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Fewer fields have witnessed advancements on the same scale as robotics. There have been many inspirations — from dogs to humans — for scientists and engineers to design a robot. We have seen these machines walk beside their owners, perform acrobatics, and even assist humans in identifying and lifting work in warehouses. That the robots can navigate through air, water, and land is a well-established fact, but a frontier that remained vastly unexplored for these machines is the ground under our feet. Now, a team of engineers at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) and Georgia Institute of Technology have designed a snake-like robot that has the ability to navigate underground.

The robot uses a wide range of methods to burrow beneath the earth in soft sand or soil. The study — Controlling subterranean forces enables a fast, steerable, burrowing soft robot — was published last month in Science Robotics.

Following the results, the team concluded a steerable, root-like soft robot that controls subterranean lift and drags forces to burrow faster than previous approaches by over an order of magnitude and does so through real sand. According to Science Robotics, the discovery, the team says, advances the understanding and capabilities of robotic subterranean locomotion.

Nicholas Naclerio, a graduate student researcher in the lab of UC Santa Barbara, said that the biggest challenge when it comes to moving through the ground is the forces involved, something the authors referred to in the abstract of their paper as well. “If you’re trying to move through the ground, you have to push the soil, sand or another medium out of the way,” Naclerio was quoted as saying by The Current, the official news site of UC Santa Barbara.

Many may find it surprising but this robot is not really a high-tech one and is made of airtight, ripstop nylon fabric. Naclerio said that the team drew inspiration directly from plant roots that grow from their tips to extend deep into the soil. So, when the robot extends from its tip, it avoids friction along its sides, and can then take any direction.

Besides plants, Naclerio said that the team also took inspiration from the southern sand octopus, which expels a jet of water to help burrow into the seafloor. Our robot blows air from its tip to fluidise the sand near its tip, which reduces the force it needs to burrow into the ground, he said. And a sandfish lizard, which uses its wedge-shaped head to burrow into sand, was the inspiration behind it.

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Crew-10 Astronauts Begin Return from ISS Aboard SpaceX Dragon

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August 7, 2025

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Crew-10 Astronauts Begin Return from ISS Aboard SpaceX Dragon

SpaceX’s Crew-10 mission coming to an end; 4 astronauts to return from International Space Station on Aug. 7, 2025 Almost five months into the mission, the crew — NASA’s Anne McClain (commander) and Nichole Ayers, JAXA’s Takuya Onishi, and Roscosmos’s Kirill Peskov — were flying over Mongolia when a workload scenario was suddenly imposed including an emergency descent. They are scheduled to board their Crew Dragon capsule, Endurance, on Thursday Aug. 7 and undock at 12:05 p.m. EST for their return home. The journey back is expected to take approximately 24 hours, with touchdown off the California coast coming Friday morning.

Undocking and Return Schedule

According to NASA, the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule Endurance is set to undock from the ISS’s Harmony module at 12:05 p.m. EDT on Aug. 7, 2025. NASA will broadcast the departure live, beginning with hatch closure in the morning. After undocking, the capsule will re-enter Earth’s atmosphere on a mostly autonomous flight. It should splash down in the Pacific Ocean off California by about 11:58 a.m. EDT Friday.

The full trip home takes roughly 24 hours overall. NASA notes the schedule could shift if bad weather affects the landing zone. If all goes according to plan, a news conference will follow at 1:30 p.m. EDT on Friday.

Crew and Mission Summary

The Crew Dragon Endurance launched atop a Falcon 9 rocket on March 14, 2025 during SpaceX’s Crew-10 mission. Crew members at the ISS, the four-member team docked on March 16. The photo was taken in Kazakhstan, with US astronauts Anne McClain (crew commander) and Nichole Ayers (pilot); Japan’s Takuya Onishi; Russia’s Kirill Peskov.

