habital planet – Jupiter Broadcasting https://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com Open Source Entertainment, on Demand. Wed, 02 May 2012 06:59:56 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.5.3 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/cropped-favicon-32x32.png habital planet – Jupiter Broadcasting https://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com 32 32 Mining Asteroids & Shuttle Discovery | SciByte 44 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/19186/mining-asteroids-shuttle-discovery-scibyte-44/ Tue, 01 May 2012 22:59:56 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=19186 We take a look at mining asteroids, recovery from strokes, lefties, talking to yourself, solar cells, a review of some recent major media stories, and much more.

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We take a look at mining asteroids, recovery from strokes, lefties, talking to yourself, solar cells, a review of some recent major media stories, viewer feedback, spacecraft updates, and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

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Show Notes:

New Mining Resources



Credit: PlanetaryResources

  • Asteroid Mining
    • The idea of exploiting the natural resources of asteroids dates back over 100 years.
    • California Institute of Technology in Pasadena completed an in-depth study of the feasibility of asteroid mining
    • The study showed that, for the first time in history, this was now feasible using technology available in this decade
    • It is reasonable to assume we could identify, and bring an entire asteroid that is roughly 23 feet [7 meters] wide [~500 tons] into a high lunar orbit
  • Asteroid composition classifications
    • D class asteroids: They are also known as Trojan asteroids of Jupiter and are dark and carbonaceous in composition.
    • C class asteroids: They are found in the Earth’s outer belt and are darker and more carbonaceous than the ones found in the S class.
    • S class asteroids: They are found in the Earth’s inner belt, closer to Mars and are composed of mostly stone and iron.
    • V class asteroids: They are a far-out group of asteroids that follow a path between the orbits of Jupiter and Uranus, and are made of igneous, eruptive materials.
  • Why is mining asteroids feasible now?
    • The ability to discover and characterize enough sufficiently small near-Earth asteroids for mining.
    • An evolving ability to equip powerful enough solar electric propulsion systems to enable transportation of the captured asteroid.
    • A proposed human presence around the moon in the 2020s both enables exploration and exploitation of the returned near-Earth asteroid.
  • * Enter Planetary Resources, Inc.*
    • A new company Planetary Resources, Inc. is now making plans to be able to mine asteroids
    • The company, has been in existence for about three years, announced itself to the general public now because they are starting to aggressively search for the world’s best engineers, to help design and build a fleet of asteroid-mining robots [not Bruce Willis]
    • This company’s investors include Google execs Larry Page and Eric Schmidt, who are worth $16.7 billion and $6.2 billion
    • Their advisors include, filmmaker and adventurer James Cameron, former NASA astronaut Tom Jones and MIT planetary scientist Sara Seager
    • While it may be possible for this to happen, Planetary Resources is still years away from actually seizing an asteroid and staking a cosmic claim
    • Materials from such asteroids could be used for both the Earth and for planetary exploration, providing shielding galactic cosmic rays and propellant to transport a shielded
    • The initial focus will be developing Earth orbiting telescopes to scan for the best asteroids, and later, create extremely low-cost robotic spacecraft for surveying missions.
    • What we learn from such missions and a possible industry could someday help us deflect a much larger near-Earth object
  • The Legal angle
  • The legality of asteroid mining is in itself interesting
  • The 1967 Outer Space Treaty says that “Outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.”
  • Whether or not that applies to individuals or companies is one question
  • Anything launched into space remains the private property of its owner
  • However NASA and other entities ‘own’ and sell rocks and dirt from the moon
  • Even the sea-floor could be mined
    • Canada-based mining firm Nautilus Minerals said Tuesday it had signed China’s Tongling Nonferrous Metals Group as the first customer of its pioneering Papua New Guinean seafloor mine.
    • Currently it is slated to begin production in the fourth quarter of 2013 Nautilus claims the project to be the world’s first commercial seafloor mine
    • This area has deposits of rocks containing high grades of copper, gold, zinc and silver, what is known as “seafloor massive sulphides” from hydrothermal vents
    • Robots would be controlled remotely to drill for those sulphide deposits 5,250ft [1,600 m] below sea level
    • Then another machine would pump the material to a support vessel at the surface, which would then be dewatered for transport
    • These robots are currently under construction and are based on those used in deepwater oil and gas, terrestrial mining and marine dredging industries
  • Multimedia
  • Further Reading / In the News

