NASA helicopter’s mission ends after three years on Mars

NASA helicopter’s mission ends after three years on Mars
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Ingenuity Mars Helicopter flies over Mars in an undated illustration provided by Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/Handout via REUTERS)
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Updated 26 January 2024
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NASA helicopter’s mission ends after three years on Mars

NASA helicopter’s mission ends after three years on Mars
  • Weighing only 2 kg, the helicopter was meant only to prove flight was possible in the ultra-thin Martian atmosphere through five test runs
  • But since it first lifted off the Martian surface on April 19, 2021, it went on to be deployed a total of 72 times, exceeding expectations

WASHINGTON: NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter, which made history by achieving the first powered flight on another world, has officially ended its nearly three-year mission after sustaining rotor damage during its last outing, the space agency said Thursday.

The tissue-box sized aircraft, which hitched a ride to the Red Planet under the belly of the Perseverance rover, first lifted off the surface on April 19, 2021.
Originally intended only to prove flight was possible in the ultra-thin Martian atmosphere through five test runs, Ingenuity went on to be deployed a total of 72 times, logging more than two hours of flight time in short hops.
“The Ingenuity absolutely shattered our paradigm of exploration, introducing this new dimension of aerial mobility,” Lori Glaze, the director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division told reporters Thursday.
Its mission evolved to act as an aerial scout to assist its wheeled companion in searching for signs of ancient microbial life from billions of years ago when Mars was much wetter and warmer than today.
Ingenuity’s longevity surpassed all expectations, defying challenges including dust storms, treacherous terrain, a dead sensor and frigid conditions.
Designed to operate in springtime, its solar-powered heating system was unable to remain on throughout the night in winter, which led to the flight computer freezing over and forced engineers to devise new protocols.
“It is bittersweet that I must announce that Ingenuity, the little helicopter that could... has now taken its last flight on Mars,” said NASA administrator Bill Nelson in a video message.
“Like the Wright brothers, what they did back here on Earth at the early part of the last century, Ingenuity has paved the way for future flight in our solar system, and it’s leading the way for smarter, safer human missions to Mars and beyond.”

While the helicopter, which weighs four pounds (around two kilograms), remains upright and in communication with mission control, images from its last flight on January 18 indicate “one or more” of its rotor blades sustained damage during landing, meaning it is no longer capable of flight.
NASA unexpectedly lost and then reestablished contact following the final flight, though the relief for space enthusiasts turned out to be short-lived.
Data showed that the helicopter achieved its planned maximum altitude of 40 feet (12 meters) and hovered there for 4.5 seconds.
But the temporary blackout occurred just as it was on its way down to land, around three feet above the surface.
“Imagery revealing damage to the rotor blade arrived several days later. The cause of the communications dropout and the helicopter’s orientation at time of touchdown are still being investigated,” the statement said.
The broken blade seems to have collided with the surface of Mars during landing, Ingenuity project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory Teddy Tzanetos told reporters Thursday, cleaving off “the last 25 percent of the length” of the appendage.
“We’ve just lost a massive chunk of our thrust capacity,” he explained, adding “we will never know” whether the rotor strike or the communications loss came first.
“Eventually... we will lose contact,” Tzanetos said, though it’s unclear whether that will happen within days or months.
According to Tzanetos, the lessons learned from Ingenuity will inform flight on Mars long into the future.
“None of us should be surprised in the future, when the first astronauts, the first women and men are on the surface (of Mars), and we have fleets of aircraft flying around,” he said.
Ingenuity’s legacy is set to live on in Dragonfly, a car-sized, nuclear-powered rotorcraft NASA is planning to send to the surface of Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, in 2028.
 


Zelensky hails Usyk victory over Fury

Zelensky hails Usyk victory over Fury
Updated 22 December 2024
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Zelensky hails Usyk victory over Fury

Zelensky hails Usyk victory over Fury

RIYADH: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky hailed Oleksandr Usyk’s victory over Tyson Fury in their heavyweight world championship rematch on Saturday, calling it proof that Ukraine “will not give up what’s ours.”
“Victory!” Zelensky said in a post on Telegram. “So important and so necessary for all of us now.”
Ukraine remains locked in war nearly three years after Russia invaded, but Zelensky said Usyk’s triumph was a mark of Ukrainian resiliency and determination.
“Having retained the championship belts, Oleksandr proves: we are Ukrainians and we will not give up what’s ours. And no matter how difficult it is — we will win.
“Be it the ring, battlefield or diplomatic arena — we fight and we will not give up what’s ours.
“Congrats on the victory, Cossack! Congrats on the victory Ukraine! Glory to Ukraine.”
Usyk’s victory — seven months after his first triumph over Britain’s Fury to become the first undisputed heavyweight world champion of the four-belt era — took his record to 23-0 with 14 knockouts.


