Argyll Free Press

Growing News Network

Wednesday, April 22, 2026
Log in

More Progress Made by NASA On the ‘Journey to Mars’ Project

By Leave a Comment

'Journey to Mars' project

The ‘Journey to Mars’ project that is forecast to be ongoing for the next several decades, planned to send manned space crafts to the surface of Mars is already in the works. Until human crews actually get to leave on the trip to the Red Planet, multiple test runs, lander and probe launches and many more will have to be done as prerequisites as humanity setting foot on another planet of our solar system is not an event to be taken lightly.

While NASA is already in process of recruiting the ‘Class of Mars’ that will select a mere 13 individuals out of thousands of applicants to be trained and maybe one day be sent out to the red planet, the real preparation is ongoing on multiple fronts at the same time.

Only recently, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has made upgrades to a rocket engine and began testing it in preparation for the crewed flight that will take place and take humans outside of Earth’s orbit for the first time in 45 years.

The engine in question dubbed the Space Launch System – or SLS – has seniority, having previously helped launch no less than five different space shuttle missions. Its last launch took place back in 2011, so it was necessary that the rocket engine would receive a well-deserved upgrade. Thus, on the test flight that it was subjected to on March 10th, last week, the SLS was equipped with four RS-25 engines in its core and showcased its capabilities for an entire 8-minute long launch. This officially marked the first flight certification test of the engine since its update.

The SLS rocket engine, as it as right now, is a repurposed piece from the Shuttle program and will help carry a human crew to the surface of an asteroid by year 2025 and to the surface of planet Mars in the 2030s. Before these two assignments, however, the SLS is scheduled to take flight in 2018 to carry an unmanned Orion capsule into orbit along with 13 cubesats. Depending on the result of the launch, as well as the capability of engineers and scientists to handle anything that the engine might be lacking for greater-scale missions, it will be decided whether the next mission remains set for 2023 or a later date.

Image Source: 1

A Feasible Explanation to the Bermuda Triangle Disappearances

By Leave a Comment

Bermuda Triangle is an ill-famed zone

The so called Bermuda Triangle is an ill-famed zone in the North Atlantic Ocean that has been delimited in the area between Florida, Puerto Rico and Bermuda that has made a reputation in the last century due to numerous ships and planes mysteriously disappearing in it. While pop culture and urban legends attribute a series of paranormal features to this area, scientists may have just found a feasible explanation for the phenomena that take place here.

As a matter of fact, it would appear that much of the mystery regarding this zone can be attributed to the undocumented and embellished stories that particular writers of the 1900s and early 2000s have published and related on the matter. While a number of researchers had just assigned harsh weather conditions as being the main culprit behind the disappearances, it still felt like the unfortunate events were the result of something more than just that.

Scientists have tracked down a possible culprit all the way to the sea-floor of the coast of Norway; here lie numerous craters that researchers believe are central to the issue of the Bermuda Triangle. The craters in question measure 800 meters in width and can go as deep as 45 meters. These craters are believed to have been formed as a result of methane build-ups in the sea-floor sediments that lie just off Norway’s coast. According to the researchers, some of these methane blowouts grow to enormous sizes, large enough to be able of swallowing even incredibly large ships.

The reason behind that is the fact that because these gas bubbles have the capability of producing regions of frothy water where its density is reduced and can no longer provide the same amount of buoyancy for the ships passing. As a result, the passing ship would fall to sinking at a rapid pace and with little to no warning.

According to the scientists on this study, even if said craters that even led them to this hypothesis are far away from the Bermuda Triangle, they could very well be the very reason behind the disappearances. Whether the real cause lies off the coast of Norway or exists within the sea-floor of the Bermuda Triangle too is not yet known. However, because of how large scale the phenomenon is – researchers describing it as an avalanche-like reaction that produces a tremendous amount of gas – their effect may be easier to notice now when the scientists know exactly what to look out for.

