You might have seen meets ‘Breaking’ Science with Coronal Mass Ejection

• The low down
• Solar flares are categorized into five classeshttps://spaceweather.com/glossary/flareclasses.html, A, B, C, M, and X. C class hacing few affects on the earth, while X-class flares are big; they are major events that can trigger planet-wide radio blackouts and long-lasting radiation storms.
• The classification is further broken down into subdivisions from one-to-nine, based on intensity and brightness in the x-ray spectrum.
• Last week, a separate sunspot group unleashed several M-class flares, and scientists say these types of flares are occurring almost daily as the sun’s rotation slowly turns the region toward Earth.
• Significance
• There was a solar flare with an earth-directed coronal mass ejection (CME), and a burst of fast moving, highly energetic protons known as a “solar energetic particle” event, the strongest since 2005.
• Precise eruption time was Jan 22, 10:59 pm EST / 0359 GMT Jan. 23
• What is means on Earth
• This flare was a M8.7 M-class flares can cause brief radio blackouts that affect Earth’s polar regions
• Fights that fly over or near the polar regions are taking precautions by diverting flight paths or flying at lower altitudes to increase protection from the Earths atmosphere.
• There have been reports of sporadic radio-communication blackouts in high-latitude regions
• Despite the precautions and it’s 15min of media fame, this solar storm is actually considered to be moderate and isn’t expected to cause major disturbances to ground- or space-based assets.
• What is means in Space
• The astronauts in the Space Station were in no danger from this solar flare and coronal mass ejection (CME).
• Both Earths magnetic fields and the station walls protect the astronauts from most particles, although space walkes are not permitted during similar situations.
• For the more energetic and more damaging cosmic rays, as strange as it might sound, during solar flares occur the amount of cosmic radiation the Space Station receives actually decreases. The flare sweeping away most of the energetic particles away from the Earth.
• * Of Note*
• Last week, a separate sunspot group unleashed several M-class flares, and scientists say these types of flares are occurring almost daily as the sun’s rotation slowly turns the region toward Earth.
• With all the different probes and telescopes aimed at the sun, scientists were able to pinpoint the arrival of the CME more accurately than ever before. Predicting the arrival time to earth within 13-minutes of error, while models in the past gave an average error of seven hours
• Multimedia
• YOUTUBE VIDEO : Solar Storm Makes for European Light Show
• YOUTUBE VIDEO : NASA | Biggest Solar Storm Since 2005
• IMAGE GALLERY : Auroras from around the world @ UniverseToday.com](https://www.universetoday.com/92855/stunning-auroras-from-around-the-world-january–22–23–2012/)
• IMAGES : Huge Solar Flare Sparks Major Radiation Storm @ Space.com
• IMAGES @ EarthObservatory.nasa.gov
• IMAGE : January Aurora Over Norway @ apod.nasa.gov
• Social Media
• Space Weather @spaceweather
• Further Reading / In the News
• Classifying Solar Eruptions @ Nasa.gov
• Catagorizing Solar Flares @ SpaceWeather.com
• Auroral Forecast @ https://helios.swpc.noaa.gov
• Strongest Solar Radiation Storm Since 2005 @ ScienceDaily.com
• Space Weather Arrives: Relatively Minor Impacts Expected from Solar Storm @ ScienceDaily.com
• Biggest Solar Storm in Eight Years Now Pummeling Earth @ news.NationalGeographic.com
• Spots on the Sun Firing Off Strong Solar Storms @ Space.com
• ‘Space Hurricane’: Huge Solar Storm Is Pounding Earth Now @ space.com
• Northern Lights head south @ AstronomyNow.com
• M8.7 Solar Flare and Earth Directed CME @ NASA.gov
• Huge Solar Eruption Sparks Strongest Radiation Storm in 7 Years @ Space.com
• Stunning Auroras From Around the World (January 22–23, 2012) @ Universe.com
• ALMOST-X FLARE AND CME (UPDATED) @ SpaceWeather.com
• Astronauts in Space Safe from Huge Solar Radiation Storm @ Space.com
• NASA Captures Biggest Solar Storm Since 2005 @ flickr

