Show Notes: linuxunplugged.com/466

The post The Night of a Thousand Errors | LINUX Unplugged 466 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Show Notes: extras.show/87

The post Brunch With Brent: Tim Canham | Jupiter Extras 87 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Hello everyone and welcome back to SciByte!

We take a look at adding and subtracting exoplanets, diabetes research, spacecraft updates, viewer feedback, Curiosity news, and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

Direct Download:

MP3 Audio | OGG Audio | HD Video | Video | Torrent | YouTube

RSS Feeds:

MP3 Feed | OGG Feed | Video Feed | Torrent Feed | iTunes

Show Notes:

Exoplanets? … Not So Fast

• The controversial existence of two possible planets located in the habitable zone of a star now have a ‘final’ ending to their story
• Last Time on SciByte, … well J@N
• Planet Zarmina | J@N | 10.6.10
• Gliese 581 System
• Planets were first announced around the system in 2007
• September 30, 2010 | Gliese 581d and 581g
• There was the possible discovery of the closest Earth-sized planet found found at that time that also existed in the habitable zone
• Quotes from one of the scientists involved in the discovery
• “Personally, given the ubiquity and propensity of life to flourish wherever it can, I would say, my own personal feeling is that the chances of life on this planet are 100 percent” “I have almost no doubt about it.”
• It was phrased unfortunately, and the media have jumped on it, of course
• This led to many headline grabbing stories, concepts of alien worlds and a J@N episode
• The 581d and 581g Controversy
• Both 581d and 581g were considered to be in the “habitable” region around the dwarf star they orbited
• About two weeks after the discovery, another team said it could not find indications
• Two years later another research team saying that analysis of an “extended dataset” from HARPS did show Gliese 581g
• A press release at the time from the Planetary Habitability Laboratory the discovery would continue to be controversial
• An Ending to the Story of 581d and 581g?
• As of this week both 581d and 581g are crossed off
• A new study shows that the two potentially habitable planets in the Gliese 581 system are just false signals arising out of the star’s activity and rotation
• The uncertainty arises from the delicacy of looking for signals of small planets around much larger stars
• Astronomers typically find planets through watching them pass across the face of a star, or measuring the tug that they exert on their parent star during their orbit
• Researchers now say that only three planets exist around this star.
• Further Reading / In the News
• A Brief History Of Gliese 581d and 581g, The Planets That May Not Be | UniverseToday.com
• Could Chance for Life on Gliese 581g Actually Be “100%”? | UniverseToday.com
• Controversial clues of two ‘Goldilocks planets’ that might support life are proven false | ScienceDaily

— NEWS BYTE —

Research on Reversing Type 1 Diabetes

• Investigators at the University of Cincinnati (UC) have found a therapy that reverses new onset Type 1 diabetes in mouse models and may advance efforts in combating the disease among humans.
• Type 1 Diabetes
• In Type 1 diabetes, the body does not produce sufficient insulin, which is central to glucose metabolism: without insulin, blood glucose rises
• Type 1 diabetes is usually diagnosed in children and young adults and affects about 5 percent of all people with diabetes
• There is no cure for Type 1 diabetes though it can be controlled with insulin therapy
• Immune System
• In Type 1 diabetes, autoimmunity causes the body’s T-cells to attack its insulin-producing beta cells.
• There are two parts to the immune system: the innate immune system, which we are born with and attempts to fight infection straight away
• And the adaptive immune system, which takes time to mount a response that is more specific to the particular pathogen
• The innate immune system includes a group of cells known as dendritic cells that send messages to the adaptive immune system
• Previous studies have already established that non-obese diabetic mice have faulty innate immune cells, and that this could be partly due to a defect in TLR4, which many suspect helps to prevent type 1 diabetes when it functions normally
• Treatment
• By using an antibody to stimulate a specific molecule in the innate immune system the researchers can reverse, with a high rate of success, new onset diabetes in mice that have already developed the symptoms of diabetes
• The cause of this reversal is a preservation of the endocrine pancreatic beta cells that produce insulin
• These cells are preserved from the autoimmune attack which is the hallmark of Type 1 diabetes
• This approach differs from most in combating Type 1 diabetes because his team’s therapies in mice do not directly interact with T-cells
• Treatment of autoimmunity has often been directed at suppressing an over-zealous adaptive immune response by eliminating autoreactive T-cells
• There are two arms of the immune system, this treatment is targeting a different part of the immune system
• The innate system tends to have a stereotypical response. this new research is targeting a receptor that is found mostly on the innate immune cells, such as dendritic cells.
• The Future
• The key to reversing Type 1 diabetes in mice, is catching the disease at its onset, which is typically within a very short time window
• The time frame would be longer in humans, but it is still a relatively short time from new onset to end-stage Type 1 diabetes
• While the TLR4 pathway in humans is similar to that of mice, there are some differences, so further study is required to see if the treatment will work in humans.
• There is also a chance, if the therapy works in humans, that it will do so with an agonistic anti-TLR4 agent that is already approved, or under development
• Further Reading / In the News
• Reversal of type 1 diabetes in mice may eventually help humans | MedicalXPress.com
• Type 1 diabetes ‘reversed’ in mice | MedicalNewsToday.com