Image Source: 1

PlayStation Revealing Details About Its VR Headset

By Leave a Comment

more details regarding the PlayStation VR system

Although the leaked patents that PlayStation applied for suggested some slightly different types of technology that will probably not make it out into consumer-dedicated retail for a couple of years the very least, we now have more details regarding the PlayStation VR system. And an expected release date is coming along with it too, with the VR headset scheduled to hit the markets October 2016.

The entirety of these details was made public at the Game Developers Conference this year where Sony made public certain other features of the upcoming PlayStation VR, along with an announcement promising a price of $399 for the headset alone.

According to the announcement, the PlayStation VR will require a PlayStation 4 (and above, whenever that will be the case) console, with several other items as optional purchases. To list a few, there are accessories such as the Move controllers that Sony designed as well as a camera that goes together with the headset and provides the user with various other features that some particular game titles may require.

So, with all accessories and add-ons possible included, an entirely new PlayStation VR system would cost the user roughly $1,000. In comparison to the other VR headsets that are scheduled to be released this year, this can overall be named the most affordable option, although users would be limited by the capabilities of a non-upgradeable console. Considering that both the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift do require a rather powerful and subsequently expensive computer to power up all the applications and games running on them, those would take you up to a sum that by far exceeds the $1,000 for the PlayStation VR.

Because this particular one comes straight from one of the largest gaming equipment producer worldwide, the PlayStation VR will excel in this field, a fact that is only strengthened by the fact that Sony already has 230 publishers and developers working on titles that will run on the PlayStation 4 and the PlayStation VR, with no less than 50 titles expected to be ready by the end of this year alone. They range from more exploratory, simple experience kind of games to the way more complex Star Wars Battlefront for VR.

As a final note, Sony also released specifications for the PlayStation VR device at the GDC. These include a 5.7” OLED display that is capable of resolutions going up to 1920 x 1080, 360-degree tracking sensors, 100-degree field of view, a maximum 18 ms latency, along with 3D audio.

Image Source: 1

Twitch TV Opens New Paths of Interactive Streaming

By Leave a Comment

Twitch is looking for new methods of engaging the viewers

The largest and most popular streaming platform, Twitch is looking for new methods of engaging the viewers and broadcasters alike, but giving both parties a way to interact in other ways than just via chat. Currently, there is a well-felt limit to the interaction between the viewer and the host of the channel that he is watching, simply because the level of involvement of the former is limited.

However, Amazon-owned Twitch is working on two whole new features that hope to change this limitation and give game developers some more tools to work with in order to change a portion of the gaming world and its community as it is today. The two planned features were announced yesterday at the Game Developers Conference and come as a conclusion that the company drew after the high success of the Twitch Plays Pokemon, and the other similar projects that followed such as Twitch Plays Mario and Twitch Plays Dark Souls.

The first of the two planned tools was dubbed ‘Developer Success’ and it revolves around an API, along with guidance and assistance for developers and the studios they belong to in regards to direct Twitch integration. By providing this kind of help to video game makers, Twitch opens new paths for all types of interactive gaming that can be done through their platform and not necessarily through a multiplayer feature. A few of such games already exist as they were made purely for the experience of live streaming and public involvement and cooperation: Streamline, Superfight and Wastelanders.

Secondly, Twitch also brings a new initiative the is partly related to the Twitch integration. To be more exact, the ‘Stream First’ concept is aiming to become the next video game subgenre that picks up knowledge gathered from the community and streamers until now and uses that as basis for the creation of new video games.

Although the three games mentioned earlier are still in their very early stages of development, they can already showcase the potential of gaming that bases its very structure on these two new features that Twitch is trying to bring out into the spotlight. For example, in Wastelanders, broadcasters may create teams of viewers that they can lead in battle, while other viewers can interact with them via chat controls that allow them to make changes to the battlefield and alter the course of the game.

