Show Notes:

End of the World?

• Gamma-Ray Burst
• Gamma Ray Burst Event animation | SolarParallax
• These are created by the collision of two collapsed stars
• Gamma-ray bursts are extremely powerful, estimated to have 10 quadrillion times more energy than our sun
• A burst 1,000 light years from the earth (further away than most of our stars) would create an explosion as bright as our sun and bring a hasty destruction to the Earth
• While the atmosphere and the ozone would provide protection at first it would soon be cooked away by the radiation
• UV rays would kill the photosynthetic plankton in the ocean, which provide most of the earth’s oxygen
• At least one burst can be seen each day when watching our sky with gamma-ray vision; it can’t be too long before there is one closer to home
• Solar Activity (Super-Flares and Decreased Activity
• NASA | Biggest Solar Storm Since 2003 | NASAexplorer
• NASA SDO – X2-class Solar Flare, January 27, 2012 | LittleSDOHMI
• NASA | Active Region on the Sun Emits Another Flare | NASAexplorerNASAexplorer
• The sun emits solar flares, also known as coronal mass ejections, towards earth frequently
• These flares are large magnetic outbursts which contain high-speed subatomic particles
• Earth’s atmosphere and magnetic field protect us from the consequences of these potentially lethal flares
• Evidence has been found that sun-like stars far from our solar system can briefly increase in brightness by 20 times and it is hypothesized that these increases are caused by super-flares, which are millions of times more powerful than the common solar flare
• If our sun were to emit one of these super-flares it would literally fry the earth
• On the other hand if our sun’s activity were to decrease by a mere 1% (which has been known to happen to many sun-like stars) we would be flung back into another ice age
• Particle Accelerators
• Lego LHC CERN end of the world! | frankfredlego·com
• When electric fields are used to accelerate protons they could collide at speed fast enough to create black holes or bits of altered matter
• Small black holes would slowly engulf our planet while pieces of altered matter, called strangelets, would destroy any ordinary matter they came in contact with, eventually annihilating the entire planet
• Has the Large Hadron Collider destroyed the world yet?
• NASA’s Official Press Release
• YouTube ScienceCasts: Why the World Didn’t End Yesterday | ScienceAtNASA
• Further Reading / In the News
• End of the World: 10 Disasters That Could End It All At Any Given Second – Best of the Web Directory

— NEWS BYTE —

Holiday Gift Ideas

• Planisphere / Star Finder
• The Night Sky 20–30 N,
• The Night Sky 30–40 N
• The Night Sky 40–50 N
• The Night Sky 50–60 N
• The Night Sky Southern
• Astronomy Books
• Starfinder [Hardcover]
• NightWatch: A Practical Guide to Viewing the Universe [Spiral-bound]
• The One-Minute Astronomer: Tips, Tales, and Tours for the Casual Stargazer [Kindle Edition]
• Star Watch: The Amateur Astronomer’s Guide to Finding, Observing, and Learning about Over 125 Celestial Objects [Paperback]
• Binocular Highlights: 99 Celestial Sights for Binocular Users (Sky & Telescope Stargazing) [Spiral-bound]
• Red LED Flashlight
• Carson Optical LED Flashlight (Red)
• Smith & Wesson Galaxy 13 LED Flashlight (10 White LED & 3 Red LED)
• Smith & Wesson Galaxy 6 LED Flashlight (3 Red + 3 White LEDs)
• Science “Kits” – What to keep in mind
• Look at what level of knowledge the kit meant for
• Is it safe considering everyone in the household?
• Is Supervision Required?
• Books in General
• What is the person interested in? [ Science, Sports, History, …]
• If the plan is to just get the person to read, pick the right level of reading skill, be open for subject of interest and fiction/non-fiction

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

DARPA … Probe Droid?

