October 6, 2023

IN THIS ISSUE

🐤 Elon Musk is being sued by the SEC

⚛ Quantum computing using individual atoms

🌑 NASA to visit a metal asteroid

UP FIRST

Musk's acquisition of Twitter under investigation by SEC

The federal agency is suing Musk to compel him to testify

The drama of Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter, now known as X, continues. The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating the $44 billion deal that went through in October last year for two reasons: firstly, whether Musk broke securities law when buying stock in Twitter, and secondly because of his SEC filings about the deal.

There is long-standing beef between Musk and the SEC, with a history of fines and insults going back five years. According to The Guardian, the SEC has been investigating Musk and subpoenaed him to testify in May this year, but he did not appear. Now he has been sued to compel him to testify, which has made the investigation public knowledge.

The SEC says it wants Musk's testimony that is "relevant to its legitimate and lawful investigation," while according to Reuters, Musk has complained that the SEC is trying to "harass" him and that the agency has already taken testimony from him multiple times.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Quantum computer performs calculations using individual atoms

This is the first time single atoms have been used in this way

The basic principle of quantum computing is to use qubits, or quantum bits, to perform calculations. These units have binary properties, like the binary digits used in traditional computers, which can be flipped into one of two states in order to encode information.

In theory, anything that has two states can act as a bit – such as a coin that lands heads or tails. Recently, scientists have managed to turn individual atoms into qubits for the first time, by using microwave signals to control individual atoms of titanium sitting on a perfectly flat surface.

This allowed the researchers to control the spin of a single electron in a titanium atom, and for that spin to interact with the spin of two nearby atoms, producing a basic calculation system that could perform operations in nanoseconds.

However, despite its speed, this isn't really a practical way to build a quantum computer as it would be difficult to use this technique to control more than around 100 qubits.

ON THE HORIZON

NASA is launching a mission to visit a strange metal asteroid

It will take six years for the spacecraft to reach the asteroid Psyche

NASA is preparing to launch a mission to visit one of the more unusual bodies in the solar system: an asteroid that is thought to be made almost entirely of metal. The Psyche asteroid, approximately 140 miles in diameter, is thought to be unique among asteroids due to its composition of iron and nickel, unlike the typical rock and smaller amounts of metal that these bodies are usually made of.

NASA's spacecraft, also called Psyche, is set to launch next Thursday, October 12, and will travel 2.2 billion miles to reach the asteroid in its orbit between Mars and Jupiter. The journey will take around six years, and once the spacecraft arrives in 2029 it will spend 26 months orbiting the asteroid and studying it with its imaging, spectrometer, and magnetometer instruments.

Studying Psyche could help uncover the origins of the solar system, as the asteroid could be part of a planetesimal, which is one of the early stages of the formation of a planet. Scientists think that a planet was in the process of forming when it collided with another body like an asteroid or comet, and the impact knocked the rocky shell away to leave just the metal core.

You can watch the launch of the mission on a NASA live stream with coverage beginning at 9:30 a.m. ET on Thursday.

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