We take a look at evidence of inflation at the start of the Universe, water in the Earths crust, giant stars, frozen moss, spacecraft updates, Curiosity news, and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

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Gravity, The Big Bang, and Inflation

• As the last untested prediction of Einstein\’s Theory of General Relativity, finding gravitational waves is a big deal.
• Scientists at the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics in the US have announced what they believe is the indirect detection of gravitational waves in the afterglow of the Big Bang.
• Two People of Note
• Alan Guth, the originator of the inflationary universe theory | Wikipedia
• Andrei Linde, one of the main authors of the inflationary universe theory | Wikipedia
• Looking Back at the Universe
• Alternative theories to inflation do not produce gravitational waves so this is strong evidence not only of the gravitational wave background but also inflation itself.
• The BICEP discovery provides further indirect evidence for the existence of gravitational waves
• Before this announcement we could measure the universe back to about a minute after the Big Bang.
• The finding has allowed us to study the universe when it was a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second old
• There has still been no direct detection of the gravitational radiation, the first direct detection should follow in a few months
• It is envisaged that the experiment will directly detect gravitational radiation coming from astrophysical sources from nearby galaxies
• Q: Can you explain the theory of cosmic inflation first put forth in 1980? | Alan Guth
• The theory of cosmic inflation describes the propulsion mechanism that drove the universe into the period of tremendous expansion that we call the Big Bang, usually describe inflation as a theory of the \”bang\” of the Big Bang
• It is a prequel to the era that cosmologists call the Big Bang, although it of course occurred after the origin of the universe, which is often also called the Big Bang.
• — In Further Detail —
• The original Big Bang theory was really a theory of the aftermath of the bang described how the universe was cooled by the expansion, and how the expansion was slowed by the attractive force of gravity
• Inflation proposes that the expansion of the universe was driven by a repulsive form of gravity.
• According to Newton, gravity is a purely attractive force, but this changed with Einstein and the discovery of general relativity
• General relativity describes gravity as a distortion of spacetime, and allows for the possibility of repulsive gravity
• Modern particle theories strongly suggest that at very high energies, there should exist forms of matter that create repulsive gravity
• Inflation proposes that at least a very small patch of the early universe was filled with this repulsive-gravity material
• During the period of exponential expansion, any ordinary material would thin out, with the density diminishing to almost nothing
• The repulsive-gravity material actually maintains a constant density as it expands, no matter how much it expands
• While this appears to be a violation of conservation energy it actually has a peculiar feature of gravity, the energy of a gravitational field is negative
• As the patch expands at constant density, more and more energy, in the form of matter, is created, at the same time, more and more negative energy appears in the form of the gravitational field that is filling the region
• The total energy remains constant, as it must, and therefore remains very small.
• It is possible that the total energy of the entire universe is exactly zero, with the positive energy of matter completely canceled by the negative energy of gravity
• At some point the inflation ends because the repulsive-gravity material becomes metastable and decays into ordinary particles, producing a very hot soup of particles that form the starting point of the conventional Big Bang
• At that point the repulsive gravity turns off, but the region continues to expand in a coasting pattern for billions of years to come
• Q: What is the new result announced, and how does it provide critical support for your theory? | Alan Guth
• The early universe, as we can see from the afterglow of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation, was incredibly uniform
• To have structure form at all, there needed to be small nonuniformities at the end of inflation, the tiny nonuniformities that did exist were then amplified by gravity
• Temperature nonuniformities, which can correlate to density differences, in the cosmic microwave background were first measured in 1992 by the COBE satellite
• These have not generally been seen as proof of inflation, in part because it is not clear that inflation is the only possible way that these fluctuations could have been produced.
• The geometry of space also fluctuates on small scales, due to the physics of quantum theory, and inflation also stretches these fluctuations, producing gravity waves in the early universe.
• The new result, is a measurement of these gravity waves, at a very high level of confidence.
• They do not see the gravity waves directly, but instead they have constructed a very detailed map of the polarization of the CMB in a patch of the sky.
• They have observed a swirling pattern in the polarization (called \”B modes\”) that can be created by gravity waves in the early universe
• This is the first time that even a hint of these primordial gravity waves has been detected, it is also the first time that any quantum properties of gravity have been directly observed
• Q: How would you describe the significance of these new findings, and your reaction to them? | Alan Guth
• These gravity waves can tells us a lot about the details of inflation that we did not already know, it determines the energy density of the universe at the time of inflation, which is something that previously had a wide range of possibilities.
• By determining the energy density of the universe at the time of inflation, the new result also tells us a lot about which detailed versions of inflation are still viable, and which are no longer viable
• While the current result is not by itself conclusive, it does points in the direction of the very simplest inflationary models that can be constructed.
• Of Note
• This is not the first evidence os gravitational waves | The 1993 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Russell Hulse and Joseph Taylor for finding a double pulsar that strongly supported \”ripples\” in spacetime
• The 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to the discovery of tiny changes in temperature in the Cosmic Background Radiation that were discovered by the COBE satellite
• The is not the first discovery of the polarization within the cosmic microwave background, or even the first observations of this type of polarization
• This IS evidence of primordial gravitational waves, that would only be caused by inflation during the early moments of the Universe
• While these results are very credible they have not been peer reviewed yet
• Multimedia
• YouTube | Stanford Professor Andrei Linde celebrates physics breakthrough | StanfordUniversity
• YouTube | A Polarizing Discovery About the Big Bang! | minutephysics
• Further Reading / In the News
• Kenny MacLeod ‏@siabost9deas | RT @grahamfarmelo: Primordial gravity waves discovery-Nobel 2 follow 4 inflation pioneer Alan Guth? https://nyti.ms/1ivEk8k
• First hints of gravitational waves in the Big Bang\’s afterglow | Phys.org
• Alan Guth on new insights into the \’Big Bang\’ | Phys.org
• We\’ve Discovered Inflation! Now What? | UniverseToday.com
• That Moment When the \”Father of Inflation\” Learns of the Detection of Gravitational Waves | UniverseToday.com