*— NEWS BYTE — *

SpaceX Space Station resupply mission resceduled

• The low down
• Just over a year ago SpaceX launched a test version of the Dragon capsule
• SpaceX had originally planned to launch the official Dragon supply ship for the International Space Station on on Feb. 7 from Cape Canaveral
• Significance
• The company has now confirmed that the launch date has been pushed back to late March
• They are looking forward to being the first private launch to the space station, but that more testing is needed
• NASA is counting on private companies to take provisions and re-supply materials to the space station, as well as allow the station a way to discard used materials
• In the meantime space agencies from Russia, Europe, and Japan are are sending up regular shipments to the space station as best they can.
• The first Dragon capsule that arrives at the station will be carrying several hundred pounds of non-critical provisions, ensuring that the space station will have enough supplies in the case of catastrophic failure of the Dragon capsule
• * Of Note*
• When it arrives at the Space Station the astronauts will use the large robotic arm to grab and attach the Dragon capsule
• Because the craft can survive re-entry termperatures, which no other country has done so far. Scientific samples could actually be returned to earch whenever a re-supply mission returns to Earth
• Multimedia
• YouTube VIDEO : Video of SpaceX Falcon 9 Dragon Capsule Launch for NASA
• YouTube VIDEO : SpaceX: Dragon to the ISS [COTS-D]
• YouTube VIDEO : SpaceX announces the Falcon Heavy rocket [April 5, 2011]
• VIDEO GALLERY @ SpaceX.com
• Social Media
• SpaceX @SpaceXer
• Further Reading / In the News
• SpaceX.com
• Delay for space station’s 1st private cargo run (Update) @ PhysOrg.com
• 1st Private Rocket Launch to Space Station Delayed Until March @ Space.com

Do dolphins talk in their sleep?

• The low down
• A group of dolphins born in captivity were performing in their shows every day
• Performing dolphins are primed to learn and remember information
• During their show music and sounds were played in the background, a new track included music, sea gulls, dolphin whistles and humpback whale calls
• Significance
• Because little is known about the nighttime sounds of dolphins researchers had hand hung underwater microphones into the dolphins tank at night
• One night they discovered that they had produces 25 new sounds that they had never made before
• When playing back the tapes the researcher found that the new sounds sounded similar to whale songs
• A new sound track including
• When analyzed by a computer program the two sounds were very similar
• When 20 human volunteers were asked to listen to and identify the dolphin nocturnal sounds and humpback whale songs, 76% of the time they classifies the imitations as sounds from real whales
• Since the dolphins did not make the noises during the day, it indicates that they wanted to wait to practice the sounds at night
• Of interest is finding out if the dolphins are asleep and dreaming during the time they are making the noises
• If the dolphins are dreaming it might indicate that, like humans, they etch new information into memories during sleep
• Next for the research is to take electroencephalogram recordings of the dolphins’ brains at night to determine if they are asleep during the time they make the sounds
• * Of Note*
• Before the whale sounds sound track was added to the show the dolphins did not make produces the ‘humpback whale song’
• Some scientists are not convinced saying that dolphins make so many different sounds that it would be too difficult to quantitatively identify one as an imitation of a particular sound
• Dolphins are known for mimicry and songbirds rehearse imitations of sounds at night, it is not all that unlikely that if they mimicking dolphins might do the same
• Multimedia
• Page with clips of sounds
• Social Media
• Science Mag News @ScienceNOW
• Facebook : ScienceNOWhttps://www.facebook.com/ScienceNOW.
• Further Reading / In the News
• Do Dolphins Speak Whale in Their Sleep? @ news.sciencemag.org
• Do dolphins rehearse show-stimuli when at rest? Delayed matching of auditory memory @ frontiersin.org