Image Source: 1

NASA Reports on Temperature Records Scored in February

By Leave a Comment

reported warmer temperatures than it was normally expected for February

Even if it wasn’t that apparent to everyone, it wasn’t only a few regions in the world that reported warmer temperatures than it was normally expected for February on average. However, recent studies on the matter have concluded in some shocking results that are downright puzzling. Scientists say that this past February was the hottest recorded in the past 135 years, at least according to NASA logs.

While that alone is slight worrying, the fact that concerned scientists even more was the very margin that this year’s temperatures have gone beyond the expected average of the last decades. The temperatures recorded this year were 2.43 degrees Fahrenheit or 1.35 degrees Celsius warmer than previously recorded averages between 1951 and 1980, and approximately 0.8 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the previous world record that took place in February 1998.

With this record, we are now in the 10th month in a row that sets a record, and becomes the 2nd time this has happened in the history of the last century. The last time there were temperature records being set 10 months in a row occurred in 1944.

Last time February temperatures scored a record is believed to have been caused by the El Nino event, which was described as a prolonged warming in the Pacific Ocean, raising the water temperatures slightly through the phenomenon known as ‘southern oscillation’. With higher water temperatures, global temperatures are bound to rise as well.

This time around, however, El Nino is nowhere present, so the culprit has been narrowed down to one remaining possible suspect: the high and still increasing levels of carbon dioxide found in the Earth’s atmosphere. Carbon dioxide emissions are known to have drastically changed a number of factors that slowly led to the climate change we are dealing with in the present.

These shocking results that NASA is forwarding come with a certain degree of urgency for something to be done regarding greenhouse gas emissions. Last year in December, 195 nations’ representatives met in Paris and agreed to start efforts of cutting down gas emissions to a net 0 by the year 2100; something that is hoped to be achieved through switching out fossil fuels as a primary resource for solar and wind power. However, the change is easier said than done, and seeing the rapid pace at which carbon dioxide emissions seem to affect our climate, scientists urge authorities to act faster.

Image Source: 1

The Team of Housekeeping Robots Continued with Braava

By Leave a Comment

Braava Mopping Robot

Coming from the famous iRobot company that made the equally clever Roomba automated vacuum cleaning robot, as well as the Mirra pool cleaner and Looj gutter cleaner, is the Braava Mopping Robot that promises to keep your kitchen and bathroom floors squeaky clean. And it’s not even that expensive come to think of it and weighing the amount of work you would spare yourself of. For the $200 it costs, the Braava Jet is a slow moving but just as thorough robot that knows how to move around sinks and toilets to ensure the most sanitary of states of your bathroom.

It also comes in one more model than just the classic one, the Braava 300 that can handle much larger surfaces, at the expense of losing the ability to damp sweep. However, it can run by itself and either mop or sweep for surfaces amounting to 350 and 1,000 square feet respectively.

Measuring 7 inches in length and 3.3 inches in height, the Braava Jet makes use of spray-jets and sweeper pads to clean the most varied and difficult to reach corners of your bathrooms, were you to attempt cleaning by yourself. And it was made to be the smartest it can get, with as little personal input from you necessary.

When setting it up for its task, all you need to do is attach the preferred pads – whether it’s mopping or sweeping. The Braava will then detect which pads you put in independently and begin its task once you press the clean button. The robot is programmed to spray and sweep twice onto the same surface for a thorough job when mopping while the sweeping is a preliminary task that will only be performed once. Alternatively, you can program an area for the robot to maintain its cleaning into.

The sensors that the bot is equipped with seem to be able to learn and map its surroundings as it goes for the subsequent laps around the kitchen or bathroom. Meanwhile, if you were concerned about the robot ending up just smudging the mess from one place throughout the whole room, it’s good to know that Braava was designed to continuously absorb the dirt it gathers inside, keeping the pads clean without risking making a bigger mess than before.

And because iRobot was thoughtful of how everything about the Braava works, finishing the job with this robot is as easy, stress-less and dirt-free as everything else. By pressing the eject button, you can simply drop the dirty pads into the trash.