Weightlifting Taiwan granny, 90, garners cheers, health benefits at gym

Weightlifting Taiwan granny, 90, garners cheers, health benefits at gym
Updated 21 December 2024
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Weightlifting Taiwan granny, 90, garners cheers, health benefits at gym

Weightlifting Taiwan granny, 90, garners cheers, health benefits at gym

TAIPEI: Cheng Chen Chin-Mei beamed broadly as she hoisted a 35-kg weightlifting bar to her waist, dropped it and waved confidently to the enthusiastic crowd in a competition in Taipei. Cheng Chen, 90, has been pumping iron since last year, encouraged by her granddaughter to take up the sport after she was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. She credits the regimen with helping to fix her posture.

Three generations of her family were among a couple of hundred people watching Cheng Chen and 44 others aged 70 or over in a weightlifting competition on Saturday. In the three-round competition, Cheng Chen lifted as much as 45kg using a hexagonal-shaped bar that is said to allow the lifter more stability and options for gripping.

“I want to tell all the old people to join the workout,” Cheng Chen told Reuters after the competition. “You don’t need to work extremely hard, but this is to stay healthy.”

Cheng Chen was not the only nonagenarian in the competition. The oldest participant is 92.

Taiwan is projected to become a “super-aged society” next year, with 20 percent or more of its 23 million people aged 65 or older, according to National Development Council data.

The government has set up fitness centers across the island with equipment suitable for older people, to encourage them to train, according to the Health Promotion Administration, which encourages healthy lifestyles.


Santa and Mrs. Claus use military transports to bring Christmas to an Alaska Native village

Santa and Mrs. Claus use military transports to bring Christmas to an Alaska Native village
Updated 21 December 2024
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Santa and Mrs. Claus use military transports to bring Christmas to an Alaska Native village

Santa and Mrs. Claus use military transports to bring Christmas to an Alaska Native village
  • Operation Santa started in 1956 when flooding severely curtailed subsistence hunting for residents of St. Mary’s, in western Alaska

YAKUTAT, Alaska: Forget the open-air sleigh overloaded with gifts and powered by flying reindeer.
Santa and Mrs. Claus this week took supersized rides to southeast Alaska in a C-17 military cargo plane and a camouflaged Humvee, as they delivered toys to the Tlingit village of Yakutat, northwest of Juneau.
The visit was part of this year’s Operation Santa Claus, an outreach program of the Alaska National Guard to largely Indigenous communities in the nation’s largest state. Each year, the Guard picks a village that has suffered recent hardship — in Yakutat’s case, a massive snowfall that threatened to buckle buildings in 2022.
“This is one of the funnest things we get to do, and this is a proud moment for the National Guard,” Maj. Gen. Torrence Saxe, adjutant general of the Alaska National Guard, said Wednesday.
Saxe wore a Guard uniform and a Santa hat that stretched his unit’s dress regulations.
The Humvee caused a stir when it entered the school parking lot, and a buzz of “It’s Santa! It’s Santa!” pierced the cold air as dozens of elementary school children gathered outside.
In the school, Mrs. Claus read a Christmas story about the reindeer Dasher. The couple in red then sat for photos with nearly all of the 75 or so students and handed out new backpacks filled with gifts, books, snacks and school supplies donated by the Salvation Army. The school provided lunch, and a local restaurant provided the ice cream and toppings for a sundae bar.
Student Thomas Henry, 10, said while the contents of the backpack were “pretty good,” his favorite item was a plastic dinosaur.
Another, 9-year-old Mackenzie Ross, held her new plush seal toy as she walked around the school gym.
“I think it’s special that I have this opportunity to be here today because I’ve never experienced this before,” she said.
Yakutat, a Tlingit village of about 600 residents, is in the lowlands of the Gulf of Alaska, at the top of Alaska’s panhandle. Nearby is the Hubbard Glacier, a frequent stop for cruise ships.
Some of the National Guard members who visited Yakutat on Wednesday were also there in January 2022, when storms dumped about 6 feet (1.8 meters) of snow in a matter of days, damaging buildings.
Operation Santa started in 1956 when flooding severely curtailed subsistence hunting for residents of St. Mary’s, in western Alaska. Having to spend their money on food, they had little left for Christmas presents, so the military stepped in.
This year, visits were planned to two other communities hit by flooding. Santa’s visit to Circle, in northeastern Alaska, went off without a hitch. Severe weather prevented a visit to Crooked Creek, in the southwestern part of the state, but Christmas was saved when the gifts were delivered there Nov. 16.
“We tend to visit rural communities where it is very isolated,” said Jenni Ragland, service extension director with the Salvation Army Alaska Division. “A lot of kids haven’t traveled to big cities where we typically have Santa and big stores with Christmas gifts and Christmas trees, so we kind of bring the Christmas program on the road.”
After the C-17 Globemaster III landed in Yakutat, it quickly returned to Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, an hour away, because there was nowhere to park it at the village’s tiny airport. Later it returned to pick up the Christmas crew.
Santa and Mrs. Claus, along with their tuckered elves, were seen nodding off on the flight back.


