10-year sky survey begins ‘space movie’, cyborg cockroaches dive and more science stories

This week marked the launch of the Vera K. Rubin Observatory’s Legacy Space and Time Survey, a massive sky-watching effort more than two decades in the making. It can help us better understand our own solar system and the mysteries of the cosmos, from dark energy and dark matter to the expansion of the universe. Read on to learn more about this and other science news that caught our attention this week.

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory begins operations

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile, which houses the world’s largest digital camera at 3,200 megapixels, has begun its 10-year survey of the universe. Its campaign launched on June 30, and for the next decade it will capture a new image roughly every 40 seconds, surveying the entire southern sky every few nights. A press release announcing its launch said its observations will « create an ultrawide, ultrahigh-resolution time-lapse record of the universe. »

« Today we begin shooting the greatest space movie ever made, » Brian Stone of the National Science Foundation said in the release. The observatory captured its first images last summer in a test run of its capabilities, creating a remarkable view of millions of galaxies and stars, along with thousands of never-before-seen asteroids. During its decade-long survey, called the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), it will scan each point in the sky approximately 800 times, allowing it to record changes and cosmic events. Rubin will take about a thousand images a night, which amounts to about ten terabytes of data per day.

RubinObs/NSF/DOE/NOIRLab/SLAC/AURA/T. Lange

« He is embarking on a mission that will redefine modern cosmology and astrophysics, » said Dario Gil, undersecretary for science at the US Department of Energy. Gill added: « In seeking to understand the enigmatic phenomena of dark energy and dark matter, we are not simply observing the stars; we are seeking to understand the fundamental laws that govern our existence. »

Cyborg cockroaches diving suits for swimming

This week in Research That Makes My Skin Crawl, scientists from Nanyang Technological University Singapore and Waseda University announced that they have developed a tiny diving suit that allows cyborg cockroaches to survive swimming underwater for hours. If you’re wondering why cockroaches even have to be borgified and forced to swim underwater, I’m right there with you.

According to the team, cyborg insects have potential for use in search and rescue operations because they can access spaces that would be inaccessible to humans, animals and larger robots. Cyborg cockroaches were recently sent into the field for the first time to help with search and rescue operations following the devastating earthquake in Myanmar this spring.

NTU Singapore/Waseda University

The flooded environment usually proves off-limits to the cyborg cockroaches, which are living Madagascar hissing cockroaches fitted with electronic controllers. The flexible diving suit consists of an oxygen-generating tank, a flexible shell and four silicone feeding tubes that are attached to the cockroaches’ spiracles, or holes through which they breathe. The team says these tubes can then be removed painlessly without harming the cockroach. In an article published this week in Nature Communicationsresearchers report that cyborg robots have been able to swim underwater for up to 3 hours with this setup in tests.

NASA selects three companies to supply lunar base in 2028

Earlier this year, NASA revised its plans for lunar exploration, announcing that it was halting construction of an orbiting Lunar Gateway space station and would instead build a $20 billion lunar base. The first three missions to deliver payloads to the lunar surface for the eventual lunar base are scheduled to happen before the end of 2026. This week, NASA announced four more missions to the moon, those planned for late 2028. The space agency says it has awarded contracts totaling nearly $600 million to Astrobotic, Firefly Aerospace and Intuitive Machines to deliver scientific payloads to the lunar base.

Astrobotic will make two trips to the moon, while the other two companies will make one each. All of these deliveries will rely on updated versions of each company’s lander designs, building on insights from previous missions under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. The payloads will be the same for each delivery: a Lunar Flux Surface Survey Stereo Camera (SCALPSS) to collect landing data, a Laser Retroreflector Array (LRA) to pinpoint the location of a spacecraft in lunar orbit or land on the surface, and a Linear Energy Transfer Spectrometer (LETS) to measure the energy of incoming cosmic radiation. If it seems redundant, well, that’s the point.

NASA/Astrobotics/Intuitive Machines/Firefly

« By flying the same science instruments on multiple landers, we will better understand potential landing hazards and build a global network of environmental data and location markers on the Moon, » said Joel Kearns, deputy administrator for research, Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters. « This is similar to weather stations at various locations on Earth. These three payloads have been proven in flight, and their data is critical to supporting safe human exploration of the lunar surface. »

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