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

A New Earth-Like Exoplanet

• A potentially habitable Earth-like planet that is only 16 light years away has been discovered
• Discovery
• The planet was discovered from its gravitational pull on its parent star, which causes the star to wobble slightly
• This team had previously found, in 2009, that the star has a cold Jupiter-like planet with a near-circular orbit of about nine years, called Gliese GJ b.
• “Earth-Like” Planet
• The “super-Earth” planet, GJ 832 c, takes 16 days to orbit its red-dwarf star and has a mass at least five times that of Earth.
• It receives about the same average stellar energy as Earth does, because red dwarfs shine more dimly than our Sun, and may have similar temperatures to our planet
• These characteristics put it among the top three most Earth-like planets, according to the Earth Similarity Index developed by scientists at the University of Puerto Rica in Arecibo
• Possible Atmosphere
• The research group says that if the planet has a similar atmosphere to Earth it may be possible for life to survive, although seasonal shifts would be extreme
• “However, given the large mass of the planet, it seems likely that it would possess a massive atmosphere, which may well render the planet inhospitable” | Head of UNSW’s Exoplanetary Science research group, Professor Chris Tinney
• “A denser atmosphere would trap heat and could make it more like a super-Venus and too hot for life,” | Head of UNSW’s Exoplanetary Science research group, Professor Chris Tinney
• Further Reading / In the News
• Potentially habitable Earth-like planet discovered; May have similar temperatures to our planet | ScienceDaily

— SPACECRAFT UPDATE—

Opportunity Rover

• Opportunity rover has reached a long sought after region of aluminum-rich clay mineral outcrops at a new Endeavour where ancient water once flowed billions of year ago.
• The crater ridge is now “named ‘Pillinger Point’ after Colin Pillinger the Principal Investigator for the [British] Beagle 2 Mars lander
• The Beagle 2 lander was built to search for signs of life on Mars
• Opportunity’s Road Trip
• The new photo mosaic above captured by Opportunity peering out from ‘Pillinger Point’ ridge on June 5, 2014 (Sol 3684) and showing a panoramic view around the eroded mountain ridge and into vast Endeavour crater
• The crater spans 14 miles (22 kilometers) in diameter
• For the past several months, the six wheeled robot has been trekking southwards from Solander towards the exposures of aluminum-rich clays
• The rover mission scientists ultimate goal is travel even further south to ‘Cape Tribulation’ which holds a motherlode of the ‘phyllosilicate’ clay minerals
• “The idea is to characterize the outcrops as we go and then once we reach the valley travel quickly to Cape Tribulation and the smectite valley, which is still ~2 km to the south of the present rover location,” | Prof. Ray Arvidson, Deputy Principal Investigator for the rover
• Of Note
• June 16 marked the 3696th Sol or Martian Day. Over 193,400 images have been taken during the 24.51 miles (39.44 kilometers) since touchdown on Jan. 24, 2004
• Further Reading / In the News
• Opportunity Peers Out from ‘Pillinger Point’ – Honoring British Beagle 2 Mars Scientist Where Ancient Water Flowed | UniverseToday.com

India’s Mars Orbiter Mission

• Last Time on SciByte …
• SciByte 111 | Memories & International Spacecraft (December 3,
  2013)
• SciByte 109 | ‘Earth-Like’ Planets & Sharks (November 12, 2013)
• SciByte 107 | Dinosaurs & Satellites (October 29, 2013)
• The Low Down
• Mars Orbiter Mission or MOM, has now celebrated 100 days and 100 million kilometers out from Mars on June 16, until the crucial Mars Orbital Insertion (MOI) engine firing
• Mars Orbiter Mission or MOM
• India’s MOM probe will study the atmosphere and sniff for signals of methane.
• MOM was designed and developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) at a cost of $69 Million and marks India’s maiden foray into interplanetary flight
• The probe has flown about 70% of the way to Mars, traveling about 466 million kilometers out of a total of 680 million kilometers (400 million miles) overall, with about 95 days to go.
• One way radio signals to Earth take approximately 340 seconds
• ISRO reports the spacecraft and its five science instruments are healthy. It is being continuously monitored by the Indian Deep Space Network (IDSN) and NASA JPL’s Deep Space Network (DSN).
• Trajectory Correction Maneuvers (TMSs)
• Before reaching Mars, mission navigators must keep the craft on course from Earth to Mars through a series of in flight Trajectory Correction Maneuvers (TMSs).
• The second TCM was just successfully performed on June 11 by firing the spacecraft’s 22 Newton thrusters for a duration of 16 seconds
• TCM-1 was conducted on December 11, 2013 by firing the 22 Newton Thrusters for 40.5 seconds
• Two additional TCM firings are planned in August and September 2014.
• Indian Space Research Organization and NASA
• Although they were developed independently and have different suites of scientific instruments, the MAVEN and MOM science teams will “work together” to unlock the secrets of Mars atmosphere and climate history, MAVEN’s top scientist
• Working together, MOM and MAVEN will revolutionize our understanding of Mars atmosphere, dramatic climatic history and potential for habitability
• “We have had some discussions with their science team, and there are some overlapping objectives,” “At the point where we [MAVEN and MOM] are both in orbit collecting data we do plan to collaborate and work together with the data jointly,” | MAVEN’s principal Investigator
• Further Reading / In the News
• India’s 1st Mars Mission Celebrates 100 Days and 100 Million Kilometers from Mars Orbit Insertion Firing – Cruising Right behind NASA’s MAVEN | UniverseToday.com

