An “AI” Solution for California Wildfires By Julian Nowlin

Wildfires. Because of climate change, there have been even more of them. Some didn’t do much damage before they were put out. But many did. One problem with stopping fires is spotting them before they get out of hand. If they get too big before firemen can react, there is a major problem. But Cal Fire has found a solution.

Before, to spot wildfires in California, people stood on top of watchtowers. But even on high ground, small, small wildfires can be very difficult to spot for the naked eye. So Cal fire has turned to something relatively new: AI. 

Cameras that are attached to a watchtower use artificial intelligence to spot fires that humans can’t. When the AI thinks it sees a fire, it reports back to a base. Then someone reviews the image to see if it is a real fire, not just clouds or dust.

But as you might know, AI is constantly learning. If an AI repeatedly reports a fire that is actually a cloud, and the person confirms it is fake over and over again, it begins to realize the difference between smoke from fires and clouds. And if the AI successfully identifies a fire, it can spot more clouds of smoke that are real fires. 

The planet is continuing to warm up, many people have died and many trees have burned. But when it comes to preventing wildfires, we are on the right track.

Source: CNN 10

Ancient River On Mars? by Kale Cunningham

For more than two years the Perseverance rover has been exploring Mars searching for life. It’s important when searching for life in unknown territory or on another planet for scientists to be aware and insightful of their surroundings. So they decided to have a look into a ridge that was believed to be carved out by a river billions of years ago. What they found were smoothly laid-out rocks, called Bedrock. Bedrock is a very smooth and bright rock that also forms on Earth only around water. The water smooths out the rock over time creating a very flat rock. So here’s scientists thinking, water on Earth made Bedrock here, then on Mars, there must have been water to form that bedrock as well. However, the theory goes much further than that, water is the key to life on Earth. All life needs water to survive on Earth in one way or another. But could there have been life on Mars that lived in this water? Not the big bug-eyed aliens in the UFOs that many think are in Area 51. But a microscopic life, possibly even plant life. 

That is one of the reasons that the Perseverance rover came to Mars, to try and find evidence of microscopic life on Mars. It also came to Mars to collect samples which will hopefully be returned sometime in the early 2030s. But rovers on Mars have an easier time trying to look at the history of the planet Mars, because, unlike Earth, Mars doesn’t have rainy weather to ease its history. Most craters and ridges on Earth get covered up by dirt and water. But Mars doesn’t have anything like that to hide its secrets. So going into a crater means the deeper you go the older the rocks get and the more you can see what early Mars was like. 

“Mars rover missions usually end up exploring bedrock in small, flat exposures in the immediate workspace of the rover,” said Katie Stack Morgan, a project scientist of Perseverance at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory “That’s why our science team was so keen to image and study Belva. Impact craters can offer grand views and vertical cuts that provide important clues to the origin of these rocks with a perspective and at a scale that we don’t usually experience.” 

Perseverance will keep on exploring this landscape throughout the summer and hopefully will make some useful discoveries. 

Saturn: The Moon King by Kale Cunningham

For years it’s been a debate about which has the most moons, we know that Mercury and Venus have none. Our own planet has one moon, and Mars has two small moons. When we reach the outer planets of our solar system, however, the number of moons goes up by a lot. Jupiter the biggest planet in our solar system, has between 80 and 95 to date. Uranus has 27 moons and Neptune has 14. However, most recently new moons of Saturn have been discovered, revealing over 60 unknown moons. 

Moon King 

Saturn is famous for its dazzling rings, made primarily out of reflective ice and rocks. But now it has the most moons, with a jaw-dropping total of 145 moons. This number is bigger than all of the known moons in the solar system! However, most of these recently discovered moons are smaller than two miles in circumference and are very hard to track. 

“Tracking these moons makes me recall playing the kid’s game Dot-to-Dot because we have to connect the various appearances of these moons in our data with a viable orbit,” says Edward Ashton a scientist at Taiwan’s Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, “but with about 100 different games on the same page and you don’t know which dot belongs to which puzzle.”

These moons also could be false representations of something else, moons of these sizes are very easy to confuse with something else. Some of these so-called moons could be comets or astronomical objects that were in the area and are now in a different location than before. Saturn’s rings are very easily confused with moons sometimes because of the millions of small rocks inside the rings which can cause confusion. So some of these 62 new moons could be a false reading. 

And there still is the question of “Are there more moons out there?” and the answer is yes, there are still dozens of moons that have not been discovered. NASA estimates that there are several moons that orbit Jupiter, so we could see Jupiter or other planets get the title of moon king. It’s all a matter of what we can see and discover.    

Are Snakes Important in Life? By Maryam Alharrasi

Are snakes important in life? Yes, they are. But why are they important in life? And how can they be important? Many people know that snakes are one of the most dangerous animals in the world, but the scientists discovered that some of them have venom that treats people and gives them medicines. Let’s go back to the beginnings of snake venom and how it’s used so we can understand why snakes are important in the world and how their venom can make medicines for people. 

Snakes venom began in medicine:

Snake venom first began in 1981 when French scientist Albert Calmette, he found that some animals were injected with venom in small doses, their blood serum became a strong antidote[5]. Snake venom was first used for antivenom production only, but then their use has expanded. It's been used as a medical tool for thousands of years, especially in traditional Chinese medicine.

What Does the Snakes medicine contains?

Snake venom contains several proteins that can impact the human body.

These proteins don’t only inflict death to animals and humans, but also can be used for the treatment of thrombosis, arthritis, cancer and many other diseases.

These pictures refers to the logo of the pharmacies:

And this picture shows some of the snakes body and what it has in its mouth:

What does snake venom do to the human body?

Snake venoms, in particular, have evolved a wide diversity of peptides and proteins that induce harmful inflammatory and neurotoxic effects including severe pain and paralysis, hemotoxic effects, such as hemorrhage and coagulopathy, and cytotoxic/myotoxic effects, such as inflammation and necrosis.

And finally let's ask…are snakes important in life or not?

Snakes aren’t and are important in life at the same time, first, they are one of the most dangerous animals in the world. Snakes can cause animals and humans to die, but at the same time they could treat humans because of some of the venom that they have.

Snakes are dangerous animals, but they also help animals and people to get better via medicinal uses of venom.

Snake Robot Could Find Life In Other Worlds By Kale Cunningham

For decades many people have been looking for alien life everywhere, we have sent rovers and landers to Mars, mapped out icy moons, and even sent signals out to distant planets. And these have helped us find clues that help support this theory. But we have had no luck in finding the solid proof which is finding some kind of life from. This has caused debate in the space community about why we have at least not found microscopic life. Some people think that we are alone in the universe, others dismiss this idea and say that we are doing something wrong. And then there is a third section of people that think we should try different ways to detect life. And this is what a group at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California is trying to do using different and new technology to find life.

Snake-Bot

NASA is currently testing a spacecraft called the Exobiology Extant Life Surveyor, however, the mission team that is using the robot calls it EELS. This is a spacecraft that is designed to look and work like a snake. While it may sound crazy and a little creepy, it is also very useful for finding life. 

“It has the capability to go to locations where other robots can’t go. Though some robots are better at one particular type of terrain or other, the idea for EELS is the ability to do it all,” says Matthew Robinson, EELS project manager. “When you’re going places where you don’t know what you’ll find, you want to send a versatile, risk-aware robot that’s prepared for uncertainty – and can make decisions on its own.” Like a Snake, EELS can shrink its size in width to make it thinner at times. The robot is equipped with sensors and cameras to help it from falling and other objects. The snake also has an interesting way of getting around. It has small wheels that roll itself at a top speed of 4 miles per hour. Which means it would take about a few hours to cover the distance of one football field. But in another icy and cold world, it’s okay to slow down. 

Survival 

The robot snake, much like normal snakes also has its survival tactics, the spacecraft has been programmed to keep itself in working order for as long as possible. The idea of the snake was for it to work with limited human help and it decided which option is the best. The snake is expected to be moving around and inside caves. And these caves have some deadly drops from anywhere from 30 feet to 100 that could easily cause a robot to fall and crash onto the surface. 

“Imagine a car driving autonomously, but there are no stop signs, no traffic signals, not even any roads. The robot has to figure out what the road is and try to follow it,” says the project’s autonomy lead, Rohan Thakker. “Then it needs to go down a 100-foot drop and not fall.”  

And to help with this EELS creates a 3D map of its surroundings using multiple pairs of cameras and a new technology called lidar, which is similar to radar but uses more effective laser pulses instead of radio waves. This helps it give a new view of underground caves. 

When Will It Be Used?

EELS is a very interesting and unique way of technology and could be used sometime in the future. Unfortunately, to use it NASA would most likely have to invest billions of dollars to send to its destination a rocket. And NASA has other current goals like to o land people back on the moon sometime in the next few years. But this technology way make its way to alien words one day.            

U.S. And Russia, Friends In Space By Kale Cunningham

Russia and the United States disagree on almost everything: How to lead their countries, how to treat their people, how to respect one another, where you can and can’t put nuclear weapons, and what draws the limits of war. But who could have ever known that both countries work together peacefully in space? 

A History 

Russia and the United States were not always together in space. In fact, originally they were against each other in an event known as the “Space Race.” From 1957-1974, the two battled for space supremacy. Russia scored some early victories, launching the first man and woman into space. The United States, however, took a different path and chose to land humans on the moon in 1969. However, Russia was not going down without a fight. They continued the space race by launching space stations into orbit and sending people there. But one day, that all changed. When both countries signed an agreement for two manned spacecraft, one American and one Russian to dock together in space. The plan was set for July 1975, and just a little while later it happened for real. America’s ice-cream shaped Apollo spacecraft and the bug-looking Soyuz spacecraft met together in Earth’s orbit and the three American astronauts and the two Russian cosmonauts spent a few days together. But soon after this event, the governments had another big disagreement and Russia and America went back into the space race against each other. 

Mir Life

By 1994, America’s space agency, NASA, was in trouble. After the Challenger disaster in 1986, Congress cut a large amount of NASA’s budget. NASA had been able to kick-start the Space Shuttle program again, but with a limited budget. They couldn’t conduct long-term human experiments. Russia’s space agency, however, was doing much better; their Mir space station, the largest object ever constructed at the time, was a masterpiece. It could hold three cosmonauts for 6 full months! And with all of that space, there was a lot of possibility for conducting experiments. NASA noticed this and thought of an idea: They could put an American onboard the Russian space station! They would be able to do several long-term experiments and see what would happen. To try and befriend an enemy, they decided to give them a gift - a new docking port to Mir that could fit with the American docking ports on the space shuttle. The first astronaut who came to Mir was Norman Thagard, who didn’t enjoy his stay, because of what happened in the first couple of weeks. While he was running on a treadmill, the rubber band holding him down snapped and smacked him in the eye, damaging his eyesight. Another astronaut who stayed aboard witnessed a 5-minute fire that spread across the space station quickly. When he tried to use a fire extinguisher at the blaze, he discovered that it didn’t work. He scrambled to find another one, but then he found out that this one was also useless. Finally, a cosmonaut found a third extinguisher that worked, and the fire was put out. Many astronauts said that when the space shuttle came to take them down, it was like a miracle to them. The Americans also didn’t like the Russian’s carelessness. NASA makes sure that the American astronauts are clean of vaping products and alcoholic beverages. But Russia at the time, didn’t have those rules, and often lit cigarettes onboard the space station, making Mir smell very bad. Russian cosmonauts also never took out their junk, and Mir was crowded with lots of dirty socks and old experiments that were never taken out. It was considered very bad luck at NASA to go to Mir, and most astronauts were traumatized after they returned home. They often lost an unhealthy amount of weight. And some even resigned from NASA after they returned to Earth. 

Goodbye Mir

NASA wanted to build a large space station, and they had already added several space agencies. But these space agencies didn’t have the budget to help NASA build the space station, and they couldn’t build and launch their own rockets. They could only give NASA astronauts robotic arms and modules. So NASA decided to turn to Russia for help, who were also having problems. After the Soviet Union fell, they were left with limited money and were having trouble keeping Mir alive. So NASA asked Russia if they would like to join the International Space Station. Russia agreed, but NASA and the other space agencies also had some requests if they were to join the space station. First, they wanted to get rid of Russia’s smoking habits. Next, they wanted to make sure that they would use their own Soyuz spacecraft to get astronauts up into space. And last, they also requested that Mir would be sent down into Earth’s atmosphere. Mir would be a large piece of space junk that could cause harm to the new space station. However, Russia loved its space station, it was their one-in-a-million jewel, and they didn’t want to send it down to burn up into Earth’s atmosphere. But in the end, they agreed. And after the last crew completed their stay in June of 1995, they sent a spacecraft to pull it towards Earth. Mir burned up in Earth’s atmosphere in March of 2001. 

A New Era

The International Space Station was the next step in the United States and Russia’s relationship. Russia would supply the space station with a propulsion system, while the United States would supply a power system. And the idea became true. Between 1998 and 2011, the USA and Russia would supply the space station with several different modules and solar panels. And by the time the space shuttle program ended in July   2011, the United States was closer than ever to its relationship with Russia. And from 2012-2020, American astronauts only took the Soyuz spacecraft to the ISS. NASA certainly had established a strong and strange bond with an enemy. And even though the two country's governments disagreed with each other, the scientists worked together in space. 

A Damage Done And a Hopeful Recovery

But unfortunately in 2022, that relationship was almost torn apart. When Russian troops invaded Ukraine and started a war. The United States supported the underdog Ukraine and funded them with money and weapon supplies. This made Russia very unhappy, and its space agency would threaten to crash the ISS into the United States. Which was a threat that the US and its partners would never take lightly. Russia would then claim that they would stop sending American astronauts into space, and even leave the International Space Station program completely. Of course, NASA didn’t support this idea, but Russia won’t listen to their reasoning. By June 2022, it seemed like Russia was leaving the program for good. They even released blueprints for a space station that they claimed would test nuclear weapons in space. This upset and scared  the US citizens and government greatly, and rumors started going around about a missile strike in space. But Russia seemed to have a change of heart, and by the next month in July, they asked if they could rejoin the space station. But they claimed that they would still leave in 2026. But more recently they have delayed that to 2028 at the latest. In September 2022, Russia started carrying Americans back up to the ISS again. 

The ISS is supposed to last until 2030 before it is deorbited in 2031. 

With the confusing history between the two countries, they are still able to work together in space even though their governments disagree with each other. They have shown that two enemies can work together in the right circumstances.

Can Perseverance Survive? by Kale Cunningham

The Mars 2020 rover, or Perseverance, has been on the surface of Mars for over two years, and NASA wants it to last another decade. 

Perseverance is step one of a complex process called the Mars Sample Return Mission (MSRM).  The idea is to collect soil and rock samples from Mars and take them back to Earth by 2033. Originally, step two would have included sending another rover to get samples that Perseverance had dropped. But because of the expensive idea of building another million-dollar rover to collect samples, NASA canceled that idea and instead decided that Perseverance should keep the samples. 

Instead, NASA will land a robot on Mars with a mini launch system built in and Perseverance will take the samples to the lander. However, Mars is a very unforgiving place for machines and the rover might not be able to survive the next 8 years on Mars. So, just in case Perseverance does fail on Mars in the next few years and is not able to take the samples to the lander itself, NASA ordered the rover to drop some samples on the ground. The idea is that if the rover dies in the next few years, some samples will still be accessible and NASA can use mini-drones to pick them up.

But for now, it seems that Perseverance can work just fine on the surface.  

Top 9 most destructive keyboard shortcuts by Edward Chote

1.  Escape+Reload+Power Button will do a factory reset…ummm….

2. Ctrl+Shift+Alt+R is another way to log out your friend’s chromebook 

3. (Ctrl+Shift)+Q x2 this will log them out of there chromebook

4. Ctrl+Shift+W will close the entire window 

5. Ctrl+Shift+6 will do a break sentence and be very obnoxious

6. Ctrl+Switcher/F5 and spam it which will take a screenshot and if you spam it , it can be very annoying filtering through all the files and it will slow down their chromebook.

7. Search+ Alt - Turns on caps lock , and most people are unaware of the shortcut so they will forever be yelling. 

8. Ctrl+alt+z will annoy your friends in the most passive-aggressive way possible by highlighting their text and reading it back to you. 

9. Cntl+search+m this magnifies the whole screen 

Can The James Webb Telescope Discover Life? By Kale Cunningham

We have always searched for life on different worlds but what if Webb is the key?

When Webb was launched in late 2021, NASA was hoping that it would discover the secrets of the Universe. And the telescope has been able to do that job very well. James Webb is a very advanced tool and is used primarily to observe objects that were hidden by star dust. And is now discovering objects and galaxies that were hidden. But the big question that many people are asking now is, Can the telescope discover life? 

Yes And No

That question itself is very complex. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) can detect certain chemicals on other planets, but it cannot detect life forms itself. However, to find life on other worlds, you don’t always need to discover it right away. Webb can detect several chemicals that can help life to form such as, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Phosphorus and Sulfur. Webb can also detect water particles in its atmosphere and clouds. 

NASA says that Webb has detected water particles on serval Exo-planets or planets outside our own sour system. JWST has also done several complex chemistry breakdowns on stars and young galaxies. And has discovered that the Universe is very much “chemically diverse.” It's very different from what we thought it was. 

Webb is also not only studying planets and stars, but also planets in our own solar system; the telescope has discovered a small amount of water particles in Jupiter and Saturn. This interesting data is stored for later study. 

Ingenuity Reaches 50 Flights by Kale Cunningham

On April 13, 2023, the Ingenuity drone flew its 50th flight on Mars. Ever since arriving on the red planet in 2021, the helicopter was deployed two years ago. At first only expected to fly 5 times and then stop working, the helicopter is now 10 times past its expected lifespan. On its 50th flight, the helicopter reached a record-breaking 59 feet (18 meters.) Before Ingenuity, no one even knew that powered flight was possible on Mars, and now almost two years later it has shown us that 50 times. In total, the Helicopter has flown over 7 miles on the planet’s surface. However, in these flights, Ingenuity can only go so far, the    two-liter soda bottle-sized helicopter can only fly about 170 seconds before having to land and recharge its batteries. And the helicopter cannot get 2,000 feet away from the Perseverance rover that transmits the flight data to the helicopter. 

But Ingenuity has been a huge success, as part of the Mars 2020 mission, now NASA can plan bigger drones to send to Mars and explore the planet easier without running into troubles with quick sand or large boulders like the rovers on the ground do. Who knows what's in store for the next few years?     

Check out Ingenuity’s Flight Log Here: Flight Log

JUICE Is Go Kale Cunningham

Set to launch tomorrow at 8:45 a.m. EDT, the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Jupiter probe is ready to go. The JUpiter ICy moons Explorer (JUICE) is an exciting new space probe that will try and find life on the biggest moon in our solar system, Ganymede.

In the 1990s the American probe Galileo discovered ice on Ganymede's surface. Which kicked off the idea that small tiny microbes are hidden within the ice. ESA decided to send a mission to the moon of Jupiter to try and detect life from orbit. JUICE was announced in May of 2012 as a multi-billion dollar project. It took over three years to finish the blueprints and find the final design of JUICE before ESA started building the spacecraft in July 2015. By the time it was completed in 2020, its original launch date was going to be in the Summer of 2022. But delays in the mission pushed it back to April 2023. 

The Long Road To Jupiter

It will be a while before JUICE can reach its target, Jupiter. In fact, JUICE is expected to arrive at Jupiter in July 2031! The reason involves a compacted system getting to other plants. Jupiter is about 553 million miles away from Earth, to send a spacecraft there in one shot would take lots of fuel and power from the rocket. So ESA has decided that they will use planets to speed up the spacecraft. For example, after JUICE launches it will not head to Jupiter, but it will follow Earth’s orbit. Then after it swings by Earth in the summer of 2024, it will head to Venus and conduct a flyby around the planet sometime in the fall of 2025. Then it will fly around Earth two more times, in 2026 and 2029. By the time JUICE has enough power, the spacecraft will head out toward Jupiter. After going into orbit around Jupiter, the mission plan is for it to orbit and conduct flybys of Ganymede for the next four years.

Life Hunters

JUICE will not be alone in its hunt for life on Jupiter, NASA’s Europa Clipper will also be searching the frozen oceans of Jupiter's moon Europa for life. Planned to launch next fall, the spacecraft will fly by Mars in 2025 and Earth in 2026, before reaching the planet ahead of time in the Spring of 2030. JUICE will not only help us try to find life in other worlds but may also discover new things about the moons of Jupiter as well. 

Artemis ll Crew by Kale Cunningham

The Artemis ll mission crew have been announced! The first crew to go back to the moon in 50 years!

Commander, Reid Wiseman

Reid Wiseman was named the commander of the mission. Selected as an astronaut in 2009, he first flew to the International Space Station (ISS) in May 2014 on the Soyuz TMA-13M mission. And served as part of the Expedition 40 and 41 crew, before returning to Earth in November of that same year. 

Wiseman was selected to be the new Chief of the Astronaut Office on December 18, 2020, meaning that he would oversee assigning astronauts to missions. 

Wiseman stepped down as Chief on November 14, 2022 to return to the active flight rotation. And was selected to be the commander of Artemis ll

Pilot, Victor Glover

The pilot of the mission Victor Glover was selected in the astronaut of 2013, in fall of 2020, as part of the first Crew Dragon. He became part of the Expedition 64 and 65 crew. Onboard the space station, Glover was able to complete 12 full hours in space. When he returned to Earth in February 2021, he was selected for 18 astronauts for the Artemis program. When Artemis ll leaves for the moon in 2024 he will become the first African American to go to the moon. 

Mission Specialist 1, Christina Koch

Christina Koch was also part of the astronaut class of 2013, after waiting for almost six years she got her space flight on the mission. On March 14, 2019, Koch launched to the ISS as a Flight Engineer on Expedition 59, 60 and 61. On October 18, 2019, she and astronaut Jessica Meir were the first women to participate in an all-female spacewalk to replace a critical control unit that had broken. And on December 28, 2019, Koch broke the record for longest continuous time in space by a female. She returned to Earth in early 2020. 

Koch will be the first female astronaut to go to the moon. 

Mission Specialist 2, Jeremy Hansen

The last crew member, Jeremy Hansen, is very different from the rest of the crew. Unlike the rest of the crew members that are from NASA, an American government funded agency. He is from CSA, Canada’s government funded space agency. Another thing is he is the only first timer on the crew. The rest of the three astronauts are experienced in space flight. He will be the first international astronaut to go to the moon.      

NASA To Announce Astronauts For Artemis Mission by Kale Cunningham

Artemis is the next generation of space flight taking humanity back to the moon, and after a successful flight test of Artemis 1. NASA is ready to announce a crew for Artemis ll (Artemis 2.) The astronauts will be announced during a press conference next month in April. But for now let's look at who they could be. 

An international seat 

NASA is sending a crew of four astronauts on the Orion spacecraft back to the moon next year. The spacecraft will do a quick 10-day mission, 3-4 days to get to the moon, 2 days to swing around it, and 3-4 days to come back. So compared to the mission on the ISS which can last up to 6 months, it is a small leap. But it will be the first time we go beyond Earth's orbit in 50 years. We know that 3 of the 4 astronauts will be American, but one of them will be a Canadian astronaut. 

NASA has promised the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) a seat on the moon on this mission. This will be the first time an international astronaut will ride to the moon. 

Women and People Of Color 

NASA has also promised that Artemis will take the first woman and the first person of color to the moon. So we could expect to see a woman on this mission and or a person of a different race. Back in the Apollo missions all of the astronauts that went to the moon were white men, but now 50 years later we would expect to see that the moon will be open to everyone. 

The Positions and how NASA picks a crew  

Orion can carry up to 6 people, but for its frist human flight, it will be carrying a basic crew of four. We do know that there will be a “lead astronaut” or the commander of the mission. But other than that NASA hasn’t released anything about the other crew member's position, they marked TBA (To be Announced.) 

When NASA is looking to choose a crew for a mission as important as something big like this, they must choose wisely. NASA normally picks astronauts that have experience. They have done this several times throughout history. Back on Apollo 8, the first mission to orbit the moon, two of the three astronauts, Jim Lovell and Frank Borman had 2 weeks of flight experience. On Apollo 11, all of the astronauts were veterans of one space flight. More than half of the people who repaired the Hubble Telescope were experienced. So it is to be expended that NASA will pick at least one experienced astronaut to fly on this mission.

Whoever NASA may pick, the astronauts onboard will kick off a new generation of space flight.

Artemis Space Suits by Kale Cunningham

The Artemis program has just begun! NASA’s newest program will send humans back to the Moon for the first time in 50 years! 

The first manned mission Artemis ll which is expected to fly in November, 2024 will only fly around the moon. 

The next mission Artemis lll is expected to fly in December of 2025, will land on it. With the help of NASA's lunar space station Gateway, the crew of Artemis lll will launch to the Moon on the Orion spacecraft and then attach itself to Gateway, then the astronauts will transfer into a lander to take them down to the surface. After they land, the astronauts will walk on the surface of the moon and to walk on the moon they will need space suits. 

Most recently, NASA showed off these suits during a press conference, these suits are the next generation that will be used for future trips to Mars as well. NASA and Axiom Space worked together to compete this epic design  

“NASA’s partnership with Axiom is critical to landing astronauts on the Moon and continuing American leadership in space. Building on NASA’s years of research and expertise, Axiom’s next generation space suits will not only enable the first woman to walk on the Moon, but they will also open opportunities for more people to explore and conduct science on the Moon than ever before," said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. 

The space suit itself is supposed to be more flexible than the Apollo programs tight and bulky suit design, also it will be more noticeable with the use of the orange stripes, so astronauts will have less of a hard time finding each other.

With the recent successful mission of the Artemis 1 test flight, the program is in great condition and with some extra funding of 1.5 billion dollars, NASA is ready to take the next step in human exploration. 

Mission To Jupiter Could Be In Trouble by Kale Cunningham

For the past few years the European Space Agency (ESA) has been working on a masterpiece, their "Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer" or its funny nickname JUICE, to try and find life on Jupiter's mysterious moon Ganymede, which has frozen water underneath the surface. The spacecraft costs over 1 billion dollars and is supposed to launch this April and arrive at Jupiter in 2030, but now it could be in trouble. Because of the germs from our own planet. 

One thing about detecting life on other worlds using robots is making them clean. Meaning no germs to confuse the spacecraft’s high tech scanners that there's life down on the surface. But unfortunately JUICE might be carrying some and this could cause other problems…

Another thing that could happen is, at that end of its mission JUICE is supposed to crash into Ganymede. But let's say we have unwanted travelers that could have survived the crash (and everything else they have been put through.) And what if there was microscopic life that we hadn’t detected yet and our unwanted germs kill them off. Then we have basically without knowing gotten rid of some life forms from another celestial body. 

Lastly, germs could affect the whole mission, if there are germs then engineers at ESA will have to unload the spacecraft from the rocket that it's in. Which could take weeks, and then take it back to a sealed laboratory where engineers would spray it down for days trying to get rid of the germs. This would screw up the whole schedule and possibly delay the mission for years. 

But space is a very unwelcoming place to live, and if there are any germs it's very likely that the freezing cold temperatures will kill them. 

Hopefully this will not affect the mission and JUICE will be able to get to Jupiter and make discoveries that will benefit humanity. 

How An Astronaut Almost Drowned In Space by Kale Cunningham

Space is full of dangers, theirs is no denying the risk, from solar flares to exploding rockets the list is endless. And when we send humans up into space, we tend to get nervous about what could go wrong. And with so many dangers it's very hard to tell what might be the next really bad incident, but one of the last things that someone would hear is that an astronaut would almost drown in space. It seems impossible, space is dry and doesn’t have any water source but that would be proved wrong when in July of 2013 an astronaut almost drowned 350 above any large water source. 

Luca Parmitano was born in 1976, in Italy, we spent most of his early life in the ‘dawning age’ of the European Space Agency (ESA.) It used to be that only America and Russia could launch people into space and if you were in a different country then you were out of luck. But in the 1980s NASA offered international groups of people onboard the space shuttle. At first, Luca wasn’t hooked into the space program, so he joined the air force and started moving up the ranks, then in 2007 he was selected to be a test pilot and finally in 2009 he was selected to be an astronaut. After two years of waiting he was selected in 2011 to fly onboard a Soyuz spacecraft to the International Space Station, he was also offered to perform 2 EVAs or spacewalks. Luca wasn’t going to turn that opportunity down, so he accepted the offer. 

In May 2013, he finally got his chance to go into space, and after a couple of rocket engine start-ups and cut-offs he reached space. His craft docked with the ISS a short while later, with him and his two crewmates. Parmitano first two months in space were exciting but mainly uneventful. 

On July 9, Parmitano peered his head out of the ISS for the first time. In doing so he became the first Italian to walk in space. He and American astronaut Chris Cassidy installed power cables outside of the Quest airlock. In all, the spacewalk was a huge success. However, after the spacewalk, when Parmitano got inside and removed his helmet, he noticed some water droplets that floated out. 

For the people who don’t know this water is very Adhesive or in other words its very sticky. 

On Earth if we get water in our faces, then it’s no big deal thanks to gravity. Gravity pulls the water down off our face. But in space water is a deadly weapon, there's no gravity to pull the water down off our faces, meaning that it will stick to anything and it's extremely hard to pull it off. And if you're doing a space walk and water starts leaking into your helmet, then it floats up into your nose causing you to choke. So it's a pretty big deal in space when a basic water gun becomes a deadly weapon. 

However this much water didn’t seem that deadly, it was probably some leaky water in the space suits drinking pouch, which is used if an astronaut gets thirsty while doing a several hour spacewalk. But NASA engineers had designed the drinking pouch to not have enough water to drown an astronaut. The problem was not seen as a big deal, and mission control came up with a simple solution, if the pouch was a little leaky then Parmitano should just drink all of his water at the beginning of his next spacewalk. 

Parmitano’s next spacewalk was on July 16, started out flawless, he and Cassidy once again started working away at the ISS’s tricky electrical system. However just an hour into the spacewalk something strange started to happen. Parmitano noticed some water was leaking out again. He reported the news to mission control, when mission control asked him how much water was inside his helmet, he claimed not to know. But soon he said that the water was still coming. 

And Parmitano was in big trouble, water droplets filled up in his nose and eyes causing him to have troubling seeing, he was able to shake the droplets loose where they floated to the top of his helmet. But just as he got rid of one round of droplets another round came in and once again blinded him. 

Chris Cassidy was done with watching his friend suffering from the sidelines, he was after the only person in space that could help him. So he asked mission control that the spacewalk would be aborted; he was not going to lose his friend today. Down in Houston, mission control thought about the request sent by Cassidy, their decision was quick, Parmitano was in deep trouble, he would need to get back inside the space station, as quickly as possible.

Mission control terminated the spacewalk less than an hour and half into the spacewalk. And with that Parmitano started towards the hatch of the ISS, Cassidy followed closely behind. But then something terrible happened, the ISS went dark. The space station was now orbiting the part of the Earth that was at night, wouldn’t come back towards the sunny side of Earth in about an hour. Parmitano was now having trouble hearing with water working its way into his ears, and static hissed on his microphone. 

In mission control confusion, it didn’t make sense, the water pouch didn’t have this much water. But then mission control realized something that gave them the shrivers, it would have to be the water that kept the inside the space suit cool. 

That did have enough water to drown Parmitano

But it seemed like Parmitano would make it after all, he reached the airlock of the ISS.  As Parmitano was pulling on the airlock to open it, he accidentally pulled too hard, the door flung open and he was thrown upside down. Coughing and choking from the water, but he managed to straighten himself and throw himself  into the space station. However Parmitano was not out of danger yet, the airlock needed to fully pressurize itself before he could take his helmet off. And that unfortunately took time, after almost an hour and a half the air lock fully pressurized. By then Parmitano was having trouble seeing and hearing, so the onboard crew rushed to his aid. They carefully removed his helmet, and as they did, water droplets flew out everywhere. But in the end Parmitano was okay, and he safely returned to Earth on November 11, 2013. 

However, this was a very close call and everyone who worked at NASA agreed that they had to make things safer for the better. If an event like this happened again then people might not be as lucky. To make matters worse space suits are reused many different times before they are thrown away. As a precaution all suits were then equipped with a snorkel device that had emergency air if the event were to happen again. And believe it or not it did. On 15 January 2016, American astronaut Timothy Kopra experienced a water leak in the same spacesuit that had almost claimed the life of Parmitano. Kopra was able to safely return into the ISS without incident, but it was proven that the space suit was not worthy for astronauts and was thrown out. 

Parmitano would return to the space station in July of 2019, and would return in early 2020. 

Perseverance Completes Prime Mission by Kale Cunningham

Since arriving at Jezero Crater in February 2021, NASA’s newest and most advanced Mars rover has been trekking the surface of another world. Its prime mission or how long it was expected to last was supposed to last for two Earth years, but seeing that it has survived for the past two years, NASA will extend its mission for another two years until 2026. If the rover continues to operate until that deadline, NASA will extend its mission until 2028 and so on.

Mission Accomplishments

Ever since landing on February 18, 2021, Perseverance had a set of goals to complete, one of which was to collect samples that will be returned to Earth in the 2030s. 

The mission has been a smashing success one of the first, biggest accomplishments was when Ingenuity, a small drone made to operate on Mars took off in April of 2021. Ingenuity is still operational and has flown over 40 times since. 

Perseverance has also completed many accomplishments on its own. In the fall of 2021, the rover collected its first sample. After successfully collecting 15 samples, the rover picked a place to safely store the samples on the ground. The rover then carefully placed the samples down in its tracks to give them production from the wind blowing them away. Another accomplishment is that one of the instruments on the rover was the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment, nicknamed MOXIE. NASA engineers created MOXIE in the hope to demonstrate that they could use the carbon dioxide on Mars to create oxygen. In the spring of 2021, MOXIE successfully created enough oxygen for a human to survive for 6 minutes, and NASA hopes that when they put humans on Mars that they can use this technology. 

And lastly, Perseverance is the fastest Mars rover ever! With top speeds of 8 centimeters per second. Even though it takes the rover half an hour to travel the distance of a football field on Mars, it's still cruising! Overall the rover has traveled 10 miles on the surface. For comparison, it took NASA’s longest-running rover Opportunity a decade to reach that distance! 

Perseverance has been so successful and with its prime mission complete, who knows what could be in store!                    

The “Green Comet” Could Be Heading Out Of The Solar System Forever by Kale Cunningham

The now famous C/2022 E3 (ZTF) comet, also known now by the nickname the “Green Comet.” Named after its dazzling glow and light it gives off. It has spent thousands of years heading back toward Earth and is now speeding away into deep space, but there is a possibility that it will never be seen again. According to NASA, the comet is in a 50,000-year orbit of the sun. The comet has not been seen by humans since the cavemen in the early days of our existence. Its long-term orbit may make it seem impossible, how could something just leave after millions of years of orbiting our sun? But the comet doesn’t just leave, it has to do with our sun’s gravity. For example, if you had an object that was orbiting the sun in a weird egg shape as most comets do. When you get close to the sun its gravity shoots you like a slingshot and you get blasted out at very high speeds. Speed controls how high and low your orbit is so a higher speed means a higher orbit. And if an object goes fast enough it escapes the object they are orbiting completely. In this case, C/2022 E3 is orbiting the sun so it may reach a speed that it will escape from the sun’s gravity and fly out of our solar system. And into the space between stars also known as interstellar space. If this does happen then the comet will sail through empty space forever. It may find an orbit around another star but most likely it will fly on in space for millions of years until it gets out of the Milky Way. And then continue forever void in the sky…maybe humans will never see it again or maybe we will. Only time will tell…    

What's the best plant to have in your house? By Avalina Brannen

Starting off with the worst plants to keep in your house

One of the worst plants to have is Caladium also known as an Elephant Ear plant. These plants are tropical, meaning that you can’t have them in cold climates. Their limit is 55 degrees Fahrenheit and one can also have VERY bad reactions if eaten, so if you have dogs, cats, or small children, you have to keep this away from them. They’re not going to kill you if they’re in the house, but they may be dangerous to pets and children. Another one of the plants on this list is Philodendron. These plants come from South Africa and are really pretty, and they also have the nickname “loving tree”. Even though it’s pretty, it could be harmful because of its needle-like calcium oxalate crystals. It could result in one not being able to breathe. 

In the middle: It is not so great, but not so bad either

So here's the deal: Snake plants are amazing for circulating the air and even helping with allergies and making oxygen, but these plant leaves are poisonous to eat and may swell the tongue or numbness in large doses. English Ivy is very well known to help people with breathing difficulties and  it can also be used in medicine extracts to help with lung difficulties. But that doesn't mean you should just go ahead and start eating English Ivy, because it can be poisonous leading to throat swelling and it can also lead to dermatitis. Stay clear of these plants if you really want them in your home. Just keep them away from dogs, cats, small children and any other thing that likes to eat random things such as plants.

The best plants ever you should have these in your house 

In 2nd place for the best plant is Areca Palm. These plants are amazing to have. They are an air filter and can filter out very strong chemicals such as nail polish remover, gasoline and other chemicals. On top of that, it is safe to consume. You can have this plant in your living room and your dog or cat won’t get any health problems.

The plant who gets the gold medal is Aloe Vera. This plant is very good for you. Not only is it a great natural filter, but the gel inside the leaves is amazing for sun burns. It also is good to eat and. It gives you health benefits because of how many vitamins are in it. .For all you skin care people out there, aloe vera can help your face with moisturizing. Having this plant in your house has a lot of benefis, so if you're looking for a new house plant, go with aloe vera. 

Heres a website on how to take care of an aloe vera plant if you think you’re going to get one.

Works Cited

Cobb, Cynthia, et al. “Aloe vera for face: Uses and benefits.” Medical News Today, https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/aloe-vera-for-face#_noHeaderPrefixedContent. Accessed 2 February 2023.

Joyner, Lisa. “Toxic Plants: 10 Common House Plants Toxic To Cats, Dogs, Humans.” House Beautiful, 17 July 2020, https://www.housebeautiful.com/uk/garden/plants/g33306866/toxic-plants/. Accessed 2 February 2023.

Lawler, Moira, and Justin Laube. “What Is Aloe Vera? Benefits, Risks, Uses, and More.” Everyday Health, https://www.everydayhealth.com/diet-nutrition/diet/aloe-vera-benefits-risks-uses-more/. Accessed 2 February 2023.

“Top 10 House Plants for Cleaner Air.” Eco-Age, 18 February 2019, https://eco-age.com/resources/top-10-house-plants-cleaner-air/. Accessed 2 February 2023.

African Americans In Space by Kale Cunningham

February is Black History Month, so I decided to make a space article devoted to African Americans that helped us better understand space.

1: Guion Bluford

Guion Bluford was born on November 22, 1942. In 1964 he graduated from Penn State with a degree in aerospace engineering. Shortly after he joined the American Air Force, he was selected by NASA in 1978 to be the first African American to go into space. After waiting for 5 years he finally did on the mission STS-8 aboard the space shuttle Challenger (Please note that the shuttle Challenger flew 9 times before exploding.) 

Bluford went on to fly three more space shuttle flights before retiring from NASA in the summer of 1993. 

2: Ronald McNair

For the next few astronauts, I will mention the ones that we lost in tragedy but they gave excellent services to our country and should be remembered as heroes. Ronald McNair was born on October 21, 1950. He studied Physics in college and in 1978 was selected as an astronaut for NASA. He flew on STS-41B in 1984 and was supposed to fly again on the mission STS-51-L or as many people know it today the Challenger disaster. On January 28, 1986, he was killed when Challenger blew up nine miles above the Atlantic Ocean, 73 seconds after liftoff. 

3: Michael P. Anderson

Michael Anderson was born in 1959 Anderson studied physics and astronomy at the University of Washington in Seattle. In 1990 he was awarded a Master of Science degree in physics. A few years later he joined the Air Force and in 1995 joined NASA as an astronaut. He flew on mission STS-89 in 1998 and later STS-107 on the space shuttle Columbia in January 2003. But when the crew was coming home they burned up in Earth's atmosphere and Anderson with the rest of his crew was killed.

4: Robert Lawrence Jr.

The last astronaut I will talk about who sadly died was Robert H. Lawrence Jr. he never got to fly into space but I think that he is worth mentioning. 

Born in 1935, he started a military career after getting a chemistry degree. In the summer of 1967, he was picked by the US army for a space secret mission, which would spy on the Soviet Union from low Earth orbit. But sadly just 6 months later he died in a plane crash. A few years after his death the army scrapped the idea of the spy mission because it went over-budget. 

5: Mae Jemison

Mae Jemison was the first female African American to go into space. Born in 1956 she started in a medical career but then switched to a NASA career and flew on the mission STS-47 in 1992. In 1993 she left NASA and founded her own technology company. 

6: Leland D. Melvin

Leland Melvin had a harsh start to his astronaut career after a training accident that left him temporarily deaf, a condition that grounded him from traveling into space. But he overcame this problem and he flew twice into space on STS-122 and STS-129. 

7: Joan Higginbotham 

Went into space on STS-116 after many long years of waiting, before she went into space she oversaw 53 space launches.

8: Bernard A. Harris Jr.

Bernard Harris Jr. made history in 1995 when he became the first African American to walk in space on the mission STS-63. He spent 4 hours and 39 minutes outside the space shuttle. 

9:  Neil deGrasse Tyson

Neil deGrasse Tyson is an astrophysicist, author, and science communicator. With an IQ of 123, he has become one of the many geniuses in the world. He has aired on many different shows, narrated space documentaries, and even hosted some shows.

10: Benjamin Banneker 

Benjamin Banneker was a naturalist, mathematician, and astronomer. Born in 1731, he made observations in the night sky and recorded several pieces of important information. Sadly he died in 1806 when his house was burnt down, the only thing that survived was his astronomer book with his recorded observations.