— NEWS BYTE —

Recovery from Strokes

  • The low down
    • Currently the drugs administered for a stroke are to break up clots that caused the stroke, and need to be given within 4.5 hours after a stroke
    • Neuroscientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine were looking for alternatives
  • Significance
    • Brain-derived neurotrophic factor, BNNF, are powerful and long-studied nerve growth factor
    • BDNF is critical during the development of the nervous system and known to be involved in important brain functions including memory and learning.
    • A compound called LM22A–4, mimics this factor, is a small molecule that weighs less than one-seventieth that of BDNF
    • In a study the speed of recovery was improved rapidly, in fact those mice who had received the drug showed half as many stroked affected nerve cells as their counterparts without the drug
    • In fact the drug wasn’t even administered until a full three days after the strokes, showing that it does not limit a strokes damage but enhances recovery
    • These molecules stimulate the brain’s own stem cells to form new neurons
    • Stem-cell therapy is a somewhat invasive and expensive treatment for lost or damaged tissues, making a drug that could achieve the same results on the brain very promising and a welcome development
  • Further Reading / In the News

The competitive nature of lefties

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

Talking to yourself isn’t crazy

Liquid Solar cells

— THE NEWS IS CATCHING UP—

Nine Planet System

Planet in habitable zone

— VIEWER FEEDBACK —



Credit: [Arizona State University]

Spirals on Mars

  • For making sure that we saw this, thanks to
  • Jacob Roecker & other JupiterBroadcasting staff members
  • The low down
  • What started as research into nighttime infrared temperatures of the plates, came in interest in the terrain between the plates, leading to a Arizona State University graduate student noticing spiral patterns in the lava
  • Here on Earth lava coils can be found on the Hawaiian islands(*seen in space.com article below) and near the Galapagos Rift on the Pacific Ocean floor
  • When lava flows move past each other at different speeds, or directions, rubbery lava crust can peel away or coil up to create wrinkles in the crust that can then be twisted around
  • In order to really make them out the images need to be zoomed and have their contrast tweaked a bit
  • The largest Martian coil is however bigger than any seen on Earth; at 98 ft [30 m] when the ones on Earth are about a third of that
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Researchers find new form of Mars lava flow | phys.org
  • Ancient Mars Lava Spirals Reveal Volcanic Secrets of Red Planet | space.com

SPACECRAFT UPDATE

The Shuttle Shuffle Continues



YouTube channel : daujla2

SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket

  • SpaceX is preparing for a scheduled launch of May 7th headed to the International Space Station!
  • Further Reading
  • SpaceX

You may have seen

California Meteorite



CREDIT: Lisa Warren | Credit : P. Jenniskens (SETI Institute) and Eric James (NASA Ames)

  • Last time on SciByte
  • The low down
    • Sunday April 22 over California a large fireball was seen along with a sonic boom characteristic of large meteors entering the Earth atmosphere
    • Scientists have confirmed that this meteor was between 4 to 5 billion years old and probably about the size of a minivan, about 154,300 pounds [69,989 kg]
    • Meteorites don’t actually ‘burn-up’ the friction against the air during re-entry actually causes it to vaporize
    • The sonic boom heard from this meteor was because it entered the atmosphere faster than the speed of sound, between 22,000 mph and 44,000 mph [35,000kph – 70,000kph]
  • Significance
    • The meteors reentry was seen from Sacramento, Calif., to Las Vegas and parts of northern Nevada.
    • The first pieces, discovered by Robert Ward, were neat where gold was first discovered in California in 1848
    • Ward has been hunting and collecting meteorites for more than 20 years and has found meteorites in every continent but Antarctica
    • Those two pieces were probably part of the same meteorite that broke apart on impact, each weighs about 10 grams, about the same as two nickels
    • Most nighttime meteors that you see are around the size of grain of sand or a tiny stone, and only last a few seconds
    • An meteor event of this size typically happens around the world once a year, and then most occur over ocean or uninhabited places
    • Although this event occurred just after the peak of the annual mid-April Lyrid meteor shower it is unlikely that it was a Lyrid meteor, although without more information about its trajectory it won’t be known for sure
  • Of Note
    • “NASA and the SETI Institute are asking the public to submit any amateur photos or video footage of the meteor that illuminated the sky over the Sierra Nevada mountains and created sonic booms that were heard over a wide area at 7:51 a.m. PDT Sunday, April 22, 2012.”
    • Also any security footage should be checked to see if the fireball was visible, which could also be used in pinpointing the area for fragments
  • Further Reading / In the News