Supercritical water and homeless exoplanets

• The low down
• The size of a planet can be measured indirectly by analyzing the amount of dimming of a star when the planets transits, and the mass can be identified though ground based measurements of how much gravitational force the planet excerpts on it’s star.
• From those measurements the density of a planet can be roughly calculated
• Exoplanets themselves are estimated to outnumber the stars in out galaxy by almost two-to-one
• One such planet scientist have been analyzing is 55 Cancri, a rocky planet about 7.8 times the size of the Earth, orbiting relatively closely to it’s sun and 40 light-years away from Earth .
• Significance
• New observations of a this explanet suggest that about a fifth of the planet’s mass must be made up of light elements and compounds, including water
• Since this planet if thought to have surface temperatures as high as 4,800 F [2,700 C] this planet is a much weirder planet than originally thought to be
• The high temperature and pressure conditions on this planet are so extreme the liquids likely exist in a supercritical state
• Super-critical fluids can best be imagined as liquid-like gases in high pressure and temperature conditions, water becomes supercritical in some steam turbines
• These superritical fluids could be seeping up from the outer layers of the planets crust, giving scientists an interesting study of a planet
• * Of Note*
• Perhaps even stranger is that almost 75% of the exoplants in our galaxy might be ‘free-floating’ planets no longer orbiting a star
• Some suspected free-floating planets have already been observed and it has been speculated that those free-floating exoplanets would be from gravitationally unstable orbits
• Recent computer simulations indicate there may be more exotic reasons for the planets to be ejected.
• One simulation blames end of life stars that expand into red giants litterely pushing their planets into interstellar space
• Another simulation blames gravitational forces by passing stars, planetary system moving either in or out of a galacy’s dense spiral arms, or interactions with dense molecular clouds
• The most likely reason for ejection of exoplanets would be from parent stars being gravitationally acted upon in tightly packed star clusters
• Multimedia
• VIDEO : Oozing planet @ Space.com
• Further Reading / In the News
• Weird World! ‘Oozing’ Alien Planet Is a Super-Earth Wonder @ Space.com
• ScienceShot: Why So Many Homeless Planets? @ news.sciencemag.org

Running your car with … seaweed?

• The low down
• Biofuel is energy from biological material from living or recently living organisms, biomass, that use carbon to grow
• Using seaweed to create biomass has been a sought after source of biofuel for years as it is full of the sugars needed for the process
• Seaweed also grows very fast, does not compete for land with crops, and requires no fertilizer or freshwater
• If a process could be made to meet a certain efficiency it would broaden the biofuels possibilities
• Significance
• Unfortunately the gummy cell walls of seaweed make it very hard to get the needed components to make biofuel, making it difficult to compete with other forms of biomass.
• Researchers have now engineered a bacterium that has the ability to break down those cell walls so that ethanol and other useful products can be gained
• The process was developed by combining several enzymes that could convert the interior into fuel,
• The researchers then used the cellular transportation system to inject the combination so that it would secrete the enzyme
• * Of Note*
• Currently the bacteria yields approximately 80% of it’s theoretical maximum of ethenol, with further tweaking that number may go even higher
• Partially broken down product could be used in processes for making nylons or plastics
• The newly engineered E.coli has no danger of escaping into the environment and consuming seaweed, as it lives best in the human gut, and would likely die in an ocean environment in a short period of time
• Multimedia
• IMAGE GALLERY: Top 10 Sources for Biofuel @ news.discovery.com
• Further Reading / In the News
• Genetically Engineered Stomach Microbe Converts Seaweed into Ethanol @ scientificamerican.com
• Seaweed Biofuel Breakthrough Found @ News.Discovery.com
• Seaweed study fuels bioenergy enthusiasm @ ScienceNews.org

