Interstellar Space – Jupiter Broadcasting https://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com Open Source Entertainment, on Demand. Sat, 11 Apr 2020 06:22:23 +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 Interstellar Space – Jupiter Broadcasting https://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com 32 32 The Resilience of the Voyagers | Jupiter Extras 70 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/141047/the-resilience-of-the-voyagers-jupiter-extras-70/ Sun, 12 Apr 2020 11:00:00 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=141047 Show Notes: extras.show/70

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Show Notes: extras.show/70

The post The Resilience of the Voyagers | Jupiter Extras 70 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

]]> Voyager 1 & SpaceX | SciByte 136 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/62367/voyager-1-spacex-scibyte-136/ Tue, 15 Jul 2014 20:45:40 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=62367 Hello everyone and welcome back to SciByte! We take a look at Voyager 1 reading a tsunami wave from the sun, SpaceX launching satellites into space and testing new reusable systems, story and spacecraft updates, Curiosity news, and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week. Direct Download: […]

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Hello everyone and welcome back to SciByte!

We take a look at Voyager 1 reading a tsunami wave from the sun, SpaceX launching satellites into space and testing new reusable systems, story and spacecraft updates, Curiosity news, and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

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Show Notes:

Book Pick:

Voyager 1 Sees Another Interstellar Tsunami

  • NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft has experienced a new “tsunami wave” from the sun as it sails through interstellar space
  • Such waves are what led scientists to the conclusion, in the fall of 2013, that Voyager had indeed left our sun’s bubble, entering a new frontier
  • Interstellar Tsunami
  • “Normally, interstellar space is like a quiet lake,But when our sun has a burst, it sends a shock wave outward that reaches Voyager about a year later. The wave causes the plasma surrounding the spacecraft to sing.” | Ed Stone of the California Institute of Technology
  • Data from this newest tsunami wave generated by our sun confirm that Voyager is in interstellar space
  • Coronal Mass Ejection
  • Our sun goes through periods of increased activity, where it explosively ejects material from its surface, flinging it outward
  • These events, called coronal mass ejections, generate shock, or pressure, waves.
  • Three such waves have reached Voyager 1 since it entered interstellar space in 2012
  • The first was too small to be noticed when it occurred and was only discovered later, but the second was clearly registered by the spacecraft’s cosmic ray instrument in March of 2013
  • In 2013, thanks to the second tsunami wave, the team acquired evidence that Voyager had been flying for more than a year through plasma that was 40 times denser than measured before – a telltale indicator of interstellar space
  • Now, the team has new readings from a third wave from the sun, first registered in March of this year
  • Frequency
  • The plasma wave instrument can detect oscillations of the plasma electrons
  • “The tsunami wave rings the plasma like a bell … While the plasma wave instrument lets us measure the frequency of this ringing, the cosmic ray instrument reveals what struck the bell – the shock wave from the sun.” | Ed Stone of the California Institute of Technology
  • This ringing of the plasma bell is what led to the key evidence showing Voyager had entered interstellar space, denser plasma oscillates faster, the team was able to figure out the density of the plasma
  • Of Note
  • These data show that the density of the plasma is similar to what was measured previously, confirming the spacecraft is in interstellar space
  • The mission has not left the solar system, it has yet to reach a final halo of comets surrounding our sun, but it broke through the wind-blown bubble, or heliosphere, encasing our sun
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Sun sends more ‘tsunami waves’ to Voyager 1 | Phys.org