SCIENCE CALENDER

Looking back

  • May 08 1790 : 222 years ago : Metric System : Acting on a motion by a bishop, Charles Maurice de Talleyrand (1754–1838), the French National Assembly decided to create a simple, stable, decimal system of measurement units. The earliest metre unit chosen was the length of a pendulum with a half-period of a second. On 30 Mar 1791, after a proposal by the Académie des sciences (Borda, Lagrange, Laplace, Monge and Condorcet), the Assembly revised the definition of the metre to be 1/10 000 000 of the distance between the north pole and the equator. On 7 Apr 1795, the Convention decreed that the new “Republican Measures” were to be henceforth legal measures in France. The metric system adopted prefixes: greek for multiples and latin for decimal fractions.
  • May 06 1937 : 75 years ago : Hindenburg : At 7:25 pm, the dirigible The Hindenburg burned while landing at the naval air station at Lakehurst, N.J. On board were 6l crew and 36 passengers. The landing approach seemed normal, when suddenly a tongue of flame appeared near the stern. Fire spread rapidly through the 7 million cubic feet of hydrogen that filled the balloon. Within a few seconds the Zeppelin exploded in a huge ball of fire. The ship fell tail first with flames shooting out the nose. It crashed into the ground 32 seconds after the flame was first spotted; 36 people died. Captain Ernst Lehmann survived the crash but died the next day. He muttered “I can’t understand it,” The cause remains the subject of debate even today.

Looking up this week

  • Solar Activity

  • Another CME will pass by the Curiosity rover around May 4th, Curiosity is actually equipped with instruments to sense and study solar storms

  • Keep an eye out for …

  • Thursday, May 3rd : Saturn and Spica are to the lower of the moon, Saturn being the farther from the Moon and to the left

  • Friday, May 4th : The Moon will now sit below both Saturn and Spica

  • Saturday, May 5th : The moon will be near the horizon below and to the left

  • Saturday, May 5th is Full Moon, called a ‘super moon’ because it is the one full moon of the year when the Moon is in its closest part of its orbit, appearing 14% larger and 30% brigher

  • Later this month there will be an Annular (ring) eclipse for the Western Americas, and a Partial eclipse for the rest.

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

  • Just remember to vertically flip all the things for the Northern hemisphere

  • Saturn and Spica will sitting above the Moon

  • Further Reading and Resources

  • More on what’s 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 Mining Asteroids & Shuttle Discovery | SciByte 44 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

]]> Habitable Planets & Plant Power | SciByte 32 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/16767/habitable-planets-plant-power-scibyte-32/ Tue, 07 Feb 2012 23:27:07 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=16767 A look at a planet orbiting another star that could harbor water, a fungus that chows down on polyurethane, turning plants into solar cells, science of massage, and tracking snow!

The post Habitable Planets & Plant Power | SciByte 32 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

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We take a look at a planet orbiting another star that could harbor water, a fungus that chows down on polyurethane, turning plants into solar cells, science of massage, tracking snow, and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

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Support the Show:

   

Show Notes:

Habitable planet?

  • The low down
  • Scientists Used public data from the European Southern Observatory, new measurements from the W. M. Keck Observatory’s High Resolution Echelle Spectrograph and the new Carnegie Planet Finder Spectrograph at the Magellan II Telescope
  • They combined data from all three ground-based telescopes, dating back 10 years, and analyzed it with novel data-analysis methods to come up with a solid signal of a planet
  • The star in this case is a M-dwarf star much dimmer and redder than our own in a triple-star system with a different chemical makeup than our sun
  • Such stars can be rather unstable and any planets would tend to be tidally locked and could make it difficult for a planet to form
  • Even the interior of planets could be affected, as radioactive elements would determine whether a planet has a molten core or a solid one.
  • Significance
  • The planet discovered is about 4.5 times as massive as the Earth
  • It orbits once every 28 days or so; in our solar system, that would put it so scorchingly close to the sun that water would boil off.
  • But because most of its incoming light is in the infrared, a higher percentage of this incoming energy should be absorbed by the planet
  • The new planet receives 90 percent of the light that Earth receives.
  • The planet is expected to absorb about the same amount of energy from its star that the Earth absorbs from the Sun
  • This would allow surface temperatures similar to Earth and perhaps liquid water, but this extreme cannot be confirmed without further information on the planet’s atmosphere.
  • Astronomers aren’t sure what the planet’s composition is, because they have not been able to measure its size
  • It could be a either a rocky or a gas planet. I would need to have a radius between about 1.7 and 2.2 Earth radii to be a rocky world.
  • While the planet can’t be seen directly yet, it’s not impossible that we could glean additional details about the potentially habitable super-Earth such readings of its atmosphere with the next generation of ground or space telescopes
  • * Of Note*
  • Its parent star, is located a mere 22 light-years away from Earth, with only about 100 stars closer to us
  • The other stars in the system are pretty far away, but would be visible in the sky of the planet
  • The system has much lower abundances of heavy elements (elements heavier than hydrogen and helium), such as iron, carbon and silicon.
  • The detection of this planet, this nearby and this soon, implies that our galaxy must be teeming with billions of potentially habitable rocky planets
  • The unexpected is something planet hunters have learned to expect and in most cases, these surprises have tended to expand the possibilities for finding worlds
  • In addition planets coming out of Kepler are typically thousands of light-years away and we could never send a space probe out there,“ Vogt said. ”We’ve been explicitly focusing on very nearby stars, because with today’s technology, we could send a robotic probe out there, and within a few hundred years, it could be sending back pictures
  • Multimedia
  • IMAGE : Artist Rendition @ Space.com [Credit : Carnegie Institution for Science]]
  • IMAGE : Diagram of the planets orbiting the star @ Space.com [Credit : Carnegie Institution for Science]
  • IMAGE : GJ 667C triple system as seen from a telescope @ Physorg.com [Credit : Guillem Anglada-Escude]
  • IMAGE : The latest addition to a list of life-friendly exoplanets @ [Credit : Habitable Exoplanets Catalog/UPR Arecibo]
  • IMAGE : Artist depiction of the planet GJ667Cc and the three stars it orbits
    @     [Credit : Carnegie Institution / UCSC]
  • Social Media
  • Twitter Exoplanet App @ExoplanetApp
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • New Study Shows How Trace Elements Affect Stars’ Habitable Zones
  • Newfound Alien Planet is Best Candidate Yet to Support Life, Scientists Say
  • New super-earth detected within the habitable zone of a nearby star
  • New super-Earth detected within the habitable zone of a nearby cool star
  • Potential ‘Goldilocks’ Planet Found
  • Super-Earth spotted in life-friendly zone
  • ScienceShot: Double-Star System Hosts Ancient World
  • New Planet Found: Could a Super-Earth plus Triple Stars Equal Life?
  • Cool sun could host habitable planet

