India’s Mars Orbiter Mission – Jupiter Broadcasting https://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com Open Source Entertainment, on Demand. Mon, 22 Feb 2016 02:48:54 +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 India’s Mars Orbiter Mission – Jupiter Broadcasting https://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com 32 32 Exoplanets & Diabetes | SciByte 135 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/61887/exoplanets-diabetes-scibyte-135/ Tue, 08 Jul 2014 20:58:08 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=61887 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 | […]

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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:

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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

— 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

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

]]> Happy Science of 2013 | SciByte 114 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/49107/happy-science-of-2013-scibyte-114/ Tue, 07 Jan 2014 21:16:58 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=49107 We take a look at my top science stories and events of 2013, Curiosity news, and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

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We take a look at my top science stories and events of 2013, 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

— Book Pic: —

Curiosity | Evidence of Ancient Habitable Water Locations

— NEWS BYTE —

Voyager 1 | “Interstellar Space” Announcement

Exoplanets

International and Private Space Travel

  • India’s Mars Orbiter Mission
  • India’s first ever Mars probe ‘MOM’ successfully fired its main engine on Dec. 1 to begin its nearly yearlong momentous voyage to Mars
  • ISRO’s engineers devised a procedure to get the spacecraft to Mars on the least amount of fuel via six “Midnight Maneuver” engine burns over several weeks – and at an extremely low cost
  • This maneuver increases the ship’s velocity and gradually widens the ellipse eventually raising the apogee of the six resulting elliptical orbits around Earth that eventually injects MOM onto the Trans-Mars trajectory
  • SciByte 111| Memories & International Spacecraft (December 3, 2013)
  • SciByte 109 | ‘Earth-Like’ Planets & Sharks (November 12, 2013)
  • SciByte 107 | Dinosaurs & Satellites (October 29, 2013)
  • Chinese Lunar Lander
  • China had a successful touchdown of the Chang’e-3 probe with the ‘Yutu’ rover on the surface of the Moon on Dec. 14
  • They landed on the lava filled plains of the Bay of Rainbows occurred at about 8:11 am EST or 9:11 p.m. Beijing local time
  • Barely seven hours after the Chang’e-3 mothership touched down on Sunday, Dec. 15, the six wheeled ‘Yutu’, or Jade Rabbit, rover drove straight off a pair of ramps at 4:35 a.m. Beijing local time
  • SciByte 113 | Freshwater Aquifers & Brain Plasticity (December 17, 2013)
  • Bigelow Aerospace’s | Genesis, Inflatable Space Station Modules
  • On Jan 11 NASA announced they have awarded a $17.8 million contract to Bigelow to provide a new inflatable module for the ISS, making it the first privately built module to be added to the space station
  • The outer shell of their module is soft, as opposed to the rigid outer shell of current modules at the ISS, Bigelow’s inflatable modules are more resistant to micrometeoroid or orbital debris strikes it uses multiple layers of Vectran, a material which is twice as strong as Kevlar
  • The company wants to launch and link up several of its larger expandable modules to create private space stations, which could be used by a variety of clients.
  • SciByte 77 | Breath Analysis & Large Structures (January 15, 2013)
  • SpaceX | Geostationary Orbit
  • The Dec 3 liftoff at 5:41 p.m. EST (2241 GMT) marked SpaceX\’s first entry into the large commercial satellite market and its first launch into a geostationary transfer orbit needed for such a mission.
  • Being able to launch into this new orbit will let SpaceX compete against Europe and Russia to haul large telecommunications satellites into orbit.
  • This launch also marks the second of three certification flights needed to certify the Falcon 9 to fly missions for the U.S. Air Force under the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program
  • When Falcon 9 is certified, SpaceX will be eligible to compete for all National Security Space (NSS) missions

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

Science Events of 2013

— CURIOSITY UPDATE —

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

  • Jan 11, 1954 : 59 years ago : First UK TV Weather Broadcast : The first in-vision weather forecaster broadcast on BBC television. George Cowling of the Meteorological Office presented from the BBC\’s Lime Grove studios with two hand-drawn weather charts pinned to an easel.