— NEWS BYTE —

SpaceX Launches Telecom Satellites

  • SpaceX successfully launched six ORBCOMM advanced telecommunications satellites into orbit on Monday, July 14, to significantly upgrade the speed and capacity of their existing data relay network.
  • Testing the Rocket Booster Reentry
  • They also used this launch opportunity to try and test the reusability of the Falcon 9′s first stage and its landing system while splashing down in the ocean
  • However, the booster did not survive the splashdown. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk reported that the rocket booster reentry, landing burn and leg deployment worked well, the hull of the first stage “lost integrity right after splashdown
  • Musk tweeted. “Detailed review of rocket telemetry needed to tell if due to initial splashdown or subsequent tip over and body slam.”
  • SpaceX wanted to test the “flyback” ability to the rocket, slowing down the descent of the rocket with thrusters and deploying the landing legs for future launches so the first stage can be reused
  • The previous test of the landing system was successful, but the choppy seas destroyed the stage and prevented recovery
  • The Future
  • The six satellites launched are the first part of what the company hopes will be a 17-satellite constellation. They hope to have all 17 satellites in orbit by the end of the 2014
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube | Orbcomm OG2 | Falcon 9 Satellite Launch | Launch
  • YouTube | Orbcomm OG2 | Falcon 9 Satellite Launch | Seperation
  • YouTube | Orbcomm OG2 | Falcon 9 Satellite Launch | In Space
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • SpaceX Launches Six Commercial Satellites on Falcon 9; Landing Test Ends in “Kaboom” | UniverseToday.com

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

How Many Scientists Publish Papers?

  • A new study finds that very few scientists – fewer than 1% manage to publish a paper every year.
  • But these scientists dominate the research journals, having their names on 41% of all papers.
  • They looked at papers published between 1996 and 2011 by 15 million scientists worldwide in many disciplines
  • This research, published on 9 July in PLOS ONE, was led by epidemiologist John Ioannidis of Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, with analysis of Elsevier’s Scopus database by colleagues Kevin Boyack and Richard Klavans at SciTech Strategies
  • By The Numbers
  • The ranks of scientists who repeatedly published more than one paper per year thin out dramatically
  • Two or more: 68,221
  • Three or more: 37,953
  • Four or more: 23,342
  • Five or more: 15,464
  • 10 or more: 3269
  • How Does That Make Sense?
  • Many of these prolific scientists are likely the heads of laboratories or research groups; they bring in funding, supervise research, and add their names to the numerous papers that result
  • Others may be scientists with enough job security and time to do copious research themselves from highly productive labs
  • There is also a lot of grunt work behind these papers, for example doctoral students may be enrolled in high numbers, offering a cheap workforce
  • Those doctoral students might only get their name published on only one or a few papers and may spend years on research that yields
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • The 1% of scientific publishing | Science/AAAS | News

— Updates —

HIV Detected in ‘Cured’ ‘Mississippi Baby

  • Last Time on SciByte …
  • SciByte 84 | HIV & SpaceX Troubles | March 5, 2013
  • SciByte 123 | HIV Treatment & European Dinosaur | March 11, 2014](https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/53247/hiv-treatment-european-dinosaur-scibyte-123/
  • The child known as the ‘Mississippi baby’ — an infant seemingly cured of HIV that was reported as a case study of a prolonged remission of HIV infection now has detectable levels of HIV after more than two years of not taking antiretroviral therapy without evidence of virus
  • History
  • The child was born prematurely in a Mississippi clinic in 2010 to an HIV-infected mother who did not receive antiretroviral medication during pregnancy and was not diagnosed with HIV infection until the time of delivery
  • Because of the high risk of HIV exposure, the infant was started at 30 hours of age on liquid, triple-drug antiretroviral treatment.
  • Testing confirmed within several days that the baby had been infected with HIV. At two weeks of age, the baby was discharged from the hospital and continued on liquid antiretroviral therapy
  • The baby continued on antiretroviral treatment until 18 months of age, when the child was lost to follow up and no longer received treatment
  • When the child was again seen by medical staff five months later, blood samples revealed undetectable HIV levels (less than 20 copies of HIV per milliliter of blood (copies/mL)) and no HIV-specific antibodies
  • The child continued to do well in the absence of antiretroviral medicines and was free of detectable HIV for more than two years
  • Unfortunate New Findings
  • During a routine clinical care visit earlier this month, the child, now nearly 4 years of age, was found to have detectable HIV levels in the blood
  • Repeat viral load blood testing performed 72 hours later confirmed this finding
  • Additionally, the child had decreased levels of a key component of a normal immune system, and the presence of HIV antibodies — signals of an actively replicating pool of virus in the body.
  • Based on these results, the child was again started on antiretroviral therapy.
  • To date, the child is tolerating the medication with no side effects and treatment is decreasing virus levels
  • Genetic sequencing of the virus indicated that the child’s HIV infection was the same strain acquired from the mother
  • What This Means
  • In light of the new findings, researchers must now work to better understand what enabled the child to remain off treatment for more than two years without detectable virus or measurable immunologic response
  • Researchers are hoping to find out what might be done to extend the period of sustained HIV remission in the absence of antiretroviral therapy. Since typically, when treatment is stopped, HIV levels rebound within weeks, not years
  • “The prolonged lack of viral rebound, in the absence of HIV-specific immune responses, suggests that the very early therapy not only kept this child clinically well, but also restricted the number of cells harboring HIV infection,” said Katherine Luzuriaga, M.D., professor of molecular medicine, pediatrics and medicine at the University of Massachusetts
  • The results to indicate that early antiretroviral treatment in this HIV-infected infant did not completely eliminate the reservoir of HIV-infected cells that was established upon infection
  • The Clinical Trial
  • At the same time the results were announced in March, a clinical study was announced that would follow a similar treatment
  • The researchers planning the clinical trial will now need to take this new development into account, the case may have considerably limited its development and averted the need for antiretroviral medication over a considerable period
  • “Scientifically, this development reminds us that we still have much more to learn about the intricacies of HIV infection and where the virus hides in the body. The NIH remains committed to moving forward with research on a cure for HIV infection.” | NIAID Director Anthony S. Fauci, M.D.
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • ‘Mississippi Baby’ now has detectable HIV, researchers find | ScienceDaily
  • Researchers Describe First ‘Functional HIV Cure’ in an Infant | ScienceDaily.com

— SPACECRAFT UPDATE—

ISEE3 Reboot Project

  • The Low Down
  • The previous ‘problems’ with the propulsion tanks were turned loose upon the internet looking for experts in various fields to help come up with ideas and solutions
  • One idea that came up was that that there would have been some ‘vapor lock’ where come fuel gasified in the lines
  • The team then used those experts to come up with a plan to heat and pulse the propulsion systems to hopefully clear the lines.
  • The current window of opportunity to test this is Wed, July 16
  • [Recently in ISEE-3 Reboot Project Category | SpaceCollege.org(https://spacecollege.org/isee3/)
  • Twitter | ISEE3 Reboot Project ‏@ISEE3Reboot
  • 10 Jul 2014 | We have spent the day consulting with world class propulsion experts and have some solid plans for tackling our #ISEE3 propulsion issues.
  • 11 Jul 2014 | Now focusing on more heating of hydrazine tanks & long sequences of thruster firing attempts to (possibly) clear #ISEE3 prop system
  • 11 Jul 2014 | We did not have a successful #DSN ranging session today. DSN was unable to get a consistent lock on #ISEE3 – updates later today.
  • 11 Jul 2014 | #ISEE3 is in Science Mode and is broadcasting telemetry which you can view in near real-time at https://www.amsat-dl.org
  • 11 Jul 11 2014 | Our propulsion experts say it is unlikely that we’ve lost Nitrogen &/or Hydrazine reserves. Most likely some gas in the lines #ISEE3 1/2
  • 11 Jul 2014 | Some additional heating and a few hundred thruster pulse firings might clear the lines. Working up a plan now for next week #ISEE3 2/2
  • 12 Jun 2014 | the Voyager team reprogrammed both spacecraft billions of miles away. Nearby space plumbing on #ISEE3 is easy by comparison
  • 12 Jun 2014 | we want to heat the fuel tanks and then fire the engines several hundred times to clear gas out of the lines. #ISEE3
  • 13 Jul 2014| We’re focusing on heating hydrazine tanks & then making long series of thruster firing attempts to clear the lines. More info soon. #ISEE3
  • 14 Jul 2014 | We’re putting final touches on #ISEE3 propulsion repair process to be implemented this week. We think there is still plenty of fuel for TCM
  • 14 Jul 2014 | All we are waiting for now is a confirmed window from our friends at Arecibo & we’re ready to do some deep space plumbing repairs on #ISEE3
  • 15 Jul 2014 | If you’ve ever had to clean out your car’s carburetor & fuel line then you have an idea of what our plan is to try & fix #ISEE3 tomorrow

— CURIOSITY UPDATE —

  • 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

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

  • July 17, 709 BC : 2723 years ago : Earliest Record Solar Eclipse. : In 709 BC, the earliest record of a confirmed total solar eclipse was written in China. From: Ch’un-ch’iu, book I: “Duke Huan, 3rd year, 7th month, day jen-ch’en, the first day (of the month). The Sun was eclipsed and it was total.” This is the earliest direct allusion to a complete obscuration of the Sun in any civilisation. The recorded date, when reduced to the Julian calendar, agrees exactly with that of a computed solar eclipse. Reference to the same eclipse appears in the Han-shu (‘History of the Former Han Dynasty’) (Chinese, 1st century AD): “…the eclipse threaded centrally through the Sun; above and below it was yellow.” Earlier Chinese writings that refer to an eclipse do so without noting totality.

Looking up this week

— SciByte Summer Hiatus —

The post Voyager 1 & SpaceX | SciByte 136 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.

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

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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.

]]> Voyager 1 & Insect Gears| SciByte 102 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/43267/voyager-1-insect-gears-scibyte-102/ Tue, 17 Sep 2013 20:42:02 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=43267 We take a look at Voyager 1’s journey, a possible HIV vaccine, gears in nature, Curiosity news.

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We take a look at Voyager 1’s journey, a possible HIV vaccine, gears in nature, 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

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[asa]B006ZP8UOW[/asa]

