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The post Deep Learning | User Error 46 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

We take a look at hint of dark matter, reading your dreams, blackhole snacks, spacecraft updates, Curiosity news, and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

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Show Notes:

Hints of Dark Matter

• After two years a cosmic ray detector (Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, AMS) on the International Space Station has found the first tantalizing evidence of the cosmic footprints that may have been left by dark matter
• Dark Matter
• A type of matter hypothesized to account for 26.8% of the total mass in the universe
• Its existence and properties are inferred from its gravitational effects on visible matter, radiation, and the large-scale structure of the universe
• First theorized in 1932, the existence of dark matter for 80 years but has never actually observed it directly
• Accelerators smashing particles together at high speed deep underground with special detectors have had no luck finding them, you can also look in space for the results of rare dark matter collisions
• Unraveling the mystery of dark matter could help scientists better understand the composition of our universe and, more particularly, what holds galaxies together
• Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer | AMS
• The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, AMS, is a 7-ton detector with a 3-foot magnet ring at its core was sent into space in 2011, transmitting its data to CERN, where it is being analyzed
• Since its installation on 19 May 2011 it has measured over 30 billion cosmic rays at energies up to trillions of electron volts
• Its permanent magnet and array of precision particle detectors collect and identify charged cosmic rays passing through AMS from the far reaches of space
• Over its long duration mission on the ISS, AMS will record signals from 16 billion cosmic rays every year and transmit them to Earth for analysis by the AMS Collaboration.
• Data
• Currently, the total number of positrons identified by AMS, in excess of 400,000, is the largest number of energetic antimatter particles directly measured and analyzed from space
• In the initial 18 month period of space operations, from 19 May 2011 to 10 December 2012, AMS analyzed 25 billion primary cosmic ray events
• Of these, 6.8 million, were unambiguously identified as electrons and their antimatter counterpart, positrons.
• If particles of dark matter crash and annihilate each other, they should leave a footprint of positrons-the anti-matter version of electrons-at high energy levels
• The results show evidence that could be dark matter or could be energy could also originate from pulsars
• By measuring the ratio between positrons and electrons and by studying the behavior of any excess across the energy spectrum, a better understanding of the origin of dark matter and other physics phenomena can be obtained
• The curve of the plot of those positrons will be a clue as to what these results are, if the curve is one shape, it points to dark matter, while if it\’s another, it points to pulsars
• While the results aren\’t enough to declare the case closed they expect a more definitive answer in a matter of months
• Multimedia
• YouTube | Installing the AMS | Space Station Live: First Findings from the AMS | ReelNASA
• YouTube | Anouncement | Space Station Instrument Finds Excess Antimatter | NASAtelevision
• YouTube | Animated Look inside the AMS | Sifting Through the Cosmic Sands for Dark Matter | VideoFromSpace
• Further Reading / In the News
• Scientists report hint of dark matter in first results from $2 billion cosmic ray detector (Update 4) | Phys.org
• Cosmic ray detector confirms hints of dark matter | Matter & Energy | Science News
• Dark Matter Possibly Found by $2 Billion Space Station Experiment | AMS | Space.com
• Potential Dark Matter Discovery a Win for Space Station Science | Space.com

— NEWS BYTE —

Peering Into Your Dreams

• A recent study shows that it may be possible to use brain activity patterns to understand something about what a person is dreaming about
• The Study
• Researchers recorded brain activity in three adult male volunteers during the early stages of sleep
• Researchers chose to awaken the subjects in light sleep rather than in deeper \”rapid eye movement\” (REM) sleep solely to make the research easier to do
• It takes at least an hour to reach first REM stage, it would be difficult to get sleep and dream data from multiple participants
• Right after being awakened from the early stages of sleep, the researchers asked for detailed reports on what they had seen while sleeping
• After gathering at least 200 such reports from the three men, the researchers used a lexical database to group the dreamed objects in coarse categories, such as street, furniture and girl
• They used functional MRI to monitor brain activity of the participants and polysomnography to record the physical changes that occur during sleep
• Then researchers compared evidence of brain activity when participants were awake and looking at real images to the brain activity they saw when participants were dreaming
• Computer algorithms sorted through the patterns of brain activity, linking particular patterns with objects
• On average, the computer could pick which of two objects had appeared in a dream 70 percent of the time
• What the Results Could Mean
• The study bolsters the notion that the vivid imagery of dreams, no matter how fantastic, is as real as waking life, from the brain’s perspective
• Visual experiences you have when dreaming are detectable by the same type of brain activity that occurs when looking at actual images when you\’re awake
• However it might be hard to remember a dream minutes after waking up, because particular neurotransmitters or brain regions involved in memory are not active during sleep
• There is also evidence suggesting that the pattern of spontaneous brain activity is relevant to health issues
• Caution Belief
• The current approach requires the data of image viewing and sleep within the same person, but methods are being developed for aligning brain patterns across people
• One expert said the results are intriguing, he was cautious that previous disappointments relating brain activity to complex visual experience and would like to see this replicated
• Multimedia
• YouTube | This is your brain on dreams | Digtal Carlisle
• Further Reading / In the News
• Dream contents deciphered by computer | Body & Brain | Science News
• Could scientists peek into your dreams? | MedicalXPress