They also spent almost five months working together on science experiments and station maintenance. The crew conducted a variety of experiments from cellular biology to new camera technologies during their mission. They had a small goodbye ceremony on the ISS on Aug. 5 They have been replaced by the Crew-11 team who came in on Aug. 2 to start a new tour of duty.

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Earth’s Oldest Impact Crater Turns Out to Be Much Younger Claims New Study

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August 6, 2025

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Earth’s Oldest Impact Crater Turns Out to Be Much Younger Claims New Study

A location in Western Australia that used to be named as the oldest meteorite impact crater on Earth is now actually a lot younger than that, scientists announced today in Science Advances. The structure — previously dated to 3.5 billion years ago and located within Western Australia’s North Pole Dome region of the Pilbara — was believed to be older than any of Earth’s known impact craters. Today, new research published in the journal Geochemistry found that what we now call the Miralga impact structure is, in fact, much younger, at 2.7 billion years old, and considerably smaller in diameter. This recasts earlier ideas on the early Earth’s geological activity and questions previous theories regarding impact-driven crust formation or perhaps even early life.

Miralga Crater Loses Oldest Impact Title but Gains New Scientific Relevance

As per The Conversation article republished by Space.com, the teams that explored the crater could only point to one thing that was likely — it had been formed by an impact. However, they ultimately disagreed as to whether this event had been and how large it was. Younger rocks contain shatter cones, indicating Earth’s early continental geology shielded the impact to a specific 2.7 billion-400 million-year period despite earlier assertions.

They made the determination to honour the cultural revision of one site from 100 km across to a more manageable 16 km wide crater named Miralga. It’s the site – still affected by seawater – of events too recent to influence the Earth’s crust.

The Miralga basalt feature (unique to basalt) is a rare site for an instrument to practice on before heading to Mars, while advancing our understanding of impacts and early life prospects.

Isotopic dating to clarify the crucial part played by this, the oldest crater on Earth and unique in a geological sense, in planetary science and early Earth history is presently ongoing at Miralga.

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NASA’s TRACERS Satellites Begin Solar Wind Study Despite SV1 Glitch

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August 6, 2025

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NASA's TRACERS Satellites Begin Solar Wind Study Despite SV1 Glitch

NASA’s TRACERS mission twin satellites were launched on July 23, 2025, to study how solar activity causes magnetic reconnection in Earth’s atmosphere. After launch, a power subsystem anomaly had affected one of the satellites (Space Vehicle 1, SV1) on July 25, causing periodic communication loss. NASA said satellite 2 (Space Vehicle 2, SV2) is “healthy,” and transition is beginning to the instrument commissioning phase. The idea behind TRACERS was to develop a complete toolkit that would allow us, for the first time, to observe all of these complex solar wind connection processes at once. NASA engineers are actively working to recover SV1. Single vector views (SV2) spacecraft are completing a healthy checkout and readying themselves for their science mission.

Recovery Efforts for SV1 Satellite

According to NASA, controllers detected a problem with SV1’s power subsystem in late July that led to intermittent contacts and a loss of communication. Data suggest SV1 can only remain active when its solar panels receive sufficient sunlight. Because of the spacecraft’s current orientation, engineers plan to wait until later in August — when SV1’s panels will receive more sun — to reestablish contact and continue recovery steps.

Meanwhile, mission teams are reviewing onboard data to diagnose the issue and plan next steps. Any time contact is regained, the team will assess SV1’s status and check for impacts on the mission’s science goals. For now, no significant updates on SV1 are expected for several weeks.

SV2 Operational Status

The mission’s other satellite, SV2, is in good health and fully operational. Mission teams have been testing SV2’s onboard instruments and systems through a standard commissioning process. This checkout is proceeding as expected, with NASA anticipating that commissioning will finish by the end of August.

Once SV2 is fully checked out, it will begin coordinated science operations with its twin to study magnetic reconnection – the process that shapes how solar activity affects Earth’s magnetic environment. For now, SV2 continues its planned tests and will soon be ready to collect valuable science data as part of the TRACERS mission.

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