— NEWS BYTE —

Water Deep in Earth’s Crust

• The first terrestrial discovery of ringwoodite confirms the presence of massive amounts of water 400 to 700 kilometers beneath Earth\’s surface
• Ringwoodite
• Ringwoodite is a form of the mineral peridot, believed to exist in large quantities under high pressures in the transition zone
• It is notable for being able to contain water within its structure, present not as a liquid but as hydroxide ions (oxygen and hydrogen atoms bound together).
• Ringwoodite has been found in meteorites but, until now, no terrestrial sample has ever been unearthed because scientists haven\’t been able to conduct fieldwork at extreme depths
• The Discovery
• The discovery was almost accidental in that the team had been looking for another mineral when they purchased a three-millimetre-wide, dirty-looking, commercially worthless brown diamond
• The diamond had been brought to the Earth\’s surface by a volcanic rock known as kimberlite — the most deeply derived of all volcanic rocks.
• The ringwoodite itself is invisible to the naked eye, buried beneath the surface, so it was fortunate that it was found
• The sample underwent years of analysis using Raman and infrared spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction before it was officially confirmed as ringwoodite
• Significance
• This discovery confirms about 50 years of theoretical and experimental work by geophysicists, seismologists and other scientists trying to understand the makeup of the Earth\’s interior.
• One of the world\’s leading authorities in the study of deep Earth diamond host rocks, said that the discovery ranks among the most significant of his career
• Scientists have been deeply divided about the composition of the transition zone and whether it is full of water or desert-dry, analysis of the mineral shows it contains a significant amount of water — 1.5 per cent of its weight
• Finding that confirms scientific theories about vast volumes of water trapped 410 to 660 kilometres beneath Earth\’s surface, between the upper and lower mantle.
• This sample really provides extremely strong confirmation that there are local wet spots deep in the Earth, the transition zone, might have as much water as all the world\’s oceans put together
• Knowing water exists beneath the crust has implications for the study of volcanism and plate tectonics, affecting how rock melts, cools and shifts below the crust
• Further Reading / In the News
• Water-rich gem points to vast \’oceans\’ beneath Earth\’s surface, study suggests — ScienceDaily | ScienceDaily.com

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

Largest Yellow \”Hypergiant\” Star Discovered

• A recent analysis of the star HR 5171 A in the south hemisphere constellation of Centaurus, has revealed the nature of a massive yellow \”hypergiant\” star as one of the largest stars known
• Hypergiant
• These latest measurements place HR 5171 A firmly in the “Top 10” for largest stars in terms of size known, as well as the largest yellow hypergiant star known
• If it was placed into the center of our own solar system, and it would extend out over 6 astronomical units (A.U.s) past the orbit of Jupiter
• Only eight yellow hypergiants have been identified in our Milky Way galaxy but are some of the brightest stars known, if you placed a star like HR 5171 A 32 light years from the Earth, it would easily cast a shadow.
• Companion Star
• The relatively small companion star orbitis across our line of sight once every 1300 days, and is a large star in its own right at around six solar masses and 400 solar radii in size.
• The discovery of a companion around such a bright star was a big surprise since any ‘normal’ star should at least be 10,000 times fainter than the hypergiant
• What we see is not the companion itself, but the regions gravitationally controlled and filled by the wind from the hypergiant
• The System
• The binary system weighs in at a combined 39 solar masses, has a radius of over 1,300 times that of our Sun, and is a million times as luminous
• The surface-to-surface distance for the A and B components of the system are “only” about 2.8 A.U.s apart
• This all means that these two massive stars are in physical contact, with the expanded outer atmosphere of the bloated primary contacting the secondary, giving the pair a distorted peanut shape.
• Further Reading / In the News
• Astronomers Identify the Largest Yellow \”Hypergiant\” Star Known | UniverseToday.com

Frozen Moss Back to Life

• Researchers from the British Antarctic Survey and Reading University have demonstrated that, after over 1,500 years frozen in Antarctic ice, moss can come back to life and continue to grow
• The Discovery
• This is the first study to show such long-term survival in any plant; similar timescales have only been seen before in bacteria
• This moss would already have been at least decades old when it was first frozen
• The team took cores of moss from deep in a frozen moss bank in the Antarctic then placed it in an incubator at a normal growth temperature and light level and after only a few weeks, the moss began to grow
• Using carbon dating, the team identified the moss to be at least 1,530 years of age, and possibly even older, at the depth where the new growth was seen.
• Further Reading / In the News
• Back to life after 1,500 years: Moss brought back to life after 1,500 years frozen in ice | ScienceDaily.com

— SPACECRAFT UPDATE—

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

• Images from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter show a new channel in the southern hemisphere region of Terra Siernum that appeared between November 2010 and May 2013, this particular feature is likely not due to that liquid
• Images
  • This pair of images shows that material flowing down from an alcove at the head of a gully broke out of an older route and eroded a new channel
• Gullies or ravinea landforms are common on Mars, particularly in the southern highlands, these ravines tend to happen in the southern highlands and other mid-latitude regions on
• It’s unclear in what season the activity occurred because the observations took place more than a Martian year apart
• This type of activity generally occurs in winter, at temperatures so cold that carbon dioxide, rather than water, is likely to play the key role
• Further Reading / In the News
• New Gully Appears On Mars, But It\’s Likely Not Due To Water | UniverseToday.com

— CURIOSITY UPDATE —

• NASA’s Curiosity rover has just pulled into terrain chock full of curvy rock outcrops at Kimberly that’s suitable for contact science and drilling action
• The robot’s arm has been deployed to investigate the most scientifically productive spots, and is conducting contact science with the cameras and spectrometers on the terminus of the 7 foot long robotic arm
• The mast mounted ChemCam laser and high resolution cameras are being used to determine the best spot for drilling and sampling.
• The team commanded Curiosity to clean out the arms CHIMRA sample handling mechanism in anticipation of boring into the Martian outcrops and delivering samples of cored Martian rocks to the SAM and CheMin miniaturized chemistry labs
• Scientists directed Curiosity on a pinpoint drive to Kimberly after their interest was piqued by orbital images taken NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) where they see three terrain types exposed and a relatively dust-free surface
• The missions science focus has shifted to “search for that subset of habitable environments which also preserves organic carbon
• To date Curiosity’s odometer stands at 6.2 kilometers and has somewhat over another 4 kilometers to go to reach the base of Mount Sharp
• It may arrive at the lower reaches of Mount Sharp sometime in mid 2014, but must first pass through a potentially treacherous dune field
• Multimedia
• Image Galleries at JPL and Curiosity Mulimedia
• Social Media
• Curiosity Rover @MarsCuriosity
• Further Reading / In the News
• Curiosity Pulls into Kimberly and Spies Curvy Terrain For Drilling Action | UniverseToday.com

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

• Mar 28, 1949 : 65 years ago : “Big Bang” Coined : Fred Hoyle unintentionally coined the term “Big Bang” as a household name, in a scripted radio broadcast on the BBC Third Programme. His talk was printed in the The Listener (7 Apr 1949). He compared his own belief in a “steady state” universe, saying, “earlier theories … were based on the hypothesis that all the matter in the universe was created in one big bang at a particular time in the remote past.” He repeated its use in a 1950 broadcast published in The Listener (9 Mar 1950): “One [idea] was that the Universe started its life a finite time ago in a single huge explosion… This big bang idea seemed to me to be unsatisfactory.” His critics found the “big bang” term pejorative, yet Hoyle has said his intention was to make a vivid description for the radio audience. The term stuck