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

Blackhole Snacks on a Planet

• Astronomers using the Integral space observatory were able to watch as the planet was eaten by a blackhole that had been inactive for decades
• The Galaxy
• Astronomers were using Integral to study a different galaxy when they noticed a bright X-ray flare coming from another location in the same wide field-of-view
• The origin was confirmed as NGC 4845, 47 million light-years away, a galaxy never before detected at high energies
• The blackhole in the center of NGC 4845 is estimated to have a mass of around 300,000 times that of our own Sun
• The \’Eaten\’ Object
• The halo of material suggest that the object was approximately 14–30 Jupiter masses, and so the astronomers say the object was either a super-Jupiter or a brown dwarf
• It is believed that it was a ‘wandering’ planet, which would fit the description of recent studies
• Astronomers estimate that only the external layers, ~10% total mass, were eaten by the blackhole, and that a denser core has been left orbiting the blackhole
• The Emissions
• The emission was traced from its maximum in January 2011, when the galaxy brightened by a factor of a thousand, and then as it subsided over the course of the year
• Emissions brightened and decayed with a delay of 2–3 months between the object being disrupted and the heating of the debris in the vicinity of the blackhole.
• By analyzing the characteristics of the flare astronomers were able to determine the source of the emission
• This data came from a halo of material around the galaxy’s central blackhole as it tore apart and fed on the object
• Of Note
• This is the first time where we have seen the disruption of a substellar object by a blackhole
• This \’event\’ might be similar to what is expected to happen with the supermassive blackhole at the center of our own Milky Way Galaxy
• Estimates are that events like these may be detectable every few years in galaxies around us
• Multimedia
• YouTube | blackhole Snacks On A Super-Jupiter | Animation | VideoFromSpace
• Further Reading / In the News
• Astronomers Watch as a blackhole Eats a Rogue Planet | UniverseToday.com

— VIEWER FEEDBACK —

Eyeing Europa

• **Paul Hill @P_H_9_3 | Check This Out! **
• Jupiter Europa Mission Funding
• A resolution was recently passed by the House and Senate outlining the extent of government funding (75,000,000) for pre-formulation and/or formulation activities for a mission that meets the science goals outlined for the Jupiter Europa mission
• Data recently uncovered the presence of magnesium sulfate salt, Epsom salt, on Europa’s surface which is suggestive of a cycling of Europa’s salty ocean with the surface.
• Although this is good news, it’s also a reminder that potentially habitable moons don’t only orbit Jupiter, Enceladus the Saturnian moon is known to possess salty liquid water beneath its surface, plus an internal heat source, that generates Enceladus’ famous geysers
• Europa In Other News
• According to research Jupiter’s ice-encrusted moon Europa has hydrogen peroxide across much of the surface of its leading hemisphere, which could potentially provide energy for life if it has found its way into the moon’s subsurface ocean.
• The availability of oxidants like peroxide on Earth was a critical part of the rise of complex, multicellular life
• The highest concentration of peroxide found was on the side of Europa that always leads in its orbit around Jupiter,roughly 20 times more diluted than \’off the shelf\’ hydrogen peroxide, then drops off to nearly zero on the hemisphere of Europa that faces backward in its orbit.
• The concentration of Hydrogen peroxide was first detected on Europa by NASA’s Galileo mission, which explored the Jupiter system from 1995 to 2003
• Galileo observations were of a limited region. The new Keck data show that peroxide is widespread across much of the surface of Europa, and the highest concentrations are reached in regions where Europa’s ice is nearly pure water with very little sulfur contamination
• Scientists think hydrogen peroxide is an important factor for the habitability of the global liquid water ocean under Europa’s icy crust because hydrogen peroxide decays to oxygen when mixed into liquid water
• With high enough levels of compounds like peroxide could help to satisfy the chemical energy requirement needed for life within the ocean, if the peroxide is mixed into the ocean
• Further Reading / In the News
• Will the Europa Clipper Cruise to Jupiter\’s Moon? | Discovery News
• Hydrogen Peroxide Could Feed Life on Europa | UniverseToday.com

