Tech

Countdown to mission hunting alien life on a distant moon

Published

1 year ago

October 14, 2024

Ekwutos Blog

In a few hours, a spacecraft should blast-off from Florida on the hunt for signs of alien life.

Its destination is Europa, a deeply-mysterious moon orbiting the distant planet Jupiter.

Trapped under its icy surface could be a vast ocean with double the amount of water on Earth.

The Europa Clipper spacecraft will chase a European mission that left last year, but using a cosmic piggyback, it will overtake and arrive first.

That won’t be until 2030 but what it finds could change what we know about life in our solar system.

A moon five times brighter than ours

Years in the making, the Europa Clipper launch was delayed at the last minute after hurricane Milton blasted Florida this week.

The spacecraft was rushed indoors for shelter, but after checking the launchpad at Cape Canaveral for damage, engineers have now given the go-ahead for lift-off at 1206 local time (1706 BST) on 14 October.

“If we discover life so far away from the Sun, it would imply a separate origin of life to the earth,” says Mark Fox-Powell, a planetary microbiologist at the Open University.

“That is hugely significant, because if that happens twice in our solar system, it could mean life is really common,” he says.

Located 628m km from Earth, Europa is just a bit bigger than our moon, but that is where the similarity ends.

If it was in our skies, it would shine five times brighter because the water ice would reflect much more sunlight.

Its icy crust is up to 25km thick, and sloshing beneath, there could be a vast saltwater ocean. There may also be chemicals that are the ingredients for simple life.

The spacecraft is just longer than a professional basketball court and weighs around the same as an African elephant
© BBC

Scientists first realised Europa might support life in the 1970s when, peering through a telescope in Arizona, they saw water ice.

Voyager 1 and 2 spacecrafts captured the first close-up images, and then in 1995 Nasa’s Galileo spacecraft flew past Europa taking some deeply puzzling pictures. They showed a surface riddled with dark, reddish-brown cracks; fractures that may contain salts and sulfur compounds that could support life.

The James Webb telescope has since taken pictures of what might be plumes of water ejected 100 miles (160 kilometers) above the moon’s surface

But none of those missions got close enough to Europa for long enough to really understand it.

Flying through plumes of water

Now scientists hope that instruments on Nasa’s Clipper spacecraft will map almost the entire moon, as well as collect dust particles and fly through the water plumes.

Britney Schmidt, associate professor of earth and atmospheric sciences at Cornell university in the US, helped to design a laser onboard that will see through the ice.

The strange surface of Europa – captured by Galileo spacecraft in the 1990s
© NASA/JPL-Caltech/SETI Institute

“I’m most excited about understanding Europa’s plumbing. Where’s the water? Europa has the ice version of Earth’s subduction zones, magma chambers and tectonics – we’re going to try to see into those regions and map them,” she says.

Her instrument, which is called Reason, was tested in Antarctica.

But unlike on Earth, all the instruments on Clipper will be exposed to huge amounts of radiation which Prof Schmidt says is a “major concern.”

The spacecraft should fly past Europa about 50 times, and each time, it will be blasted with radiation equivalent to one million X-rays.

“Much of the electronics are in a vault that’s heavily shielded to keep out radiation,” Prof Schmidt explains.

The spaceship is the largest ever built to visit a planet and has a long journey ahead. Travelling 1.8 billion miles, it will orbit both the Earth and Mars to propel itself further towards Jupiter in what is called the sling-shot effect.

Europa Clipper will travel for five and a half years to reach Jupiter
© BBC

It cannot carry enough fuel to motor itself all the way alone, so it will piggyback off the momentum of Earth and Mars’s gravitational pull.

It will overtake JUICE, the European Space Agency’s spaceship that will also visit Europa on its way to another of Jupiter’s moons called Ganeymede.

Once Clipper approaches Europa in 2030 it will switch on its engines again to carefully manoeuvre itself into the right orbit.

The left image shows the natural appearance of Europa, and the right image uses colour to highlight the water-ice crust
© NASA/JPL/DLR

Space scientists are very cautious when talking about the chances of discovering life- there is no expectation that they will find human-like creatures or animals

“We are searching for the potential for habitability and you need four things – liquid water, a heat source, and organic material. Finally those three ingredients need to be stable over a long enough period of time that something can happen,” explains Michelle Dougherty, professor of space physics at Imperial College in London.

And they hope that if they can understand the ice surface better, they will know where to land a craft on a future mission.