Looking up this week

• Keep an eye out for …
• Thurs, Mar 26 | ~1 hour before dawn | Venus is near the thin moon in the E-SE
• Planets
• Venus | \”Morning Star\” | Before and during dawn Venus is in the SE
• Mars | 9pm | Rises in the SE, with Spica 6* to its right. The two are their highest point around 2am with Spica now 5-6* to the lower right
• Jupiter | Is the only planet visible right now in the evenings and is high in the SE, it crosses nearly overhead (for skywatchers at mid-northern latitudes) around 8 or 9 p.m. and sets in the West around 3am

• Saturn | 11pm | Rises around 11 or and is highest in the south around 4am. By then it\’s far to the left of Mars and Spica

• 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 Inflation & Frozen Moss | SciByte 124 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

We take a look at treating a gunshot wound in 15 sec, fatigue and light, a new Martian crater, the Olympic torch, Curiosity news, and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

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Show Notes:

Sealing a Gunshot Wound in 15 sec

• When a soldier is shot on the battlefield a medic must pack gauze directly into the wound cavity
• A startup called RevMedx, a small group of veterans, scientists, and engineers are working on a better way to stop bleeding
• XStat
• XStat is a modified syringe that injects specially coated sponges into wound faster and more efficiently than gauze.
• Early efforts were inspired by Fix-a-Flat foam for repairing tires
• After seeing early prototypes, the U.S. Army gave the team $5 million to develop a finished product
• The final material would need to be sterile, biocompatible, and fast-expanding
• The team settled on a sponge made from wood pulp and coated with chitosan, a blood-clotting, antimicrobial substance that comes from shrimp shells
• In just 15 seconds, they expand to fill the entire wound cavity, creating enough pressure to stop heavy bleeding
• A tricky part was getting the sponges into a wound, they needed a lightweight, compact way to get the sponges deep into an injury
• To ensure that no sponges would be left inside the body accidentally, they added X-shaped markers that make each sponge visible on an x-ray image.
• Applicator
• A 30 mm-diameter, [1.2 in] polycarbonate syringe that stores with the handle inside to save space
• To use the applicator, a medic pulls out the handle, inserts the cylinder into the wound, and then pushes the plunger back down to inject the sponges as close to the artery as possible.
• Three single-use XStat applicators would replace five bulky rolls of gauze in a medic’s kit
• RevMedx also designed a smaller version of the applicator, with a diameter of 12 mm, for narrower injuries
• Each XStat will likely cost about $100, Steinbaugh says, but the price may go down as RevMedx boosts manufacturing
• The Future
• When RevMedx submitted its application to the FDA, the U.S. Army attached a cover letter requesting expedited approval
• In the future, RevMedx hopes to create biodegradable sponges that don’t have to be removed from the body
• They are also working on an applicator that could cover large by using expanding gauze made of the same material as XStat sponges
• Further Reading / In the News
• How A Simple New Invention Seals A Gunshot Wound In 15 Seconds | Popular Science

— NEWS BYTE —

Blue Light

• According to researchers they\’ve found that exposure to short wavelength, or blue light, during the day can improve alertness and overall performance.
• Previous research has shown that blue light is able to improve alertness during the night, but new data demonstrates that these effects also extend to daytime
• The Study
• Researchers measured wavelengths of light that were most effective in warding off fatigue via the development of specialized light equipment
• They compared the effects of blue light exposure to an equal amount of green light on alertness and performance in 16 study participants for 6.5 hours over a day.
• Participants were rated based on how they felt through reaction times that measured electrodes to assess changes going on in the brain due to light exposure.
• Results
• Results showed that participants exposed to blue light consistently rated themselves as less sleepy with quicker reaction times and fewer attention relapses.
• They also showed changes in brain activity patterns that indicated a more alert state.
• The Future
• This opens up a new range of possibilities for using light to improve human alertness, productivity and safety by
  helping to improve alertness in day shift workers in addition to night workers
• A better quality lighting that would not only help them see better but also make them more alert
• The next big challenge is to determine how to deliver better lighting in many places such as schools, homes and workplaces that could provide a more productive and alert atmosphere.
• Further Reading / In the News
• Could Blue Light Help Fight Fatigue? Study | ScienceWorldReport.com

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

New Mars Crater

• Researchers used HiRISE to examine a site after the orbiter\’s Context Camera had revealed a change in appearance here between observations in July 2010 and May 2012
• Before-and-after imaging that brackets appearance dates of fresh craters on Mars has indicated that impacts producing craters at least 12.8 feet (3.9 meters) in diameter occur at a rate exceeding 200 per year globally
• The impact crater dominates the image taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA\’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on Nov. 19, 2013.
• It shows a 30-meter-wide crater with a rayed blast zone and far-flung surrounding secondary material and debris as far as 15 kilometers [9.3 miles] in distance.
• In examining ejecta distribution, scientists can learn more about the impact event
• Also Seen By
• Michael Thalleen ‏@ThalleenM
• Further Reading / In the News
• Space Images: A Spectacular New Martian Impact Crater – NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory | jpl.nasa.gov
• Brand New Impact Crater Shows Up on Mars | UniverseToday.com

— Updates —

Olympic Torch

• Last Time On SciByte …
• SciByte 109 | ‘Earth-Like’ Planets & Sharks | November 12, 2013
• Olympic Torch in Space
• Ever since the first relay for the 1936 summer Olympic games in Berlin, Olympic torches have traditionally been used to carry a burning flame from Greece to the host country’s stadium
• On Nov. 6, 2013 (Nov. 7 UT) a Soyuz TMA-11M rocket launched with the Expedition 38/39 crew on the ISS and an Olympic torch
• The Olympic Torch was taken on a space walk for the first time on Nov 9, 2013 handed off from one cosmonaut to the other in a symbolic relay in orbit [the torch was not lit during its time aboard the ISS or, obviously, while in space]
• The real reason for the spacewalk is to do some routine Russian maintenance outside the station
• The ISS travels around the Earth 16 times each day, and the torch spent nearly four days in space [~64 orbits]
• That particular torch
• The torch was given back to Olympic officials and was the one used to light the 2014 Olympic cauldron during the Opening Ceremony in Sochi on Feb. 7.
• Multimedia
• YouTube | Raw: Spacewalkers Hand Off Olympic Torch | AssociatedPress
• Further Reading / In the News
• The Olympic Torch That Went Around the World… Literally | UniverseToday.com

