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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
Technology
Mark Blunden and Rachelle Abbott

OPINION - Tech & Science Daily podcast: Mystery of Oumuamua ‘alien spaceship’ solved

Research by the University of California, Berkeley and Cornell University sheds new light on how the interstellar flying object Oumuamua propelled itself.

Some believed because the 57,000mph space rock - which is about a quarter of a mile long and flew within 15 million miles of Earth in 2017 - did not have the traditional characteristics of a comet, that it could be some kind of extraterrestrial spacecraft.

Now, scientists believe that as Oumuamua was bombarded with cosmic radiation, it did actually expel a thin shell of trapped icy hydrogen gas to help acceleration - which was so thin it was invisible to telescopes.

The world’s first 3D-printed rocket made its launch debut, but failed three minutes into the flight and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean.

The Terran 1 booster was made almost completely of 3D-printed components, which it was hoped would reach orbit 125 miles above Earth, however aerospace startup Relativity Space says they’ve “gathered enough data to show that flying 3D-printed rockets is possible”.

Social media, and notably Twitter, has been deluged by deepfakes falsely illustrating the arrest of former president Donald Trump.

The images, which were generated by artificial intelligence and uncovered by investigative journalism site Bellingcat, include showing Trump fighting with police officers and in handcuffs wearing an orange jumpsuit, as IRL the legal heat’s turned up in the Stormy Daniels case.

Plus, mind-controlled army dogs, King’s post-coronation sock rule, cancer cells space research, school vape detectors and new Stone Henge meaning row.

Listen above, and find us on your Spotify Daily Drive or wherever you stream your podcasts.

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