Science

[RWMc1]

I don't know where all "you people" are at, but you might be able to catch some auroras over the next few days.

 

From spaceweather.com

 

Over the past few days, a series of M-class solar flares hurled multiple CMEs in the general direction of Earth. So many CMEs have left the sun since Sept. 20th, analysts are having trouble sorting them out and modeling their trajectories. Somewhere between two and four appear capable of grazing Earth's magnetic field between Sept. 23rd and Sept. 25th. Minor G1-class geomagnetic storms are possible on all those days.

[MeanSeanBean]

12 minutes ago, RWMc1 said:

I don't know where all "you people" are at, but you might be able to catch some auroras over the next few days.

 

From spaceweather.com

 

Over the past few days, a series of M-class solar flares hurled multiple CMEs in the general direction of Earth. So many CMEs have left the sun since Sept. 20th, analysts are having trouble sorting them out and modeling their trajectories. Somewhere between two and four appear capable of grazing Earth's magnetic field between Sept. 23rd and Sept. 25th. Minor G1-class geomagnetic storms are possible on all those days.

[RWMc1]

There's a story in here about NASA’s OSIRIS-REx sample return capsule, carrying pieces of asteroid Bennu. The payload landed in a remote mountainous area that is non-trivial to access.

 

I found this bit of info to be very interesting: "That the mission ultimately succeeded is in part due to Queen guitarist Brian May, who meticulously created 3D images of the rubble pile to help the mission leaders identify safe landing spots."

 

https://www.livescience.com/space    Lot's of good stuff on this site.

Edited September 24, 2023 by RWMc1

[the destroyer of worlds]

Cool that we live in a time when stuff like this can be tested.  For decades, this simply wasn't possible.  

 

 

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03043-0?utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=nature&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1695831577

Antimatter falls down, not up: CERN experiment confirms theory

Observing this simple phenomenon had eluded physicists for decades.

 

 

 

 

 

[UnkNuk]

‘We are just getting started’: the plastic-eating bacteria that could change the world

 

When a microbe was found munching on a plastic bottle in a rubbish dump, it promised a recycling revolution. Now scientists are attempting to turbocharge those powers in a bid to solve our waste crisis. But will it work?

 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/sep/28/plastic-eating-bacteria-enzyme-recycling-waste?utm_source=join1440&utm_medium=email&utm_placement=newsletter

[Ghost In a Jar]

 

[6of1_halfdozenofother]

Wasn't sure if this would be better placed in the Climate Change thread or this one, but since it aligns a little more closely with science, I'll go with this one.  And I'll add the comment that if they want my pee for building materials, I'll happily provide it - as long as I'm properly compensated (and not with beer, because that's apparently another material that can be used for building).

 

Quote

Ancient buildings included ash, beer and urine. Why do they stand the test of time?

Modern concrete has strength but not endurance. Scientists are learning what Maya and Rome got right

The Associated Press · Posted: Oct 03, 2023 9:13 AM PDT | Last Updated: 8 hours ago

Tourists visit the Pantheon in Rome in March. Starting around 200 BC, the architects of the Roman Empire were building impressive concrete structures that have stood the test of time. (Alessandra Tarantino/The Associated Press)

 

In the quest to build better for the future, some are looking for answers in the long-ago past.

 

Ancient builders across the world created structures that are still standing today, thousands of years later — from Roman engineers who poured thick concrete sea barriers, to Maya masons who crafted plaster sculptures to their gods, to Chinese builders who raised walls against invaders.

 

Yet scores of more recent structures are already staring down their expiration dates: The concrete that makes up much of our modern world typically has a lifespan of around 50 to 100 years.

 

A growing number of scientists have been studying materials from long-ago eras — chipping off chunks of buildings, poring over historical texts, mixing up copycat recipes — hoping to uncover how they've held up for millennia.

Ingredients: tree bark and rice

This reverse engineering has turned up a surprising list of ingredients that were mixed into old buildings — materials such as tree bark, volcanic ash, rice, beer and even urine. These unexpected add-ins could be key to some pretty impressive properties, like the ability to get stronger over time and "heal" cracks when they form.

 

Figuring out how to copy those features could have real impacts today: While our modern concrete has the strength to hold up massive skyscrapers and heavy infrastructure, it can't compete with the endurance of these ancient materials.