ISEE3 Reboot Project

• The Ups and Downs
• This is the first #ISEE3 Delta V maneuver since 1986
• First burn completed ! #ISEE3
• Command received. #ISEE3 TCM Segment 2a burn initiated.
• TCM Segment 2a burn completed. Accelerometers not showing anything – yet. #ISEE3
• Current #ISEE3 signal. Definitely seeing Doppler delta as a result of firings. About 6 Hz so far.
• Go for initiate. Command sent. #ISEE3. Command accepted. We see acceleration but not as expected.
• Either we are low on fuel in System A or latch valve A is not working. FSS and accelerometers not indicating thrust #ISEE3
• Team is reviewing data from today’s TCM efforts. #ISEE3
• The velocity change is apparent in signal. Doppler corrected but using pre-burn velocity from NASA. #ISEE3
• Formulating a plan for another TCM burn attempt tomorrow. Our window at Arecibo opens at 12:39 pm EDT and extends to 3:26 pm EDT

— VIEWER FEEDBACK —

Titans Salty Ocean

• Twitter | Kenny MacLeod ‏@siabost9deas
• @JB_Mars_Base “Ocean on Saturn moon could be as salty as the Dead Sea” https://phys.org/news/2014-07-ocean-saturn-moon-salty-dead.html … #Cassini #Space #Titan #SaltySea
• The Low Down
• Scientists analyzing data from NASA’s Cassini mission have firm evidence the ocean inside Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, might be as salty as the Earth’s Dead Sea.
• The new results come from a study of gravity and topography data collected during Cassini’s repeated flybys of Titan during the past 10 years
• Salty Ocean or Brine
• Researchers found that a relatively high density was required for Titan’s ocean in order to explain the gravity data
• This indicates the ocean is probably an extremely salty brine of water mixed with dissolved salts likely composed of sulfur, sodium and potassium
• The density indicated for this brine would give the ocean a salt content roughly equal to the saltiest bodies of water on Earth
• “Knowing this may change the way we view this ocean as a possible abode for present-day life, but conditions might have been very different there in the past.” | Giuseppe Mitri of the University of Nantes in France
• Icy Shell / Crust
• Using the Cassini data, researchers presented a model structure for Titan, resulting in an improved understanding of the structure of the moon’s outer ice shell
• The additional findings support previous indications the moon’s icy shell is rigid and in the process of freezing solid
• Cassini data also indicate the thickness of Titan’s ice crust varies slightly from place to place.
• The researchers said this can best be explained if the moon’s outer shell is stiff, as would be the case if the ocean were slowly crystallizing, and turning to ice.
• Methane
• A further consequence of a rigid ice shell, according to the study, is any outgassing of methane into Titan’s atmosphere must happen at scattered “hot spots”- like the hot spot on Earth that gave rise to the Hawaiian Island chain
• Titan’s methane does not appear to result from convection or plate tectonics recycling its ice shell.
• How methane gets into the moon’s atmosphere has long been of great interest to researchers, as molecules of this gas are broken apart by sunlight on short geological timescales
• Titan’s present atmosphere contains about five percent methane. This means some process, thought to be geological in nature, must be replenishing the gas
• “Our work suggests looking for signs of methane outgassing will be difficult with Cassini, and may require a future mission that can find localized methane sources,” said Jonathan Lunine, a scientist on the Cassini mission at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York
• Further Reading / In the News
• Ocean on Saturn moon could be as salty as the Dead Sea | Phys.org

— CURIOSITY UPDATE —

• Driving Test Course
• Curiosity rover has what is often referred to as a stunt double here on Earth, called ‘Scarecrow,’ that engineers use to test drive on different types of terrain
• Scarecrow has a full-size version of Curiosity’s wheels and other driving equipment, but doesn’t have the “brains.”
• Engineers have been scouring the Dumont Dunes area and look for the best spot to practice driving over dunes like those Curiosity may drive over on Mars
• Recently engineers created a course of sand ripples for the Scarecrow rover to drive over to test the rover’s driving skills on soft sand ripples
• On Mars, the Curiosity rover may cross similar sand ripples on its way to Mount Sharp
• Another Travelling Milestone
• After traversing 82 meters on June 27, 2014, Sol 672, the rover stopped because it determined that it was slipping too much
• The rover automatically stopped when it encountered soft sand and sensed that it wasn’t making enough progress
• “Coincidentally, the rover stopped right on the landing ellipse, a major mission milestone” | Mission scientist Ken Herkenhoff
• Mission Info
• Curiosity still has about another 2.4 miles (3.9 kilometers) to go to reach the entry way at a gap in the dunes at the foothills of Mount Sharp sometime later this year
• To date, Curiosity’s odometer totals over 5.1 miles (8.4 kilometers) since landing inside Gale Crater on Mars in August 2012. She has taken over 162,000 images
• Multimedia
• YouTube Curiosity Rover Report JPLnews
• Image Galleries at JPL and Curiosity Mulimedia
• Social Media
• Curiosity Rover @MarsCuriosity
• Further Reading / In the News
• Trekking Mars – Curiosity Roves Outside Landing Ellipse! | UniverseToday.com
• ‘Scarecrow’ Rover Goes Off-Roading in Dumont Dunes – Mars Science Laboratory | mars.jpl.nasa.gov

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

• July 14, 1965 : 49 years ago : First Close-Up Photo of Mars : The Mariner 4 satellite sent a transmission of the first close-up photograph of Mars. It consisting of 8.3 dots per second of varying degrees of darkness. The transmission lasted for 8.5 hours and depicted the regions on Mars known as Cebrenia, Arcadia, and Amazonis. The satellite was 134 million miles away from earth and 10,500 miles from Mars. The 574-pound spacecraft had been launched at 9:22am on 28 Nov 1964, from Cape Canaveral, FL, by a two-stage Atlas-Agena D rocket. In addition to its camera with digital tape recorder (about 20 pictures), it carried instruments for studying cosmic dust, solar plasma, trapped radiation, cosmic rays, magnetic fields, radio occultation and celestial mechanics