The Braava is available online already, and you should start seeing it in retail stores starting April 1st.

Image Source: 1

The Slow Trek of Humanity Towards Planet Mars

By Leave a Comment

planning and delivering its envisioned mission to Mars

It appears that NASA is quick on its toes with planning and delivering its envisioned mission to Mars. Even if it was only recent that they announced their plans to have manned missions leaving for the Red Planet by the year 2030 the very latest, preparations are already on the way. And while funding the mission, calculating the best time for the mission, building the necessary space craft, gathering the resources necessary and so on are the very basic steps of such a mission alone, preparation entails a little more than that.

In order to send human beings to the surface of the much sought after red planet, humanity must rely on the capabilities of landers and probes that will perform detailed surveys of landing sites, climate conditions, geological information and other facts such as these. One of such landers is NASA’s InSight Mars Lander that is preparing to be sent out by May 2018.

Originally, the InSight Mars Lander was scheduled to be launched from the surface of Earth and sent towards its trek to the red planet this year – next month, in fact – but certain technical issues prevented it from doing so and postponed the mission by a considerable amount of time. To be more exact, a vacuum leak in its prime science instrument convinced NASA to postpone the mission, with scientists having the certainty that they will be able to rework the seismometer’s system and have it finished by 2017.

After that, preparations will once again begin until May 5th, when the launch is believed to be possible. If everything goes according to plan and the lander is successfully launched into outer space on the calculated date, it should arrive on Martial surface by November 26th, 2018, six months and three weeks after its departure.

InSight stands for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations Geodesy and Heat Transport and is specialized in understanding how planets’ geology formed while also collecting seismology and climate data from both above and below Mars’ surface.

NASA’s InSight is not the only spacecraft planning to depart and study the workings of the currently inhabitable Mars. However, the craft has an entire team made of researchers and engineers from across the globe, uniting their efforts to ensure humanity delivers some of its representatives to the red planet as the next step in our long-term exploratory mission.

Image Source: 1

iPhone 7 Leaks Already Surfacing

By Leave a Comment

iPhone 7 leaks

It seems that it’s only a week left until Apple holds its event where the iPhone 5se will finally make it into the spotlight, but fans are already busying themselves with iPhone 7 leaks. Sure, there’s plenty of us who have been waiting for a smaller scale iPhone 6, but there’s no new hardware to witness in that. Whereas iPhone 7 – whenever that comes out – will surely come storming and packing a hell of a punch.

So, a French website that specializes in technology seems to have managed to get its hands on several images depicting what looks like the iPhone 7 along with schematics and other types of information. The things that we already know about Apple’s plans regarding the next iPhone seem to confirm the fact that the photos that this website has revealed are truly the real thing. The best hint that we got was the fact that there is no headphone jack to be found, and instead, you can find another speaker in its place.

So what else is there to be seen in the leaked photos? Quite a few, but sadly not all that amazing yet.

First and foremost, an image depicting the back of what we at least think is the iPhone 7 has gone through several small changes. To list a few, the rear of the iPhone gazing at us from the distant horizon lacks the antenna lines we got so accustomed to. While phone makers have been doing a better and better job of hiding them in the past year, nobody has managed to hide them from view completely yet so in that respect, Apple may be the first to do so. The antenna bands are still there, though, visible around the edges at the bottom.

The rear suggests other changes too, though; for example, the rear camera hole appears to be a little larger than the one we can see these days on the iPhone 6. It is also placed a lot closer to the edge, meaning that the rumored iPhone 7 Pro version of the phone will most likely exist, in the version that features dual cameras.

Lastly, the images depicting the chassis of the iPhone 7 suggest that the phone will be thinner than the current iPhone 6, appealing to the requests of the public, it would seem. In spite of concept art and other supposed leaks suggesting that the iPhone 7 display will stretch all the way to the very edges of the phone, it hasn’t yet been confirmed by leaked information or otherwise.