• The low down
• This UAV is capable of both hover and wing-borne flight, making the delivery and precision emplacement of a payload possible
• A special robotic arm was designed with the capability of carrying up to 1 pound.
• The low-cost vision system enables the UAV to autonomously search, find and track a target’s position relative to the hovering vehicle
• The newly developed stereo vision system tracks the target and motion of the robotic arm.
• The control logic maneuvers the vehicle and direct the robotic arm to accurately engage the emplacement target.
• Vehicle stability can be maintained with the arm extended 6 feet with a 1-pound payload.
• The goal was to show the team could quickly develop and integrate the right technology to make this work
• Multimedia
• YouTube V-Bat VTOL UAV | Headed to Target
• YouTube V-Bat VTOL UAV | Search for and Find Target
• YouTube V-Bat VTOL UAV | Arm Places Object
• Further Reading / In the News
• What an unmanned aerial vehicle can do with depth perception | phys.org

Snapshot Serengeti

• The low down
• Researchers at the University of Minnesota have been trying to count and locate the animals of the Serengeti, and began placing automatic cameras across the park a couple of years ago.
• They now have more than 200 cameras around the region – all triggered by motion – capturing animals day and night.
• They have amassed millions of images so far, and more come in all the time. So they’ve team up with us here at the Zooniverse!
• They need the help of online volunteers to spot and classify animals in these snapshot of life in Serengeti National Park. Doing this will provide the data needed to track and study these animals, whilst giving everyone the chance to see them in the wild.
• Snapshot Serengeti

– SPACECRAFT UPDATE –

GRAIL End of Mission

• Last time on SciByte
• SciByte 74 | Spicy Foods & Mars – GRAIL’s Lunar Gravitational Map | December 11, 2012
• SciByte 49 | Spinal Cord Injuries & Venus Transit – GRAIL Moon mission extension | June 5, 2012
• SciByte 39 | Amazon & Martian Weather – First MoonKAM Image comes in from the Lunar Orbiters Ebb & Flow | March 27, 2012
• SciByte 37 | Solar Storms & Higgs Boson – SPACECRAFT UPDATE – GRAIL Moon Probes Ebb and Flow | March 13, 2012
• SciByte 27 | Revisiting the Moon – Moon meets GRAIL (Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory)
• The low down
• During the primary mission, they flew about 35 miles above the lunar surface. After getting bonus data-collecting time, they lowered their altitude to 14 miles (22 kilometers) above the surface
• The two spacecraft were placed in an orbit that takes them within a kilometer of the surface, so low that they will hit the side of an unnamed mountain
• GRAIL ends its successful mission by impacting the Moon on December 17, 2012 at approximately 5:27 p.m. EST (22:27 UT) near the north pole
• Ebb struck first, followed 24 seconds later by Flow at 3,800 mph
• Because is happened in darkness the crash was not visible from Earth; however, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter circling the moon will pass over the mountain and attempt to photograph the crash site
• By design, the final resting place was far away from the Apollo landing sites and other historical spots on the moon
• The spot on the lunar surface where NASA intentionally crashed its twin gravity-mapping moon probes has been named after the late Sally Ride, America’s first woman in space and who played a key role in Grail’s education and outreach efforts
• Ride had led Grail’s MoonKAM project, which allowed schoolkids around the world to select lunar sites for Ebb and Flow to photograph
• Multimedia
• YouTube Last Flight for GRAIL’s Twin Spacecraft | NASASolarSystem
• YouTube NASA Grail Twins Make Impact with Moon | NASAtelevision
• Further Reading / In the News
• Twin NASA spacecraft deliberately crash into moon | phys.org
• GRAIL Mission Goes Out With a Bang | news.nationalgeographic.com
• SVS Animation 4023 – GRAIL Impacts the Moon | svs.gsfc.nasa.gov
• Moon Probes’ Crash Site Named After Sally Ride | Space.com
• Moon probes set for smashing end | Atom & Cosmos | Science News |sciencenews.org

International Space Station – Expedition 34

• The low down
• Three new crewmembers of Expedition 34 are set to launch on Dec 19
• Flight Engineer 3, Thomas Marshburn, NASA [Second spaceflight]
• Flight Engineer 4, Chris Hadfield, CSA [Third spaceflight]
• Flight Engineer 5, Roman Romanenko, RSA [Second spaceflight]
• Expedition 34
• How To Train for a Mission to the ISS: Medical Mayhem | UniverseToday.com