— SPACECRAFT UPDATE—

Reviewing SpaceX’s Dragon Spacecraft Glitch

• Last Time on SciByte
• SciByte 84 (March 5, 2013)| HIV & SpaceX Troubles – SpaceX – Dragon Space Station Resupply Mission Glitch
• March 1, 2013 Launch Glitch
• Barely 11 minutes after the March 1 blastoff of the Dragon atop the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida contact had been lost
• Right after spacecraft separation in low Earth orbit, a sudden and unexpected failure of the Dragon’s critical thrust pods had prevented three out of four from initializing and firing
• What Happened
• The oxidizer pressure was low in three tanks, which is required to orient the craft for two way communication and to propel the Dragon to the orbiting lab complex
• The problem was that three of the check valves had a small design change to the check valves by the supplier that would have needed a magnifying glass to see the difference, because of the tiny change they got stuck
• SpaceX had run the new check valves through a series of low pressurization systems tests and they worked well and didn’t get stuck, but SpaceX did not run the functional tests at higher pressures
• Solution
• The team was able to write some new software in real time to build pressure upstream of the check valves and then released that pressure
• SpaceX had difficulty communicating with the spacecraft because it was in free drift in orbit
• They worked closely with the Air Force to get higher intensity, more powerful dishes to communicate with the spacecraft and upload the software
• The solution got the valves unstuck and then they worked well
• In the meantime SpaceX will revert to the old check valves and run tests to make sure this failure doesn’t happen again
• Multimedia
• YouTube SpaceX Dragon Carrying NASA Cargo Arrives at International Space Station | NASATelevision
• Further Reading / In the News
  • How the Air Force and SpaceX Saved Dragon from Doom | UniverseToday.com

— CURIOSITY UPDATE —

• Parachute
• An animation of seven images from the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter show a “flapping” of the parachute that allowed the Curiosity rover to descend safely through Mars atmosphere images
• The images were acquired by HiRISE between August 12, 2012 and January 13, 2013
• The different images show distinct changes in the parachute, which is attached to the backshell that encompassed the rover during launch, flight and descent
• This type of motion may kick off dust and keep parachutes on the surface bright, to help explain why the parachute from Viking 1 (landed in 1976) remains detectable
• Argon Readings
• Curiosity\’s Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument analyzed an atmosphere sample that found that the Martian atmosphere has about four times as much of a lighter stable isotope (argon-36) compared to a heavier one (argon-38)
• This data is what we would expect to see with the theory that Mars lost much of its original atmosphere by a process of gas escaping from the top of the atmosphere
• The results provided the the clearest and most precise measurements ever made of isotopes of argon in the Martian atmosphere, isotopes are variants of the same element with different atomic weights
• The ratio is much lower than the solar system\’s original ratio, as estimated from argon-isotope measurements of the sun and Jupiter which points to a process at Mars that favored preferential loss of the lighter isotope over the heavier one
• The data also removes previous uncertainty about the ratio in the Martian atmosphere from 1976 measurements from NASA\’s Viking project and from small volumes of argon extracted from Martian meteorites
• Daily Atmospheric Measurements
• Curiosity measures several variables with the Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS), daily air temperature
• While temperature measurements have climbed steadily since the measurements began eight months ago and is not strongly tied to the rover\’s location, the humidity has differed significantly at different places along the rover\’s route
• In addition the REMS sensors detected many whirlwind patterns during the first hundred Martian days of the mission, though not as many as detected in the same length of time by earlier missions although no trails of dust devils have not been seen inside Gale Crater
• Upcoming
• For the rest of April, Curiosity will carry out daily activities for which commands were sent in March, using DAN, REMS and the Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD).
• Curiosity will be drilling into another rock where the rover is now, but that target has not yet been selected. The science team will discuss this over the conjunction period
• Multimedia
• Image Galleries at JPL and Curiosity Mulimedia
• Social Media
• Curiosity Rover @MarsCuriosity
• Further Reading / In the News
• Watch Curiosity’s Parachute Flap in the Martian Breeze | UniverseToday.com
• Remaining Martian Atmosphere Still Dynamic | mars.jpl.nasa.gov