 

And with the rising threats of climate change, there's a growing call to make construction more sustainable. A recent UN report estimates that the built environment is responsible for more than a third of global CO2 emissions — and cement production alone makes up more than seven per cent of those emissions.

 

Tourists take pictures inside the archaeological site of Copan, in Honduras, in 2021. Intricate lime sculptures and temples remain intact here even after more than 1,000 years exposed to a hot, humid environment. (Rodrigo Abd/The Associated Press)

 

"If you improve the properties of the material by using traditional recipes from Maya people or the ancient Chinese, you can produce material that can be used in modern construction in a much more sustainable way," said Carlos Rodriguez-Navarro, a cultural heritage researcher at Spain's University of Granada.

 

Many researchers have turned to the Romans for inspiration. Starting around 200 BC, the architects of the Roman Empire were building impressive concrete structures that have stood the test of time — from the soaring dome of the Pantheon to the sturdy aqueducts that still carry water today.

Why is Roman concrete different?

Even in harbours, where seawater has been battering structures for ages, you'll find concrete "basically the way it was when it was poured 2,000 years ago," said John Oleson, an archaeologist at the University of Victoria.

 

Most modern concrete starts with Portland cement, a powder made by heating limestone and clay to super-high temperatures and grinding them up. That cement is mixed with water to create a chemically reactive paste. Then, chunks of material like rock and gravel are added, and the cement paste binds them into a concrete mass.

 

According to records from ancient architects like Vitruvius, the Roman process was similar. The ancient builders mixed materials like burnt limestone and volcanic sand with water and gravel, creating chemical reactions to bind everything together.

 

Now, scientists think they've found a key reason why some Roman concrete has held up structures for thousands of years: The ancient material has an unusual power to repair itself. Exactly how is not yet clear, but scientists are starting to find clues.

Concrete so well-designed 'it sustains itself'

In a study published earlier this year, Admir Masic, a civil and environmental engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), proposed that this power comes from chunks of lime that are studded throughout the Roman material instead of being mixed in evenly. Researchers used to think these chunks were a sign the Romans weren't mixing up their materials well enough.

 

Instead, after analyzing concrete samples from Privernum — an ancient city outside of Rome — the scientists found the chunks could fuel the material's "self-healing" abilities. When cracks form, water is able to seep into the concrete, Masic explained. That water activates the leftover pockets of lime, sparking up new chemical reactions that can fill in the damaged sections.

 

Marie Jackson, a geologist at the University of Utah, has a different take. Her research has found that the key could be in the specific volcanic materials used by the Romans.

 

The builders would gather volcanic rocks left behind after eruptions to mix into their concrete. This naturally reactive material changes over time as it interacts with the elements, Jackson said, allowing it to seal cracks that develop.

 

The ability to keep adapting over time "is truly the genius of the material," Jackson said. "The concrete was so well designed that it sustains itself."

Tree 'juice' makes it sturdy

At Copan, a Maya site in Honduras, intricate lime sculptures and temples remain intact even after more than 1,000 years exposed to a hot, humid environment. And according to a study published earlier this year, the secret to their longevity might lie in the trees that sprout among them.

 

Researchers here had a living link to the structures' creators: They met with local masons in Honduras who traced their lineage all the way back to the Mayan builders, explained Rodriguez-Navarro, who worked on the study.

 

The masons suggested using extracts from local chukum and jiote trees in the lime mix. When researchers tested out the recipe — collecting bark, putting the chunks in water and adding the resulting tree "juice" into the material — they found the resulting plaster was especially durable against physical and chemical damage.

 

When scientists zoomed in, they saw that bits of organic material from the tree juice got incorporated into the plaster's molecular structure. In this way, the Mayan plaster was able to mimic sturdy natural structures like seashells and sea urchin spines — and borrow some of their toughness, Rodriguez-Navarro said.

 

Studies have found all kinds of natural materials mixed into structures from long ago: fruit extracts, milk, cheese curd, beer, even dung and urine. The mortar that holds together some of China's most famous structures — including the Great Wall and the Forbidden City — includes traces of starch from sticky rice.

 

The Badaling section of the Great Wall of China is lit on the outskirts of Beijing in 2022. The mortar that holds together the Great Wall includes traces of starch from sticky rice. (Ng Han Guan/The Associated Press)

 

Today's builders can't just copy the ancient recipes. Even though Roman concrete lasted a long time, it couldn't hold up heavy loads: "You couldn't build a modern skyscraper with Roman concrete," Oleson said. "It would collapse when you got to the third story."

 

Instead, researchers are trying to take some of the ancient material's specialties and add them into modern mixes. Masic is part of a startup that is trying to build new projects using Roman-inspired, "self-healing" concrete. And Jackson is working with the Army Corps of Engineers to design concrete structures that can hold up well in seawater — like the ones in Roman ports — to help protect coastlines from sea-level rise.

 

We don't need to make things last quite as long as the Romans did to have an impact, Masic said. If we add 50 or 100 years to concrete's lifespan, "we will require less demolition, less maintenance and less material in the long run."

 

https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/ancient-buildings-1.6984975

[6of1_halfdozenofother]

Get connected, they said.

It'll be fun, they said.

 

Quote

Connected vehicles can be at risk of hacking, consumer awareness paramount: experts

 

Experts warn modern, connected vehicles, which are heavily packed with microchips and sophisticated software, offer an open door to hackers. Nissan Motor Co. General Manager Tetsuya Iijima gets his hands off of the steering wheel of a self-driving prototype vehicle during a test drive in Tokyo, Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2015. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP-Eugene Hoshiko

Read More

By Ritika Dubey, The Canadian Press

Posted Oct 8, 2023, 7:22AM PDT.

Last Updated Oct 8, 2023, 8:30AM PDT.

 

Blasting the heat with a remote sensor before you even get into your vehicle on a brisk winter morning is a welcome convenience. So are the comforts of lane assistance, voice command, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.

 

But experts warn modern, connected vehicles, which are heavily packed with microchips and sophisticated software, can offer an open door to hackers.

 

These cars are vulnerable to hackers stealing sensitive information or even manipulating systems such as steering wheels and brakes, said Robert Falzon, head of engineering for Markham, Ont.-based cybersecurity solutions company Checkpoint Canada.

 

“Cars are tracking how fast you’re going, where you’re going, what your altitude is — and all the different pieces of information are being calculated … It’s all computerized,” he said.

 

“Unfortunately, security is not always the primary thought when these (features) are developed.”

A global automotive cybersecurity report by Upstream shows remote attacks — which rely on Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and connected networks — have consistently outnumbered physical attacks, accounting for 85 per cent of all breaches between 2010 and 2021.

 

That proportion grew to 97 per cent of all attacks in 2022, the report said.

 

There’s a growing concern about privacy breaches among connected cars, experts added.

 

“Let’s say someone is driving on the highway and the doors get locked, the car speeds up and the (driver) gets a message asking for bitcoin or they’ll crash the vehicle,” said AJ Khan, founder of Vehiqilla Inc., a Windsor, Ont.-based company offering cybersecurity services for fleet cars.

 

“That scenario is possible right now.”

 

Khan added any car that can connect to the internet, whether gas-powered or electric, could be at risk of hacking.

 

But electric vehicles are particularly vulnerable to cybersecurity thefts.

 

Researchers at Concordia University in Montreal found significant weaknesses in their 2022 study of public and private EV charging stations across Canada — all of them connect to the internet. The study showed breaches could affect drivers, power stations and the power grid they are connected to.

 

“The reason why there are a lot of vulnerabilities is because vendors and operators are rushing to deploy the infrastructure to meet the demand,” said Chadi Assi, information systems engineering professor and research chair at Concordia University.

 

“As a result, cybersecurity was an afterthought and it was not part of the design of the infrastructure,” he added.

 

Assi explained an EV owner usually connects with the charging station through an easily accessible mobile app. But many of these third-party apps had security holes, the Concordia study found.

 

In 2022, the number of automotive application programs-related attacks accounted for 12 per cent of total incidents, despite advanced cybersecurity, the Upstream report shows. The trend was up by 380 per cent compared with 2021.

 

One such vulnerability, Assi said, is that the protocol used for communication between the cloud management system — which processes payments, among other important functions — and the charging stations may not be encrypted.

 

“If you’re making payments (at a charging station), those and any private information you put can be transmitted in plain text,” he said, making sensitive information susceptible to theft.

 

If a charging station is compromised, Assi said, a customer’s private information could be leaked, such as the time and location of the vehicle. Hackers can also disrupt the charging process and damage the battery — the most expensive part of an electric vehicle.

 

Electric vehicle charging station-related breaches accounted for four per cent of cyberattacks on connected cars in 2022, the Upstream report said.

 

“Another critical aspect of cybersecurity in this ecosystem is the power utility itself,” Assi said.

If a hacker synchronizes multiple charging stations and turns the charging of cars on and off, the power grid could be destabilized, he explained.

 

Assi said these shortcomings were flagged to manufacturers last year.

 

An August 2021 global standard was established to guide automakers in managing cybersecurity, risks including electronic control units, software and various vulnerable points of attack such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

 

Manufacturers are working to strengthen cybersecurity in vehicles, Khan said.

 

But even the cat-and-mouse race to outdo hackers fails when intruders manage to find one weak spot — which may allow them access to other connected vehicles.

 

“Auto cybersecurity is a very new field,” Khan said, adding the risk will persist with the ever-changing software potentially bringing newer vulnerabilities.

 

Still, the biggest challenge lies in the lack of awareness among consumers.

 

Khan said the auto industry is in a transitionary period.

 

Consumers will take time to adjust from “vehicles which never had connectivity or software to the (modern) vehicles with software that our lives have come to depend on,” he said.

 

Khan suggested consumers ask car dealerships about the vehicle software and privacy protection from third-party apps.

 

“When you go to purchase a vehicle, you ask about safety features such as seatbelts and airbags,” he said. “Similarly, ask about cybersecurity which is basically a health and safety issue.”

 

Another best practice is to be aware of the software used in the vehicle and how it would impact its security if a third-party app is downloaded. Experts suggested drivers should also update vehicle software regularly to avoid cybersecurity attacks.

 

When selling a vehicle or using a fleet car, customers should be careful when connecting their phones because they may leave behind their data remnants.

 

Other best practices include avoiding connecting to public Wi-Fi and to not keep car keys close to the front door since thieves can use devices that capture a key fob’s radio signal and extend the range to remotely start and steal vehicles.

 

Tim Burrows, producer of Canada Talks Electric Cars, has been driving electric vehicles for 10 years and says he never found himself thinking about cybersecurity until lately.

 

“Now that the software is actually ‘driving the car’, I find myself thinking more often about the potential for bad actors to hack into the network and damage or control the semi-autonomous operation of the vehicle,” he said.

 

While he is aware that risk exists, it is not something he is deeply concerned about, he said.

 

“I suspect it might become a higher value ‘target’ for those wishing to cause harm,” Burrows said. “Perhaps my attitude will change when autonomous vehicles go mainstream.”

 

https://vancouver.citynews.ca/2023/10/08/connected-vehicles-at-risk-of-hacking/

[Mac]

7 hours ago, 6of1_halfdozenofother said:

Get connected, they said.

It'll be fun, they said.

 

 

https://vancouver.citynews.ca/2023/10/08/connected-vehicles-at-risk-of-hacking/

Big surprise government will take over control of EVs. Anyone that believes otherwise is a simpleton imo.

 

 

[RupertKBD]

10 hours ago, Mac said:

Big surprise government will take over control of EVs. Anyone that believes otherwise is a simpleton imo.

 

[CaptainCanuck12]

10 hours ago, Mac said:

Big surprise government will take over control of EVs. Anyone that believes otherwise is a simpleton imo.

 

 

[Optimist Prime]

On 9/22/2023 at 11:10 PM, Jester13 said:

 

2001: A Space Odyssey

Hey now now... Commander (ret) Hadfield was at burning man at a Canadian Camp playing guitar last time my wife went. It was by all accounts very cool since he was involved a bit with the Royal Military College still when she was an aide and then teaching a class in the engineering dept.

 

..oh to slip the surly bonds of earth...

[UnkNuk]

Perseverance Captures a Beautifully Strange 'Blue Sunset' on Mars

 

 

https://www.sciencealert.com/perseverance-captures-a-beautifully-strange-blue-sunset-on-mars?utm_source=join1440&utm_medium=email&utm_placement=newsletter

[UnkNuk]

A new map of the human brain offers insights, clues to future treatments.

 

In 21 papers published as a package Thursday, researchers have provided a new map of the human brain, refining the resolution, as one scientist described it, from a rough outline of a shoreline to a satellite view with topography.

 

They're still far from a GPS guide to what's inside our skulls. However, the new brain cell atlas offers more guidance for researchers desperate to find effective treatments for a wide range of disorders, including addiction, schizophrenia and Alzheimer's.

 

The studies are part of the National Institute of Health's BRAIN Initiative Cell Census Network, a five-year program launched in 2017 to create a catalog of brain cell types.

 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2023/10/12/studies-show-details-about-brain-future-treatments/71140845007/?utm_source=join1440&utm_medium=email&utm_placement=newsletter

[Rip The Mesh]

 

[The Arrogant Worms]

Ancient river landscape untouched for 14 million years found under East Antarctic

 

https://www.the-express.com/news/science/116131/east-antarctic-ice-sheet-ancient-river-landscape

[RupertKBD]

2 hours ago, The Arrogant Worms said:

Ancient river landscape untouched for 14 million years found under East Antarctic

 

https://www.the-express.com/news/science/116131/east-antarctic-ice-sheet-ancient-river-landscape

 

i bet Nestle has the rights already.....

[The Arrogant Worms]

U.S. drafts plan to bring grizzly bears back to Washington’s North Cascades

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/us-drafts-plan-to-bring-grizzly-bears-back-to-washington-s-north-cascades/ar-AA1jnpUq

[Satchmo]

I found an article in today's NYT to be interesting.  I'll admit that's because the topic is something I've been thinking about for a while and everyone likes to be agreed with, especially in print.

 

It's entitled 'Befouling the Final Frontier' and has to do with space junk and problems arising from the thousands of LOE (Low Earth Orbit} satellites we have crowding the sky.  It's all part of the reason I dislike Elon Musk so much and recently lost my cool discussing him in another thread.  He's not the only culprit though.

 

I've linked it, but it's paywalled, so here's a bit of it:  (ok, a lot of it)

 

The astronomer Jonathan McDowell studies black holes, but he has what he calls a second life, studying and keeping an archive of the history of the space program, cataloging every piece of equipment we have launched and tracking those objects’ lives in orbit. ‘‘I’ve tried to be the chronicler of what humanity has done in space,’’ he says. McDowell sees a few ways to frame the story thus far of humanity in space. One way is through the shifts around whose satellites dominated orbit — from the superpowers in the 1950s and ’60s to a more broadly distributed international era in the ’70s and to the ’90s, when corporations began actively launching satellites to support and expand their operations, like constellations of telecommunication satellites. Around 2003, we entered what McDowell calls the democratic era, where technological advances made it so that almost anyone — an Earth-imaging company, say, or a university research lab — could launch a satellite.

Another way to see the story is in the shifting demographics of objects in space. For the first few decades after Sputnik, almost everything in orbit was owned and operated by a government, whether for military or civil purposes. From the 1980s to the 2000s, McDowell says, the balance was split roughly evenly among military, nonmilitary government and commercial. But in the past decade it has become, as he put it, ‘‘commercial and, oh, there’s a little bit of the other stuff.’’ Especially in the last five years, commercial satellites have come to dominate low Earth orbit, primarily through the introduction of satellite megaconstellations.

It’s a pleasingly astronomical name for such a problematic technology. The best known and most plentiful of these constellations come from SpaceX’s Starlink, Elon Musk’s space-based broadband provider that comprises, so far, almost 5,000 satellites in the lower realm of LEO. Other megaconstellation projects in the works come from Amazon and OneWeb, and many more companies and nations say they intend to follow Starlink’s lead. Starlink itself has projected a future in which more than 40,000 of its satellites will be circling the planet.

 

There’s not much unusual about these satellites but their numbers, which even now, let alone at 40,000, are staggering. While a single satellite crosses the night sky like an uncannily smoothly shooting star, Starlink satellites are often seen in ‘‘trains,’’ roving the sky in linear formation. Launched in batches of 50 to 60 at a time, they’ve already come to dominate the orbital census, rapidly accelerating crowding in LEO.

 

The problem with crowding is that it raises the risk of collision. A body in LEO moves at 17,500 miles per hour; any slower and it will fall back to Earth. And orbital bodies don’t move in orderly parallel lanes; their paths intersect. In 2009, a defunct Russian satellite and an active one run by the American communications company Iridium collided about 500 miles above Siberia. That single collision created more than 2,000 pieces of debris — and that’s only the pieces that could be tracked, at about four inches or larger. Thousands or tens of thousands of smaller fragments likely remain as well.