Looking up this week

• Keep an eye out for …
• Fri, July 11 | At dusk you can see Mars and Spica in the SW sky just under 2* apart [1* is the width of your pinky held at arms length]
• Sat, July 12 | Full Moon
• Sun, July 13 | At dusk Mars and Spica are now just 1.3* apart
• Planets
• Mercury | Sunrise | low in the glow of sunrise to the lower left of Venus
• Venus | Dawn | Low in the E
• Mars | Dusk | High in the SW at dusk with Spica, a little fainter, closing in on it each day reaching their closest point on Sunday
• Jupiter is lost in the sunset

• Saturn | Late Twilight | Highest in the S

• 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

The post Exoplanets & Diabetes | SciByte 135 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Hello everyone and welcome back to SciByte!

We take a look at a theory breaking exoplanet, a theory confirming star, Saturn moon Titan, lunar formation theories, story and spacecraft updates, Curiosity news, and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

Direct Download:

MP3 Audio | OGG Audio | HD Video | Video | Torrent | YouTube

RSS Feeds:

MP3 Feed | OGG Feed | Video Feed | Torrent Feed | iTunes

Show Notes:

Breaking Planetary Formation Theories Again

• Astronomers have announced that they have discovered a new type of planet – a rocky world weighing 17 times as much as Earth
• Past theories believed such a world couldn’t form because anything so hefty would grab hydrogen gas as it grew and become a Jupiter-like gas giant
• This planet; however. is solid and much bigger than previously discovered “super-Earths,” making it a “mega-Earth.”
• Kepler-10c
• It is located about 560 light-years from Earth in the constellation Draco
• It’s orbit lasts 45 days
• The system also hosts a 3-Earth-mass “lava world,” Kepler-10b, in a remarkably fast, 20-hour orbit
• Discovery
• Kepler-10c was originally spotted by NASA’s Kepler spacecraft.
• By measuring the amount of dimming, astronomers can calculate the planet’s physical size or diameter
• However, Kepler can’t tell whether a planet is rocky or gassy
• Kepler-10c was known to have a diameter 2.3 times as large as Earth
• This suggested it fell into a category of planets known as mini-Neptunes, which have thick, gaseous envelopes
• It’s a Rocky Planet
• The team used the HARPS-North instrument on the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (TNG) in the Canary Islands to measure the mass of Kepler-10c
• They found that it weighed 17 times as much as Earth – far more than expected, this showed that Kepler-10c must have a dense composition of rocks and other solids.
• It is so massive that it would have been able to hold onto an atmosphere if it ever had one
• Planetary Formation Theories
• Planet formation theories have a difficult time explaining how such a large, rocky world that need elements like silicon and iron, could develop
• The Kepler-10 system is about 11 billion years old, which means it formed less than 3 billion years after the Big Bang
• The early universe contained only hydrogen and helium
• Heavier elements are created and scattered through the universe when a star goes supernova, when help create later generations of stars and planets
• This process should have taken billions of years; however, Kepler-10c shows that the universe was able to form such huge rocks even during the time when heavy elements were scarce.
• What This Means
• This tells us that rocky planets could form much earlier than we thought
• This research implies that astronomers shouldn’t rule out old stars when they search for Earth-like planets
• If old stars can host rocky Earths too, then we have a better chance of locating potentially habitable worlds in our cosmic neighborhood
• Further Reading / In the News
• Astronomers find a new type of planet: The ‘mega-Earth’ | Phys.org

— NEWS BYTE —

A New Sneaky Star Type

• A Thorne-Zytkow Object, or TZO are actually two stars in one: a binary pair where a superdense neutron star has been absorbed into its less dense supergiant
• Thorne-Zytkow Object
• First theorized in 1975 they are difficult to find in real life because of their similarity to red supergiants, it is only through detailed spectroscopy that the particular chemical signatures can be identified.
• While normal red supergiants derive their energy from nuclear fusion in their cores, TOs are powered by the unusual activity of the absorbed neutron stars in their cores
• Discovery
• The astronomers were examining the spectrum of light emitted from apparent red supergiants, which tells them what elements are present
• When the spectrum of one star, HV 2112, was analyzed the scientists were quite surprised by some of the unusual features
• They took a close look at the subtle lines in the spectrum they found that it contained excess rubidium, lithium and molybdenum
• Past research has shown that normal stellar processes can create each of these elements; however, high abundances of all three of these at the temperatures typical of red supergiants is a unique signature of TŻOs
• Only by absorbing a much hotter star – such as a neutron star left over from the explosive death of a more massive partner – is the production of such elements presumed to be possible
• Formation Theory
• TOs are thought to be formed by the interaction of two massive stars-a red supergiant and a neutron star formed during a supernova explosion-in a close binary system
• The much more massive red supergiant essentially swallows the neutron star, which spirals into the core of the red supergiant
• Scientists are careful to point out that HV 2112 displays some chemical characteristics that don’t quite match theoretical models
• There are some minor inconsistencies between some of the details of what we found and what theory predicts, but the theoretical predictions are quite old, and there have been a lot of improvements in the theory since then
• What This Might Mean
• Studying these objects represents a completely new model of how stellar interiors can work
• In these interiors we also have a new way of producing heavy elements in our universe
• Further Reading / In the News
• Astronomers discover first Thorne-Zytkow object, a bizarre type of hybrid star | ScienceDaily
• Astronomers Find Evidence of a Strange Type of Star | UniverseToday.com

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

Waves on Saturns Moon?

• Cameras on NASA’s spacecraft Cassini recently saw what appear to be waves on one of Titan’s largest methane lakes, if confirmed, the discovery would mark the first time waves have been seen outside Earth.
• What Did They See?
• The team found patterns in the sunlight reflecting off a northern lake called Punga Mare that they interpret as two-centimeter-high waves
• It may simply be a mudflat instead of a deep lake, and a shallow film of liquid on top may be the cause of the unique light signature
• What it Might Mean
• Waves on Titan would confirm that the lakes actually are deep reservoirs of methane and ethane,
• If life on Titan exists, the best place to look is in large bodies of liquid, the kind that form waves
• True liquid bodies would also make a robotic spacecraft mission to explore Titan’s habitability more feasible
• More Certainty
• By 2017 scientists should know for certain whether what they are seeing is indeed caused by waves
• Cassini has been observing the moon during its northern winter, when weak winds are at work
• As spring starts over the next few years, it brings stronger winds to kick up seas, so the probe should capture more definitive evidence of waves if they exist
• Further Reading / In the News
• Lake on Saturn’s Largest Moon May Have Waves | Scientific American

Lunar Formation Theory Evidence?

• Current Lunar Formation Theory
• According to one lunar formation theory billions of years ago a Mars-sized body (sometimes called “Theia”) smashed into Earth
• Earth survived and the fragments from the crash gradually coalesced into the Moon that we see today
• The problem with this was that no evidence had been found of “Theia”
• Scientists now believe they have found traces of Theia in lunar rocks pulled from the Apollo missions
• Oxygen Isotopes
• Before, the “resolution” of microscopes couldn’t find any significant differences isotopes or types of oxygen of any of the Lunar samples of the Moon brought back by the Apollo missions
• New research appears to show a difference between the Earth and the Moon which implies that a body of different composition caused the changes
• The new data reveals the moon rocks have 12 parts per million more oxygen-17 than the Earth rocks
• “The differences are small and difficult to detect, but they are there,” | lead researcher Daniel Herwartz
• What This Means
• First, scientists can now be reasonably sure that the giant collision took place
• Second, it gives us an idea of the geochemistry of Theia
• Multimedia
• YouTube | Where Did The Moon Come From? – Do We Really Need the Moon? – Preview – BBC Two | BBC
• Further Reading / In the News
• The work was published in Science and will also be presented at the Goldschmidt geochemistry conference in California on June 11.
• Hulk Smash! Collision That Formed Our Moon Shows Up In Lunar Rocks, Study Says | UniverseToday.com
• New isotopic evidence supporting moon formation via Earth collision with planet-sized body | phys.org

—UPDATE—

Asteroid UQ4 Catalina Turns Comet – Still Looking Promising

• Last Time on SciByte …
• SciByte 130 | Solar Sibling & Comets | May 13, 2014
• Asteroid Turns Comet
• On October 23, 2013, astronomers with the Catalina Sky Survey picked up a very faint asteroid with an unusual orbit more like a that of a comet than an asteroid
• 2013 UQ4 belongs to a class of objects known as damocloids, these are thought to be inactive varieties of comet nuclei
• By May 7, the asteroid had grown a little fuzz, making the move to comethood, soon afterwards it displayed a substantial coma or atmosphere
• It is brightening on schedule and should be a binocular object greater than +10th magnitude by the end of June
• It will reach perihelion on July 6th only four days before its closest approach to the Earth
• At that point, the comet will have an apparent motion of about 7 degrees a day — that’s the span of a Full Moon once every 1 hour and 42 minutes
• Further Reading / In the News
• Asteroid-Turned-Comet 2013 UQ4 Catalina Brightens: How to See it This Summer | UniverseToday.com

— SPACECRAFT UPDATE—

ISEE-3 Reboot Project

• The team is now receiving information from the spacecraft’s magnetometer
• Last Time on SciByte …
• SciByte 132 | ISEE-3 Back To Life | May 27, 2014
• SciByte 133 | Orion Heat Shield & Dragon V2 | June 3, 2014
• What ISEE-3 Really Looks Like
• Spacecraft Mass: 479 kg [1,056 lb]
• Spacecraft Dimensions: 16-sided body 1.7m [5.6ft] diameter, 1.6m [5.2ft] high
• Spacecraft Power: solar cells
• Maximum Power: 173.0 W (nominal power)
• It has 4 large antennas that span 91 meters and it spins ~ once every 3 seconds
• The spacecraft is spinning at 19.16 rpm, the mission specification is 19.75 +/- 0.2 rpm so the spin rate of spacecraft is slightly below what it should be
• Image | ISEE-3 Status Report 5 June 2014 (Morning) | Space College
• Image | ISEE-3 Propulsion System Overview | Space College
• Using GNU Radio to Talk to ISEE-3
• The amazing accomplishment of successfully designing a deep-space uplink modulator in a couple of days was accomplished through a lot of team work, strong leadership, and generous support from the community at large
• The uplink commands to the spacecraft uses products like the Ettus Research USRP, the open source SDR framework GNU Radio have made this exceedingly easy
• Transmitting Rate Change
• On Just 9, the team was able to switch ISEE-3’s B transmitter to a data rate of 64 bps, they hope to eventually leave it this way so as to allow dishes smaller than Arecibo to complete the link and have solid two-way communication with ISEE-3.
• After this they were able to detect signals from the craft with an 8 foot dish
• Telemetry Data
• On June 12, telemetry from ISEE-3 indicating that its entire suite of science instruments is powered up and has been powered up since NASA last commanded the spacecraft many years ago
• The engineers are getting data back from the magnetometer that indicates that science data is coming back; however, just because an instrument is powered up doesn’t mean that it is functioning normally
• Some of the ISEE-3 instruments had begun to fail or become partially functional as early as 1982
• Spinning Up
• The team plans to briefly fire two of the spacecraft’s thrusters on 21 June so as to spin it up from 19.16 rpm to the mission specification of 19.75 +/- 0.2 rpm [the spin-up target is 19.733 rpm]
• This optimal spin rate is required in order to properly fire the axial thrusters during the much longer trajectory correction maneuver (TCM) we need to perform to adjust the spacecraft’s course
• Multimedia
• Image | ISEE-3 Status Report 5 June 2014 (Morning) | Space College
• Twitter | @ISEE3Reboot
• YouTube | ISEE-3 Reboot Channel
• Further Reading / In the News
• Space College: ISEE-3 Reboot Project Archives
• Contact With 36-Year Old Spacecraft Results in Dancing, Hugs. Now Comes Even Bigger Challenge | UniverseToday.com