Crowd sourcing hits earthquakes

• The low down
• We mentioned before what social media can do to help the medical community track outbreaks of communicable diseases
• Seismologists are now getting on the social media tracking band wagon
• In the past seismologists have relied on sensors in the vicinity of an earthquake and post anecdotal evidence from interviews of people who experienced it
• Significance
• There have already been instances where citizen-generated reports have had value in information gathering for earthquakes
• Scientists had begun to set up websites specifically for people to add what they know about an earthquake to existing data
• Being a public system seismologists can filter Twitter messages so focus on earthquake related messages, giving researchers real time data as people message about the earthquake
• Also available to the public are seismic monitors that can attach to building, public or private, to send data via WiFi to designated research facilities
• In addition to social media there are also Smartphone apps that are available that can be used to turn the phone itself into a vibration sensing device when it is not being carried
• Other new sensors will become available as interest increases
• * Of Note*
• As these new sources of information become available it increases the amount and density of the observational and scientific data
• More data from earthquakes gives scientists more detailed information about earthquakes, which increases the understanding of them
• The ability to understand the precursors of an earthquake or even what leads to earthquakes will increase the prediction models
• Multimedia
• VIDEO : Page with video about crowdsourcing earthquakes @ physorg.com
• Social Media
• Twitter Results for [#earthquake](https://twitter.com/#!/search/%23earthquake)
• Further Reading / In the News
• Scientists turning to crowdsourcing to gather more information about earthquakes @ PhysOrg.com
• Transforming Earthquake Detection? @ sciencemag.org

SPACECRAFT UPDATE

New Horizons

• * Last time on SciByte*
• Habitable Planets & Chimps | SciByte 24 (Dec 7, 2011)
• * Of Note*
• New Horizons spacecraft headed for Pluto started it’s 9 year journey on Jan 19, 2006.
• This January has marked the 6th anniversary of the probes launch and means it has complete 2/3 of the journey
• New Horizons has put about 2.14 billion miles (3.45 billion km) on its odometer
• Another 1 billion miles (1.6 billion km) left to go before the close encounter.
• This summer, it will have a 24-hours near-encounter rehearsal, and will make every maneuver and scan that it will do when it arrives at Pluto
• The actual encounter itself will only last approximately a day as the craft flies by the Plutonian system
• Not only will this dress rehearsal check out all seven instruments, it will collect more science data then any other spacecraft wake up, and will receive a software update, including a bug in the program that causes it to reset
• the New Horizons team will also be able to use on board telescopes to probe the Plutonian system for other satellites, rings and other debris
• Data New Horizons sends back — maps, spectra, plasma data, radio science and more — will provide a detailed view of Pluto and its system of moons
• Fun Pluto factoids
• Everything we currently know about Pluto would fill less than a page in a textbook
• Surface temperatures are around –375 F [–225 C] but nonetheless manages to hold onto an atmosphere of Nitrogen, Methane, and Carbon Dioxide that extends about 1,860 mi [3,000 km] from the surface
• Some scientist currently think it is comprised of 70% rock and 30% ice
• Multimedia
• NewHorizons2015 @NewHorizons2015
• Multimedia
• Pluto: A Dwarf Planet Oddity (Infographic) @ Space.com
• IMAGE GALLERY: Meet the Solar System’s Dwarf Planets @ Space.com
• IMAGE GALLERY: Science Photos @ pluto.jhuapl.edu
• Further Reading
• New Horizons Web Site @ pluto.jhuapl.edu
• NASA Spacecraft in Home Stretch of Journey to Pluto @ Space.com
• Countdown: 5 Strange Facts About Pluto @ lifeslittlemysteries.com
• Meet the Solar System’s Dwarf Planets @ Space.com
• Pluto: A Dwarf Planet Oddity (Infographic) @ Space.com