– UPDATE –

The Higgs=Boson steps closer to certainty

• The low down
• The latest research findings from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN show that the CMS and ATLAS experiments are now reporting that the significance of their observation of the Higgs-like particle is standing close to the 7 sigma level
• This is well beyond the 5 required for a discovery, and that the new particle’s properties appear to be consistent with those of a Standard Model Higgs boson.
• Even with these results much further analysis is needed to reveal the full details of its identity
• The next update is scheduled for the spring 2013 conferences although with the LHC shutting down after the new year and resuming operations in 2015, we’ll probably have to wait some time longer.
• Of Note
• 5 Sigma is 1 in about 1.7 million (1,744,278)
• 7 Sigma is 1 in about 390 billion (390,682,215,445)
• Further Reading / In the News
• CMS, ATLAS experiments report Higgs-like particle close to the 7 sigma level | phys.org

– CURIOSITY UPDATE –

• The NASA Mars rover Curiosity drove 63 feet (19 meters) northeastward early Monday, Dec. 10, approaching a step down into a slightly lower area called “Yellowknife Bay,” where researchers intend to choose a rock to drill.
• Curiosity ended Monday’s drive about 30 percent shorter than planned for the day when it detected a slight difference between two calculations of its tilt, not an immediate risk, but a trigger for software to halt the drive as a precaution
• Curiosity is approaching a lip where it will descend about 20 inches (half a meter) to Yellowknife Bay. The rover team is checking carefully for a safe way down. Yellowknife Bay is the temporary destination for first use of Curiosity’s rock-powdering drill, before the mission turns southwestward for driving to its main destination on the slope of Mount Sharp.
• Self Portrait
• The robotic arm on NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity held the rover’s Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera in more than 50 positions in one day to generate a single scene combining all the images, creating a high-resolution, full-color portrait of the rover itself.
• A larger version of the previously released self-portrait is now available online, along with an animation video showing how it was taken, and a practice self-portrait taken earlier by Curiosity’s test-rover double on Earth
• Multimedia
• Curiosity Traverse Map, Sol 123 | marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov
• Image Galleries at JPL and Curiosity Mulimedia
• Social Media
• Curiosity Rover @MarsCuriosity
• Further Reading / In the News
• Mars Rover Self-Portrait Shoot Uses Arm Choreography | marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov
• Mars Science Laboratory: Curiosity Rover Nearing Yellowknife Bay | marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov
• Mars Science Laboratory: Mars Rover Self-Portrait Shoot Uses Arm Choreography | marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov
• Curiosity rover nearing Yellowknife Bay | phys.org
• Mars rover self-portrait shoot uses arm choreography | phys.org

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

• Dec 22 1882 : 130 years ago : Christmas tree lights : The first string of electric lights decorating a Christmas tree was created for his home by Edward H. Johnson, an associate of Thomas Edison. Previously, trees had been decorated with wax candles. The Dec 1901 issue of the Ladies’ Home Journal advertised the Christmas tree lamps, first made commercially by the Edison General Electric Co. of Harrison, N.J. in strings of nine sockets, each with a miniature 2 candlepower, 32-volt, carbon-filament lamp*. Christmas tree lights quickly became the rage among wealthy Americans, but the average citizen didn’t use them until the 1920s or later. Character light bulbs became popular in the 1920s, bubble lights in the 1940s, twinkle bulbs in the 1950s and plastic bulbs by 1955. Image

Looking up this week

• Keep an eye out for …

• Fri, Dec 21 | 6:12 a.m. EST | Winter begins in the Northern Hemisphere and Summer in the Southern Hemisphere

• Mercury, Venus and Saturn | SE @ dawn | Are still in a diagonal life, with Venus the brightest Saturn to the upper right, and Mercury to it’s lower left

• Further Reading and Resources

• Sky&Telescope

• SpaceWeather.com

• StarDate.org

• For the Southern hemisphere: SpaceInfo.com.au

• Constellations of the Southern Hemisphere : astronomyonline.org

• Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand : rasnz.org.nz

• AstronomyNow

• HeavensAbove