SCI-TECH

Voyager 1 is one of humanity’s most poignant and remarkable technological achievements. Over the course of its nearly half century odyssey, the probe has glimpsed the gas giant Saturn, passed the threshold for interstellar space, and continually sets the bar for our furthest traveling human-made object. But based on NASA’s projections, Voyager 1 is less than a year away from reaching yet another milestone. On November 15, 2026, the spacecraft will officially be one light-day from Earth.

Astronomers frequently measure distances across the universe in light-years given the incomprehensible size of the cosmos. As far as physicists can tell, nothing moves faster than the speed of light in a vacuum, which travels at 186,000 miles per second. This adds up to about 5.88 trillion miles every Julian calendar year (365.25 days). For reference, the closest star to our sun, Proxima Centauri, is 4.2 light-years away. This means that it would still take a little over four whole years of traveling at lightspeed to reach the red dwarf—not that you would necessarily survive such an experience

While Voyager 1 doesn’t travel anywhere near the speed of light, it’s still moving at an impressive clip. The spacecraft has coasted at around 11 miles per second for decades, adding another 3.5 AU (the distance between the Earth and sun) to its total mileage every single year. This also means radio communications to-and-from NASA mission engineers continually take longer to complete. For example, it took weeks to sort through Voyager 1’s technical difficulties last year since each command relay required a little over 23 hours to travel the billions of miles at lightspeed from Voyager 1 to NASA and vice versa.

In little less than a year, Voyager 1 will finally be 16.1 billion miles from Earth, equivalent to the same distance light travels in 24 hours. If all goes as planned, NASA will still be communicating with the spacecraft at the time of celebration. However, mission engineers know the light-days are numbered.Even if it doesn’t experience any more technical issues, Voyager 1’s three radioisotope thermoelectric generators will finally run out of juice sometime in the 2030s.

The post Voyager 1 is almost one light-day from Earth appeared first on Popular Science.

Neanderthals have received a necessary historical revision over the last few decades. Although many previous depictions presented our long-lost relative as a dimwitted evolutionary misfire, paleoarchaeological evidence now shows they were creative, artistic, and technologically proficient hominins. However, this more accurate picture isn’t entirely pretty. Judging from ancient evidence recovered from a cave in Belgium, at least some Neanderthal communities engaged in selective cannibalism.

The findings originate from inside the Goyet Caves, a series of interconnected cliffside caverns located about 40 miles southeast of Brussels. Hominin usage of the cave system ranges from around 120,000 to 4,000 years ago, yielding diverse remains and artifacts from both early humans as well as Neanderthals.

In the case of the macabre evidence detailed recently in the journal Scientific Reports, at least one group of Neanderthals dined on their fellow hominins while residing in the Goyet Caves. These conclusions are based on a decade of isotopic, DNA, and radiocarbon reassessments conducted by an international team including experts from the French National Center for Scientific Research, as well as the University of Bordeaux and Aix-Marseille University.

According to the researchers, the individuals lived between 41,000 and 45,000 years ago during the Middle Paleolithic,an era featuring wide cultural diversity among Neanderthal communities alongside the emergence of nearby Homo sapien. Biological examinations showed the victims likely came from outside of the immediate area, indicating that they were likely brought to the location to be eaten. Given that the bones displayed signs of butchery similar to other animal remains in the caves, the practice doesn’t appear to be rooted in ritualistic observances, but purely for food.

“If the causes leading to cannibalistic behaviors are always difficult to establish in archaeological contexts, the integrated approach developed here—combining taphonomic, isotopic, genomic, and morphometric data—provides an unprecedented characterization of the Goyet assemblage,” the study’s authors wrote.

While the exact details surrounding the cannibalism will never be known, the team suspects the practice was, “possibly linked to inter-group conflict, territoriality, and/or [the] specific treatment of outsiders.”

The post The Neanderthals who ate their neighbors appeared first on Popular Science.