Stellary Starry Universe

 

Multi-robot planetary exploration would be a complex affair, with humans working with a diverse team of mobile robots operating in a variety of control modes.

“Aurora sees this as an opportunity to expand its multi-vehicle coordination capabilities into the realm of planetary exploration. We view this project as a natural integration of our expertise in space systems and in tools for planning and coordinating autonomous teams,” said Dr. James Paduano, Autonomy Controls and Estimation Group Lead. [...]

 

 

Source: Space.com – click here for full article

 

 

The leading idea falls apart under the turbulent forces. Gas-rich planets such as Jupiter and Saturn grew from a disk of dust and gas which eventually crumpled like a piece of paper under its own gravitational instability — or so one theory goes.

Now a computer simulation suggests that this idea falls apart under the turbulent forces within early protoplanetary systems.

The old, favored theory relies on the protoplanetary dust disk becoming denser and thinner until it reaches a tipping point, where it becomes gravitationally unstable and collapses into kilometer-sized building blocks that form the basis for gas giants. But 3D modeling has shown for the first time that turbulence prevents the dust from settling into the dense disk necessary for gravitational instability to work

“It has been known since the ’80s that there have been problems with that theory, but no one had gotten around to doing 3D simulations,” said Joseph Barranco, an astrophysicist at San Francisco State University in California. [...]

 

Source: Space.com – click here for full article