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

• April 13, 2000 : 13 years ago : Oldest mouse Born : The mouse Yoda was born, and became the world\’s oldest mouse on his fourth birthday in 2004 (which at 1,462-days-old compares to about 136 in human-years). A dwarf mouse, Yoda lives with a larger female cage mate (Princess Leia) to provide him with protective body warmth. The life span of the average laboratory mouse is slightly over two years. Yoda lives in the laboratory of Dr Richard A. Miller, a professor of pathology in the Geriatrics Center of the University of Michigan Medical School, an expert on the genetics and cell biology of aging. For his studies, he has developed strains of mice, derived from wild mice captured in Idaho, that live longer, stay smaller and age more slowly than ordinary mice
• World\’s Oldest Mouse Reaches Milestone Birthday, Teaches Scientists About Human Aging (Apr 13, 2004) | ScienceDaily

Looking up this week

• Keep an eye out for …
• Wed, Apr 10 | 10 pm and later | The \”Summer Star\” Vega rises in the NE
• Wed, Apr 10 | New Moon
• Sat, Apr 13 | ~ 1 hour after sunset | The crescent Moon is in the West with Jupiter to it\’s upper left.
• Sat, Apr 13 | ~ 1 hour after sunset | The Crescent Moon is also between the Pleiades star cluster to its right and slightly below and the red giant star Aldebaran to it\’s upper left.
• Saturn | Rises in the E-SE at the end of twilight,

• Jupiter | After Sunset it is seen high in the W sky, dropping closer to the horizon as the evening goes on, climbing to it\’s highest point in the S around 2am DST

• 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 Dark Matter & Reading Dreams | SciByte 89 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

We take a look at the Russian Meteorite ‘strike,’ a dark matter announcement, headaches, asteroid flyby, viewer feedback, an update on CERN, Curiosity news, and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

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MP3 Audio | OGG Audio | Video | Torrent | YouTube

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Picks of the Week:

[asa]B00B7VZN76[/asa]
[asa]B00BAXTY8U[/asa]
[asa]B0060MYM7O[/asa]

Show Notes:

2013 Russian Meteorite Strike

• Why didn\’t we \”See it coming?\”
• NASA’s Near Earth Object Program and other skywatchers track thousands of larger asteroids, with smaller asteroids nearly impossible to track
• There are probably about 100 million asteroids about it\’s size with about 100,000 being Near Earth Objects
• Only one space rock that impacted the planet has ever been observed before it hit the Earth, a day before it exploded over Sudan.
• Most meteorites that do hit the Earth tend to be smaller, and reflect only a couple percent of the light that hits them, and ones of this size have to be very close to be able to spot them with telescopic surveys
• What Was Seen
• On February 15, 2013 at 9:20 am (0320 GMT), an object was observed above Chelyabinsk which flew by at great speed and left a trail behind. Within two minutes there were two bangs,\” regional emergencies official said
• It traveled through the atmosphere for about 30 seconds before breaking apart and producing violent airburst ‘explosion’ about 20-14 km (12-15 miles) above Earth’s surface
• Measurements Coming In
• On February 16 NASA revised it\’s measurements to about 55 feet (17 m) wide — with the power of the blast estimate of about 500 kilotons, 30 kilotons higher than before
• Updated mass measurements estimated about 10,000 tons and was travelling 40,000 mph (64,373 km/h) when it exploded
• New estimates were generated using new data that had been collected by five additional infrasound stations located around the world
• The first recording of the event being in Alaska, over 6,500 kilometers away, infrasound stations detect low-frequency sound waves that accompany exploding meteors, known as bolides
• The Power
• The explosion had the equivalent of up to 500,000 tons of TNT
• About 30 times the energy output of the Hiroshima atomic bomb
• Only 5 percent of the energy of the famous 1908 Tunguska meteor that downed trees over a 2,000-square-kilometer area in Siberia
• Damage on the Ground
• At least 300 buildings were damaged including schools, hospitals, a zinc factory and even an ice hockey stadium
• In the area of damage there are huge facilities that include a nuclear power plant and the massive Mayak atomic waste storage and treatment centre
• Radiation levels in the region also did not change and that 20,000 rescue workers had been dispatched to help the injured and locate those requiring help
• Multimedia
• YouTube Meteorite crash in Russia: Video of meteorite explosion that stirred panic in Urals region
• YouTube Russian meteor explosion: Spectacular dash cam video of meteorite fireball falling in Urals| RussiaToday
• YouTube Clip Meteorite blast wave blows out doors, window, and loading bay door| RussiaToday
• YouTube Clip Footage; Parking Lot, Traffic Cam | Russia Today
• YouTube Russia meteorite explosion: Zinc factory wall damaged, windows blown out | RussiaToday
• Infographic Huge Russian Meteor Blast is Biggest Since 1908 | Space.com
• Image / Video Gallery | Large meteor, possible meteorite near Chelyabinsk, Russia
• Further Reading / In the News
• Meteor explodes over Russia | Atom & Cosmos | Science News
• Russia meteor virtually impossible to see coming | Atom & Cosmos | Science News
• Airburst Explained: NASA Addresses the Russian Meteor Explosion | UniverseToday.com
• Russian Meteor Blast Bigger Than Thought, NASA Says | Space.com
• Meteor strike in Russia hurts almost 1,000 (w/ Video) | Phys.org
• Russian Meteor Not Related to Asteroid Flyby, NASA Confirms | UniverseToday.com
• Russian Fireball Is Biggest Meteor Blast in 100 Years | Near-Earth Asteroids | Space.com
• Meteor Blast Rocks Russia | UniverseToday.com
• Shouldn\’t We Have Been Able To See This Huge Meteor Coming? | popsci.com

