Artist’s impression of ESA’s ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter detecting the green glow of oxygen in the martian atmosphere.Image: ESA
The Red Planet has a touch of green, according to atmospheric observations performed by the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter. It’s the first time this effect has been documented on a planet other than Earth.
Like Earth, Mars features green airglow emissions in its dayside atmosphere, according to new research published in Nature Astronomy. The green hue happens when the Sun’s rays excite oxygen molecules in the upper atmosphere.
This green glow effect is quite faint, but astronauts aboard the International Space Station have the best seats in the house to view the phenomenon happening on Earth. They can spot airglow when looking at Earth’s limb—the curved edge of the planet as it appears to intersect with space.
Green airglow in Earth’s atmosphere, as seen from the ISS in 2011.Image: NASA
Airglow green line emissions are not to be confused with auroras, commonly known as the Northern and Southern Lights. Auroras arise from collisions between atmospheric molecules, namely oxygen and nitrogen, and fast-moving particles, i.e. electrons, that originate in Earth’s magnetic field. Green line emissions also involve oxygen atoms, which produce the green hue, but the dayglow happens when the Sun’s rays directly excite these atoms and molecules (Mars lacks a strong magnetic field). Nightglow emissions happen when busted molecules recombine.
And yes, Mars has oxygen, though not at the same levels seen on Earth. In fact, atmospheric oxygen on Mars exists as a byproduct of disintegrating carbon dioxide, the result of the Sun’s rays knocking out one of its two oxygen atoms. It’s this very process that produces the green glow, according to the new research, led by Jean-Claude Gérard of the University of Liège in Belgium.
Green airglow emissions on Mars were predicted to exist 40 years ago, but this is the first confirmed detection—a result made possible by the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, a satellite that’s been circling Mars since 2016. The orbiter detected the excited oxygen with its NOMAD spectrometer, which scanned the Martian dayside surface in both ultraviolet and visible light.
“Previous observations hadn’t captured any kind of green glow at Mars, so we decided to reorient the [ultraviolet and visible spectrometer]… to point at the ‘edge’ of Mars, similar to the perspective you see in images of Earth taken from the ISS,” explained Ann Carine Vandaele from the the Royal Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy in an ESA press release.
The researchers took measurements between 12 to 250 miles (20 to 400 km) above the Martian surface. The green oxygen emissions were found in all of these altitudes, but they were strongest at 50 miles (80 km) above the surface. The strength varied according to the changing distance between Mars and the Sun.
Interestingly, this technique can now be used to measure the density of the Martian atmosphere. This could prove useful for upcoming missions in which engineers need to account for the atmospheric drag experienced by orbiting satellites and by parachutes delivering probes to the surface.
Earth and Venus, as seen from the surface of Mars. Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech
In other Mars-related news, NASA’s Curiosity rover captured a shot of Earth and Venus in the Martian night sky. Both planets appear as bright specks of light, with the third planet from the Sun glowing more brightly than the second, as seen from the fourth planet. The image was captured on June 5, 2020 as Curiosity was measuring the brightness of twilight.
With pandemic-related lockdowns and the release of Animal Crossing, simply getting a Switch has been hard enough. Even if you obtain one, if you’d also like to play Nintendo’s Ring Fit Adventure for a quick at-home workout then good luck — it’s been just as tough to obtain, selling out in seconds whenever it appears online. So if you, like me, are on the outside looking in but you already have a Switch and a pair of Joy-Cons (sorry Switch Lite owners), then at least you can try the company’s newest game: Jump Rope Challenge.
— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) June 16, 2020
It’s not nearly as full featured as Ring Fit Adventure, but it does encourage activity using the accessories you already have. It simply emulates the jump rope experience using Joy-Cons while counting your jumps on the screen, and even has support for up to two players. According to the company, this game “was created by a small group of Nintendo developers while working from home in Japan.”
The game also has some consideration for players with mobility concerns, or just downstairs neighbors who wouldn’t appreciate all of that jumping. Apparently you can also play by bending your knees, or even just moving your arms to play silently.
The best part is that its free, although Nintendo says that will only last for a limited time that runs through the end of September. You can grab it on the eShop and try it out right now in between attempts to check out Ring Fit Adventure before the bots get every copy.
The newly released Gundam Beyond Global model has enough points of articulation that a variety of very cool and very humorous poses are possible.
As Mecha Catalogue reports, this High Grade RX-78-2 Gundam is a completely new kit and is part of Gunpla’s 40th anniversary. Below are some examples of the articulation, which really makes this RX-78-2 highly expressive.
Adobe released the official Photoshop Camera app for Android late last week and I played with it over the weekend. Basically, it’s a filter app that you can mess around with, creating unique looking shots which are good for sharing to your social accounts.