— CURIOSITY UPDATE —

• Traversing Sand Dunes
• Image of Wheel
• Up close view of hole in one of rover Curiosity\’s six wheels caused by recent driving over rough Martian rocks.
• Mosaic assembled from Mastcam raw images taken on Dec. 22, 2013 (Sol 490).
• Credit: NASA/JPL/MSSS/Ken Kremer – kenkremer.com/Marco Di Lorenzo
• Sand Dune
• Curiosity reached the eastern side of a dune on Jan. 30 and returned images that the rover team is using to guide decisions about upcoming drives
• Before giving the go ahead to move forward, engineers took a few days to carefully assess the dune’s integrity and physical characteristics
• Curiosity was able to pass over the dune in Dingo Gap without difficulty
• The rovers science instruments and cameras to insure there wasn’t the potential to get irretrievably stuck in a deep sand trap.
• The team even commanded Curiosity to carry out a toe dip by gently rolling the 20 inch (50 cm) diameter wheels back and forth over the crest on Tuesday, Feb. 4 to insure it was safe to mount
• Previous Images of Earth
• NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Spirit imaged Earth from the surface in March 2004, soon after landing
• Mars Global Surveyor in 2003 and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in 2007
• NASA’s Cassini orbiter at Saturn captured the Earth and Moon in 2013
• Earth Images
• New images from NASA\’s Curiosity Mars rover show Earth shining brighter than any star in the Martian night sky and it even includes our moon, just below Earth
• The images, taken on Jan. 31, 2014 about 80 minutes after sunset, used both of her high resolution color mast mounted cameras to collect the series of Earth/Moon images
• The distance between Earth and Mars when Curiosity took the photo was about 99 million miles (160 million kilometers).
• “A human observer with normal vision, if standing on Mars, could easily see Earth and the moon as two distinct, bright “evening stars,” said NASA
• Multimedia
• Image Galleries at JPL and Curiosity Mulimedia
• Social Media
• Curiosity Rover @MarsCuriosity
• Further Reading / In the News
• Curiosity Crosses Dingo Gap Dune – Gateway to Valley and Mountain Destinations Beyond | UniverseToday.com
• Mars Science Laboratory: NASA Mars Rover Curiosity Sees \’Evening Star\’ Earth | mars.jpl.nasa.gov
• Mars Science Laboratory: NASA Mars Rover Curiosity Sees \’Evening Star\’ Earth | mars.jpl.nasa.gov

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

• Feb 15, 2013 : 1 year ago : Chelyabinsk Meteor : A meteor exploded in the sky over Chelyabinsk , Russia. It produced a shock wave so intense that about 1,000 people were reported injured, mostly by flying glass fragments. To view the meteor streaking across the sky, many people were at their windows when the sonic boom shattered the glass panes. The meteor was estimated to be 2 meters in diameter, with a mass of about 10 tons. It entered the Earth\’s atmosphere at a hypersonic speed of at least 33,000 mph when it was viewed by residents of Chelyabinsk (a city of 1 million about 930 miles east of Moscow) at about 9:20 am local time, just after sunrise. They saw a thick, white contrail and an intense flash of light ending with a loud thundering sound as the shattering of the meteor blew apart with several kilotons of energy (equivalent to an atomic bomb)
• YouTube | Meteorite crash in Russia: Video of meteor explosion that stirred panic in Urals region | RT
• Last Time on SciByte
• SciByte 82 | Meteorites & Asteroids | February 19, 2013
• SciByte 83 | Tiny Exo-planet & Medical Glue | February 26, 2013
• SciByte 84 | HIV & SpaceX Troubles | March 5, 2013

Looking up this week

• Keep an eye out for …
• Friday, February 14 | Full Moon (exactly full at 6:53 p.m. EST). Regulus in constellation Leo to the Moon\’s left during evening. You might be able to see part of Leo that looks like a backwards question mark, with Regulus being the period
• Planets
• Venus | Dawn | \”Morning Star\” in the SE
• Mars | ~10-11 pm | Spica, blue giant variable star, 5* to it\’s left. They are highest in the sky around 3-4am, with Spica now to the lower right. [5* ~ 3 middle fingers held at arms length
• Jupiter | Early evening | Eastern Sky, crossing overhead around 9pm and setting in the W before dawn

• Saturn | ~1am | Rises in the E-SE, moves to its highest in the S at dawn.

• Further Reading and Resources

• Sky&Telescope
• SpaceWeather.com
• StarDate.org
• For the Southern hemisphere: SpaceInfo.com.au
• Constellations of the Southern Hemisphere : astronomyonline.org
• Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand : rasnz.org.nz
• AstronomyNow
• HeavensAbove

The post Medical Tech & Martian Crater | SciByte 119 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

We take a look at exoplanetary clouds, updating atomic weights, plastic on Saturn\’s moon, viewer feedback, 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 —

Exoplanet Clouds

• Astronomers using data from NASA\’s Kepler and Spitzer space telescopes have created the first cloud map of a planet known as Kepler-7b
• Kepler-7b
• One of the first five planets to be confirmed by NASA\’s Kepler spacecraft, and was confirmed in the first 33.5 days of Kepler\’s science operations
• Kepler-7b is a hot Jupiter that is about half the mass of Jupiter, but is nearly 1.5 times its size, and orbits its star every five days
• Previous observations of Kepler-7b revealed that it could float on water
• Temperature and Light Data
• Kepler\’s visible-light observations of Kepler-7b\’s moon-like phases led to a rough map of the planet that showed a bright spot on its western hemisphere
• That data was not enough on its own to decipher whether the bright spot was coming from clouds or heat
• Spitzer can fix its gaze at a star system as a planet orbits around the star, gathering clues about the planet\’s atmosphere
• Spitzer\’s ability to detect infrared light means it was able to measure Kepler-7b\’s temperature, estimating it to be between 1,500 and 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit (1,100 and 1,300 Kelvin).
• What the Temperature and Lights Measurements Mean
• Those measurements are relatively cool for a planet that orbits so close to its star, within 0.06 astronomical units (one astronomical unit is the distance from Earth and the sun)
• The measurements are also too cool to be the source of light Kepler observed.
• Astronomers don\’t expect to see oceans or continents on this type of world, but they do detected a clear, reflective signature that they interpreted as clouds
• What it All Means
• By observing Kepler-7b with Spitzer and Kepler for more than three years, scientists were able to produce a very low-resolution \’map\’ of this giant, gaseous planet
• Astronomers determined that light from the planet\’s star is bouncing off cloud tops located on the west side of the planet.
• The patterns on this planet do not seem to change much over time, indicating it has a remarkably stable climate
• The Future
• Combining Spitzer and Kepler data together offers scientists with a multi-wavelength tool for getting a good look at exoplanets
• This is bringing advancements to exoplanet science, moving beyond just detecting exoplanets, and into the exciting science of understanding them
• 3D Visualization Tool
• A fully rendered tool, available for download at eyes.nasa.gov/exoplanets
• The program is updated daily with the latest findings from NASA\’s Kepler mission and ground-based observatories around the world as they search for planets
• Also Pointed Out By
• Paul Hill ‏@P_H_9_3 on Twitter
• Further Reading / In the News
• NASA Space Telescopes Find Patchy Clouds on Exotic World – NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory | jpl.nasa.gov
• Clouds On Alien Planet Mapped for 1st Time | Space.com