An international team of scientists with Nasa, the Jet Propulsion Lab and the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab will oversee the odyssey.

At a time when there is a space launch virtually every week, this mission promises something different, suggests Professor Fox-Powell.

“There’s no profit being made. This is about exploration and curiosity, and pushing back the boundaries of our knowledge of our place in the universe,” he says.

Tech

Google acquires energy company Intersect for $4.75 billion

Published

2 months ago

December 23, 2025

Ekwutos Blog

미국 캘리포니아주 마운틴뷰 구글 캠퍼스의 한 건물. /AP 연합뉴스

Google is acquiring energy infrastructure company ‘Intersect’ for $4.75 billion (approximately 7 trillion Korean won) to secure the power needed for its AI (artificial intelligence) data centers. The move aims to address the power issue, the biggest hurdle in expanding data centers. Google, which developed the ‘Gemini’ AI, is a so-called ‘AI full-stack’ company equipped with all AI-related technologies and services, including AI chips and cloud (virtual servers). The strategy is to directly manage the energy infrastructure needed to actually operate AI as well.

Reuters reported on the 22nd (local time) that Google is acquiring Intersect for $4.75 billion in cash. Google already holds a minority stake in Intersect, and through this acquisition, it will also secure the gigawatt (GW)-level energy and data center projects that Intersect is developing and constructing. Intersect is expected to be responsible for building Google’s data center power infrastructure in the U.S., based on its technology linking power generation facilities and power grids.

Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet, said, “Intersect will enable us to build power infrastructure more quickly and flexibly in line with the increasing demand for AI data centers,” adding, “It will also be an important partner in strengthening America’s energy innovation and technological leadership.”

Bloomberg reported that Intersect’s energy assets currently in operation or under construction in the U.S. amount to $15 billion (approximately 22.2 trillion Korean won).

◇Google increasing energy investments

Google has recently been increasing its investments in the energy sector. Although the company possesses AI chips (TPUs), Gemini, and search and cloud services, stable energy supply is essential to support these businesses.

To this end, Google is also investing in nuclear power technology. In October of last year, it signed a long-term cooperation agreement with small modular reactor (SMR) startup ‘Kairos Power’ to secure up to 500 MW (megawatts) of power. It is noted as the first case among big tech companies to publicly declare securing SMR-based power. Additionally, in August, Google and Kairos Power announced plans to build the next-generation SMR ‘Hermes 2’ in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The goal is to commence operation in 2030.

Google is also restarting previously shut-down nuclear power plants to secure energy. In October, it announced that it will collaborate with ‘NextEra Energy’ to restart the Duane Arnold Nuclear Generating Station in Iowa, which was closed in 2020. The target restart period is between 2028 and 2029.

Google is also investing in renewable energy such as geothermal power. Since 2023, it has been supplying power to data centers through geothermal power generation with ‘Fervo Energy’ in Nevada, U.S.

Google is also actively investing in next-generation energy technologies that are not yet commercialized. In 2022, it made a large-scale investment in ‘TAE Technologies,’ which possesses nuclear fusion technology. Nuclear fusion power generation is a technology that applies the principle of energy creation in the sun, combining atomic nuclei to produce energy. It is called the ‘dream energy’ because it has abundant fuel resources, emits no carbon, and, unlike conventional nuclear power plants, does not produce high-level nuclear waste. However, it is assessed that more time is needed for commercialization due to technical challenges. Recently, TAE Technologies has accelerated the commercialization of fusion energy by merging with Trump Media Group (TMTG).

Tech

“I Lost $1.2 Million To Hackers On One Of My Apps. I Caught One Of The Hackers, And Instead Of Handing Him Over To The Police, I Employed Him To Work For Me.”- BLord

Published

2 months ago

December 11, 2025

Ekwutos Blog

Anambra Born tech entrepreneur and businessman Linus Williams, popularly known as BLord, has shared an unusual story about how he handled a major cyberattack on one of his applications.

According to BLord, he lost $1.2 million to hackers who infiltrated one of his digital platforms. In the course of tracking the incident, he successfully identified one of the individuals involved in the breach.

Rather than handing the suspect over to security agencies, BLord said he made a strategic decision: he employed the hacker.

He explained that the hacker’s skills, though misapplied, were exceptional and could be redirected towards strengthening his company’s cybersecurity systems.

BLord noted that the decision was driven by a desire to turn a negative experience into an opportunity for growth and to better secure his business infrastructure.

