OK, maybe it won’t happen right away. NASA released A more detailed analysis of the damage to the James Webb Space Telescope encountered a micrometeoroid and deemed the damage “irreparable”. Any damage to JWST is irreparable, at least in the sense that the Hubble Space Telescope could be equipped with optics to fix its precise but imprecise primary mirror. JWST is too far for a service call, so the fix in this case is a combination of what can be achieved by adjusting the shape and position of the affected mirror segment and what can be resolved by image processing. Damage to segment C3, as well as damage to other segments in a total of six segments during Webb’s half-year on station, is assessed through “wavefront sensing,” which looks at the out-of-phase light from each mirror. is a segment. The damage sounds bad, and it must hurt the technologists and engineers who built the thing so lovingly and painstakingly to see it fall into disrepair, but in the long run, that damage shouldn’t hinder Webb’s long-term scientific goals.
We hear it in other space news the persistence The rover retrieved its first piece from an ancient river delta in the Jezero crater. Rover was looking for something interesting to sample, but everything he tried with the abrasive tool was either too fragile, too hard to get at, or scientifically boring. Finally, the rover found a good place to dig and was able to retrieve a 6.7 cm core sample. This makes it the tenth core sample collected overall and the first of the delta areas thought to have the best chance of containing evidence of ancient Martian life.
Closer to home, we’ve all heard of robotic surgery, but the image that comes to mind doesn’t really match the reality. Robotic-assisted surgery is probably a better term because robots are usually ultra-precise remote manipulators controlled by an experienced surgeon. But if a study on the performance of a surgical robot if it’s any indication, the days of human surgeons may be numbered. The study compared the accuracy and speed of both a human surgeon operating a standard Da Vinci surgical robot and a stand-alone autonomous version of the robot, using a depth camera. Using a standard surgical skills test, the autonomous system matched human surgeons in terms of failures—thankfully, there were no “oppsies” for either—but outperformed humans in terms of speed and positional accuracy. It will probably be a while before fully autonomous surgeons become a thing, but we wouldn’t bet against it in the long run.
Most of the readers will surely have heard the interesting news Supercon will be back this year as a private event! Be sure to set aside the first weekend in November to make the pilgrimage to Pasadena – it will be great to see everyone again after a long hiatus. But if you can’t wait until November for an IRL con, skip it SIZE 19X, will be in Los Angeles this week. The Southern California Linux Expo runs from July 28th to 31st and features a host of speakers, including a keynote from Vint Cerf. Hackaday readers can save 50% on tickets with promo code HACK.
And finally, as a lover of Easter eggs of all kinds, but especially of the hidden message of the software variety, we appreciated this. This is an ode to Easter eggs, the in-house artist that has served as a creative outlet for programmers for years. The article lists some great examples of the art form, explains why they are important artifacts of the technological world, and why they are good. We tried a few we hadn’t heard of before listed in the article; some hits, some misses, but they are all appreciated. Yes, most of them – the corporate rah-rah type – can be downright wrong as far as we’re concerned.