Image Source: 1

Watching the Solar Eclipse from Outer Space

By Leave a Comment

catch the recent total solar eclipse

Unless you live in the Pacific or were on spot enough to catch the recent total solar eclipse that took place on March 9th on any of the live streams that were made available online, there is one more chance for you to witness a rare event. This time around, however, you may find yourself in more awe than you would have if you’d been watching from the surface of the earth.

On behalf of Deep Space Climate Observatory satellite – also dubbed DSCOVR – a spacecraft that is currently stationary at nearly 1.5 million kilometers away from the Earth and towards the sun, NASA together with the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released a video depicting the solar eclipse as it was witnessed from outer space on the fateful day of March 9th.

The video itself is made of multiple images that were combined to display the looming shadow that the moon made when forming a perfect line with the Earth and the Sun on either side. The shadow can be seen slowly moving from south-west to north-east across the Pacific Ocean before the ending of the eclipse on early March 9th.

The DSCOVR is a satellite that is in charge of watching solar eruptions – also known as coronal mass ejections – and emissions of powerful solar wind that it notifies the Earth in less than 30 minutes after first observing an event of such nature. However, other than its very proficient sensors, the DSCOVR also happens to be placed at a very fortunate vantage point that allows it to capture full-scale images of planet Earth using its EPIC – Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera. This satellite is also responsible for the popular pictures  and gifs that were travelling on the internet last year on July 16th, of the moon supposedly ‘photobombing’ the Earth.

Ever since its launch in February 2015, DSCOVR has managed to capture numerous images of our planet and its surroundings. While the coming of the total solar eclipse had been calculated and foreseen for a fair while, the decision to capture it on camera via the DSCOVR was a last minute decision.

Because of that, calibrations needed in order to take a proper series of stills depicting the moon’s shadow passing over the Earth were not a hundred percent complete at the time of capture. However, scientists at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, took it upon themselves to edit out the unnatural color selection that the pictures had originally been taken in and turn them into this video.

Image Source: 1

The Particle That Could Turn Everything We Know Around

By Leave a Comment

a new particle that changes even the little we knew

While physicists can state that to an extent we can understand the way things work in the universe, everything changes when we turn our gaze to subatomic laws. Recently, physicists at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) found at CERN in Switzerland may have just discovered a new particle that changes even the little we knew about the state of affairs at subatomic level.

So far, the particle in question is far from confirmed, and researchers need to run extensive testing in order to do so. If, however, the particle will be confirmed, it would probably mean that scientists need to recreate an entirely new standard model to use in order to truly understand the workings of our universe.

The current standard model represents a series of theories that scientists have iterated regarding everything we know – or like to believe we know when in fact it’s mostly theorizing based on mathematical models – about subatomic level physics. However, change any of the parameters that the standard model works according to, and we would see our knowledge crumbling. And there are already certain principles of nature itself that still baffle us.

And that constitutes one of the most limiting flaws of the standard model too. For example, despite superhuman efforts to explain the most fundamental force in our universe, the gravity, the elusive particles that scientists have named gravitons have yet to be discovered. The theory that researchers have applied within the standard model works fine and seems to be accurate, except it does not account for gravity whatsoever.

The particle that was discovered at the LHC has been named B meson and behaved in ways entirely different to what was expected by scientists before they set out to study it. According to previous research based on data gathered between 2011 and 2012, B meson should decay at certain frequencies and angles. Instead, running the practical tests at the particle collider did not go according to what the researchers had predicted. Neither the frequencies nor the angles were right during decay, as they varied a whole lot more than previously expected.

The B meson is a particle that is made of a bottom antiquark and an up, down, strange or charm quark. Displaying unusually short lifespans, this particle is vital for understanding and studying quantum chromodynamics. Scientists believe that by studying how far off the standard model these particles can go, they can set limits on new particles and maybe gather a better understanding of how the subatomic universe works.

Image Source: 1

Categories