SoftBank Group Corp. is setting up an artificial intelligence-oriented warehousing joint venture with Symbotic Inc. and buying more

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

Scientists have managed to simulate their very own black hole in their lab and witnessed how it began to glow. The black hole event horizon was created by a team of physicists from the University of Amsterdam, who used a chain of atoms in a single file to gain further understanding about the behaviour of a black hole. Its creation managed to prove Stephen Hawking's theory from 1974 where the black hole emitted a rare form of radiation. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter They studied the properties of Hawking radiation through the creation of a black hole analog in the lab. According to Science Alert, Hawking radiation happens when "particles born from disturbances in the quantum fluctuations caused by the black hole's break in spacetime." The fact that the radiation exhibits a glow itself is in a strange space anomaly, as the event horizon of a black hole is supposed to be where neither light nor matter is able to get out. We all learn about the strength of a black hole in science class – and how we would all be inevitably sucked in as a result. This is possible due to its density within a certain range of the centre, so even an attempt at travelling beyond light speed (or any velocity in the universe for the matter) would not make this unavoidable. The fake black hole event also caused a rise in temperature that matched theoretical expectations of an equivalent black hole system, - but only when part of the chain extended beyond the event horizon, Science Alert reported. As a result, it is believed perhaps this entanglement of particles that straddle the event horizon plays a big role in generating Hawking radiation. Under simulations that began by mimicking spacetime thought of as "flat," scientists say the radiation was only thermal for a certain range of 'hop amplitudes'. So there may be certain situations where Hawking radiation can emit thermally - and could only be the case where gravity causes a change in the warp of space-time. "This can open a venue for exploring fundamental quantum-mechanical aspects alongside gravity and curved spacetimes in various condensed matter settings," the scientists wrote in their paper published by Physical Review Research. 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

MENLO PARK, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 14, 2023--

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TAUNTON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 30, 2023--

Elon Musk's rebranding of Twitter to X is complete. The app’s icon now sports a

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Prepare for your Twitter — sorry, X — feed to clog up with engagement bait.

A Black Lives Matter T-shirt has caused a stir across TikTok – for obvious reasons. In a viral clip that's racked up almost two million views, TikToker Ashton (@ashray) shared an image of the bizarre top, which read: "Black Lives Matter." It was complete with a graphic of a coffee mug, reading: "But first, coffee" which implies coffee is more important than black lives. Ashton's reaction said it all: "What if I hit you with my f***ing car?" The clip was soon flooded with hundreds of gobsmacked users asking who in the right mind thought it was appropriate. "You just KNOW it was some Karen with a live laugh love aesthetic that pitched this," one person said, while another added: "Like what do you mean 'but firsttttttt'?" A third commented: "WHO THOUGHT THAT WAS OKAY????" Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter @ashray #greenscreen It comes after Walmart were forced to pull one of their T-shirts due to an unfortunate spelling blunder. The garment features a pro-recycling slogan with the letter RE in upper-case, followed by four words: Cycle, Use, New, and Think. On closer inspection, the first letter of each of those words spells out a four-letter profanity. Twitter users were left in hysterics with one person tweeting: "Did they trash the shirts or recycle them?" Another was convinced the Walmart clothes designer knew exactly what they were doing, despite a spokesperson saying: "This was not intentional, and the t-shirt has been removed." People who managed to get their hands on the T-shirt before it was officially removed by the supermarket have since been selling them on due to high demand. 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.

Capcom is holding an open beta for Street Fighter 6 later this month, and players can pre-load the game ahead of time. Here's what you need to know.