— NEWS BYTE —

Dark Matter Announcement Coming

• Dark Matter
• The dark matter theory was born 80 years ago when Swiss astrophysicist Fritz Zwicky discovered that there was not enough mass in observable stars or galaxies to allow the force of gravity to hold them together
• The Standard Model only accounts for only around four or five percent of the stuff in the Universe that we see
• It could be useful for identifying the stable of particles and forces that regulate our daily life, the Standard Model only tells part of the cosmic story
• Dark matter, could make up 23 percent, and dark energy, an enigmatic force that appears to drive the expansion of the Universe, could accounts for around 72 or 73 percent
• Some physics theories suggest that dark matter is made of WIMPS (weakly interacting massive particles), a class of particles that are their own antimatter partner particles
• When matter and antimatter partners meet, they annihilate each other, so if two WIMPs collided, they would be destroyed, releasing a pair of daughter particles – an electron and its antimatter counterpart, the positron, in the process
• Although we can not explain gravity, although we know how to measure gravity and exploit it for our needs
• Announcement Coming Up
• In about two weeks the first paper of results of the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, a particle collector mounted on the outside of the International Space Station, will be published
• Researchers have said that the results bear on the mystery of dark matter, that \”It will not be a minor paper\” and that they rewrote the paper 30 times before they were satisfied with it
• Even with this tease for a \’major announcement\’ scientists still say it represents a \”small step\” in figuring out what dark matter is, and perhaps not the final answer
• Tracking Cosmic Particles
• To track these phantom particles, physicists rely on several methods and tools
• The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) near Geneva, the biggest particle smasher in the world
• The South Pole Neutrino Observatory, tracks subatomic particles known as neutrinos, which, according to physicists, are created when dark matter passes through the Sun and interacts with protons
• The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) aboard the International Space Station (ISS), captures gamma rays coming from collisions of dark matter particles.
• Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer
• Has the potential to detect the positrons and electrons produced by dark matter annihilations in the Milky Way
• It was installed on the International Space Station in May 2011, and so far, it has detected 25 billion particle events, including about 8 billion electrons and positrons
• This will first science paper from this instrument that will report how many of each were found, and what their energies are
• If the experiment detected an abundance of positrons peaking at a certain energy, that could indicate a detection of dark matter,
• What it Might Mean for What We Might Find
• There is a lot of stuff that can mimic dark matter,\”
• If the experiment detected an abundance of positrons peaking at a certain energy, that could indicate a detection of dark matter,
• While electrons are abundant in the universe around us, there are fewer known processes that could give rise to positrons
• The smoking gun signature is a rise and then a dramatic fall\” in the number of positrons with respect to energy
• The positrons produced by dark matter annihilation would have a very specific energy, depending on the mass of the WIMPs making up dark matter
• Another telling sign will be the question of whether positrons appear to be coming from one direction in space, or from all around
• If they\’re from dark matter, scientists expect them to be spread evenly through space, but if they\’re created by some normal astrophysical process, such as a star explosion, then they would originate in a single direction
• Regardless of whether AMS has found dark matter yet, the scientists said they expected the question of dark matter\’s origin to become clearer soon
• Further Reading / In the News
• Has Dark Matter Finally Been Found? Big News Soon | Space.com