*— NEWS BYTE — *

Hungry Fungi

  • The low down
  • Polyurethane is a synthetic polymer developed in the 1940s
  • It is often used to replaces rubber, paint, wood, or metals and is found in a wide variety of applications, and has the advantages of strength, durability and elasticity
  • Some can be recycled into other products but the waste ends up in landfills as a non-biodegrade object because nothing we know of can metabolize and digest it
  • The chemical bond in it are so strong they do not degrade readily
  • Although it can be burned it releases harmful carbon monoxide and other toxic chemicals
  • Significance
  • Each year Yale University operates a Rainforest Expedition and Laboratory course, which includes an expedition to a tropical jungle in the spring recess and summer research on samples collected
  • The 2011 group discovered that the Pestalotiopsis microspora fungus found in Ecuador and will not only eat polyurethane, but can survive on a diet consisting solely of polyurethane
  • In addition it can do so in the oxygen starved regions inside landfills
  • Several other microorganisms have been found that can degrade solid and liquid polyurethane but only this newest discovery can entirely survive on it under both Oxygen rich and Oxygen starved environments
  • * Of Note*
  • It is suggested that similar fungi could be used to naturally degrade waste products, a process known as bioremediation.
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Amazon fungi found that eat polyurethane, even without oxygen @ Physorg.com
  • Amazonian Rainforest Fungus Eats Polyurethane, Potentially Solving a Big Landfill Problem @ PopSci.com

Solar panels you water?

  • The low down
  • Tiny structures inside plant walls carryout photosynthesis are called photo-system-I (PS-I).
  • Scientists at MIT harvested those structures, stabilized them and formed a layer on glass, similar to a conventional photovoltaic cell
  • The process successfully produced a current when exposed to light
  • However, this system needed a sophisticated lab to create and it’s efficiency was several magnitudes to low to be of practical use
  • Significance
  • The process has been simplified so that any lab can replicate it, allowing for researchers around the world making further improvements
  • So far the newer version is 10,000 times more efficient that the original system, although it still only converts 0.1% of sunlight into electricity
  • Once the system reaches 1–2% it will become useful because of the low cost and ease of process
  • Any raw plant material, could be put into centrifuges to concentrate the PS-I molecules
  • There are also tests going on to see if the needed concentrations would be achiecable with filtration
  • * Of Note*
  • The hope is that one day, in a remote or off-the-grid location one might be able to take a bag, mix in something green, paint it on a roof, and produce power
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube VIDEO Harnessing nature’s solar cells
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Photovoltaic panels made from plant material could become a cheap alternative to traditional solar cells @ PhysOrg.com
  • MIT researcher creates solar cell from grass clippings @ RenewableEnergyMagazine.com