— CURIOSITY UPDATE —

• The Road Trip Continues
• Curiosity is currently driving toward Mount Sharp, the layered mountain at the middle of Mars’ Gale Crater.
• The rover is carrying with it some of the drilled powdered sample material from the Windjana location that can be delivered for additional internal laboratory analysis during pauses in the drive.
• Mercury Transit
• The observations were made on June 3, 2014
• Mercury fills only about one-sixth of one pixel as seen from such great distance, so the darkening does not have a distinct shape, but its position follows Mercury’s expected path based on orbital calculations.
• This is the first transit of the sun by a planet observed from any planet other than Earth, and also the first imaging of Mercury from Mars
• The same Mastcam frames show two sunspots approximately the size of Earth. The sunspots move only at the pace of the sun’s rotation, much slower than the movement of Mercury.
• Mercury and Venus transits are visible more often from Mars than from Earth, the next Mercury transit visible from Earth will be May 9, 2016.
• Mercury Passes in Front of the Sun, as Seen From Mars – Mars Science Laboratory | Mars.jpl.nasa.gov
• Testing Future Landing Technologies
• Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) | nasa.gov
• The Low Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) will gather data about landing heavy payloads on Mars and other planetary surfaces
• As NASA plans increasingly ambitious robotic missions to Mars, laying the groundwork for even more complex human science expeditions to come, accommodating extended stays for explorers on the Martian surface will require larger and heavier spacecraft
• This test will use a helium balloon (that, when fully inflated, would fit snugly into Pasadena’s Rose Bowl) to lift the vehicle to 120,000 feet
• A fraction of a second after dropping from the balloon, and a few feet below it, four small rocket will stabilize the saucer
• A half second later, a solid-fueled rocket engine will send the test vehicle to the edge of the stratosphere
• “Our goal is to get to an altitude and velocity which simulates the kind of environment one of our vehicles would encounter when it would fly in the Martian atmosphere,” | Ian Clark, principal investigator of the LDSD project at JPL
• Two supersonic decelerator technologies that will be thoroughly tested during two LDSD flight tests next year.
• The SIAD-R, is essentially an inflatable doughnut that increases the vehicle’s size and, as a result, its drag to quickly slow the vehicle
• A second system being tested is the largest supersonic parachute ever flown, to be used when the craft first hits the supersonic flow
• NASA’s flying saucer-shaped test vehicle was not able to be flight tested during the reserved testing launch period unfavorable weather conditions, NASA is continuing to look at options for a future launch window.
• Multimedia
• YouTube Curiosity Rover Report JPLnews
• Image Galleries at JPL and Curiosity Mulimedia
• Social Media
• Curiosity Rover @MarsCuriosity
• Further Reading / In the News
• Mercury Passes in Front of the Sun, as Seen From Mars – Mars Science Laboratory | Mars.jpl.nasa.gov
• NASA’s LDSD ‘Flying Saucer’ Test–Update – Mars Science Laboratory | mars.jpl.nasa.gov

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

• June 25, 1997 : 17 years ago : Space Station Mir Accident : The space-station Mir suffered a near-fatal mishap when a Progress ferry being docked via remote control by Russian cosmonaut Vasily Tsibliyev accidentally rammed into the Spektr science module, putting a hole in the pressure vessel and damaging its solar arrays beyond use. To salvage the station, which consisted of a core, a connecting node, and five science modules, crew members severed electrical and data connections between Spektr and the rest of the station and then sealed off the module. They saved the station but lost about half of their electrical power
• The One Martian Year Birthday to Curiosity June 24, 2014. The length of time for Mars to complete one orbit around the Sun is its sidereal year, and is about 686.98 Earth solar days.

Looking up this week

• Keep an eye out for …
• Planets
• Mercury | Hidden by the sunrise
• Venus | Dawn | Low in the East
• Mars | Twilight | High in the SW, with the Blue-White giant star Spica to its left. Mars sets in the W ~ 1AM DST
• Jupiter | Twilight | Low in the W-NW in twilight, setting by nightfall

• Saturn | Evening | S sky in the evening

• 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

The post Super-Earth & Lunar Formation | SciByte 134 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

We take a look at hibernation, suspended-animation, Apollo 11 Engines, Earth in pixels, updates, Curiosity news, and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

Direct Download:

MP3 Audio | OGG Audio | Video | Torrent | YouTube

RSS Feeds:

MP3 Feed | OGG Feed | Video Feed | Torrent Feed | iTunes

[asa]B00AZMFK3K[/asa]

— Show Notes: —

2013 Summer SciByte

• A HUGE thank you to Nikki for joining me as a special science co-host
• SciByte YouTube Channel

Hibernation

• Lemur Hibernation
• Fat-tailed dwarf lemurs are the only primates that can hibernate
• Lemurs are unique in that they can go the entire hibernation period-up to eight months-without fully sleeping
• During hibernation, a lemur’s breathing can slow to one inhalation every 20 minutes, and its heart rate drops from a normal 200 beats per minute to just 4 beats per minute
• Lemurs can hibernate, surviving three-quarters of a year without deep sleep,
• When lemurs hibernate, scientists speculate that they experience only REM sleep. Though no one can prove whether lemurs actually dream
• Lemurs in captivity often don’t hibernate
• In the wild some of [the lemurs hibernated] 40 feet off the ground in the middle of the forest in coastal Madagascar
• So the team that visited the primates in their natural habitat-Madagascar had a hard time getting data
• By placing the lemurs in special nesting boxes and attaching EEGs to their tiny foreheads while they hibernated, they were able to record their vital signs
• Researchers found that when it was warm outside, close to 72 degrees Fahrenheit (22 degrees Celsius), the primates would only hibernate in REM sleep.
• Sleep Deprivation Study
• A 1989 study by sleep scientist demonstrated the lethal consequences of sleep deprivation
• When the researcher kept ten rats awake, depriving them of non-REM sleep, they developed skin lesions, lost weight, and experienced an erosion of their gastrointestinal tracts.
• After 32 days, all of the rats were dead
• Rats Induces Into Hibernation / Suspended Animation
• Rats spent hours in a state of chilly suspended animation after researchers injected a compound into the animals in a cold room
• The animals’ heart rates slowed, brain activity became sluggish and body temperature plummeted.
• Lowering Body Temperature
• Lowering the body temperature of a non hibernating mammal is really hard
• As temperatures inside the body fall, several failsafe systems spring into action
• Blood vessels near the skin squeeze tight to hold warmth in, the body starts to shiver and brown fat, a tissue that’s especially plentiful in newborns, starts to produce heat
• The scientists in the study bypassed the rats’ defenses against the cold with a compound that’s similar to adenosine, a molecule in the body that signals sleepiness
• Suspended Animation Experiment
• After about an hour in a room chilled to 15* Celsius, the rats grew lethargic
• Their brain waves slowed, their blood pressure dropped and their heart grew sluggish, occasionally skipping beats
• The rats’ core temperature dropped from about 38* to about 30* C, or 80* Fahrenheit
• The researchers measured even lower temperatures in further experiments – rats’ core body temperature reached 15* C or about 57* F.
• The rats weren’t in a coma, nor were they asleep or truly hibernating
• Hibernating animals’ metabolisms plummet and their temperatures sink much lower
• The Arctic ground squirrel, for instance, cools to about -3* C when it hibernates
• This is a new state that the scientists don’t really know what it is
• In the experiment, loud noises and tail pinches failed to arouse the rats.
• They didn’t eat or drink. Occasionally, one would slither into a corner, but for the most part, the animals stayed still for up to 6 hours
• In unpublished experiments, Tupone has kept the animals in the unresponsive state for 24 hours, he says.
• Warming the room coaxed the rats out of their torpor, the recovery process takes about 12 hours, during which the animals ate and drank voraciously
• After recovering, the animals were alert, moved around their cages normally and slept when tired
• Further Reading / In the News
• Could People Hibernate? Lemurs Give Clues – News Watch | newswatch.nationalgeographic.com
• Rats induced into hibernation-like state | Life | Science News | sciencenews.org

— NEWS BYTE —

Apollo 11 Engines Found! || Summer SciByte August 01, 2013

• Previously on SciByte
• Summer SciByte | August 01, 2013 | SciByte
• SciByte 98 | Strange Exoplanet & Cancer Therapy | ARKYD Telescope Upgrade Available | June 18, 2013
• SciByte 40 | Apollo 11 and James Cameron – Apollo 11 Engines found at the bottom of the ocean | April 3, 2012
• Recovery Expedition
• In March 2012, Amazon.com founder and CEO Jeff Bezos funded an expedition to find and recover Apollo engines
• Following the flight paths of the various missions they tried searching in the area where they thought the Apollo 11 engines might have landed
• In March 2013, Bezos revealed that his team had raised the parts for at least two F-1 engines although they weren\’t sure what mission the engines were from
• Multimedia
• Photos | First look at Amazon CEO\’s historic moon rocket engines | collectSpace.com
• YouTube | Apollo F-1 rocket engines raised off ocean floor by Amazon CEO | collectSPACE
• YouTube | Clip – Uncovering Thruster | collectSPACE
• YouTube | Clip – Lifting Thrusters | collectSPACE
• YouTube | Apollo-Era Saturn V F-1 Engines Arrive at Cape Canaveral | collectSpace
• Identification
• Because of the launch conditions, their fall to the ocean, and the heavy corrosion from 43 years underwater accurate identification was difficult
• A conservation team at the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center in Hutchinson, Kansas took on that task
• While scanning one of the components with a black light and a special lens filter they discovered a Rocketdyne [company] serial number that correlates to NASA \”Unit No 2044\”, which is the serial number for F-1 Engine #5 from Apollo 11
• Restoration
• The Kansas Cosmosphere expects that it will take about two years to complete the conservation of the engines
• During that time, the public can view the parts and see the work being done to preserve them through a special tour offered at the museum\’s SpaceWorks facility, a website with a live camera view of the same facility is also being developed
• Ownership
• While NASA retains ownership of the artifacts and will ultimately decide where they go on museum display, Bezos has expressed an interest in having one of the engine\’s parts displayed at The Museum of Flight in Seattle
• Further Reading / In the News
• Rocket Engine Part Recovered by Amazon CEO Has Apollo 11 History | Space.com
• Rocket engine part recovered by Amazon CEO has Apollo 11 history | collectSpace.com