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

Lightning and Headaches

• The New Study
• A new study has found a 31 percent increase of the risk of headache and a 28 percent increased risk of migraine for chronic headache sufferers on days that lightning struck within 25 miles (40 kilometers) of their homes
• In addition new-onset headaches and migraines increased by 24 percent and 23 percent, respectively
• The Correlation
• This is the first study to show a correlation between lightning and associated weather phenomena and the squalls in our heads
• How exactly lightning might trigger headaches is still unknown but there are a number of possible explanations
• Electromagnetic waves emitted from lightning could trigger headaches
• Another explanation might be that lightning produces increases in air pollutants like ozone, and can cause release of fungal spores that might lead to migraine
• Still Unknown
• This study does show an apparent link between lightning and headaches; however, the exact mechanisms through which lightning and/or its associated meteorologic factors trigger headache is still unknown
• Multimedia
• YouTube Lightning = Headaches? | TheWeatherChannel
• Further Reading / In the News
• Newsflash: Lightning May Cause Headaches – News Watch | newswatch.nationalgeographic.com

The February 15th Asteroid Fly-By

• The low down
• On Friday, Feb. 15, the asteroid 2012 DA 14 roughly half a football field came well inside the orbit of even communication and weather satellites in geosynchronous orbit
• It is the closest known approach to Earth for an object its size
• It came within an altitude of 27,700 kilometers (17,200 miles). That is some 8000 km (5000 miles) inside the ring of geosynchronous satellites
• The asteroid posed no danger to the Space Station crew and they had no chance to observe it
• Although no NASA space-based assets were making measurements because it was moving so fast
• Radar astronomers did plan to take images around eight hours after the flyby using the Goldstone antenna in California’s Mojave Desert
• Multimedia
• YouTube Early Radar Observations of Asteroid 2012 DA14 | JPLnews
• YouTube (NEW!) Telescope View – Asteroid 2012 DA14 as it Passes Earth (short) | Credit : Daniel Lopez | joeyzola
• vimeo Asteroid 2012 DA14 Passes the Earth | Credit : Daniel Lopez | Astronomy Picture of the Day
• YouTube Asteroid 2012 DA14 to Safely Pass Earth NASA ANIMATION VIDEO | JrStudi0s
• Further Reading / In the News
• NASA – Asteroid 2012 DA14 – Earth Flyby Reality Check | NASA.gov
• Russian Meteor Not Related to Asteroid Flyby, NASA Confirms | UniverseToday.com
• NASA Unveils 1st Radar Video of Asteroid Flyby | Space.com
• 45 meter Asteroid to Skirt Very Near Earth on Feb 15 | UniverseToday.com

— VIEWER FEEDBACK —

Earth/Moon Relationship Simulations/Animations

• Jason Null
• What kind of program or software has a virtual model of the Earth and Moon
• Free JAVA Simulators
• Moon Phase and the Horizon diagram [free-java]
• Lunar Phase Simulator [free-java]
• Jonathan H
• Why do I seem to see the moon in the sky during the day so often?
• Different components to this
• Lunar Phase Simulator [free-java]
• The moon follow the same ‘orbital path’ as the sun, just as different speeds
• Click [Start Animation] to the bottom left to get a feel for this
• Higher latitudes have longer days and nights, which also gives the moon longer or fewer hours to be in the sky.
• If you think about it each time the Moon sets or rises at night it is doing the opposite for someone on the daytime side of the Earth