The science of massage

  • The low down
  • Strenuous exercises can actually tear muscle fibers, although it’s considered normal and generally heals fine
  • It has been said that massages can help release lactic acid from sore muscles, but that’s not entirely true
  • Muscles do like massages, but for another reason
  • A study on the cellular effects of massages post-exercise found that it actually chances the chemical signals that have to do with inflammation and muscle repair
  • Significance
  • Researchers had 11 healthy young men cycle to exhaustion, then one leg on each man was randomly selected for a massage.
  • Tissue samples were taken of each leg 10 minutes and 2.5 hours after the massage
  • What they saw was a 30% difference in the levels of two key proteins, one reduces inflammation and the other generates cell growth
  • * Of Note*
  • Before this study there was very little scientific research for why massage actually works
  • The traditional mainstream medical field have often dismissed massages and therapy, but these results seem likely to affect that
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • How Massage Helps Heal Muscles and Relieve Pain @ Healthland.Time
  • Massage Doesn’t Just Feel Good—It Changes Gene Expression and Reduces Inflammation @ DiscoverMagazome/com
  • Massage’s Mystery Mechanism Unmasked @ ScienceMag.org

Watching the snow fall from space

  • The low down
  • Rain tends to be spherical like drops, snow however comes in many different shapes when it comes to tracking and measuring amounts the shape differences make a great deal of difference
  • GPM Core set to be launched in 2014
  • The GPM Core will be one of the first times instruments will be in space specifically looking at falling snow
  • Significance
  • Satellites are being launched into orbit that will study global snowfall precipitation with much better detail then ever before
  • For the first time we will know when where and how much snow falls on the earth, letting us better understand and predict extreme weather
  • Once scientists calculate all the carious types of snowflake shapes the satellite will then be able to detect them from orbit.
  • * Of Note*
  • This satellite system will provide new insights into storm structures and large-scale atmospheric processes, precipitation micro physics
  • It will also provide advanced understanding of climate sensitivity and feedback processes
  • It will also extended capabilities in monitoring and predicting hurricanes and other extreme weather events, and improve forecasting abilities for natural hazards, including floods, droughts and landslides.
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube VIDEO : NASA | Studying the Science of Falling Snow
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM)
  • GPM Spacecraft and Instruments
  • Getting to the Core of Earth’s Falling Snow@ UniverseToday.com

Honorable Mentions

First video of the far side of the moon

Colbert PSA for NASA

SPACECRAFT UPDATE

Curiosity rover

*— VIEWER FEEDBACK — *

Light speed travelling brothers : slepacus

SCIENCE CALENDER

Looking back

  • Feb 14, 1747: 265 years ago : Earth fails sobriety test : The Earth has a bit of a wobble to it’s gait British astronomer James Bradly published a paper on the Earths wobbling motion on its axis, coined as nutation (from Latin “nutare” to nod). Bradley first noticed the fluctuation during his studies of parallax at Molyneux’s observatory. Attributing it to the moon’s gravitational influence, he withheld any announcement until he had observed a full cycle of the motion of the moon’s nodes, taking about 18.6 years. During his career he also measured the diameter of Venus and was able to make calculations giving the speed of light.
  • Feb 12, 1941: 71 years ago : Sometimes mold is good? : The first injection of penicillin into a human test subject was conducted by Ernst Chain and Howard Walter Florey, who developed this antibiotic. The pair of scientist working on medical applications were made aware of a patient with septic scratches, blood poisoning and numerous abscesses. They were fearful of the side effects and chose a patient in terminal condition, within a day his temperature had dropped and his appetite returned. Alaxader Flemming, who discovered penicillin thought he had merely discovered an antiseptic and was convinced it could not last long enough in the human body to kill pathogenic bacteria and actually stopped studying it. Althought the use of bread with a blue mould (presumed to be Penicillium) as a means of treating suppurating wounds was a staple of folk medicine in Europe since the Middle Ages.
  • Feb 13, 1990 : 22 years ago : Time for the family photo’s : Voyager I , while heading out to the edge of the Solar System, began a four-hour series of photographs in a look backward which captured the Sun and six planets. An elongated large mozaic was later made by combining about 60 images. In this first “Family Portrait of the Planets”, the Sun appeared almost star-like and the planets were mere dots. Mercury was too close to the sun to photograph. Mars and Pluto, were too small to resolve. This first record of the Solar System from space may remain the only one for decades to follow. Voyager I had a unique lofty perspective, looking down on the plane in which the planets orbit. It had been steadily climbing since it passed Saturn in 1980, and reached an angle of 32 degrees high above the plane of the solar system.

Looking up this week

The post Habitable Planets & Plant Power | SciByte 32 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

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