STEM Blogs with Ram

 The James Webb telescope was launched on December 24th, 2021, to succeed the Hubble Space Telescope, which is incredibly important due to its many discoveries in astronomy, like the age of the universe and that there are black holes in the centre of galaxies. But what are the big differences between these two space telescopes? Firstly, the two telescopes see in different ways. Hubble has a mirror that’s “2.4m wide”, while James Webb has a segmented “6.5m wide mirror” (NASA/ESA/M.Livio & Hubble 20th Anniversary Team (STScI)). This means it can get more light and therefore also see more things. The type of light they see is also different. Hubble used primarily ultraviolet and visible light and Webb uses mostly infrared rays. This was changed from Hubble because visible light can be blocked by dust in space while infrared light doesn’t have such obstacles making James Webb more efficient at collecting data. However, infrared telescopes need to stay cool to work appropriately sin...

  On July 11th 2021, Sir Richard Branson and his guests launched off to the border of space and returned back, signalling the dawn of a new era of space tourism. Today, on June 20th, Jeff Bezos will travel on a Blue Origins spacecraft to space and back too. Now, you may be asking why these events are important, after all, it’s just some billionaires visiting space. But this is important because this is the first test flight just as tickets are now being sold and since the passengers of both flights are so high profile, it raises a lot of public awareness and hype for more affordable space travel. So, what is the difference between these two monumental flights? Firstly, there’s the altitude that they’ll be travelling to. Jeff Bezos will travel to the Karman line, which is 62 miles above sea level while Richard Branson will go to the US-recognised boundary of space, which is 55 miles, however, the extra 7 miles makes no difference. Next, they have very different spacecraft and launch...

Tesla has just announced that they’ll be switching all of their new Model Y and 3s ordered after May, and later their Model X and S’s, to use new technology for their autopilot called Tesla Vision. This replaces radar, which is what Tesla and most car companies have been using for their driving assistance and is based on cameras, rather than lasers creating maps which is what Lidar uses. While all car companies are transitioning away from the radar, everyone else is moving to lidar, except for Tesla and Elon, who famously said that Lidar is a “fool's errand.” But how do all of these work and why is Tesla so stubborn to use LiDAR? Radar has been used in cars since the 1980s, and works by sending an EM wave from a transmitter which reflects any objects back into a receiver’s antenna and tells the processor how far away and where any obstacles are from the car. Nowadays, more and more cars are actually moving to use radar as a supplement to more advanced technology, like lidar and vis...

  If you've ever tried to wait for a PS5 resupply, or even gone to a store to see if it's in stock, you'll probably have seen the dreaded, but now expected three words, "Out of Stock." It's now basically impossible to find a PS5 at retail prices since the only ones available to buy are at ridiculous prices offered by people, but why is this? Let's start with the production of PS5s with the first big reason, a shortage in parts due to the pandemic. The most notable part is the semiconductor, which has a global shortage due to the coronavirus. Semiconductors are an essential piece in every electronic, and the world's largest semiconductor company is TSMC, in Taiwan, which makes semiconductors for tons of companies, Sony included. Therefore when a drought happened in Taiwan and the pandemic started, TSMC couldn't keep up with orders for semiconductors causing a low supply of electronics, from Playstations to Teslas. As well as the semiconductor shorta...

 Starlink is a division of SpaceX constructing a constellation of satellites to provide satellite internet. This is revolutionary since it will provide low-cost, high-speed internet to people globally. While it is only in the beta stage now with 1500 satellites launched, it plans to have around 42,000 in space. It is meant for rural areas that don’t have access to the internet currently since it can reach it with its constellation, however, major cities will struggle to use it since there are too many people to share with and obstacles that get in the way of the signal. To use it, you need to set up a satellite dish on top of your home for $499 and pay $99 a month, which is quite expensive compared to other options. The upfront cost for the equipment should get cheaper as the program increases, but the plans won’t change for the sake of simplicity. Starlink is unique because, unlike other satellite internet solutions, its satellites are in Low Earth Orbit, allowing a faster signal ...