— NEWS BYTE —

Updating Atomic Weights

• The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, IUPAC, has changed the official atomic weights of 19 elements
• Atomic Weights
• Every atom of an element, silver for example, has the same number of protons
• Silver has 47, but not every atom of an element necessarily has the same number of neutrons
• Different versions of an element\’s atoms are called isotopes, Silver occurs as silver-109 and silver-107
• Chemists calculate the atomic weight of an element that you see on the periodic table from the masses of its isotopes, giving more common isotopes more weight than less common isotopes
• This doesn\’t necessarily mean every sample of silver on Earth has an atomic weight of exactly
• Samples of elements vary from place to place, and the differences play an important role in many sciences
• The differences help chemists trace the origin of different materials and help date archaeological findings
• Not a Big a Deal, But Why Do It?
• The latest atomic weights measurements differ too little from their predecessors to really change science
• The changes in weights mostly come from continuing improvements in atomic mass measurements thanks to advances in the technology behind mass spectrometers
• They can also change how they view the number of isotopes an element has
• For example, the IUPAC had previously thought that thorium-230 was too rare to include in atomic weight calculations, they now recognize it
• The last time international chemistry really altered the periodic table was in 2009, when IUPAC decided to list the atomic weights of some elements as ranges, instead of single numbers
• The Changes
• Atomic weights are relative, so they don\’t have units
• Molybdenum, Losing 0.0122
• Thorium, Losing 0.000322
• Yttrium and Niobium, Tied, Losing 0.00001
• Selenium, Gaining 0.0088
• Cadmium, Gaining 0.0026
• Holmium, Thulium and Praseodymium, all Gaining 0.00001
• Further Reading / In the News
• Chemistry\’s Biggest Loser: Official Atomic Weights Change For 19 Elements | Popular Science
• Periodic Table of the Elements | chemistry.about.com

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

The Nobel Prize in Physics 2013

• The Nobel Prize in Physics 2013 | Nobelprize.org
• The Nobel Prize in Physics 2013 was awarded jointly to Francois Englert and Peter W. Higgs \”for the theoretical discovery of a mechanism that contributes to our understanding of the origin of mass of subatomic particles, and which recently was confirmed through the discovery of the predicted fundamental particle, by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN\’s Large Hadron Collider\”
• Last Time on SciByte
• SciByte53 | Higgs Boson July 10, 2012
• SciByte 76 | Resolutions & Martian Meteorite | January 8, 2013

Plastic in Titan’s Clouds?

• An essential chemical used in the creation of plastic on Earth has been found in Saturn\’s largest moon, Titan
• Scientists used Cassini\’s composite infrared spectrometer (CIRS) instrument, which measures infrared light given off by Saturn and its moon, made the discovery
• Cassini Measures Propylene
• NASA\’s Cassini spacecraft currently orbiting Saturn, found that the atmosphere of Titan contains propylene
• Propylene is a key ingredient of plastic containers, car bumpers and other everyday items on Earth
• Strung together in long chains it can form a plastic called polypropylene
• Helps Explain Voyager 1 Data
• This helps answer a decades old question
• When Voyager 1 conducted the first close flyby of the moon in 1980, it recognized gasses in the moon\’s brown atmosphere as hydrocarbons.
• Those measurement were very difficult to make because propylene weak signature is crowded by related chemicals with much stronger signals
• Multimedia
• YouTube Clip | Plastic Moon: Propylene Detected On Titan | VideoFromSpace
• Further Reading / In the News
• [NASA Finds Ingredient for Plastic on Saturn\’s Moon Titan | Space.com](NASA Finds Ingredient for Plastic on Saturn\’s Moon Titan | Space.com)

Now There Are Robots Who Run …

• Last Time on SciByte …
• SciByte 62 | Stradivarius & Tigers – Boston-Dynamics Robot’s | September 11, 2012
• Boston Dynamics | The Wildcat
• The WildCat is a brand new robot created to run fast on all types of terrain, and so far its top speed has been about 16 mph on flat terrain using both bounding and galloping gaits.
• Multimedia
• YouTube | Introducing WildCat | BostonDynamics
• YouTube | Cheetah Robot runs 28.3 mph; a bit faster than Usain Bolt | BostonDynamics
• Further Reading / In the News
• This Video of a Cyborg Quadriped Will Have You Gasping in Terror | Universetoday.com

— VIEWER FEEDBACK —

Ice Cap Growing/Shrinking?

• Nogal
• In the chat room I brought up the fact that the ice caps have been growing, yet everyone called me a nut
• Sorry, Staying Away From Hot Button Issues
• First SciByte will neither agree or disagree with a highly hot button issue
• Some studies can be made to agree in either direction you feel
• There are studies that say the area of the Antarctic polar cap is expanding while the Arctic is decreasing
• There are also studies arguing about the thickness of both polar sheets
• Adding to the confusion and arguments is an article from National Snow and Ice Data Center showing significant shrinking of the area of the polar cap actually had an error
• In addition there are arguments about global heating/cooling/climate change over what time span and comparing to historical data
• For issues such as this it is important to find data from as impartial sources as you can, and to also look at the data that argues against how you feel

Food Science

• Matt
• Have you ever considered doing an episode on some of Chris\’ beliefs about nutrition and food?
• Sorry, Staying Away From Some Food Health Science
• While I might talk about what science is saying about how food interacts with the human body I’m not a dietician or a medical doctor so I’m going to stay away from dietary issue
• Studies that talk about how one specific thing affects how interacts with your well being and health I view as somewhat bordering on fuzzy science
• There are so many things that can affect your health it is hard to say anything specific about the general population
• There are also many people with restrictive diets because of allergies or sensitivities that restrict diets that only affect specific portions of the population

— Updates —

Comet ISON

• Viewer Feedback – Nogal
• Any updates for Comet ISON?
• High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) have released their first observations of the incoming Comet ISON
• Last Time on SciByte
• SciByte 103 [September 24, 2013] | Martian Methane & Deep Impact – End to the Deep Impact/EPOXI Mission
• SciByte 65 [October 2, 2012] | Chocolate & Black Holes – Comet ISON, 2013
• Seeing Comet ISON Now
• You will need a telescope in the 8-12 inch diameter range, a dark sky, and magnification of at least 200 to 300 power
• A comet appears as an \”extended\” object with the light inside the comet\’s head spread out over a larger area of space
• You will likely have much better success by looking off to one side of its position rather than staring right at it, called averted vision
• Averted vision works because there are no rods (cells which detect dim light in black and white) in the small area in the center of the eye
• Since the density of the rod cells usually reaches a maximum around 20 degrees off the center of vision you’ll be able to better detect its faint and fuzzy image
• Is is Breaking Up?
• A professor compared the similar photometric signals of comet ISON and comets that have disintegrated before
• Even with this comparative data there is no theoretical model that is capable of explaining all the details of comets
• Things May Not Be So Bad
• The comet will reach perihelion very near the Sun which is calculated to reach 2,700* C, 4,892*F, high enough to melt iron and lead
• It will also be passing the Roche limit, where it will experience solar tides that may tear apart the nucleus of the comet
• This combination of events may be too much for the once promising comet
• Even with those obstacles, some members of NASA’s Comet ISON Observing Campaign (CIOC) remain optimistic of it’s surviving it’s pass by the Sun
• The Future
• While it may not be the ‘comet of the century’ that we once thought it could be, it may yet still be the comet of the year, or fizzle to nothing
• The following few weeks will reveal the real fate of weird Comet ISON.
• Multimedia
• YouTube | NASA | Chasing Comet ISON | NASAexplorer
• Spaceweather.com Realtime Image Gallery
• Further Reading / In the News
• Comet ISON is doing just fine! | Comet ISON Observing Campaign | isoncampaign.org
• [Latest Images of Comet ISON Show it is ‘Doing Just Fine’ | UniverseToday.com](https://www.universetoday.com/105440/latest-images-of-comet-ison-show-it-is-doing-just-fine/7:51 PM 10/11/2013)
• Mars Orbiter Spies Lackluster Comet ISON | Discovery News
• Comet ISON Buzzing Mars Now: A Telescope Viewing Guide | Space.com
• Comet ISON and Mars Imaged Together During Close Approach | UniverseToday.com
• Comet ISON: 5 Things You Should Know | Discovery News
• Is comet ISON disintegrating? | Phys.org

— SPACECRAFT UPDATE—

Private Space Travel – Orbital Science & SpaceX

• Orbital Science – Cygnus Spacecraft
• The Cygnus spacecraft initial docking was delayed a week due to an easily fixed communications glitch
• After docking, the hatches to Cygnus opened on Monday, Sept. 30 after completing leak checks
• Cygnus delivers about 1,300 pounds (589 kilograms) of cargo, including food, clothing, water, science experiments, spare parts and gear to the Expedition 37 crew
• SpaceX
• Also on Sept 29 the Next Generation commercial SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket had its demonstration test flight
• SpaceX Falcon 9 blasted off from Space Launch Complex 4 at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California
• They deployed Canada’s 1,060 pound (481 kg) Cascade, Smallsat, and Ionospheric Polar Explorer (CASSIOPE) weather satellite and several additional small satellites.
• Private Space Travel
• Both Cygnus and Falcon 9 were developed with seed money from NASA in a pair of public-private partnerships between NASA and Orbital Sciences and SpaceX
• With Orbital science\’s successful delivery there are now two commercial partner\’s with the ability to deliver supplies to the ISS
• Multimedia
• YouTube Clip Cygnus Spacecraft Captured By Space Station | videoFromSpace
• YouTube | [SpaceX] Launch of Inaugural Falcon 9 v1.1 Rocket with Cassiope! | SpaceVidsNet
• Further Reading / In the News
• Doubly Historic Day for Private Space: Cygnus docks at Station & Next Gen Falcon 9 Soars | UniverseToday.com

Opportunity

• Planning the Path to Prepare for Winter
• The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) recently succeeded in collecting “really interesting” new high resolution survey scans of Solander Point
• The new CRISM spectrometer survey from Mars orbit will vastly improve the spectral resolution – from 18 meters per pixel down to 5 meters per pixel
• It will take some time, a few weeks, to review and interpret the new spectral data from the MRO and decide on a course of action
• The new MRO data are crucial for targeting the rover’s driving in coming months.
• Solander Point
• Opportunity rover has begun the ascent of Solander Point, the first mountain she will ever climb
• Solander Point is an eroded ridge located along the western rim of huge Endeavour Crater where Opportunity is currently located
• Another important point about ‘Solander Point’ is that it also offers northerly tilted slopes that will maximize the power generation during Opportunity’s six month winter
• Recent Science
• The rover recently investigated an outcrop target called ‘Poverty Bush’.
• The 3 foot long (1 meter) robotic arm was deployed and the rover collected photos with the Microscopic Imager (MI)
• They collected several days of spectral measurements with the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS).
• What is interesting about this location is that there are several geologic units that are overlapping and Opportunity is sitting on the contact
• The east side of the contact are rocks maybe a billion years older than those on the west side of the contact
• Further Reading / In the News
• Opportunity Scaling Solander Mountain Searching for Science and Sun | UniverseToday.com

— CURIOSITY UPDATE —

• More Autonomy
• Curiosity has now used a new technique, in placement of the tool-bearing turret on its robotic arm
• The technique, called proximity placement, uses the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) as if it were a radar for assessing how close the instrument is to a soil or rock surface
• The rover can then interpret the data and autonomously move the turret closer if it is not yet close enough
• This will enable placement of the instrument much closer to soil targets than would have been feasible without risk of touching the sensor head to loose soil
• It will also save extra days of having team members check the data and command arm movement in response
• Multimedia
• Image Galleries at JPL and Curiosity Mulimedia
• Social Media
• Curiosity Rover @MarsCuriosity
• Further Reading / In the News
• Mars Science Laboratory: Images | mars.jpl.nasa.gov

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

• October, 18 1989 : 24 years ago : Jupiter orbiter Galileo launched
  : The Galileo space orbiter was released from the STS 34 flight of the Atlantis orbiter. Then the orbiter\’s inertial upper stage rocket pushed it into a course through the inner solar system. The craft gained speed from gravity assists in encounters with Venus and Earth before heading outward to Jupiter. During its six year journey to Jupiter, Galileo\’s instruments made interplanetary studies, using its dust detector, magnetometer, and various plasma and particles detectors. It also made close-up studies of two asteroids, Gaspra and Ida in the asteroid belt. The Galileo orbiter\’s primary mission was to study Jupiter, its satellites, and its magnetosphere for two years. It released an atmospheric probe into Jupiter\’s atmosphere on 7 Dec 1995.
• Galileo Spacecraft Website | NASA

Looking up this week

<img src=\”https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b8/ISON_Comet_captured_by_HST%2C_April_10-11%2C_2013.jpg/250px-ISON_Comet_captured_by_HST%2C_April_10-11%2C_2013.jpg” width=250 align=right>

• Keep an eye out for …
• Friday, Oct 18 | Evening | Full moon, with a slight penumbral eclipse Image you might be able to see it at it\’s max in the S-SE side
• North America maximum -> ~7:30pm EDT
• Europe/Africa -> ~23:00 GMT
• Planets
• Venus | Dusk | In the SW, moving slowly higher over the next few weeks
• Mars | ~3am local | Moving to the high E close to the star Regulus (blue-white)
• Jupiter | ~11-midnight local | Rises in the E-NE and moves to the upper S sky by dawn
• Comet ISON
• Is near Mars this week, but needs a telescope to view it
• 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 Exoplanet Clouds & Updates | SciByte 105 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

We take a look at stomach microbe changes, a new type of tiny supernovae, tracking a swarm of bugs, spacecraft and story 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:

Microbes and Weight Loss

• Previous studies of people and rats have found that the natural mix of microbes in the intestines changes after gastric bypass, with some groups growing more prominent and others diminishing in number
• No one knew whether the altered microbial composition was merely a side effect of the surgery, or whether shifting bacterial populations could help people lose weight.
• The Study
• To find out researchers fattened up mice then performed either bypass or a sham surgery on the animals
• They performed a Roux-en-Y, the most common technique for gastric bypass, which diverts food around most of the stomach and upper small intestine
• Because it bypasses part of the stomach and small intestine, the surgery alters the intestinal environment, changing elements such as pH and bile concentrations
• Mice in the bypass group lost about 29 percent of their body weight within three weeks of the procedure
• Even before the mice dropped weight, those in the bypass group already had an altered mix of intestinal bacteria
• Compared with the sham operation group, the bypass mice had more of certain types of microbes
• Some species of those microbes are pathogens, but others help prevent inflammation and maintain intestinal health
• The bypass mice also had more bacteria, which can feed on mucus lining the intestines, particularly when the host is cutting calories
• Then the researchers transplanted bacteria from the intestines of bypass mice into mice that had been raised without any bacteria
• The formerly germ-free mice slimmed down, trimming about 5 percent of their body weight, even though they started out lean
• The germ-free mice that received bacteria from the guts of sham surgery mice actually packed on a bit of fat
• Of Interest
• By colonizing mice with the altered microbial community, the mice were able to maintain a lower body fat, and lose weight, about 20% as much as they would if they underwent surgery
• Researchers speculate that the microbes somehow trigger fat-burning changes in the host’s metabolism
• Even with these positive results the results were somewhat biased against weight loss
• The mice used in the study hadn\’t been given a high-fat, high-sugar diet to increase their weight beforehand
• There is some question whether a stronger effect might have been seen if they were on a different diet
• In many people with type 2 diabetes, the disease vanishes almost immediately after surgery, too quickly to be explained by the gradual weight loss that happens later
• Patients also describe not being as hungry, or craving foods like salad that they hadn\’t liked much before
• Figuring Out What is Going On
• While the specific microbes found at higher abundance after surgery, are good targets for beginning to understand what\’s taking place, there is a major gap in knowledge is the underlying mechanism linking microbes to weight loss
• For instance, in addition to changes in the microbes found in the gut, researchers found changes in the concentration of certain short-chain fatty acids
• Other studies have suggested that those molecules may be critical in signaling to the host to speed up metabolism, or not to store excess calories as fat.
• The ultimate answer as to what is going on may not be the specific types of microbes, but a by-product they excrete.
• It may be years before this research could be replicated in humans, and that such microbial changes shouldn\’t be viewed as a way to lose weight without going to the gym
• The Future
• More research is needed to learn more about the mechanisms by which a microbial population is changed by gastric bypass exert its effects,
• Then we need to learn if we can produce these effects, either the microbial changes or the associated metabolic changes, without surgery
• Another question is whether the transplants will have the same effect in animals who weren\’t raised in a sterile environment and who already have their own gut microbiome, which would more closely mimic people undergoing gastric bypass surgery
• This technique may one day offer hope to dangerously obese people who want to lose weight without going through the trauma of surgery.
• Future studies will allow us to understand how host/microbial interactions in general can influence the outcome of a given diet
• Multimedia
• YouTube | Gastric Bypass Surgery | TangstarScience
• Further Reading / In the News
• Microbes May Slim Us Down After Gastric Bypass – ScienceNOW | news.ScienceMag.org
• Gut microbes may be behind weight loss after gastric bypass | Genes & Cells | Science News
• A new way to lose weight? Study shows that changes to gut microbiota may play role in weight loss | MedicalXPress.com

— NEWS BYTE —

New Tiny Supernova\’s

• Supernovae
• Until now, supernovae have come in two main versions
• In Type II supernovae a huge star, 10 to 100 times more massive as our Sun, collapses causing a colossal stellar explosion
• Type Ia supernovae, occurs when material from a parent star streams onto the surface of a white dwarf. Over time, so much material falls onto the white dwarf that it raises the core temperature igniting carbon and causing a runaway fusion reaction. This event completely disrupts the white dwarf and results in a colossal stellar explosion
• Now astronomers have found a third type that is fainter and less energetic than a Type Ia, called a Type Iax supernova, essentially a mini supernova only about one-hundredth as bright as their supernova siblings
• Type Iax Supernova
• The data gathered suggest that, like a Type Ia supernova, a Type Iax supernova comes from a binary star system containing a white dwarf and a companion star
• In Type Iax supernovas, the companion star has apparently already lost its outer hydrogen, leaving it dominated by helium
• The white dwarfs then go on to accumulate helium from their companion stars.
• What happens from there is unclear
• One explanation involves the ignition of the outer helium layer from the companion star. The resulting shock wave slams into the white dwarf and disrupts it, causing the explosion.
• Alternately, the white dwarf might ignite first due to the density and pressure from the overlying helium shell it has collected from the companion star, forcing carbon, oxygen and maybe helium within the star to fuse, triggering an explosion
• It also appears that in many cases the white dwarf survives the explosion unlike in a Type Ia supernova where the white dwarf is completely destroyed
• No Type Iax supernovae have been seen so far in elliptical galaxies, which are filled with old stars suggesting that Type Iax supernovae come from young star systems
• Why Haven\’t We Seen Them Before?
• Astronomers likely have discovered so few type Iax supernovae only because they are faint, releasing somewhere between 1% and 50% the energy of a type Ia supernova
• The team has identified 25 examples of this new type of supernova, and there are estimates that for every 100 type Ia supernovae explosions that occur, there are about 31 type Iax supernovae, or roughly a third
• Multimedia
• YouTube | Type IA Supernovae | yoonoose
• Further Reading / In the News
• New Type of Star Explosion Discovered | Type Iax Supernovas | Space.com
• ScienceShot: A New Class of Supernova – ScienceNOW | news.ScienceMag.org
• New Kind of “Runt” Supernovae Could be Lurking Unseen | UniverseToday.com

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

What’s the Buzz?

• Magicicada is a genus of cicada with either a 13- or a 17-year lifespan, depending on species
• It ranges from the Virginia/North Carolina border up through the northern end of the New York City suburbs
• Brood II, also known as the \”East Coast Brood,\” is a 17-year cicada due for emergence this summer
• Brood II
• The Magicicada larvae live underground for nearly their entire lives, feeding on fluids from tree roots in the northeast United States
• They then emerge with only a few weeks life in their lives to molt into adults, mate, lay eggs, and die.
• It\’s not really known why they use this life cycle strategy
• One theory is that such a long period between broods could fool predators, who likely won\’t have been alive (or won\’t remember) the previous emergence.
• Tracking with Radiolab
• The radio shows/podcast Radiolab has come up with a cicada tracker to pinpoint exactly when Brood II will begin \”swarmageddon.\”
• When the soil eight inches below the surface reaches a steady temperature of 64 degrees F, the cicadas will begin their transformation
• Radiolab will monitor the soil temperature using crowdsourcing data collection, you can report your findings to Radiolab, starting at the latest in mid-April
• The interactive map they are putting together will help people track just when they\’ll emerge
• Multimedia
• YouTube | Amazing Cicada life cycle – Sir David Attenborough\’s Life in the Undergrowth | BBCWorldwide
• Further Reading / In the News
• Magicicada/org
• Cicada Tracker | Radiolab
• Radiolab Wants Your Help To Track The Once-Every-17-Year Cicada \”Swarmageddon\” | Popular Science

