Biden administration officials are divided over how aggressively new artificial intelligence tools should be regulated — and their

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jul 19, 2023--

NASA's Perseverance rover picked up some intriguing-looking objects on Mars this week, which prompted all kinds of speculation on social media. The photo in question was captured on 18 August as Perseverance travels over an "ancient river" and was voted the space agency's top image of the week. On X/Twitter, NASA wrote: "As promised, here’s the new Image of the Week, as voted by you! This rocky duo was spotted hanging out together in a wind-swept area. I spy a…crab claw? Shark fin?" The post was soon flooded with users' takes, with many claiming the two boulders mirrored a shark fin and a crab claw. "I don't know why, but those rocks are really satisfying to look at," one person wrote, while another joked: "I vote for coffee bean." Meanwhile, one realist responded: "That’s literally two rocks." The Perseverance rover landed on 18 February 2021, after a 7-month journey from Earth that started in the summer. The robot has since provided the world with stunning visuals – one of which captured the hearts of social media users. Last year, the rover acquired a pet rock friend on its back wheel, that continued to hitchhike months into its journey. Perseverance likely picked up the large stone in Jezero Crater, which is a 45 kilometer-wide crater thought to have once been filled with water. "The Perseverance rover has a pet rock. NASA says it's breaking hitchhiking records," one person said at the time, while another added: "There's a small rock that's been hitching a ride inside one of the metal wheels of a Mars Rover and I gotta say Perseverance's Pet Rock is a kid's book in the making." Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Nasa has launched its Psyche craft into space, on a mission to study an ancient, metallic asteroid. The spacecraft set off on a six year journey, carried away by one of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rockets. It is aimed at an asteroid, also called Psyche, where it will arrive in 2029 and hopes to look back to the beginnings of our own Earth. Most asteroids tend to be rocky or icy, and this is the first exploration of a metal world. Scientists believe it may be the battered remains of an early planet’s core, and could shed light on the inaccessible centers of Earth and other rocky planets. SpaceX launched the spacecraft into a midmorning sky from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Psyche should reach the huge, potato-shaped object in 2029. After decades of visiting faraway worlds of rock, ice and gas, NASA is psyched to pursue one coated in metal. Of the nine or so metal-rich asteroids discovered so far, Psyche is the biggest, orbiting the sun in the outer portion of the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter alongside millions of other space rocks. It was discovered in 1852 and named after Greek mythology’s captivating goddess of the soul. “It’s long been humans’ dream to go to the metal core of our Earth. I mean, ask Jules Verne,” said lead scientist Lindy Elkins-Tanton of Arizona State University. “The pressure is too high. The temperature is too high. The technology is impossible,” she added. “But there’s one way in our solar system that we can look at a metal core and that is by going to this asteroid.” Astronomers know from radar and other observations that the asteroid is big — about 144 miles (232 kilometers) across at its widest and 173 miles (280 kilometers) long. They believe it’s brimming with iron, nickel and other metals, and quite possibly silicates, with a dull, predominantly gray surface likely covered with fine metal grains from cosmic impacts. Otherwise, it’s a speck of light in the night sky, full of mystery until the spacecraft reaches it after traveling more than 2 billion miles (3.6 billion kilometers).Scientists envision spiky metal craters, huge metal cliffs and metal-encrusted eroded lava flows greenish-yellow from sulfur — “almost certain to be completely wrong,” according to Elkins-Tanton. It’s also possible that trace amounts of gold, silver, platinum or iridium — iron-loving elements — could be dissolved in the asteroid’s iron and nickel, she said. “There’s a very good chance that it’s going to be outside of our imaginings, and that is my fondest hope,” she said. Believed to be a planetary building block from the solar system’s formation 4.5 billion years ago, the asteroid can help answer such fundamental questions as how did life arise on Earth and what makes our planet habitable, according to Elkins-Tanton.On Earth, the planet’s iron core is responsible for the magnetic field that shields our atmosphere and enables life. Led by Arizona State University on NASA’s behalf, the $1.2 billion mission will use a roundabout route to get to the asteroid. The van-size spacecraft with solar panels big enough to fill a tennis court will swoop past Mars for a gravity boost in 2026. Three years later, it will reach the asteroid and attempt to go into orbit around it, circling as high as 440 miles (700 kilometers) and as close as 47 miles (75 kilometers) until at least 2031. The spacecraft relies on solar electric propulsion, using xenon gas-fed thrusters and their gentle blue-glowing pulses. An experimental communication system is also along for the ride, using lasers instead of radio waves in an attempt to expand the flow of data from deep space to Earth. NASA expects the test to yield more than 10 times the amount of data, enough to transmit videos from the moon or Mars one day. The spacecraft should have soared a year ago, but was held up by delays in flight software testing attributed to poor management and other issues. The revised schedule added extra travel time. So instead of arriving at the asteroid in 2026 as originally planned, the spacecraft won’t get there until 2029. That’s the same year that another NASA spacecraft — the one that just returned asteroid samples to the Utah desert — will arrive at a different space rock as it buzzes Earth. Additional reporting by Reuters Read More Watch live as Nasa launches spacecraft bound to orbit Psyche asteroid Here’s how you can see the ‘Ring of fire’ solar eclipse on Saturday Nasa opens up pieces of a distant asteroid transported back to Earth Prada to design Nasa’s next-gen space suits for Artemis astronauts 1.2 mile-high ‘dust devil’ spotted on Mars by Nasa’s Perseverance rover Rover captures one-mile-high whirlwind on Mars

PORTLAND, Ore.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 29, 2023--

TL;DR: As of July 1, you can get access to the Phigolf World Tour Edition

Nearly 25% of the US population is facing high, wilting temperatures that show no sign of abating anytime

The 2023 Women's World Cup finally gets underway on Thursday with the two host nations kicking off the tournament and the summer of footballing festivities.

Maxeon Solar Technologies Ltd. plans to spend $1.2 billion to build the biggest US factory for polysilicon solar

SOUTHFIELD, Mich.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 9, 2023--

Paige Spiranac is known for her quirky ways of shutting down her haters and it seems like she's never going to back down

To fix the Valorant Audio bug causing double processing in Patch 7.07, turn off Windows Sonic and only run the HRTF setting in game.