— Show Notes: —

Voyager 1’s Journey

  • NASA says that the Voyager 1 spacecraft is in interstellar space and actually made the transition about a year ago
  • There is however a bit of an argument on the semantics of whether Voyager 1 is still inside or outside of our Solar System
  • Also Viewer Submission
  • Website Email Form from : Nick Tanin
  • \”Edge of the Solar System?\”
  • There is no one simple definition of where the \’edge of the solar system\’ is
  • The heliosphere is a region of space dominated by the Sun, a sort of bubble of charged particles in the space surrounding the Solar System.
  • Although electrically neutral atoms from the extrasolar volume can penetrate this bubble, virtually all of the material in the heliosphere emanates from the Sun itself.
  • Some scientists define that as the edge of the solar system, while others define it at the outer boundary of the Oort cloud
  • The Oort cloud is a hypothesized spherical cloud of predominantly icy planetesimals that may lie roughly 50,000 AU, or nearly a light-year, from the Sun
  • This places the cloud at nearly a quarter of the distance to Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to the Sun
  • The outer Oort cloud is only loosely bound to the Solar System, and thus is easily affected by the gravitational pull both of passing stars and of the Milky Way itself
  • Shift in the Magnetic Field
  • Solar plasma produces a distinctive magnetic field because it all comes from the same source
  • Scientists expected that the field would shift in interstellar space, where particles flit around in all directions
  • Because of this, scientists thought would be the key signature of interstellar space: a shift in the direction of the magnetic field
  • Without a Shift in the Magnetic Field
  • Since there was no clear change in the magnetic fields, scientists determined they needed to look at the properties of the plasma instead
  • The Sun’s heliosphere is filled with ionized plasma from the Sun, outside that bubble, the plasma comes from the explosions of other stars millions of years ago
  • The main tell-tail difference between the two is that interstellar plasma is denser.
  • The real instrument that was designed to make the measurements on the plasma quit working in the 1980’s
  • Instead they used the plasma wave instrument, located on the 10-meter long antennas on Voyager 1 and a massive Coronal Mass Ejection from the Sun
  • All Scientists Never Agree
  • Some scientists, including a few holdouts on the Voyager team, have written a paper demonstrating how plasma could become dense enough within the heliosphere to produce the measurements seen
  • Several well-publicized studies made that claim the team lacked evidence of what they thought would be the key signature of interstellar space: a shift in the direction of the magnetic field
  • Solar plasma produces a distinctive magnetic field because it all comes from the same source
  • Scientists expected that the field would shift in interstellar space, where particles flit around in all directions
  • Getting The Data
  • Voyager 1 is 18.7 billion km [11.6 billion miles] from the sun, or about 125 astronomical units
  • Voyager mission controllers still talk to or receive data from Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 every day
  • Emitted signals are currently very dim, at about 23 watts, the power of a refrigerator light bulb and takes more than 17 hours for a radio signal to travel from the spacecraft
  • By the time the signals get to Earth, they are a fraction of a billion-billionth of a watt
  • The signal strength is so incredibly weak that it takes both a 230-foot and a 110-foot-diameter antenna to receive our highest resolution data
  • Data from Voyager 1′s instruments are transmitted to Earth typically at 160 bits per second and the signals from Voyager 1 takes about 17 hours to travel to Earth.
  • After the data are transmitted to JPL and processed by the science teams, Voyager data are made publicly available
  • What the Data Says
  • Other astrophysicists say the evidence is overwhelming that Voyager 1 has crossed the heliopause, but acknowledge that they have to determine why the magnetic field direction didn’t shift
  • The data shows that Voyager 1 in certainly in a new region at the edge of the solar system where things are changing rapidly
  • The data is also changing in ways that the team didn’t expect
  • After further review, the Voyager team generally accepts the August 2012 date as the date of interstellar arrival
  • The charged particle and plasma changes were what would have been expected during a crossing of the heliopause
  • Coronal Mass Ejection Data
  • A CME erupted from the Sun in March 2012, and eventually arrived at Voyager 1′s location 13 months later, in April 2013
  • Because of the CME, the plasma around the spacecraft began to vibrate like a violin string.
  • The pitch of the oscillations helped scientists determine the density of the plasma
  • Those particular oscillations meant the spacecraft was bathed in plasma more than 40 times denser than what they had encountered in the outer layer of the heliosphere
  • The plasma wave science team reviewed its data and found an earlier, fainter set of oscillations in October and November 2012 from other CMEs
  • Extrapolation of measured plasma densities from both events, the team determined Voyager 1 first entered interstellar space in August 2012
  • Sounds of \’Interstellar Space\’
  • YouTube | Voyager Captures Sounds of Interstellar Space | NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
  • The graphic shows the frequency of the waves, which indicate the density of the plasma.
  • Colors indicate the intensity of the waves, or how \”loud\” they are, with red indicating the loudest waves and blue the weakest.
  • The soundtrack reproduces the amplitude and frequency of the plasma waves as \”heard\” by Voyager 1.
  • The waves detected by the instrument antennas can be simply amplified and played through a speaker
  • This helped the Voyager science team calculate the density of interstellar plasma
  • The Future of Voyager 1
  • While Voyager 1 will keep going, we will not always be able to communicate with it, as we do now
  • NASA estimates that Voyager 1 has enough plutonium fuel to keep all its instruments powered for another seven years
  • Moving outward from the sun at about 3.5 AU per year there are estimates of how long it will be before it reaches various locations
  • In 2025 all instruments will be turned off, and the science team will be able to operate the spacecraft for about 10 years after that to just get engineering data
  • It will take 300 years to reach the Oort cloud
  • Scientists do not know when Voyager 1 will reach the undisturbed part of interstellar space where there is no influence from our Sun
  • They also are not certain when Voyager 2 is expected to cross into interstellar space, but they believe it is not very far behind.
  • In the year 40,272 AD, Voyager 1 will come within 1.7 light years of an obscure star in the constellation Ursa Minor
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube | Voyager Captures Sounds of Interstellar Space | NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
  • YouTube | Voyager Welcomed To Interstellar Space | VideoFromSpace
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Messages To Voyager: Welcome to Interstellar Space | UniverseToday.com
  • [Listen to the Sounds of Interstellar Space, Recorded by Voyager 1] | UniverseToday.com(https://www.universetoday.com/104719/listen-to-the-sounds-of-interstellar-space-recorded-by-voyager-1/)
  • Voyager 1 spacecraft reaches interstellar space, study confirms | phys.org
  • It\’s Official: Voyager 1 Is Now In Interstellar Space
  • At last, Voyager 1 slips into interstellar space | Atom & Cosmos | Science News
  • Voyager 1 Probe Captures 1st-Ever Sounds of Interstellar Space (Video) | Space.com
  • Heliosphere | Wikipeida
  • Oort Cloud | Wikipeida

— NEWS BYTE —

HIV/AIDS Vaccine

  • An HIV/AIDS vaccine candidate being developed by researchers at Oregon Health & Science University
  • The Vaccine
  • The promising vaccine is being tested through the use of a non-human primate form of HIV simian immunodeficiency virus, or SIV, which causes AIDS in monkeys
  • In fact SIV is roughly 100x more deadly that HIV
  • It involves the use of cytomegalovirus, or CMV, a common virus already carried by a large percentage of the population
  • The researchers discovered that pairing a modified CMV virus with SIV had a unique effect
  • The modified version of CMV engineered to express SIV proteins generates and indefinitely maintains so-called \”effector memory\” that are capable of searching out and destroying SIV-infected cells
  • The Testing
  • About 50 percent of monkeys given highly pathogenic SIV after being vaccinated with this vaccine became infected with SIV but over time eliminated all trace of SIV from the body
  • The vaccine mobilized a T-cell response that was able to overtake the SIV invaders in 50 percent of the cases treated
  • In fact, testing suggests SIV was banished from the host
  • The lab is now investigating the possible reasons why only a subset of the animals treated had a positive response in hopes that the effectiveness of the vaccine candidate can be further boosted
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • AIDS vaccine candidate appears to completely clear virus from the body | MdicalXress.com

— VIEWER FEEDBACK —

Natural Insect Gears

  • Michael Thalleen ‏@ThalleenM | Check This Out!
  • Natural Insect Gears
  • Answer
  • To the best of our knowledge, the mechanical gear was invented sometime around 300 B.C.E. by Greek mechanics who lived in Alexandria
  • Issus coleoptratus, planthopper, have an intricate gearing system that locks their back legs together, allowing both appendages to rotate at the exact same instant, causing the tiny creatures jump forward.
  • The finding, is believed to be the first functional gearing system ever discovered in nature
  • Gearing
  • The reason for the gearing, they say, is coordination, to jump both of the insect’s hind legs must push forward at the exact same time
  • The skeleton is used to solve a complex problem that the brain and nervous system can’t
  • The gears are located at the top of the insects’ hind legs and include 10 to 12 tapered teeth, each about 80 micrometers wide (or 80 millionths of a meter).
  • In all the planthoppers studied, the same number of teeth were present on each hind leg, and the gears locked together neatly
  • Scientists used electron microscopes and high-speed video capture to discover the existence of the gearing and figure out its exact function.
  • They jump at speeds as high as 8.7 miles per hour, and 50,000 teeth per second
  • They cock their back legs into a jumping position, then pushed forward, with each moving within 30 microseconds (30 millionths of a second)
  • No \’Gears\’ in Adults
  • Adults of the same insect species don’t have any gearing-as the juveniles grow up and their skin molts away
  • The adult legs are synchronized by an alternate mechanism
  • Adults are bigger and heavier, Burrows say, so perhaps leg-to-leg friction syncs motions without the need for gear teeth
  • It is hypothesize that this could be explained by the fragility of the gearing, if one tooth breaks, it limits the effectiveness of the design
  • That weakness isn’t such a big problem for the juveniles, who repeatedly molt and grow new gears before adulthood
  • However for the mature Issus, replacing the teeth would be impossible
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube | Working Gears Evolved in Plant-Hopping Insect | SciAmerican
  • Image Animation of the Gears in Action | blogs.smithsonianmag.com
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Young insect legs have real meshing gears | Zoology | ScienceNews.org
  • This Insect Has The Only Mechanical Gears Ever Found in Nature | blogs.smithsonianmag.com

— CURIOSITY UPDATE —

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

  • September, 23 1846 : 167 years ago : Neptune Discovered : The German astronomer Johan G. Galle discovered Neptune after only an hour of searching, within one degree of the position that had been computed by Urbain-Jean-Joseph Le Verrier. Independently of the English astronomer John C. Adams, Le Verrier had calculated the size and position of a previously unknown planet, which he assumed influenced the irregular orbit of Uranus, and he asked Galle to look for it.

Looking up this week

The post Voyager 1 & Insect Gears| SciByte 102 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

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