Latest news with #M67
Business Insider
9 hours ago
- Business Insider
Video captures the US Army's first-ever test of grenade-dropping drones. They bombed vehicle targets.
A new video shows the US Army's first test of a drone dropping a live grenade on a target. Small drones have been dropping grenades in combat for years, but this way of war is new for the Army. There's now a growing recognition that proficiency with small drones will likely be critical in future fights. Dropper drones like these are prolific in the Ukraine war, making brutal front-line fights even more horrific. The new footage is the latest example of how the Army is training in uncrewed aerial systems and related capabilities, which have become a top priority for the force amid the Ukraine war and growing investments in drones. On Monday, the Army offered a look into its first-ever drop of a live grenade from a small drone. The test took place during an exercise in Germany last month. A video shared by the Army on social media showed the recent testing, including operators attaching the grenades to the small quadcopters, flying the drones, and dropping the grenades on targets. Have you ever seen a drone drop a GRENADE? Watch Soldiers from @7thATC, the Joint Multinational Training Group-Ukraine and @173rdAbnBde execute the Army's first live-grenade drop from an unmanned aircraft system in Grafenwoehr Training Area, Germany. 🎥 Sgt. Kammen Taylor — U.S. Army (@USArmy) July 21, 2025 Soldiers from the 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment, 7th Army Training Command, 173rd Airborne Brigade and Joint Multinational Training Group-Ukraine armed a Skydio X10D drone with an M67 grenade, which it carried in flight before dropping the explosive on a wooden car-shaped target on a range. Other drones were also present to provide observation of the test. Combat Capabilities Development Command's new Audible dropper, which pulls the pin on the grenade and releases the weapon over the target, is attached to the main drone. The Army said that future training would involve 3D printing these at scale. In a press release earlier this month, the Army said the initial field test would provide feedback for future training. "While this is just an initial test of one capability, the lessons learned here have a rippling effect for informing global defense and building the Eastern Flank Deterrence Line," said Brig. Gen. Steven Carpenter, commander of the 7th Army Training Command, referring to a NATO initiative to strengthen the alliance's eastern defenses. While the test marks a development in the Army's capabilities, other militaries and non-state actors have been dropping grenades and munitions from small drones for years. In the mid-2010s, US and Iraqi forces began documenting ISIS using commercial quadcopters and fixed-wing drones to carry small munitions, such as grenades. In Russia's war against Ukraine, Kyiv's troops have used drones to drop munitions and grenades on Russian tanks, vehicles, soldiers, and ammunition storage. Ukraine has also packed explosives into its first-person-view drones and flown them directly into targets. Russia, too, has used flying drones over Ukrainian targets and dropped explosives. Many of Ukraine and Russia's drones, ranging in models and sizes, can carry different ordnance to either release above or fly directly into targets as one-way attack assets. The US military has been signaling an increased interest in investing in uncrewed capabilities for years, but there's a growing push now for small drones. In a recent memo, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth directed the Army to heavily invest in drones, planning to arm every division with 1,000 of them within the next two years. And last week, following President Donald Trump's call for American drone dominance, Hegseth shared new plans to boost the Pentagon's drone arsenal. US soldiers have also been training with small drones in environments like the Indo-Pacific, testing how to use the systems as both weapons and reconnaissance and surveillance platforms. These are being increasingly looked at across the force, as are counter-drone capabilities to kill enemy systems.
BBC News
06-07-2025
- Automotive
- BBC News
Denton M67 works: 50mph speed limits set to be removed
Speed restrictions that have been in place on a motorway in Greater Manchester for two years due to bridge replacement works are set to be 50mph zones were implemented on the the M67 in 2023 but will no longer continue on the section between Junction 24 the M60 and Junction 1A addition, the 50mph speed limit is also being removed eastbound on the M67 between Junctions 1A Denton and Junction 3 Highways said it would "shortly be removing roadworks, speed enforcement cameras and signage" and reiterated that the bridge would reopen in 2026. Restrictions on the westbound carriageway will be removed at a later date. The speed cap was introduced to enable the £23m National Highways replacement of the ageing St Anne's Bridge due to long-term safety new bridge will provide unrestricted access for all road users at the location, including eastbound access to the M67 with work due to be completed next year, the Local Democracy Reporting Service Bansal, National Highways programme delivery manager, said: "Our work on the bridge continues to make good progress. "Bearings that help the bridge move slightly and safely with traffic and temperature changes have been installed."The next phase of work will see the construction of the bridge deck where traffic runs, while utility companies will also return to the site to make final connections within the work will involve overnight closures of the motorway between 21:00 and 05:00 until Sunday and next weekend. Listen to the best of BBC Radio Manchester on Sounds and follow BBC Manchester on Facebook, X, and Instagram. You can also send story ideas via Whatsapp to 0808 100 2230.