There are a few features available, but the big draw are the filters and real-time processing that takes place inside of the app. I’m sure Adobe poured a ton of resources into the app and it shows in the results.
Check out the example below. In the photo on the left, which is the original, we have a very typical June afternoon in Portland, OR. Totally grey and ugly. When you apply the blue sky filter, boom, you have yourself a beautiful day.
Overcast outside? Not with Photoshop Camera!
There are also extremely cheesy filters, such as the one that heads this post. Obviously, I didn’t take a trip to Jupiter this weekend, but if you’re into these sorta SciFi shots, it’s fun to play with.
The app also allows for downloading additional filters from a marketplace and provides a comprehensive editing suite for the photos you do capture. It’s a pretty sweet app, so definitely give it a go.
To have yourself some fun, download the app from Google Play below.
The Lanmodo Night Vision system won’t turn your car into the Batmobile, but it definitely has that halo of techno-magic worthy of a Batman comic. It’s a night vision system in color for your car. It literally turns night into day and is so easy to use that you don’t even have to professionally install it. Which is great, because it’s awfully expensive for what you get.
Germany, which is where I live, is very aware of light pollution and a big energy saver—which is a nice way of saying its highways are darker than a cricket butt. Not even the highways with a significant amount of traffic are lit up. When you go from one town to another you depend on your car lights, and sometimes that’s not enough. So you can see why the Lanmodo Night Vision system was awfully appealing to me.
The Lanmodo Night Vision system is a gadget the size of a rearview mirror, but instead of having a mirror, it has an 8.2-inch Full HD screen. On the other side you’ll find a camera similar in size to a webcam. The camera is nested inside a swivel that allows you to reposition the lens to better frame the highway in front of you regardless of where you install it. A single OBD cable juts out of the back of the device.
In terms of controls, there are only seven buttons on the top (or on the bottom if you decide to install it on your windshield like a rear view mirror substitute). At first, I was a bit disappointed at this simplicity, but over time I have to admit that it’s a win.
Easy to use, easy to install
The installation is one of the best things about the Lanmodo Night Vision system. Normally, car accessories tend to require complex set-ups and possibly even a trip to a professional installer. However, you can install this like you would install a GPS system. Just plug and play. If you know about car electronics, you can pass the cable underneath the dashboard and connect it to the car’s OBD cable for a neat install. But it’s nice to have the option of just plugging it into the lighter outlet. You mount it either on the inside of your windshield with a suction cup or on the dashboard with a non-slip mat. Both accessories come in the box and work wonderfully.
The ease of the installation also extends to use. The moment you plug it in and turn on the car, the Lanmodo Night Vision system activates by itself and you’re. It recognizes ambient light by itself and selects the best image mode automatically. The only time you really have to fiddle with set up is if you have it mounted on the windshield. In that case, you have to turn the image upside down, but it’s a 10-second process.
The top buttons, besides turning the system on and off, allow you to adjust the brightness and contrast on the screen and rotate the image depending on your installation choice. Another button lets you alternate between the front and the optional $100 rear camera. The model I tried didn’t have that accessory, so this button didn’t do anything for me.
The last button lets you toggle the image between black and white and color. The Lanmodo Night Vision screen actually combines two images being captured by its camera. It gets the first image from a Sony MCCD sensor that magnifies the light, and the second image from an infrared sensor. When there’s little ambient light, the color information can disappear and switching to infrared only might be preferable.
On the top, you can see the image in color. Below it, you can see the image in black and white at 480p that appears when you completely turn off your car lights. Can you see the cat?Photo: Carlos Zahumenszky (Gizmodo)
But the Landmodo Night Vision will automatically switch to infrared only if it detects zero external light (say if you turn off your lights on a dark highway). The image automatically changes to black and white and the Lanmodo Night Vision system trusts in the information that it receives from the infrared sensor. However, the infrared sensor doesn’t capture as high a resolution as the other, and image quality will drop from 1080p to 480p. But again, this only happens if you’re in the most absolute and complete darkness, without sources of external light and with the car lights off. I can think of very limited situations where this should happen in the real world. Unless you dedicate your time to hunting deer from your car you should be fine.
Using the Lanmodo Night Vision system
By day, the image quality is excellent and there’s no signal delay that could make it uncomfortable or dangerous to use. Driving while trying to use only the information on the screen is possible (at low speeds), but it is not advisable, and possibly not even legal in your state. Perhaps if you install it right in front of the steering wheel it could work, but don’t do that! Keep your eyes on the road please.
One interesting feature that I haven’t been able to try out yet due to the weather is its ability to improve visibility in thick fog or heavy rain. I’ll update this review the next time I get some rain.