Looking up this week

The post Happy Science of 2013 | SciByte 114 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

]]> Memories & International Spacecraft | SciByte 111 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/47442/memories-international-spacecraft-scibyte-111/ Tue, 03 Dec 2013 21:16:20 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=47442 We take a look at how you remember things, 3D printing dinosaur bones, a SpaceX launch, India’s Mars Orbiter Mission, China’s lunar rover, and more!

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We take a look at how you remember things, 3D printing dinosaur bones, a SpaceX launch, India’s Mars Orbiter Mission, China’s lunar rover, 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

Geocaching Memories

  • Using a video game in which people navigate through a virtual town delivering objects to specific locations, a team of neuroscientists have discovered how brain cells that encode spatial information form \”geotags\” for specific memories and are activated immediately before those memories are recalled.
  • The work shows how spatial information is incorporated into memories and why remembering an experience can quickly bring to mind other events that happened in the same place
  • The findings provide the first direct neural evidence for the idea that the human memory system tags memories with information about where and when they were formed
  • The Study
  • This study involved playing a simple video game on a bedside computer
  • The game in this experiment involved making deliveries to stores in a virtual city
  • The participants were first given a period where they were allowed to freely explore the city and learn the stores\’ locations
  • When the game began, participants were only instructed where their next stop was, without being told what they were delivering
  • After they reached their destination, the game would reveal the item that had been delivered, and then give the participant their next stop
  • After 13 deliveries, the screen went blank and participants were asked to remember and name as many of the items they had delivered in the order they came to mind
  • Brain Recordings
  • This allowed the researchers to correlate the neural activation associated with the formation of spatial memories (the locations of the stores) and the recall of episodic memories: (the list of items that had been delivered).
  • \”Having these patients play our games allows us to record every action they take in the game and to measure the responses of neurons both during spatial navigation and then later during verbal recall.\” Michael Kahana, professor of psychology in Penn\’s School of Arts and Sciences
  • By asking participants to recall the items they delivered instead of the stores they visited, the researchers could test whether their spatial memory systems were being activated
  • Neural Map
  • Using the brain recordings generated while the participants navigated the city, the researchers were able to develop a neural map that corresponded to the city\’s layout
  • As participants passed by a particular store, the researchers correlated their spatial memory of that location with the pattern of place cell activation recorded
  • With maps of place cell activations in hand, the researchers were able to cross- reference each participant\’s spatial memories as they accessed their episodic memories of the delivered items
  • Results
  • Given just the place cell activations of a participant the researchers could predict, with better than chance accuracy, the item he or she was recalling
  • While researchers cannot distinguish whether these spatial memories are actually helping the participants access their episodic memories, simply seeing that this place cell activation plays a role in the memory retrieval processes
  • Earlier neuroscience research had suggested the hippocampus has two distinct roles, tracking the location information for spatial memory, and recording events for episodic memory
  • This experiment provides further evidence that these roles are intertwined
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Memories Are ‘Geotagged’ With Spatial Information, Penn Researchers Say | University of Pennselvania News
  • Memories \’geotagged\’ with spatial information | ScienceDaily.com

— NEWS BYTE —

Printing Dinosaur Bones

  • During World War II, a bomb fell on the Museum of National History in Berlin\’s east wing, collapsing the basement where dinosaur fossils were stored
  • Most of the fossils that weren’t blasted to dust had had their labels burned, so no one could identify what the remaining concrete jackets held
    or where they had been dug up
  • Last Time on SciByte …
  • YouTube | Special SciByte Nov 19 | with Nikki and Heather | Mars Base
  • In a small roadside quarry west of Denver, the first Apatosaurus ajax muzzle ever found in morrison sandstone. The sandstone surrounding the fragile fossils was so hard that the paleontologists were afraid that trying to remove the rock would irreparably damage the bone.
  • 3D printing technology will allow paleontologists to see inside the block and even to 3D-print a perfect copy of the bones inside without having to remove them physically and still get the needed data
  • Layers of Confusing Identification
  • Bones from two separate expeditions had been housed in the same area
  • One expedition, in Tanzania, ran from 1909 to 1913 and brought back 235 tons of fossils, labeled with letters based on their locations.
  • The other fossils came from a 1909 discovery in Halberstadt, Germany. Those bones also used a letter-based label system based on individual animals
  • One Fossils Journey
  • The target fossil for the new study was a specimen that had been dug up from a German clay pit in the early 1900s
  • The object, still encased in much of the rock that had entombed it, had been slathered in concrete and then transported back to a museum in
    Berlin
  • A CT scan of one revealed that it held a vertebra from a Plateosaurus and by comparing the scans to sketches of the long-ago digs, the researchers determined that the vertebra came from the Halberstadt dig in Germany
  • The scans showed a fractured bone. Some of the cracks were no doubt from fossilization, but one crunched-up corner was likely the result of the bombing
  • To recreate the bone as it was before the bombing, the researchers took data from the CT scan and built a blueprint to 3D print the fossil
  • When the process was done the researchers were able to print the bone chip from the bombing damage, which fit into the rest of the vertebra like a puzzle piece.
  • 3D Printing Dinosaur Bones
  • Scientists have long used CT scans to peek inside fossil-bearing rocks, but the increasing use of 3D printers now enables them to make endless
    numbers of exact copies of those relics
  • The technique might even help museum folk speed up their analyses: By knowing what’s inside a lump of rock, researchers can determine which
    fossils are worth extracting, and which ones can wait
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • ScienceShot: Printing a Dinosaur | Science/AAAS
  • Dinosaur Bone Damaged in WWII Revealed with 3D Printing | LiveScience.com

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

SpaceX Launch

  • Thanksgiving Day Launch Aborted, What Happened
  • It fired its engines and was moments away from liftoff from Cape Canaveral when the commercial booster aborted the launch after computers detected the engines were too slow building up thrust.
  • The Falcon 9 pressurized its propellant tanks, switched to internal power and ignited its nine Merlin 1D first stage engines a few seconds before the appointed launch time
  • The Falcon 9\’s computer-controlled countdown sequencer recognized a problem and called off the launch
  • As engineers continued to study and resolve the problem, SpaceX elected to restart the countdown to preserve a chance to launch Thursday
  • Ultimately, however, SpaceX said they could not get comfortable with the issue in time and ordered another hold with less than a minute left in the day\’s second countdown.
  • The Mission
  • The Dec 3 liftoff at 5:41 p.m. EST (2241 GMT) marked SpaceX\’s first entry into the large commercial satellite market and its first launch into a geostationary transfer orbit needed for such a mission.
  • This also marks the first commercial launch from the this Florida
    launch pad and the first commercial flight from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in over five years
  • **The Future***
  • SpaceX has nearly 50 launches on manifest, of which over 60% are for commercial customers
  • Being able to launch into this new orbit will let SpaceX compete against Europe and Russia to haul large telecommunications satellites into orbit.
  • This launch also marks the second of three certification flights needed to certify the Falcon 9 to fly missions for the U.S. Air Force under the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program
  • When Falcon 9 is certified, SpaceX will be eligible to compete for all National Security Space (NSS) missions
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube | Launch of SpaceX Falcon 9\’s First Commercial Mission – SES-8 | SpaceVids.tv·
  • YouTube | SpaceX Falcon 9 / SES-8 Launch Abort After Engine Ignition On Thanksgiving Day |Matthew Travis
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • SpaceX Aborts Thanksgiving Rocket Launch Due to Engine Trouble | Space.com
  • SpaceX Successfully Completes First Mission to Geostationary Transfer Orbit | SpaceX
  • SpaceX Launches Falcon 9 Rocket On High-Stakes Commercial Satellite Mission | Space.com

— Updates —

Comet ISON

— SPACECRAFT UPDATE—

India’s Mars Orbiter Mission

China\’s First Lunar Rover

  • China successfully launched its first ever lunar rover bound for the Moon’s surface aboard a Long March rocket at 1:30 a.m. Beijing local time, Dec. 2, 2013 (12:30 p.m. EST, Dec. 1) from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China.
  • The name for the ‘Yutu’ rover – which translates as ‘Jack Rabbit’ – was chosen after a special naming contest involving a worldwide poll and voting to select the best name, ‘Yutu’ stems from a Chinese fairy tale, in which the goddess Chang’e flew off to the moon taking her little pet Jade rabbit with her.
  • Mission Plan
  • The Chang’e 3 lander will fire thrusters to enter lunar orbit on Dec. 6.
  • It is due to make a powered descent to the lunar surface on Dec. 14, firing thrusters at an altitude of 15 km (9 mi) for touchdown in a preselected area called the Bay of Rainbows or Sinus Iridum region.
  • The Rover
  • Jack Rabbit measures 150 cm, nearly 5 ft, high and weighs approximately 120 kg, 265 lb
  • The rover and lander are equipped with multiple cameras, spectrometers, an optical telescope, radar and other sensors to investigate the lunar surface and composition
  • The rover is expected to continue operating for at least three months
  • Of Note
  • The next step will be an unmanned lunar sample return mission, perhaps around 2020
  • If successful, the Chang’e 3 mission will mark the first soft landing on the Moon since the Soviet Union’s unmanned Luna 24 sample return vehicle landed nearly four decades ago back in 1976.
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube | Animation of Chang\’E-3 lunar probe | CCTV News
  • YouTube | China\’s Chang\’e-3 Lunar Probe Launch | CCTV America
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Spectacular Liftoff Thrusts China\’s First Rover \’Yutu\’ to the Moon | UniverseToday.com

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

  • Dec 10, 1901: 112 years ago : First Nobel Prizes : At the first Nobel Prize Award Ceremony, the king of Sweden distributed the first Nobel Prizes, in accordance with the will of inventor Alfred Nobel. The day was the anniversary of Nobel\’s death. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences had decided on 10 Nov 1901 to award the first Nobel Prize in Physics to Wilhelm Röntgen for his discovery of X-rays and the first Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Jacobus H. van\’t Hoff for his work on rates of reaction, equilibrium and osmotic pressure. The first Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was given to Emil von Behring, for his work on serum therapy, particularly for its use in the treatment of diphtheria. His Nobel diploma was dated 30 Oct 1901, signed by staff at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm. Nobel Foundation | Wikipedia, First Prizes | Wikipedia

Looking up this week

  • Keep an eye out for …
  • Wed, Dec 4 | Twilight | The waxing crescent moon is to the far lower right of Venus
  • Thurs, Dec 5 | Twilight | Venus now sits about 7* to the lower left of the moon. [5* ~3 middle fingers held at arms length]
  • Fri, Dec 6 | The moon will be high above Venus in the SW
  • Sat, Dec 7 | Earliest sunset of the years. *Note, the longest night is Dec 21st, and the latest sunrise will be Jan 4th. Apparent solar time or true solar time is based on the apparent motion of the actual Sun. The length of a solar day varies through the year, and the accumulated effect produces seasonal deviations of up to 16 minutes from the mean.
  • Planets
  • Saturn | Dawn | Saturn is in the E-SE skies as it returns to view as its position in the sky gets farther from the sun
  • Venus | \”Evening Star\” | In the SW during and after dusk, no settin until about 1.5 hours after dark
  • Mars | Rising about 1am local it moves to the high E skies by dawn

  • Jupiter | ~7-8 pm local | Rises in the E-NE until it reaches its highest point ~2am

  • 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 Memories & International Spacecraft | SciByte 111 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

]]> ‘Earth-Like’ Planets & Sharks | SciByte 109 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/46277/earth-like-planets-sharks-scibyte-109/ Tue, 12 Nov 2013 21:16:10 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=46277 We take a look at counting Earth-like planets, what musical training does for your brain, the Olympic torch, viewer feedback about sharks.

The post ‘Earth-Like’ Planets & Sharks | SciByte 109 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

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We take a look at counting Earth-like planets, what musical training does for your brain, the Olympic torch, viewer feedback about sharks, a spacecraft update on India’s Mars Orbiter Mission, Curiosity news, and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

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How Common Are \’Earth-Like\’ Planets?

  • Astronomers have analyzed all four years of Kepler data in search of Earth-size planets in the habitable zones of sun-like stars
  • Based on the analysis, they estimate that 22 percent of stars like the sun have potentially habitable Earth-size planets, though not all may be rocky or have liquid water
  • Kepler Space Telescope
  • Launched in 2009 its mission was to look for planets around other stars by looking for a \’dip\’ in the brightness of a star, about one hundredth of one percent, indicating that something was passing in front of it
  • After 3 consecutive dips in light from the star it is labeled a exoplanet candidate
  • About 150,000 stars were photographed every 30 minutes for four years leading to the current reported number of more than 3,000 planet candidates
  • Kepler had to be pointed with such precision in order to find these planets that it would be like steadily looking at a grain of salt from a 0.4 km [1/4 mi] away
  • The Keck Telescopes in Hawaii helps astronomers to determine each star\’s true brightness and calculate the diameter of each transiting planet, with an emphasis on Earth-diameter planets.
  • \”Habitability\”
  • The team\’s defined habitable as a planet that receives between four times and one-quarter the amount of light that Earth receives from the sun
  • Earth-size planets in Earth-size orbits are not necessarily hospitable to life, even if they orbit in the habitable zone of a star where the temperature is not too hot and not too cold
  • Some of those planets may have thick atmospheres, making it so hot at the surface that DNA-like molecules would not survive
  • A habitable planet would have a rocky surfaces that could harbor liquid water suitable for living organisms
  • Narrowing Down The Data
  • The team focused on the 42,000 stars that are \’sun-like\’ and found 603 candidate planets orbiting them
  • Of those only 10 were Earth-size, that is, one to two times the diameter of Earth and orbiting their star at a distance where they are heated to lukewarm temperatures suitable for life
  • Extrapolating
  • All of the potentially habitable planets found in their survey are around K stars, which are cooler and slightly smaller than the sun although analysis shows that the result for K stars can be extrapolated to G stars like the sun
  • In order to get a better idea of the number of stars with planets around them you have to account for missed planets, as well as the fact that only a small fraction of planets are oriented so that they cross in front of their host star as seen from Earth
  • Adding in those numbers led them to believe that roughly 22 percent of all sun-like stars in the galaxy have Earth-size planets in their habitable zones.
  • The astronomers in this study defined sun-like stars to be of two class types, Class G (like our sun) and Class K
  • Class G and K stars make up roughly 19.5% of all stars, 22% of those stars gives 4.3% of ALL stars have potentially habitable Earth-size planets. (1 out of 25)
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube | One in Five Sun-Like Stars Have \’Goldilocks\’ Planets | VideoFromSpace
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Prevalence of Earth-size planets orbiting Sun-like stars | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
  • Astronomers answer key question: How common are habitable planets? | Phys.org

— NEWS BYTE —

Musical Training and the Brain

  • Older adults who took music lessons as children but haven\’t actively played an instrument in decades have a faster brain response to a speech sound than individuals who never played an instrument
  • The Brains Response Time
  • As people grow older, they often experience changes in the brain that compromise hearing and show a slower response to fast-changing sounds, which is important for interpreting speech
  • Previous studies have show such age-related declines are not inevitable, in fact recent studies of musicians suggest lifelong musical training may offset these and other cognitive declines
  • The Study
  • This recent study, explored whether limited musical training early in life is associated with changes in the way the brain responds to sound decades later
  • For the study, 44 healthy adults, ages 55-76, listened to a synthesized speech syllable (\”da\”) while researchers measured electrical activity in the auditory brainstem
  • The brainstem is the region of the brain processes sound and is a hub for cognitive, sensory, and reward information
  • Results
  • The results showed that the more years study participants spent playing instruments as youth, the faster their brains responded to a speech sound.
  • In fact none of the study participants had played an instrument in nearly 40 years, so it wasn\’t simply a recent or \’maintenance\’ result
  • Participants who completed 4-14 years of music training early in life had the fastest response to the speech sound (on the order of a millisecond faster than those without music training).
  • A millisecond faster may not seem like much, but the brain is very sensitive to timing and a millisecond compounded over millions of neurons can make a real difference
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Just a few years of early musical training benefits the brain later in life | MedicalXPress.com

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

Olympic Torch in Space

  • The Olympic Torch was taken on a space walk for the first time on Nov 9, 2013
  • Russian officials made it clear that the torch would remain unlit at all times for safety reasons.
  • The Olympic torch was carried into space ahead of the 1996 and 2000 Olympics in Atlanta and Sydney but has never before been taken on a spacewalk
  • In an usual situation, when the new crew arrived there were nine crew members and three Soyuz vehicles at the ISS, there have not been nine crew members on the ISS since 2009.
  • The new crew brought the unlit torch along, then the space station’s current crew, took the torch out on a spacewalk, the three returning crew members brought the torch back to Earth
  • The real reason for the spacewalk is to do some routine Russian maintenance outside the station
  • The torch was given back to Olympic officials and it will be used in the opening ceremonies of the February games
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube | Raw: Spacewalkers Hand Off Olympic Torch | AssociatedPress
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Russia launches Sochi Olympic torch into space | Phys.org
  • Crew Launches to Space Station with Olympic Torch | UniverseToday.com

— VIEWER FEEDBACK —

New Shark Species

  • Michael Thalleen ‏@ThalleenM
  • Two new shark species have been discovered
  • Carolina Hammerhead
  • Rare New Species of Carolina Hammerhead Shark Discovered | ScienceWorldReport.com
  • Scientists have now announced that they\’ve discovered a new species of rare shark, the Carolina hammerhead
  • The Carolina hammerhead has long eluded discovery due to the fact that it is outwardly indistinguishable from the common scalloped hammerhead
  • The new species, named Sphyrna gilberti, was actually discovered as scientists were looking for more common hammerheads.
  • South Carolina is a well-known pupping ground for several species of sharks, which means that researchers were collecting samples there for study
  • The scalloped hammerheads that they were collecting had two different genetic signatures in both the mitochondrial and nuclear genomes
  • The scientists found that the anomalous scalloped hammerhead had been described in 1967 and had 10 fewer vertebrae than the normal scalloped hammerhead. Intrigued
  • In the end, the scientists found that there was genetic evidence to show that this hammerhead was, in fact, a new species.
  • At this point scientists aren\’t sure exactly how many individuals still exist in the wild
  • \’Walking\’ Shark
  • New \’Walking\’ Shark Species Caught on Video | LiveScience
  • YouTube | New species of \”walking\” shark found in Indonesia – Conservation International (CI) – 2013 | ConservationDotOrg
  • A new species of \”walking\” shark has been discovered in a reef off a remote Indonesian island
  • Hemiscyllium halmahera, named after the eastern Indonesian island of Halmahera where it was found
  • These sharks don\’t always rely on \”walking\” to move about — often, they only appear to touch the seafloor as they swim using their pectoral and pelvic fins in a walk like gait
  • The shark grows up to 70 cm [27 in] long and is harmless to humans
  • The animals lay eggs under coral ledges, after which the young sharks lead relatively sedentary lives until adulthood
  • These sharks do not cross areas of deep water and are found in isolated reefs

— SPACECRAFT UPDATE—

India’s Mars Orbiter Mission

  • Last time on SciByte
  • SciByte 107 | Dinosaurs & Satellites (October 29, 2013)
  • The Trip to Mars
  • India’s Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) safely injected into its initial elliptical Earth parking orbit on Nov. 5
  • India’s PSLV rocket is not powerful enough to send MOM on a direct flight to Mars
  • ISRO’s engineers devised a procedure to get the spacecraft to Mars on the least amount of fuel via six “Midnight Maneuver” engine burns over several weeks – and at an extremely low cost
  • The goal is to gradually maneuver MOM – India’s 1st mission to the Red Planet – into a hyperbolic trajectory so that the spacecraft will
  • The spacecraft was initial in an elliptical orbit around Earth, it then proceeds to fire its engines when it is at its closest point in orbit above Earth.
  • This maneuver increases the ship\’s velocity and gradually widens the ellipse eventually raising the apogee of the six resulting elliptical orbits around Earth that eventually injects MOM onto the Trans-Mars trajectory
  • They expected to achieve escape velocity on Dec. 1 and depart Earth’s sphere of influence tangentially to Earth’s orbit to begin the 300 day (10 month) voyage to Mars
  • Estimates are that it will arrive in the vicinity of Mars on September 24, 2014
  • Small Glitch
  • During a fourth repositioning, on Mon Nov 11, that was to take it 100,000 kilometres (62,000 miles) from Earth, the thruster engines briefly failed, leading the autopilot to take over.
  • The supplemental burn on Nov 12 successfully raised it to the proper orbit
  • The Other Mars Mission
  • NASA\’s MAVEN orbiter remains on target to launch on Nov. 18 – from Cape Canaveral, Florida
  • It\’s goal is to \”Study the Martian atmosphere , unlock the mysteries of its current atmosphere and determine how, why and when the atmosphere and liquid water was lost\”
  • Both Mission Goals
  • The main aim of MOM is to detect methane in the Martian atmosphere, which could provide evidence of some sort of life form
  • Both MAVEN and MOM’s goal are to study the Martian atmosphere
  • MOM science teams have said they will “work together” with NASA\’s MAVEN team to unlock the secrets of Mars atmosphere and climate history
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube | Mars Mission Isro successfully completes first midnight manoeuver | rajnews41
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Indian Mars mission on track, makes first engine burns | Phys.org
  • India\’s Mars Orbiter Mission Rising to Red Planet – Glorious Launch Gallery | UniverseToday.com
  • Indian Mars mission suffers glitch but \’no setback\’ | Phys.org

— CURIOSITY UPDATE —

  • Warm Reset
  • NASA\’s Mars rover Curiosity experienced an unexpected software reboot (also known as a warm reset) on the 7th
  • During a communications pass as it was sending engineering and science data to the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, for later downlinking to Earth
  • occurred about four-and-half hours after new flight software had been temporarily loaded into the rover\’s memory
  • At the time the event occurred, Curiosity was in the middle of a scheduled, week-long flight software update and checkout activity
  • A warm reset is executed by flight software when it identifies a problem with one of its operations
  • The reset restarts the flight software into its initial state. Since the reset, the rover has been performing operations and communications as expected
  • This is the first time that Curiosity has executed a fault-related warm reset during its 16-plus months of Mars surface operations
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube Curiosity Rover Report JPLnews
  • Image Galleries at JPL and Curiosity Mulimedia
  • Social Media
  • Curiosity Rover @MarsCuriosity
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Mars Science Laboratory: Curiosity Performs Warm Reset | mars.jpl.nasa.gov

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

  • Nov 16, 1972 : 41 years ago : Skylab III : Skylab III, carrying a crew of three astronauts, was launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on an 84-day mission that remained the longest American space flight for over two decades (until Norm Thagard broke it aboard Mir in 1995 and Shannon Lucid, Feb 2002-Sep 2003). The Skylab III crew, Gerald P. Carr, William R. Pogue and Edward C. Gibson, maintained their physical condition by walking treadmills and riding an on-board stationary bicycle. Among the thousands of experiments conducted during this flight, the astronauts took four space walks, including one on Christmas Day to observe the comet Kohoutek. After 1214 orbits, the crew returned to Earth, splashing down on 8 Feb 1974. Skylab 3 | Wikipedia

Looking up this week

The post ‘Earth-Like’ Planets & Sharks | SciByte 109 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

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