— VIEWER FEEDBACK —

Space and Television Entertainment

• Scott Quinlan
• Scott Quinlan seems a bit worried about the lack of space ships, real or science fiction
• Answer
• An edited version of “We Are The Explorers,” a video highlighting the past successes and future goals of the space administration — created by NASA and featuring an inspiring narration by Peter “Optimus Prime” Cullen — will be screened in several major U.S. cities during the premiere of Star Trek Into Darkness thanks to an overwhelmingly successful crowdfunding effort on Indiegogo.com.
• Aerospace Industries Association of America) will use any funds donated during the next 29 days to reach its next target: getting the ad in at least one theater in every state in America for two weeks. In order for that to happen, a grand total of $94,000 will need to be reached
• Announced on April 2nd, the project is now being conducted in partnership with Challenger Center for Space Science Education to further enhance and grow the crowdfund campaign
• YouTube | We Are the Explorers | ReelNASA
• YouTube | \”Our next destination awaits\” | We Are the Explorers | ReelNASA
• Further Reading / In the News
• WE ARE THE EXPLORERS: A movie trailer for our space program | indiegogo
• NASA Trailer Achieves Crowdfunding Goal to Run Before Star Trek: Into Darkness | UniverseToday

— Updates —

Fossil Feather Color

• New research shows that past reconstructions of the original colors of feathers in some fossil birds and dinosaurs may be flawed
• There is evidence for the colors of feathers-especially melanin-based colors-can be altered during fossilization
• The New Study
• In modern birds, black, brown, and some reddish-brown colors are produced by tiny granules of the pigment melanin
• These features-called melanosomes-are preserved in many fossil feathers, and their precise size and shape have been used to reconstruct the original colors of fossil feathers.
• Scientists had no idea whether melanosomes could survive the fossilisation process intact, now experiments show that this is not the case.
• Results from this study cast questions on studies of fossil feather color and suggest that some previous reconstructions of the original plumage colors of fossils may not be accurate
• Experimental technique pioneered in the group\’s recent study on the colors of fossil insects simulated high pressures and temperatures that are found deep under the Earth\’s surface
• The team then used feathers of different colors and from different species, but the geometry of the melanosomes in all feathers changed during the experiments
• This study will lead to better interpretations of the original plumage colors of diverse feathered dinosaurs and fossil birds
• Multimedia
• YouTube | True Colors of Fossil Feathers in Doubt | LabEquipment
• Further Reading / In the News
• True colors of some fossil feathers now in doubt | Phys.org

— SPACECRAFT UPDATE—

Quick Trip to the Space Station

• In the past, Soyuz manned capsules and Progress supply ships were launched on trajectories that required about two days, or 34 orbits, to reach the ISS.
• A new abbreviated four-orbit rendezvous with the ISS uses a modified launch and docking profile for the Russian ships arriving in just 5 hours and 45 minutes after launch
• The New Configuration
• It has been tried successfully with three Progress resupply vehicles, but this is the first time it has been used on a human flight.
• The new fast-track trajectory has the rocket launching shortly after the ISS passes overhead
• Then, additional firings of the vehicle’s thrusters early in its mission expedites the time required for a Russian vehicle to reach the Station
• The Soyuz TMA-08M spacecraft launched at 2:43 a.m. Friday local time from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan (4:43 p.m. EDT, 20:43 UTC on March 28), with a crew of Pavel Vinogradov, Aleksandr Misurkin and Chris Cassidy
• Multimedia
• YouTube | Space Craft approach | Spacecraft Docks to ISS | NASAtelevision
• YouTube | Spacecraft Docks to ISS | NASAtelevision
• YouTube | New Space Travelers Get Warm Welcome | NASAtelevision
• Further Reading / In the News
• Soyuz Makes Record-Breaking ‘Fast Track’ to Space Station | UniverseToday.com
• Space Station Crew Captures Soyuz Launch, As Seen from Orbit | UniverseToday.com
• New US-Russian Crew Docks at Space Station After Super-Fast Flight | Space.com

— CURIOSITY UPDATE —

• Curiosity controllers plan to suspend commanding from April 4 to May 1.
• NASA\’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity will send no commands between April 9 and April 26
• The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter will go into a record-only mode on April 4 until around May 1.
• April, the Month of Rest
• The positions of the planets in April will mean diminished communications between Earth and NASA\’s spacecraft at Mars as Mars will be passing almost directly behind the sun, from Earth\’s perspective. The sun can easily disrupt radio transmissions between the two planets during that near-alignment
• To prevent an impaired command from reaching an orbiter or rover, mission controllers at NASA\’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., are preparing to suspend sending any commands to spacecraft at Mars for weeks in April
• The travels of Earth and Mars around the sun set up this arrangement, called a Mars solar conjunction, about once every 26 months, Mars solar conjunctions are not identical to each other. They can differ in exactly how close to directly behind the sun Mars gets, and they can differ in how active the sun is
• Multimedia
• YouTube | Mars in a Minute: What Happens When the Sun Blocks our Signal? | JPLnews
• Image Galleries at JPL and Curiosity Mulimedia
• Social Media
• Curiosity Rover @MarsCuriosity

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

• April 6, 1938 : 75 years ago : Teflon : Du Pont researcher Roy J. Plunkett and his technician Jack Rebok accidentally discovered the chemical compound polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), later marketed as Teflon. Plunkett was researching chemical reactions of the gas perfluoroethylene in order to synthesize new types of refrigerant gases. Rebok found an apparently defective cylinder of this gas, since no pressure was found when the valve was opened, even though the cylinder weight was the same as full cylinders. Rebok suggested sawing it open to investigate. Inside was a slippery white powder. Plunkett found it had unusual properties, a wonderful solid lubricant in powdered form, was chemically inert and had a very high melting point. He realized it was formed by an unexpected polymerization. It was patented on 4 Feb 1941.

Looking up this week

• Keep an eye out for …
• Saturn | ~30 after twilight it rises in the E-SE, also in the E-SE lies Spica to the high upper right

• Jupiter | After sunset it lies high in the W, moving towards the horizon during the night with the orange star Aldebaran to the lower left, and the Pleiades star cluster to the lower right

• 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 Weight Loss Microbes & Supernovae | SciByte 88 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

We take a look at why some people may like spicy foods, cracker sized satellites, spacecraft updates, Curiosity news, and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

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MP3 Download | Ogg Download | Video | YouTube

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MP3 Feed | Ogg Feed | iTunes Feed | Video Feed

Support the Show:

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