At night, the system offers an amazing amount of extra information over what my own eyes and headlights provide. It has a 36-degree viewing angle and reach of about 985 feet. In general, what it does is highlight the dark points on the road so I can better see animals or other objects outside the range of my headlights.
On one of my test drives, I was driving slowly down country road without lights when the screen showed a dark object moving towards the front of the car. It was a cat. I flipped on the lights and still couldn’t see it with my own eyes. I could only see that little buddy on the screen.
The only problem the system had when I used it at night was that the lights from the other cars are even more blinding on the screen, but you can greatly improve the situation by reducing the brightness.
Summary
The Lanmodo Night Vision system isn’t for everyone. If you always drive on well-lit streets and your car has good rear lights, you don’t need a system like this one. However, if your car is like mine (an old 2008 Ford Focus) or you live in a less than the well-lit area you can probably get a lot of use out of it or something like it (similar gadgets can be found on both Amazon and Aliexpress). The ideal users for this gadget are people who live in the country and frequently have to drive on streets with no light, or even on roads that aren’t even paved. If you’re a forest engineer or you have a farm, it’s very likely that the Lanmodo Night Vision system will change your driving life.
But at $500 (and $600 if you include the rear camera) it’s hard to justify the Lanmodo Night Vision system right now. It’s way too simple for the price! That simplicity is marvelous to avoid distractions while you drive, but I can’t help thinking that it could have a few more features to justify its price tag. It’s also due for an upgrade as later this year, Lanmodo will launch an Indiegogo Campaign for a new generation of its Night Vision System. We will get our hand on that new device so you can compare better between the two. But for now it’s probably a good idea to hold off—unless you really live in absolute darkness.
README
Very good image quality at night as well as during the day.
It’s extremely easy to use and install.
It doesn’t have a lot of functions. It helps you see better when you drive at night. That’s all.
It has a quite high price for what it offers.
This review originally appeared in Gizmodo en Español. You can read it in Spanish here.
FRANKFURT — The number of publicly accessible charging points for electric vehicles jumped 60% in 2019, the biggest increase in three years and outpacing sales of battery-powered cars, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
In its annual Global EV Outlook, the IEA said the number of public slow and fast charging spots reached 862,118 globally, with China, the world’s largest car market, taking a 60% share.
Fast chargers accounted for 31% of the total. The IEA defines slow charging as providing power of up to 22 kilowatts (kW), taking hours to charge a vehicle battery. Fast chargers, including Tesla’s superchargers, can take minutes.
“China continues to lead in the rollout of publicly accessible chargers, particularly fast chargers, which are suited to its dense urban areas with less opportunity for private charging at home,” the report said.
The increase reflects efforts to build critical infrastructure ahead of an expected boom in EV sales, which accounted for just 1% of global car stock last year, according to the IEA.
While most EV charging takes place at home or at work, the rollout of public infrastructure is key to convincing prospective buyers that there is no risk of them getting stranded on an empty battery.
As part of its economic stimulus plan, Germany announced earlier this month that it would provide 500 million euros ($563 million) to support the rollout of private charge points, of which there are 6.5 million worldwide.
“I view this as an organic step in the right direction, but not a revolution with big winners or losers,” said Thomas Daiber, founder of e-mobility advisory firm Cosmic Cat, of the German plan.
As well as Tesla, charge point providers include Anglo-Dutch group Shell, France’s Engie, Germany’s E.ON, Volkswagen and ChargePoint, whose shareholders include Daimler, BMW and Siemens.
In recent years, the search for better fuel efficiency and smoother shifting has produced automatic transmissions with double-digit gears. Alternatively, the same quest has boosted the popularity and usage of a different type of automatic transmission without any fixed gears, the continuously variable transmission, or CVT. YouTuber Sariel’s Lego Workshop recently took the time to build a CVT demonstration model out of Legos to help explain how they work.
Sariel begins by showing the model’s input and output shafts that are parallel to each other. Each shaft has a cone attached to it, and they are inversely placed so that the large part of one cone is next to the small part of the other cone. The two cones are connected using a rounded rubber band.
By shifting the rubber band up and down the cones, the machine changes the effective ratio between the cones. So, a 1:4 ratio can be smoothly transitioned to 4:1. No clutch is required to operate the mechanism, and it eliminates hitches or pauses between gear changes. CVTs are also advantageous over 9- or 10-speed automatics in that they are far less complex and weigh less.
To demonstrate how the CVT operates in a vehicle, Sariel used a joke about Top Gear. The original Top Gear is represented by a faster-moving car that has the rubber band around the large part of the cone on the input shaft. Top Gear without former hosts Richard Hammond, Jeremy Clarkson, and James May is represented by a slow-moving car with the rubber band around the large part of the cone on the output shaft.
For an even more detailed explanation of how CVTs work — albeit one that doesn’t involve toys — you can click here.