Opportunity Rover

• * Last time on SciByte*
• Moons Here & There | SciByte 28 (Jan 10, 2012)
• * Of Note*
• After roaming the surface of Mars for nearly eight years and hunkering down for the winter Opportunity is ready to investigate the interior of the Red planet, not by digging but just by calling home
• By analyzing the signals from Mars scientists will be able to more precise measurements of the planets rotational speed
• Analyzing how Mars’ spin and spin access has changed since the Viking missions in the mid–70’s should allow scientists to get a better handle on the interior of the planet
• My measuring the minute variations of the planets rotation could reveal weather Mars has a solid or liquid core.
• The team that after about three-to-six months researchers will have enough data to get an in-depth picture of the Martian interior
• Multimedia
• Opportunity Rover – Raw Images Gallery @ NASA.gov
• Jet Propulsion Laboratory Mars Rover Multimedia Gallery: @ NASA.gov
• Mars Rover Missions Page – Multimedia Gallery: @ NASA.gov
• Further Reading
• 8 Years on Mars: ‘Amazing’ NASA Rover Still Going Strong @ Space.com
• NASA Rover Spends Martian Winter Probing Inside Red Planet @ Space.com
• New App Downlinks Mars Rover Images Straight to Your Smartphone @ popsci.com
• Opportunity arrives at Greeley Haven – 5th Winter Haven Worksite on Mars @ UniverseToday.com

SCIENCE CALENDER

Looking back

• Jan 27, 1888 : 124 years ago : National Geographic Society founded : The National Geographic Society was established with Gardiner Greene Hubbard as its first president. Two weeks earlier, on 13 Jan 1888, 33 founders in Washington, D.C., U.S.A., had met at the Cosmo Club in Lafayette Square, across from the White House. Their mission was to establish “a society for the increase and diffusion of geographical knowledge.” By Oct 1888, the first National Geographic Magazine was published as a society membership benefit, which continues its monthly issues to the present with photographs and popular articles now expanded from topics of geography and exploration to science, history and world cultures. The society has awarded over 9,000 grants for scientific research, and sponsors a museum and travelling exhibits.
• Jan 27, 1957 : 55 years ago : Hearts get a portable jump-start](todayinsci.com) : In 1957, an external artificial pacemaker with internal heart electrode is first used. To maintain a patient’s heartbeat rhythm an electrode was sewn to the wall of the heart and connected through the chest to an external desk-top pulse generator. A team of scientists at the University of Minnesota, led by Dr C. Walton Lillehei, made this medical advance. However, such bulky equipment was not a good long-term solution since infection often occurred along the electrode wires, and the device required no interruption in the house electricity. So Dr. Lillehei also initiated research on the use of a small portable external pacemaker for these patients with heart block. This ultimately led to the development of the billion-dollar pacemaker industry.
• Jan 30, 1958 : 54 years ago : Please be careful stepping on or off the platform](todayinsci.com) : Although the first moving sidewalk was a whopping 119 years ago, at the World’s Fair in Chicago in 1893. The first two-way, moving sidewalk, 1,425 feet long, was put in service at Love Field Air Terminal in Dallas, TX. It consisted of three loops. In each loop a continuous rubber carpet was attached to a continuous train of wheeled pallets, flexibly interconnected so they could follow vertical or horizontal curves as required. It was known not only as a moving sidewalk, but also as a passenger conveyor. more icon

Looking up this week

• Keep an eye out for …

• Wed, Jan 25 : Venus is to the upper left of the crescent moon at twilight

• Thur, Jan 26 : Venus is now below and slightly to the left of the moon at twilight

• Fri, Jan 27 : Venus now appears right below the moon at twilight in the WSW

• Sat, Jan 28 : To the right of the moon is a star in the Great Square of Pegasus, Jupiter is about twice the distance and to the upper left

• Sun, Jan 29 : The brightest star in the sky to the SW is Sirius the dog star

• The southern hemisphere should, Keep an eye out for …

• Fri, Jan 27 : Venus will appear with the Moon

• Mon, Jan 30 : Jupiter takes is turn above the moon in the NW sky

• More on whats in the sky this week

• 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 Solar Storms & Private Space Flight | SciByte 30 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.