Tech

MAN Honours Zobis Cable CEO, Ezeobi, at 37th AGM

Published

2 months ago

December 8, 2025

Ekwutos Blog

The MD/CEO of John Zobis Group, Mr. John Ezeobi, has again been honoured with another major industry prize in recognition of his contributions to local sourcing, innovation and the growth of Nigeria’s manufacturing capacity.

The prestigious award, “Pillar of Industrial Enterprise and National Impact,” which was conferred on him by the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) — Anambra, Ebonyi and Enugu Zone, was presented during the association’s 37th Annual General Meeting, Awards & Gala Night at the International Conference Centre, Enugu.

coming barely three weeks after Ezeobi was nominated as the winner of The Sun’s Industrialist of the Year Award 2025 by the Management of The Sun Newspaper, a run of recognition that has further highlighted his rising profile in the South-East manufacturing ecosystem.

The latest award, it was gathered, celebrates Ezeobi’s deliberate investment in backward integration, his push for local sourcing of raw materials and efforts to strengthen domestic value chains, which MAN described as essential to reducing import dependence and creating jobs across the region.

Chaired by Chief Obinna Iyiegbu (Obi Cubana), the well-attended occasion, themed “Exploring Opportunities for Backward Integration and Local Sourcing of Raw Materials for the Manufacturing Sector,” brought together regulators, policymakers, manufacturers and industry stakeholders and also featured presentations, panel sessions and cultural performances, among other highlights.

Speaking at the event, the Keynote Speaker and Director-General of the Raw Materials Research and Development Council (RMRDC), Prof. Nnanyelugo Ike-Muonso, said the economic benefits of exploring Opportunities for backward integration and local sourcing of raw materials for the Manufacturing sector cannot be overemphasized.

Prof. Ike-Muonso told delegates that Nigeria spent over ₦3.53 trillion importing raw materials in the first half of 2025 alone, warning that such dependence continues to weaken the nation’s economy. He further argued that the proposed 30% Value Addition Bill, which would require a minimum local value addition before export, would be transformational if signed into law.

He also outlined the bill’s potential to expand GDP, generate hundreds of thousands of jobs and save foreign exchange by keeping more of the country’s raw-material wealth in domestic supply chains, boost local manufacturing, and generally reposition Nigeria as a regional industrial hub.

On his own part, the Governor of Enugu State, Dr. Peter Mbah, endorsed the call for stronger industry-academia partnerships and urged financial institutions to make affordable credit available to manufacturers who adopt backward integration. The governor, who was represented by his Deputy, Barrister Ifeanyi Ossai, described the policy pathway as key to moving Nigeria from resource export dependence toward higher-value industrial output.

Reacting via his social handle shortly after receiving the award, the Zobis Cable Boss expressed gratitude for the honour, describing it as a strong motivation to do more in driving local production, reducing import dependence, and strengthening Nigeria’s industrial base.

Ezeobi, who received the plaque from pioneer Nollywood star and legal practitioner, Barr. Kenneth Okonkwo, attested that the AGM provided a critical platform for renewed commitment to backward integration as a pathway to sustainable industrial development.

“The event highlighted the critical importance of backward integration and local sourcing of raw materials as strategic levers for strengthening domestic production, reducing import dependency, and building resilient, self-sustaining industries. A meaningful platform for driving progress and collaboration across Nigeria’s manufacturing sector,” he partly wrote.

Also speaking, the Chairman of MAN for the Anambra-Ebonyi-Enugu zone, Dr. Adaora Chukwudozie, described local sourcing as the pragmatic route to lowering production costs and stabilizing supply chains for SMEs and larger manufacturers alike. She welcomed RMRDC’s roadmap and invited state governments to partner in establishing raw-material corridors and shared processing facilities that would bring inputs closer to factories.

The event, which had His Eminence, Eze Eberechukwu Orji, Eze Aro, as the Royal Father of the Day, was also graced by other notable dignitaries and stakeholders, which include Senator Osita Izunaso, Dr. Gideon Chidiebere Osi, Ichie Sunday Ezeobiora , Chairman, Sunchi Farms; Mr Linus Williams Ifejika, Chairman Blord Group; Otumba Francis Meshioye, National President, Manufacturers Association of Nigeria; Dr. Ifeanyi Okoye, Chairman, Juhel Pharmacy; Chief Dr. Dan Chukwudozie, Chairman,Dozzy Group; Dr. Chike Obidigbo,Chairman, Hardis and Dromedas; Anambra Commissioner for Trade and Industry,Mr. Christian Udechukwu.