— Updates —

CERN, the Higgs-Boson, and Upgrades

• Upgrades
• Over the past three years, CERN has slammed protons together more than six million billion times
• Now seven months after the discovery announcement for a Boson, which they are now 99.9 percent certain is the Higgs-Boson, CERN scientists have brought CERN offline for an 18-month upgrade
• The upgrade will boost the LHC\’s energy capacity, essential for CERN to confirm definitively that its boson is the Higgs, and allow it to probe new dimensions such as supersymmetry and dark matter
• The Data
• Scientists still have vasts amount of data to comb through during this downtime,
• Even with the shutdown, CERN\’s researchers won\’t be taking a breather, as they must trawl through a vast mound of data
• They expect that they will have much more information about the data from the last three years, and once they are able to go back through the data they will probably have more questions, some of which will lead to more tests under the new upgrades
• What’s to Come
• In 2011 the LHC has able to achieve collisions with an energy level of seven teraelectron volts
• During 2012 CERN was able to increase to eight teraelectron volts
• When it comes back online in 2015 after the upgrades are completed they will be able to achieve 13-14
• It is expected that CERN will then run at those conditions for three to four years before more upgrades are installed
• Social Media
• CERN @CERN
• Further Reading / In the News
• CERN Website
• After Higgs Boson, scientists prepare for next quantum leap

— SPACECRAFT UPDATE—

Space Station Communication

• NASA\’s Mission Control center in Houston lost communication with the International Space Station at 9:45 a.m. ET (1445 GMT). [19 Feb 2013]
• They restored contact with the space station at 12:34 p.m. ET (17:34 GMT),
• A NASA official said \”Flight controllers were in the process of updating the station’s command and control software and were transitioning from the primary computer to the backup computer to complete the software load when the loss of communication occurred,\”
• A main data relay system malfunctioned, and the computer that controls the station\’s critical functions switched to a backup
• \”Mission Control Houston was able to communicate with the crew as the space station flew over Russian ground stations before 11:00 a.m. EST and instructed the crew to connect a backup computer to begin the process of restoring communications,\”
• This is not the first time Mission Control has lost direct communication with the orbiting science laboratory
• In 2010, the space station briefly lost communication with the ground when a primary computer failed and the backup had to take over. Communications were out for about one hour before NASA restored the connection
• Further Reading / In the News
• NASA Restores Contact with Space Station | Space.com
• Temporary Comm Loss Interrupts Crew’s Day | NASA.gov

— CURIOSITY UPDATE —

• Drilling
• Scientists were able to place the arm safely and drill vertically down into the rock to collect as much sample as possible
• The gray tailing tells us that there\’s something different about the inside of this rock than the surface of the rock
• A day after NASA\’s Mars rover Curiosity drilled the first sample-collection hole into a rock on Mars, the rover\’s Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument shot laser pulses into the fresh rock powder that the drilling generated
• In the coming weeks, one of the things they are trying to do with this first hole is to use this gray powder that we collect to clean the internal surfaces of the drill.
• Multimedia
• YouTube Curiosity Rover Report (February 15, 2013): Curiosity Drills on Mars | JPLnews
• Image Galleries at JPL and Curiosity Mulimedia
• Social Media
• Curiosity Rover @MarsCuriosity
• Further Reading / In the News
• Curiosity Drills on Mars | nasa.gov
• Laser Hits on Martian Drill Tailings | https://mars.jpl.nasa.gov

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

• February, 20 1962 : 51 years ago : Glenn in orbit : John Glenn piloted the Mercury-Atlas 6 Friendship 7 spacecraft on the first U.S. manned orbital mission. [The first manned orbital flight was Yu. Gagarin on the the Vostok 1 on 12 April 1961]
  Launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, he completed three-orbits around the earth, at a maximum altitude of approx. 162 miles and an orbital velocity of approx. 17,500 mph. He spotted Perth, Australia, when that city\’s residents greeted him by switching on their house lights in unison. A four-cent U.S. stamp was put on sale the same day, making it the first U.S. stamp issued on the day of the event it commemorated. Glenn returned to space 36 years later, making 134 more orbits as a crew member of the space shuttle Discovery (29 Oct – 7 Nov 1998) for investigations on space flight and the aging process.

Looking up this week

• Keep an eye out for …
• Mercury | Evening Twilight | Low in the W-SW it will be the brightest object in that part of the sky
• Mars | Sunset | Getting harder to see and moving farther to Mercury\’s lower right
• Jupiter | Starts in the S at dusk, moving to the SW and setting around 1-2am

• Saturn | ~11-12 pm local | moving to the high southern skies by dawn

• 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 Meteorites & Asteroids | SciByte 82 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

This week on SciByte …
We take a look dark matter and dark energy, why even though we can’t see them directly some scientists still believe they exist, where the theories for them came from, what they are, and how they affect the universe.

We’ll also take a look at a few satellites and studies looking for either direct or in-direct evidence of these mysterious phenomenon.

All that and more, on SciBye!

Show Notes: