumped together in particular corners of the cosmos indicates that perhaps material isn’t distributed evenly around the universe.

But the current standard model of the universe is founded on the cosmological principle, Lopez added. “If we’re finding it not to be true, maybe we need to start looking at a different set of theories or rules.”

Lopez doesn’t know what those theories would look like, though she mentioned the idea of modifying how gravity works on the largest scales, a possibility that has been popular with a small but loud contingent of scientists in recent years.

Daniel Pomarede, a cosmographer at Paris-Saclay University in France who co-discovered the South Pole Wall, agreed that the cosmological principle should dictate a theoretical limit to the size of cosmic entities.

Some research has suggested that structures should reach a certain size and then be unable to get larger, Pomarede told Live Science. “Instead, we keep finding these bigger and bigger structures.”

Yet he isn’t quite ready to toss out the cosmological principle, which has been used in models of the universe for about a century. “It would be very bold to say that it will be replaced by something else,” he said.

Originally published on Live Science.

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Russia wants to send cosmonauts to China space station, ,

Roscosmos is looking at ways to send its cosmonauts to the Chinese space station, launching from sites in either Russia or French Guiana.

During a press conference at the recently concluded Global Space Exploration Conference (GLEX) in St. Petersburg, Russia, on June 15, Dmitry Rogozin, director general of Roscosmos, revealed that Russia is in discussions with China about crewed flights to the Chinese space station.

Rogozin, in response to a question from Aviation Week about potentially launching cargo or crew to China’s new orbital outpost, said, “We are planning to send our astronauts to the Chinese station.”

Related: The latest news about China’s space program

“The Chinese station … has a different inclination, not the same as ISS [the International Space Station] has … It is accessible from Vostochny Cosmodrome and also accessible from [the European] Kourou launching site [in French Guiana],” Rogozin said. “We have explored the feasibility of upgrading the Soyuz launch pad at Kourou Cosmodrome to enable it to launch manned missions to the Chinese orbital station.”

China launched its first crew to the Tianhe space station core module on Wednesday using a Long March 2F rocket from Jiuquan in the Gobi Desert. Shenzhou-12 mission astronauts Nie Haisheng, Liu Boming and Tang Hongbo will spend three months aboard Tianhe.

The Chinese Space Station (CSS) is expected to be completed in 2022 and be permanently crewed for at least 10 years. It could even become the only destination in low Earth orbit for international astronauts, since the future of the International Space Station (ISS) is not clear beyond 2024.

Russia is currently involved in the ISS project, but has said it is considering pulling out of the partnership after 2024, making Rogozin’s comments more notable.

However, getting cosmonauts to the Chinese space station will be challenging. Russia’s cosmodromes are located at higher latitudes than can easily reach the CSS. The station’s orbital inclination takes it as high as 41.5 degrees north and south of the equator, optimized to launches from Jiuquan.

Space reporter Anatoly Zak reported that Russia even approached China to suggest it make the orbital inclination of the CSS higher, to allow Russian involvement in the project. Currently, Soyuz launches to the CSS would need to perform a “dogleg” maneuver to get into the right inclination, which would require too much extra fuel, or to launch over and potentially drop spent stages on Chinese territory. A new launch vehicle could also be the answer.

In response to a request for clarification on these issues, Roscosmos press office said it could not provide any further comments for now.

The other option being considered is launching crewed Soyuz spacecraft from the European Space Agency (ESA) launch center at Kourou, French Guiana, near the equator. That path would require modifications to the launch complex to facilitate human spaceflight missions. Soyuz rockets already launch from this site, but only carrying robotic satellites.

Asked about this possibility via email, an ESA media representative responded that a study presented at GLEX by France’s National Centre for Space Studies (CNES) looked at potential futures for the launch site.

ESA added the agency has been “conducting various system studies related to human spaceflight infrastructure … should a decision on European human spaceflight capabilities be taken during the next ESA Ministerial Council 2022 or a similar high-level meeting involving ESA member states, ESA stands ready to develop this.”

Other factors that Russia would need to consider include the compatibility of the docking mechanisms that allow spacecraft to dock with space station modules.

China can, of course, launch astronauts from Jiuquan for international partners, but for foreign astronauts to join Shenzhou missions would likely require a long period of joint training and development of language skills, much as NASA, ESA and other astronauts have learned Russian to travel to the ISS aboard the Soyuz.

Lots of technical work and diplomatic efforts would be needed before we see cosmonauts launching for the CSS, but China and Russia are already cooperating more closely in space.

China and Russia presented a first version of a roadmap for a joint International Lunar Research Station at GLEX, which the pair say is open to all interested parties. At the same time the U.S. is seeking partners for its Artemis Accords and lunar exploration project, with Brazil recently becoming the 12th country to sign on.

Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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Skies alive with UFOs? Government report on mysterious sightings due soon, ,

This month, the U.S. government is set to release a UFO report put together by the intelligence community and the Pentagon, including a specially created Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) Task Force.

That task force was established to provide insight into the nature and origins of purported aerial objects, primarily reported by Navy personnel, that exhibit behavior that’s tough to explain — and could potentially pose a threat to U.S. national security.

Such news has boosted to stratospheric heights the “I told you so” believers who have long argued that unidentified flying objects are skimming through our skies, piloted by extraterrestrials chalking up interplanetary frequent flyer mileage points in the process.

Related: 7 things most often mistaken for UFOs

However, are UAPs doing a disservice to UFOs? Are they really one and the same phenomenon?

Maybe UAPs are time travelers and we, Earthlings from the future, are the pilots? Or perhaps they’re adventurers from far-off worlds just checking us out. Maybe UAPs are advanced high-tech drones built by other nations, or maybe they’re home-built craft sponsored by some super-secret U.S. program?

For the moment, let’s put all that aside and ask: What, if anything, will the government’s UAP report reveal? And what will happen next?

Cut-and-dry report?

There are already those who say that the report will basically amount to a “nothingburger.”

“I’m interested in the report, but less than optimistic anything significant will surface,” said Scott Miller, chair and professor of the Aerospace Engineering Department at Wichita State University.

It will likely be a typical, cut-and-dry government report, Miller added — a review of sightings, void of conjecture, sensitive to political issues and absent of any classified information. “Of course, these characteristics will leave it wide open to criticism and opportunity,” he told Space.com.

Miller suspects that many of the sightings are related to individuals or nations simply doing some “spying.” Building and operating high-performance unmanned aerial vehicles is relatively easy for experienced individuals and, especially, countries. He envisions people making their own aircraft and operating them in places they shouldn’t be, such as within restricted airspace where UAPs have been sighted.

“The Chinese and Russians could easily do this sort of thing, from within the U.S., using hobby and other common resources,” Miller said. “If I was them, I would make sure my spy vehicle looked otherworldly. Being seen while spying isn’t desired, but the related confusion that ensues adds to the noise of their mischief. It’s also funny to them.”

No longer taboo

Ravi Kumar Kopparapu, a research scientist in planetary studies at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, said he’s hoping that a number of things happen after the UAP report is released. Firstly, the scientific study of UAPs should not be a taboo anymore.

“We should remember our history. Scientists should be able to openly talk about the detailed needs for a scientific study,” Kopparapu said.

Secondly, reliable data collection and availability are paramount.

“Without complete data, the scientific study of UAP will forever be a fringe topic. Snippets of edited videos are not reliable data, and nothing meaningful can be deduced from them,” Kopparapu said. Ideally, what is needed is simultaneously collected data from different regions of the electromagnetic spectrum — optical, infrared and radio, for example.

“If there is such data available already, it would need to be analyzed by appropriate experts and scientists, making sure they have comprehensive data. There may be false positives, but that is the nature of science,” Kopparapu added.

Lastly, Kopparapu said there should be a coordinated effort from interested scientists of different disciplines, such as atmospheric scientists, aerospace experts, physicists and experienced engineers/technicians. Combining their talents, they’ll need to look at the data to figure out the nature of this phenomenon.

“Again, removing the taboo will significantly propel forward this particular collaborative effort among scientists,” Kopparapu said.

UFO watch: 8 times the government looked for flying saucers

Solid data

More important than the Pentagon report is the need to gather solid data that is shared with the scientific community, said Robert Powell, executive board member of the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies (SCU). The group promotes and encourages the rigorous scientific examination of “anomalous phenomena” known around the world as UAPs and UFOs, among other terms, the organization’s website explains.

The SCU was founded in 2017 and its ranks include university professors, former NASA researchers, ex-defense industry employees, and individuals out of the tech industry.

Powell said the coalition has publicly called for the release of all unclassified data associated with UAPs held by the federal government without compromising national security sources and/or methods.

“In addition, we called for the publication of data and research results from various federal agencies in the public domain in order to promote the scientific research and analysis of UAP. We maintain this position and look forward to the release of additional data by the federal government,” Powell said.

‘When’ are they coming from?

One mind-bending possibility that warps space and time is that UAPs/UFOs are time travelers from the future. They are us.

Michael Masters, a professor of biological anthropology at Montana Technological University in Butte, is author of “Identified Flying Objects: A Multidisciplinary Scientific Approach to the UFO Phenomenon” (Masters Creative LLC, 2019).