Yahoo
05-04-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Scientists are using stellar 'quakes' to peer inside stars
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Stars don't just shine — they hum with hidden vibrations. Like earthquakes, ripples of gas on a star's surface — referred to as stellar quakes — offer clues about what lies beneath. And now, scientists have found a new way to probe these tremors in stars' convective envelopes, the turbulent outer layers of a stellar body where hot gas rises, cools and sinks in a churning cycle of energy transfer. "Stellar quakes happen in most stars that have a bubbling outer layer, like a pot of boiling water," Claudia Reyes, who was a Ph.D. student at the University of New South Wales when the research was conducted, told "These bubbles of hot gas rise and burst at the surface, sending ripples through the entire star that cause it to vibrate in particular ways: these are [known as] acoustic oscillations that we can detect by looking for subtle variations in their brightness." Just as seismic waves help scientists study Earth's interior, these stellar quakes offer a way to infer a star's internal structure. "Each [star] has its own resonant frequencies, predetermined by its internal structure and physical properties," said Reyes, who is now a postdoctoral fellow at the Australian National University. "Larger stars produce deeper, slower vibrations, while smaller stars vibrate at higher pitches." One key to decoding these vibrations is what's known as "small frequency spacing." By analyzing this feature, scientists can estimate how much hydrogen fuel a less evolved star, like the sun, possesses, as it is the fusion of hydrogen atoms into helium under the intense gravity found in a star's core that drives a star's life cycle. "Our study focuses on using this frequency signature to learn about giant stars, [those further along in their life cycle] than the sun," said Reyes. Stars evolve over billions of years — our own sun is roughly 4.6 billion years old and is about halfway through its life cycle — and so studying how they change over time is a challenge. "We can't follow a star to see how it will 'grow old,'" said Reyes. What scientists can do, however, is study star clusters, which are groups of stars that formed together and share the same age and composition. "Because more massive stars evolve faster than less massive stars, by looking at a group of cluster stars, we can look at a broad evolutionary sequence in front of our eyes," explained Reyes. Reyes and her team measured stellar quakes in 27 stars from the open cluster Messier 67 (M67), a loosely bound group of over 500 stars. One of the oldest known open clusters, M67 has an age similar to the sun's and contains about 100 sun-like stars, along with many red giants and white dwarfs. "M67 [was of interest because it] has a chemical composition very similar to our own Sun, and it has many stars in the giant phase. This is because our models are generally very well calibrated to the sun, it is the chemical makeup that we understand the best,' said Reyes. "With this study we were able to probe the fundamental physics that happens deep into the interiors of these stars, under these extreme conditions. It is important for us to build evolution models that we can trust, so that we can predict what happens not only to the sun, but also to other stars as they grow older." The team analyzed tiny variations in the stars' light intensities, giving rise to frequency spectrums showcasing the oscillations. 'We found that overall, larger stars (more evolved) produce slower vibrations, while smaller stars (less evolved) vibrate at higher pitches, as was expected," said Reyes.. "However, there was a point going from less to more evolved, there was a point when the vibrations stopped changing, and kept repeating the same note." This was an unexpected finding of the frequency signatures of the stars the team studied. "We found that this 'stalling frequency' is distinctively determined by the star's mass and chemical composition," said Reyes. "Therefore, we have found a new diagnostic tool to estimate their masses and ages with improved precision." The team discovered that the observed stalling frequency correlates with the lower boundary of the stars' convective envelope. "This occurs at a specific stage in a red giant's life," said Reyes. "When its convective envelope deepens to span about 80% of the star's mass and its bottom boundary reaches a sensitive part in the star's interior. At this bottom boundary, the speed of sound shifts sharply, affecting how sound waves travel." Related Stories: — Supergiant star Betelgeuse may have a 'Betelbuddy' — Scientists used JWST instruments 'wrong' on purpose to capture direct images of exoplanets — James Webb Space Telescope investigates the origins of 'failed stars' in the Flame Nebula Comparing these results with stellar models that predict observed stalling frequencies will help astronomers better estimate the masses and ages of stars in our galaxy and beyond. "Stars are like fossil records that carry information about the environments in which they formed," added Reyes. "By studying them astronomers can piece together the story of our galaxy. Better age estimates across the galaxy help us reconstruct this history in greater detail."
