Virgin Orbit Aiming For Mars

On October 9th 2019, Virgin Orbit announced that it would soon be launching its first satellite into orbit in November of 2019.The bulk of Virgin Orbit's business will involve lifting satellites into low Earth orbit. The ultimate goal of the Virgin Galactic sibling is to send cubesats to Mars by the year 2022. The company plans to use an air launch rocket called LauncherOne, which will be attached to a modified 747 known as Comic Girl.

Chinese Rover Discovers Strange Gel On Moon

On August 17th 2019, Beijing Aerospace Control Center released a statement regarding it's Yutu-2 lunar rover. The rover which is currently exploring the far, or "dark side," of the moon, has discovered a strange gel like substance inside an impact creator. Images from the Yutu-2's cameras that were taken on July 28th 2019 revealed a material at the bottom of the creator that did not appear to look the same as the soil from the surrounding area.

Yutu-2's drive team decided to investigate the find, and sent the rover back to get a closer look at the material in the creator. Upon its returned to the creator, Yutu-2 used its Visible and Near Infrared Spectrometer (VNIS), to do an analysis. The results of the analysis are not yet known, but researchers believe that the material is most likely some type of glass that might have been produce by the high heat that was produced at the time of the meteorite impact.

Streaming Takes The Lead

On September 6th 2019, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), announced that the steaming of recorded music now makes up for 80% of it yearly revenue. They go on to report that vinyl and CDS have actually improved in sales, with vinyl rising by 5% and CDs rising by13%. The RIAA goes on to report that the recording industry took in $5.4 billion through the first six months on 2019, with $4.3 billion of that being derived from streaming. Streaming officially took over as the number one delivery system in 2015.

3.8 Million Year Old Skull Sheds New Light

On August 28th 2019, it was announced in the Journal Nature that archeologists had discovered the skull of an ancient hominid that dates back 3.8 million years. The skull was discovered in the Ethiopian dessert by Yohannes Hailee Selassie of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History and his team. Selassie believes the new find is a member of the species, Australopithecus anamensis and is a direct ancestor to the "Lucy," the skull which was found in 1974.

"Lucy," was a member of the species Australopithecus afarensis and represents a 100,000 year period where the two species overlapped. This discovery marks the first time where the evidence reveals that within the evolutionary process, one species dose not disappear, to be replaced by the new one. The face of the new skull is male with  jaws made for chewing. "Lucy," on the other hand, had a flat face which appears to be a change toward a more Human physiology.

New Release!

Just released a new track by Nprogram entitled, "From The Get Go." It's now available at iTunes! Click the widget below or log into Spotify to hear a full stream preview!

India's Chandrayaan-2 Moon Mission

On July 22nd 2019, India successfully launched its Chandrayaan-2 space craft on a mssion to the moon. India's goal with Chandrayaan-2 is to have the craft make a soft landing at the moon's south pole. If all goes well, such a landing will mkae India the fourth nation behind the U S, Russia, and China, to make a successful landing on the lunar surface. The mission will also make India's Chandraan-2 the first space craft to land at the moon's south pole.

Elon Musk Introduces Neuralink

On July 16th 2019, Elon Musk, the billionaire founder of SpaceX, introduce the world to his nanotechnology company called, Neuralink. The goal of Neuralink is to create a computer interface that can be implanted in the brain and can be used to allow humans to control computers using only their minds. Mr. Musk says that Neuralink, which was founded in 2016, has already had successful experiments using monkeys as test subjects.

Neuralink's plan is to use a surgical robot to implant an array consisting of 3,072 flexible electrodes or threads into the cortex, or outer layer of the brain. The array will then be connected to a USB port on the outside of the brain. The electrodes will pick up and relay signals both to and from the brain.  Mr Musk and his team say, the interface will eventually be used in conjunction with AI. Mr. Musk also says that Neuralink expects human testing to begin in 2020.