 

The most feared outcome of orbital crowding is Kessler Syndrome, named for the former NASA scientist Donald Kessler, who, in a 1978 paper he wrote with his supervisor, Burton G. Cour-Palais, described a scenario in which LEO becomes so crowded that collisions cascade until orbital space is unusable. ‘‘You can’t send up new satellites and expect them to function if they’re flying through a field of bullets all the time,’’ the astronomer Samantha Lawler, who studies outer-solar-system objects, and lately satellite pollution, told me. McDowell said, ‘‘We haven’t gone into full ‘dodge’ems’ yet, but it’s very clear from the rate of false alarms, near misses and minor collision-impact events that things are skating on the edge.’’

 

The possibility of collision isn’t the only problem with cramming low Earth orbit past capacity. Starlink satellites are already hampering astronomy research done from ground-based telescopes (and even Hubble) with visual occlusions and radio noise; the ambient light scattering off all those extra bodies also risks corrupting the darkness of night. The scientific and cultural resource of the night sky is in danger of being extinguished.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/05/magazine/commercial-satellites-space-junk.html

 

[6of1_halfdozenofother]

42 minutes ago, Satchmo said:

‘‘You can’t send up new satellites and expect them to function if they’re flying through a field of bullets all the time,’’ the astronomer Samantha Lawler, who studies outer-solar-system objects, and lately satellite pollution, told me. McDowell said, ‘‘We haven’t gone into full ‘dodge’ems’ yet, but it’s very clear from the rate of false alarms, near misses and minor collision-impact events that things are skating on the edge.’’

 

Not to mention, it's only a matter of time before the debris field zipping around at orbital speeds makes manned space missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond excessively risky - particularly if the end of the mission involves trying to return the astronauts through the atmosphere to Earth.  A piece of cladding shifted out of position, or a undetected puncture on some insulation, and we'll be seeing Columbia happening to a returning spacecraft.

[Sharpshooter]

3 hours ago, 6of1_halfdozenofother said:

 

Not to mention, it's only a matter of time before the debris field zipping around at orbital speeds makes manned space missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond excessively risky - particularly if the end of the mission involves trying to return the astronauts through the atmosphere to Earth.  A piece of cladding shifted out of position, or a undetected puncture on some insulation, and we'll be seeing Columbia happening to a returning spacecraft.

[bishopshodan]

Sci-fi inspired tractor beams are real, and could solve a major space junk problem

 

https://www.livescience.com/space/space-exploration/sci-fi-inspired-tractor-beams-are-real-and-could-solve-the-major-problem-of-space-junk

In science fiction films, nothing raises tension quite like the good guys' spaceship getting caught in an invisible tractor beam that allows the baddies to slowly reel them in. But what was once only a sci-fi staple could soon become a reality. 

Scientists are developing a real-life tractor beam, dubbed an electrostatic tractor. This tractor beam wouldn't suck in helpless starship pilots, however. Instead, it would use electrostatic attraction to nudge hazardous space junk safely out of Earth orbit.

[Satchmo]

That is way cool.  If it ever gets built It's likely to be of some help.   The article admits it won't solve everything unfortunately.

[Squirter]

On 9/22/2023 at 9:05 AM, Bob Long said:

I like me some science. 

 

This is a very cool podcast I've been watching, PBS Spacetime with the ridiculously big brained Matt O'Dowd. Sometimes have to watch the episodes 2 or 3 times to catch all of it.

 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7_gcs09iThXybpVgjHZ_7g

 

A lot of stuff just started making sense thanks for letting us know. 

[Sharpshooter]

3 hours ago, bishopshodan said:

Sci-fi inspired tractor beams are real, and could solve a major space junk problem

 

https://www.livescience.com/space/space-exploration/sci-fi-inspired-tractor-beams-are-real-and-could-solve-the-major-problem-of-space-junk

In science fiction films, nothing raises tension quite like the good guys' spaceship getting caught in an invisible tractor beam that allows the baddies to slowly reel them in. But what was once only a sci-fi staple could soon become a reality. 

Scientists are developing a real-life tractor beam, dubbed an electrostatic tractor. This tractor beam wouldn't suck in helpless starship pilots, however. Instead, it would use electrostatic attraction to nudge hazardous space junk safely out of Earth orbit.

A repulsor beam seems more accurate then.