Scientists observe ‘negative time’ in quantum experiments

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Photo/Shutterstock
Updated 22 December 2024
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Scientists observe ‘negative time’ in quantum experiments

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  • The researchers emphasize that these perplexing results highlight a peculiar quirk of quantum mechanics rather than a radical shift in our understanding of time

TORONTO, Canada: Scientists have long known that light can sometimes appear to exit a material before entering it — an effect dismissed as an illusion caused by how waves are distorted by matter.
Now, researchers at the University of Toronto, through innovative quantum experiments, say they have demonstrated that “negative time” isn’t just a theoretical idea — it exists in a tangible, physical sense, deserving closer scrutiny.
The findings, yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal, have attracted both global attention and skepticism.
The researchers emphasize that these perplexing results highlight a peculiar quirk of quantum mechanics rather than a radical shift in our understanding of time.
“This is tough stuff, even for us to talk about with other physicists. We get misunderstood all the time,” said Aephraim Steinberg, a University of Toronto professor specializing in experimental quantum physics.
While the term “negative time” might sound like a concept lifted from science fiction, Steinberg defends its use, hoping it will spark deeper discussions about the mysteries of quantum physics.

Years ago, the team began exploring interactions between light and matter.
When light particles, or photons, pass through atoms, some are absorbed by the atoms and later re-emitted. This interaction changes the atoms, temporarily putting them in a higher-energy or “excited” state before they return to normal.
In research led by Daniela Angulo, the team set out to measure how long these atoms stayed in their excited state. “That time turned out to be negative,” Steinberg explained — meaning a duration less than zero.
To visualize this concept, imagine cars entering a tunnel: before the experiment, physicists recognized that while the average entry time for a thousand cars might be, for example, noon, the first cars could exit a little sooner, say 11:59 am. This result was previously dismissed as meaningless.
What Angulo and colleagues demonstrated was akin to measuring carbon monoxide levels in the tunnel after the first few cars emerged and finding that the readings had a minus sign in front of them.

The experiments, conducted in a cluttered basement laboratory bristling with wires and aluminum-wrapped devices, took over two years to optimize. The lasers used had to be carefully calibrated to avoid distorting the results.
Still, Steinberg and Angulo are quick to clarify: no one is claiming time travel is a possibility. “We don’t want to say anything traveled backward in time,” Steinberg said. “That’s a misinterpretation.”
The explanation lies in quantum mechanics, where particles like photons behave in fuzzy, probabilistic ways rather than following strict rules.
Instead of adhering to a fixed timeline for absorption and re-emission, these interactions occur across a spectrum of possible durations — some of which defy everyday intuition.
Critically, the researchers say, this doesn’t violate Einstein’s theory of special relativity, which dictates that nothing can travel faster than light. These photons carried no information, sidestepping any cosmic speed limits.

The concept of “negative time” has drawn both fascination and skepticism, particularly from prominent voices in the scientific community.
German theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder, for one, criticized the work in a YouTube video viewed by over 250,000 people, noting, “The negative time in this experiment has nothing to do with the passage of time — it’s just a way to describe how photons travel through a medium and how their phases shift.”
Angulo and Steinberg pushed back, arguing that their research addresses crucial gaps in understanding why light doesn’t always travel at a constant speed.
Steinberg acknowledged the controversy surrounding their paper’s provocative headline but pointed out that no serious scientist has challenged the experimental results.
“We’ve made our choice about what we think is a fruitful way to describe the results,” he said, adding that while practical applications remain elusive, the findings open new avenues for exploring quantum phenomena.
“I’ll be honest, I don’t currently have a path from what we’ve been looking at toward applications,” he admitted. “We’re going to keep thinking about it, but I don’t want to get people’s hopes up.”
 

 


‘Don’t hit him too hard!’: Zelensky tells Usyk not to endanger British arms deal

‘Don’t hit him too hard!’: Zelensky tells Usyk not to endanger British arms deal
Updated 20 December 2024
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‘Don’t hit him too hard!’: Zelensky tells Usyk not to endanger British arms deal

‘Don’t hit him too hard!’: Zelensky tells Usyk not to endanger British arms deal
  • Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky jokes for Oleksandr Usyk to be gentle with British rival Tyson Fury to not harm UK weapon supplies

PARIS: Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky pleaded with boxing star Oleksandr Usyk to be gentle with British rival Tyson Fury in their world heavyweight clash in case a battering delivers a knockout blow to a crucial arms deal.
Usyk defeated Fury in May to become the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world and the two men meet again in Riyadh on Saturday.
“All Ukrainians are on your side. Of course, Britain is helping Ukraine in a fight against Russia,” Zelensky told Usyk on Friday in a video on Zelensky’s Telegram account.
“We respect our partners. That’s why when you beat Fury, don’t hit him too hard, because we don’t want them to ban Storm Shadow.”
British media reported last month that Ukraine had fired Storm Shadow missiles into Russia for the first time after London gave Kyiv the green light for such strikes.
The UK government refused to confirm or deny the reports.