“My general thoughts on the report is that, regardless of what comes out of it, the attention it’s drawn to the UFO phenomenon — in association with all the leaked videos and images — can only help to push us closer to an understanding of what is and has been observed in our skies,” Masters said.

Masters is doubtful the soon-to-be-issued UAP report will reveal all that is known about the phenomenon, or even a fraction of it.

“But regardless of the amount that is or is not divulged, any information conveyed, in accordance with the long-overdue attention this topic has garnered, can only help inch us closer to a time when the true nature of these events is fully understood and appreciated,” Masters said. “I also think that, as we continue to recognize the reality of the UFO phenomenon, the question is going to innately turn from, ‘Are UFOs real?’ to ‘What are UFOs and where, or perhaps when, are they coming from?'”

Scientific understanding

The notion of UFOs should be taken seriously, said Carol Cleland, a professor in the Department of Philosophy at Colorado University, Boulder.

“If you actually look at the history of major scientific discoveries — discoveries that change scientific thought in fundamental ways — what you find are phenomena that were there all along but not recognized for what they represent,” Cleland said in an interview published by CU Boulder Today.

We’ll have to wait and see what the coming UAP report says. But, Cleland said, people are generally expecting that it will characterize the sightings as unexplained, despite a variety of data gathered by sophisticated instruments and observations made by highly trained people.

If that is indeed the case, “then you have a truly baffling phenomenon,” Cleland said.

“It might represent a problem with your instruments, which you should know about because that’s the kind of mistake that has potentially serious consequences, including war,” she said. “Alternatively, it could represent natural phenomena that transcend our current knowledge of physical phenomena and perhaps even pose a challenge to current physical theory. That is just as important to investigate, because it might lead to major changes in scientific understanding. Finally, and this is what I dreamt of as a child, it might represent extraterrestrial technology.”

Leonard David is author of the book “Moon Rush: The New Space Race,” published by National Geographic in May 2019. A longtime writer for Space.com, David has been reporting on the space industry for more than five decades. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. This version of the story published on Space.com.

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CB Insights data: US added 154 new unicorns since October 2020, 67%+ of the global total, while Europe added 25 unicorns, India added 11, and China added just 9 (Elad Gil/Elad Blog)

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Boston-based Transmit Security, which is building a biometric-based authenticator, raises $543M Series A at a $2.2B pre-money valuation (Carly Page/TechCrunch)

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Google’s ad tech services hit by formal EU antitrust investigation,

The European Commission has opened a formal antitrust investigation into Google over whether the search giant unfairly favors its own online display advertising technology over competitors, the EU announced today. The investigation will also explore whether Google is unfairly limiting access to user data to its competitors.

It’s an important investigation because it covers Google’s core online advertising business, which Reuters notes generated $147 billion in revenue for the company last year. Bloomberg reports it’s the first time the EU has investigated Google’s online display advertising business, where it serves as an intermediary between advertisers and publishers to fill ad space on web pages and apps.

“Google collects data to be used for targeted advertising purposes, it sells advertising space and also acts as an online advertising intermediary. So Google is present at almost all levels of the supply chain for online display advertising,” the European Commission’s competition chief Margrethe Vestager said in a statement. “We are concerned that Google has made it harder for rival online advertising services to compete in the so-called ad tech stack.”

“We will also be looking at Google’s policies on user tracking to make sure they are in line with fair competition,” Vestager said.

The European Commission says it’s exploring several of the company’s advertising practices, like requiring advertisers to use Google’s own Ad Manager to display ads on YouTube, and allegedly favoring its own ad exchanges. The investigation will also touch upon Google’s plans to phase out third-party cookies in Chrome as part of its “Privacy Sandbox” plans, as well as the upcoming changes to advertising IDs on Android.

The formal investigation comes as Google is facing similar antitrust scrutiny in the US. Last October the US Justice Department filed antitrust charges against the company, alleging it illegally monopolizes the search and ad markets.

The investigation is the latest antitrust action the EU has taken against Google. Previous investigations have covered Google’s online shopping services, its Android policies, and its AdSense contracts. In the last decade, the EU has fined Google over EUR8 billion (around $9.5 billion) over various antitrust violations, Reuters previously noted.

Google said it would “engage constructively” with the European Commission. “Thousands of European businesses use our advertising products to reach new customers and fund their websites every single day,” it said in a statement. “They choose them because they’re competitive and effective.” Google says many of the top advertisers use upwards of four platforms to buy ads, and that its technologies are interoperable with 700 rival ad platforms, and 80 rival publishing platforms.

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UK government says it will test its new national Emergency Alerts system, starting with Android devices today before a smaller, regional iPhone test next week (Tim Hardwick/MacRumors)

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