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

Earth in Pixels || Summer SciByte August 01, 2013

• As Seen On
• Summer SciByte | August 01, 2013 | SciByte
• The Image
• On July 19 the Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn took a picture of every living thing on Earth.
• At 898.4 million miles away scientists turned the spacecraft to take a picture of Saturn eclipsing the Sun, in the background was the Earth and Moon.
• It reminded me of the famous \’pale blue dot\’ image. Bringing the entirety of human history, and all life that we know of into a few pixels reminds me that we are only one tiny corner of a grand universe.
• Further Reading / In the News
• What the Earth and Moon Look Like From Saturn | UniverseToday.com

+

— Updates —

ARKYD Telescope

• Last Time on SciByte
• SciByte 98 | Strange Exoplanet & Cancer Therapy – ARKYD Telescope Upgrade Available
  | June 18, 2013
• SciByte 96 | Mammoth Blood & Crowdsourced Telescope – Crowdsourced Telescope | June 3, 2013
• Crowdsourcing Telescope
• Planetary Resources raised more than $1.5 million in 33 days to launch a small space telescope into low Earth orbit in 2015
• 17,614 people donated money for the crowdsourced Arkyd-100
• The company hit that goal June 19, then raked in another $505,366 in the final 10 days of the campaign, including $100,000 on June 30 from Virgin Group Chairman Richard Branson.
• Planetary Resources, Bellevue, Wash., began a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign May 29 seeking to raise at least $1 million by June 30
• 14,919 space selfies, according data from Kickstarter
• Kicktraq.com, shows that Planetary Resources raised an average of $45,614 a day, with the 17,614 donors contributing an average of $85 each
• Multimedia
• YouTube | ARKYD: A Space Telescope for Everyone | PlanetaryResources
• YouTube | Planetary Resources Announces ARKYD: A Space Telescope for Everyone | PlanetaryResources
• YouTube | Planetary Resources Kickstarter Community Event with Star Trek\’s Brent Spiner (Lt. Cmdr Data) | PlanetaryResources
• Further Reading / In the News
• Planetary Resources Raises $1.5M for Crowdfunded Space Telescope | Space.com
• Asteroid Miners\’ Crowdfunded Space Telescope May Hunt Exoplanets | Space.com
• ‘Space Selfie’ Telescope Could Hunt Alien Planets … If It Raises A Cool $2M | UniverseToday.com

— CURIOSITY UPDATE —

• Phobos Creates a Annular Eclipse
• Phobos does not completely cover the sun as seen from the Red Planet\’s surface, so the event was technically an annular or \”ring of fire\” eclipse
• Even though Phobos is just 22 km (14 miles) on average it appears relatively big against the sun because the moon orbits so close to Mars, at a mere 6,000 km (3,700 mi)
• The distance from Michigan, Detroit to Lisbon Portugal is 6,073 km (3,774 mi)
• GoogleMap | Michigan, Detroit to Lisbon, Portugal
• Multimedia
• YouTube Curiosity Rover Report (Aug. 23, 2013): The Odometer Keeps Turning
• YouTube Mars\’ Moon Phobos Eclipses the Sun, as Seen by Curiosity | NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
• Image Galleries at JPL and Curiosity Mulimedia
• Social Media
• Curiosity Rover @MarsCuriosity
• Further Reading / In the News
• Curiosity Rover Snaps Best Mars Solar Eclipse Photos Ever

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

• September 17, 1822 : 191 years ago : Rosetta Stone decyphered : At the French Academie Royale des Inscriptions, Jean-François Champollion read a paper, Lettre a M. Dacier, describing his solution to the mystery of the triple inscriptions on the Rosetta Stone which had been unearthed July of 1799, by Napoleon\’s army near the Rosetta branch of the Nile. (Baron Joseph Dacier, to whom he addressed the letter, was Secretary of the Academie.) Champollion\’s work to decipher the hieroglyphics had began in 1808. Thomas Young did some preliminary fragmentary work, but otherwise it was Champollion\’s major accomplishment. In 1823 he gave more details in a series of memoirs read at the Institute, published the following year
• Rosetta Stone – Wikipedia

Looking up this week

• Keep an eye out for …
• Friday, Sep 13 | ~ 1 hour after sunset | In the W-SW Saturn is 6* to the upper left of Venus (5* is roughly three fingers held at arms length
• Planets
• Venus and Saturn | Evening Twilight | Low in the W-SW, Venus the brighter of the two, and Saturn to the upper left and getting a little closer as the week goes by

• Mars and Jupiter | Before / During Dawn | In the E, Jupiter being the brighter with the dimmer Mars to the lower left and getting further apart

• 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

The post Hibernation & Updates | SciByte 101 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

We take a look at a possible atmosphere on one of Saturn’s moons, heart powered pacemakers, three dimensional fossils, acidity levels of a moon a Jupiter, what else your Facebook page says about you, transistors that crumple, viewer feed back
and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

Direct Download:

MP3 Download | Ogg Download | HD Video | Mobile Video | YouTube

RSS Feeds:

MP3 Feed | Ogg Feed | iTunes Feed

Support the Show:

   

Show Notes: