_Credit: PlanetaryResources

• Asteroid Mining
  • The idea of exploiting the natural resources of asteroids dates back over 100 years.
  • California Institute of Technology in Pasadena completed an in-depth study of the feasibility of asteroid mining
  • The study showed that, for the first time in history, this was now feasible using technology available in this decade
  • It is reasonable to assume we could identify, and bring an entire asteroid that is roughly 23 feet [7 meters] wide [~500 tons] into a high lunar orbit
• Asteroid composition classifications
  • D class asteroids: They are also known as Trojan asteroids of Jupiter and are dark and carbonaceous in composition.
  • C class asteroids: They are found in the Earth’s outer belt and are darker and more carbonaceous than the ones found in the S class.
  • S class asteroids: They are found in the Earth’s inner belt, closer to Mars and are composed of mostly stone and iron.
  • V class asteroids: They are a far-out group of asteroids that follow a path between the orbits of Jupiter and Uranus, and are made of igneous, eruptive materials.
• Why is mining asteroids feasible now?
  • The ability to discover and characterize enough sufficiently small near-Earth asteroids for mining.
  • An evolving ability to equip powerful enough solar electric propulsion systems to enable transportation of the captured asteroid.
  • A proposed human presence around the moon in the 2020s both enables exploration and exploitation of the returned near-Earth asteroid.
• * Enter Planetary Resources, Inc.*
  • A new company Planetary Resources, Inc. is now making plans to be able to mine asteroids
  • The company, has been in existence for about three years, announced itself to the general public now because they are starting to aggressively search for the world’s best engineers, to help design and build a fleet of asteroid-mining robots [not Bruce Willis]
  • This company’s investors include Google execs Larry Page and Eric Schmidt, who are worth $16.7 billion and $6.2 billion
  • Their advisors include, filmmaker and adventurer James Cameron, former NASA astronaut Tom Jones and MIT planetary scientist Sara Seager
  • While it may be possible for this to happen, Planetary Resources is still years away from actually seizing an asteroid and staking a cosmic claim
  • Materials from such asteroids could be used for both the Earth and for planetary exploration, providing shielding galactic cosmic rays and propellant to transport a shielded
  • The initial focus will be developing Earth orbiting telescopes to scan for the best asteroids, and later, create extremely low-cost robotic spacecraft for surveying missions.
  • What we learn from such missions and a possible industry could someday help us deflect a much larger near-Earth object
• The Legal angle
• The legality of asteroid mining is in itself interesting
• The 1967 Outer Space Treaty says that “Outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.”
• Whether or not that applies to individuals or companies is one question
• Anything launched into space remains the private property of its owner
• However NASA and other entities ‘own’ and sell rocks and dirt from the moon
• Even the sea-floor could be mined
  • Canada-based mining firm Nautilus Minerals said Tuesday it had signed China’s Tongling Nonferrous Metals Group as the first customer of its pioneering Papua New Guinean seafloor mine.
  • Currently it is slated to begin production in the fourth quarter of 2013 Nautilus claims the project to be the world’s first commercial seafloor mine
  • This area has deposits of rocks containing high grades of copper, gold, zinc and silver, what is known as “seafloor massive sulphides” from hydrothermal vents
  • Robots would be controlled remotely to drill for those sulphide deposits 5,250ft [1,600 m] below sea level
  • Then another machine would pump the material to a support vessel at the surface, which would then be dewatered for transport
  • These robots are currently under construction and are based on those used in deepwater oil and gas, terrestrial mining and marine dredging industries
• Multimedia
  • YouTube VIDEO : Asteroid Mining Mission Revealed by Planetary Resources, Inc.
    | PlanetaryResources
  • YouTube Playlist : Planetary Resources, Inc. Press Conference, April 24, 2012 Press Event
  • IMAGE GALLERY: Asteroid Mining Gallery: Planetary Resources to Mine Space Rocks | Space.com
  • Planetary Resources Technology
• Further Reading / In the News
  • Space Law: Is Asteroid Mining Legal?
  • Planetary Resources Website
  • Planetary Resources: The Video | UniverseToday.com
  • Asteroid Miners Wanted to Tap Space Rock Riches | space.com
  • Planetary Resources Group Wants to Mine Asteroids | UniverseToday.com
  • Is Asteroid Mining Possible? Study Says Yes, for $2.6 Billion | space.com
  • Interesting Facts About Asteroids | UniverseToday.com
  • World’s first sea-floor mine signs first customer | phys.org

— NEWS BYTE —

Recovery from Strokes

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

The competitive nature of lefties

• The low down
  • Handedness, is partially genetic and partially environmental.
  • In the general population about 10% of people are left handed
  • A new mathematical model calculates that handedness might come from a need to balance cooperation and competition
  • The model also seems to work in the animal kingdom social species with limited combative interaction
  • There are other ideas about how the natural left handed brain processes things
  • The number of people who process language with both sides of the brain is 5% of right handed, and 14% of left handed people
  • Some link this increased amount of space dedicated to language to enhanced communication skills
• Percentages
  • Top hitter in the US major league – 58%
  • Baseball – 30%
  • American Presidents (* last 5, since 1981) – 2 Left; 2 Ambidextrous
  • American Presidents (* since 1929) – Left 35%; Ambidextrous 14%
  • American football quarterbacks – 6%
  • Top 120 male *golfers – 4%
  • Top 100 women *golfers – 0%
• Further Reading / In the News
  • Shedding light on southpaws: Sports data help confirm theory explaining left-handed minority in general population | phys.org
  • Lefties have element of surprise in sports arena: study | phys.org
  • A model balancing cooperation and competition can explain our right-handed world and the dominance of left-handed athletes | rsif.royalsocietypublishing.org

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

Talking to yourself isn’t crazy

• The low down
  • When trying to find something a new study shows that saying the name of the object out loud actually helps you find the object quicker
• Adding the auditory component can temporarily increase your visual system, helping to find something quicker
• Further Reading / In the News
  • Self-directed speech affects visual search performance | The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

Liquid Solar cells

• Last time on SciByte
  • Solar Storms & Higgs Boson | SciByte 37 – Transparent Electrodes (March 13, 2012)
  • Habitable Planets & Plant Power | SciByte 32 – Solar panels you water? (February 7, 2012)
• The low down
  • Scientists at USC have developed a potential pathway to cheap, stable solar cells made from nanocrystals so small they can exist as a liquid ink and be painted or printed onto clear surfaces.
  • They are about four nanometers in size, you could fit more than 250,000,000,000 on the head of a pin
  • They can also float in a solution, meaning you could print them like you print a newspaper
• Further Reading / In the News
  • Researchers develop a path to liquid solar cells that can be printed onto surfaces | Phys.org

— THE NEWS IS CATCHING UP—

Nine Planet System

• Last time on SciByte
  • World Climate & Light Pollution | SciByte 42 – A busy planetary system (April 17, 2012)
• Nine Planet System
  • HD 10180 was first noted in 2010 and is about 130 light years away
  • Going back and studying old observations and using different statistical analysis techniques one astronomer found evidence that brought the number of planets in the system up to nine
• Further Reading / In the News
  • New look at HD 10180 shows it might have nine planets
  • World Climate & Light Pollution | SciByte 42 – A busy planetary system (April 17, 2012)

Planet in habitable zone

• Last time on SciByte
  • Habitable Planets & Plant Power | SciByte 32 (February 7, 2012) – Habitable planet?)
• The lowdown
  • Gliese 667Cc, found orbiting around a red dwarf star in the habitable zone
  • Planet found in the habitable zone of a star only 22 light years away combining data from three ground-based telescopes going back 10 years
  • Orbit a red dwarf every 28.15 day with a mass about 4.5 times that of Earth;
  • Receives 90% of light that Earth does, but mostly in the infrared making the overall energy absorbed from the sun about the same that is seen on Earth
• Further Reading / In the News
• New look at HD 10180 shows it might have nine planets + World Climate & Light Pollution | SciByte 42 – A busy planetary system (April 17, 2012)
• Social Media
  • Twitter Exoplanet App @ExoplanetApp
• Further Reading / In the News
  • New Study Shows How Trace Elements Affect Stars’ Habitable Zones
  • Newfound Alien Planet is Best Candidate Yet to Support Life, Scientists Say
  • New super-earth detected within the habitable zone of a nearby star
  • New super-Earth detected within the habitable zone of a nearby cool star
  • Potential ‘Goldilocks’ Planet Found
  • Super-Earth spotted in life-friendly zone
  • ScienceShot: Double-Star System Hosts Ancient World
  • New Planet Found: Could a Super-Earth plus Triple Stars Equal Life?
  • Cool sun could host habitable planet

— VIEWER FEEDBACK —

_{Credit: [Arizona State University]}

Spirals on Mars

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

SPACECRAFT UPDATE

The Shuttle Shuffle Continues

_{YouTube channel : daujla2}

• Friday April 27, the space shuttle Enterprise was brought to New York City on top of the 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, after the Discovery was delivered to the Smithsonian
• Multimedia / Further Reading
• YouTube : Enterprise Space Shuttle Last Landing from Tarmac @ JFK
  
• YouTube : Discovery’s Journey Playlist | NASA
• Final Voyage of Space Shuttle Enterprise (Photos) | Space.com
• Enterprise Arrives at the Big Apple | universetoday.com
• Millions Mesmerized by Shuttle Enterprise over Freedom’s Beacon in New York | universetoday.com

SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket

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

You may have seen

California Meteorite

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

• Last time on SciByte
  • Meteorites & Lasers | SciByte 38(March 20, 2012) – The sky, well a meteorite, fell in Norway right into a cabin
• The low down
  • Sunday April 22 over California a large fireball was seen along with a sonic boom characteristic of large meteors entering the Earth atmosphere
  • Scientists have confirmed that this meteor was between 4 to 5 billion years old and probably about the size of a minivan, about 154,300 pounds [69,989 kg]
  • Meteorites don’t actually ‘burn-up’ the friction against the air during re-entry actually causes it to vaporize
  • The sonic boom heard from this meteor was because it entered the atmosphere faster than the speed of sound, between 22,000 mph and 44,000 mph [35,000kph – 70,000kph]
• Significance
  • The meteors reentry was seen from Sacramento, Calif., to Las Vegas and parts of northern Nevada.
  • The first pieces, discovered by Robert Ward, were neat where gold was first discovered in California in 1848
  • Ward has been hunting and collecting meteorites for more than 20 years and has found meteorites in every continent but Antarctica
  • Those two pieces were probably part of the same meteorite that broke apart on impact, each weighs about 10 grams, about the same as two nickels
  • Most nighttime meteors that you see are around the size of grain of sand or a tiny stone, and only last a few seconds
  • An meteor event of this size typically happens around the world once a year, and then most occur over ocean or uninhabited places
  • Although this event occurred just after the peak of the annual mid-April Lyrid meteor shower it is unlikely that it was a Lyrid meteor, although without more information about its trajectory it won’t be known for sure
• Of Note
  • “NASA and the SETI Institute are asking the public to submit any amateur photos or video footage of the meteor that illuminated the sky over the Sierra Nevada mountains and created sonic booms that were heard over a wide area at 7:51 a.m. PDT Sunday, April 22, 2012.”
  • Also any security footage should be checked to see if the fireball was visible, which could also be used in pinpointing the area for fragments
• Further Reading / In the News
  • Meteorites found in Calif. along path of fireball | phys.org
  • Rare Daytime Fireball Created by Minivan-Size Space Rock | space.com
  • Meteorite Hunters Find Fragments from the Recent ‘Daytime Fireball’ in California | universetoday.com

SCIENCE CALENDER

Looking back

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

Looking up this week

• Solar Activity

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

• Keep an eye out for …
  
  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Saturn and Spica will sitting above the Moon

• Further Reading and Resources

• More on what’s in the sky this week

• Sky&Telescope

• SpaceWeather.com

• StarDate.org

• For the Southern hemisphere: SpaceInfo.com.au

• Constellations of the Southern Hemisphere : astronomyonline.org

• Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand : rasnz.org.nz

• AstronomyNow

• HeavensAbove

Legoooo’s in Spaaaace … again

• *The shuttle *
• Raul Oaidia from Romania launched a Lego space shuttle into the stratosphere on the back of a weather balloon
• Lego space shuttle model (set number 3367!) and a video camera to capture the voyage
• Originally he was looking for someone to support project, found a businessman on twitter, who after discussing options decided that a launching something on a weather balloon
• Launching in Romania required problematic flight clearance and waiting times, while Germany where his father worked had much looser regulations
• He and his father traveled to Germany to launch the balloon, since that country’s regulations on this sort of project are more relaxed than those in Romania
• The balloon lofted Lego shuttle flew to an altitude of about 114,800 ft [35,000 m]
• Lego’s to Jupiter
• Specially-constructed LEGO mini-figures are of the Roman god Jupiter, his wife Juno, and “father of science” Galileo Galilei.
• Jupiter (who was the equivalent of “Zeus” to the Greeks) drew a veil of clouds around himself to hide his mischief. While Juno was able to peer through the clouds and reveal Jupiter’s true nature
• Galileo Galilei first to point a telescope at the sky to make astronomical observations and discovered the four largest satellites of Jupiter – named the Galilean moons in his honor.
• Juno and the mini-figures are scheduled to arrive in July 2016 and orbit Jupiter for a year (33 revolutions) before intentionally crashing into the giant gas planet
• Made out of space-grade aluminum the figures, basically the size of the normal LEGO figures, were prepared in a very special way
• * Lego Station*
• While the actual Space Station (ISS) took more than 200 astronauts from 12 countries more than a dozen years to build an astronaut from Japan, matched that feat in just about two hours, at least in LEGO form
• The Lego station would not be able to bear it’s own weight under gravity
• The Lego station was used as a demonstration for a series of recorded videos aimed at engaging and educating children about living and working in space
• Building Lego’s in space are much harder to put together in space, to keep the bricks contained it had to be put together inside a glove box
• Because of the difficulty of putting it together in a glove box, some pieces of the model were launched partially-preassembled
• In space you have to worry about the little pieces getting loose and becoming either lost or potentially getting jammed in equipment or even becoming a flammability hazard
• There are flammability concerns about the Lego’s; due to the flammability hazards, the toy bricks could only be exposed to the open cabin air for two hours
• Other building brick sets that were launched last year, the LEGO space station was part of an educational collaboration between the Danish toy company and NASA
• Multimedia
• YouTube VIDEO : Lego Space Shuttle
• Further Reading / In the News
• Lego Space Shuttle Takes Flight, Returns to Earth Undamaged @ PCWorld.com
• Astronaut Builds LEGO Space Station Inside Real-Life Space Station
• What would you like to see in space? @ microblade.blogspot.com

*— NEWS BYTE — *

Venus Transit

• The low down
• Transits of Venus are when it passes in between the Earth and the sun and are among the rarest of planetary alignments
• Between each occurrence is happens at uneven occurrences at 121.5, then 8 then 105.5, then 8 years again. So only four times every 243 years and only in early Dec or early June
• Only six Venus transits have occurred since the invention of the telescope (1631, 1639, 1761, 1769, 1874
• The last transit occurred in 2004
• Observations
• Your location north or south on Earth slightly affects the apparent path you see Venus taking south or north across the Sun
• The transit this year will last about 6.5 hours and will be visible from more than half of the Earth’s surface; northwestern North America, Hawaii, the western Pacific, northern Asia, Japan, Korea, eastern China, Philippines, eastern Australia, and New Zealand.
• The Sun will set while the transit is still in progress from most of North America, the Caribbean, and northwest South America
• It will also already be in progress at sunrise for observers in central Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and eastern Africa
• No portion of the transit will be visible from Portugal or southern Spain, western Africa, and the southeastern 2/3 of South America.
• Significance
• Edmund Halley first realized that transits of Venus could be used to measure the Sun’s distance which established the absolute scale of the solar system from Kepler’s third law
• Accurately timing the transit from the surface of the Earth past a certain degree of accuracy due to atmospheric conditions and diffraction
• The Venus transits in 1761 and 1769 were still able to give Astronomers their first good value for the Sun’s distance.
• * Of Note*
• The next pair of Venus transits occur over a century from now on 2117 Dec 11 and 2125 Dec 08.
• Mercury, the other planet with an orbit between the sun and Earth undergoes transits about 13 or 14 transits of Mercury each century, and fall within several days of 8 May and 10 November
• Multimedia
• IMAGE : 2012 Venus Transit Map @ skyandtelescope.com
• IMAGE : A line plotted of the transit as seen from Earth’s center, with Universal Times @ skyandtelescope.com
• Further Reading / In the News
• Transit of Venus: June 5–6, 2012 @ skyandtelescope.com
• 2004 and 2012 Transits of Venus @ nasa.gov

The sky, well a meteorite, fell in Norway right into a cabin

• The low down
• Norwegian family arrived at their holiday cabin in Oslo recently for the first time all winter, to discover that a meteorite had apparently fallen through their roof
• Significance
• No one is sure when the meteorite actually crashed through the cabin’s roof, because the cabin had been closed during the winter.
• Although it is thought is may have fallen during a wave of meteor sightings over Norway on March 1
• The 1.3 pound [585 gram] meteorite was found split in two
• Cross-section’s of the meteorite show that it contains bits of many different particles that are compressed together
• Identified as a rare type of breccia meteorite, which is a conglomerate of smaller fragments of minerals
• These type of meteorites indicates that another, larger meteorite smashed rock on another planet before being propelled into outer space
• * Of Note*
• Meteorites rarely fall in populated areas
• According to Views and News from Norway, only 14 meteorites have been found in the Scandinavian country since 1848
• Photos and Video of the meteorite in local news site
• Further Reading / In the News
• Meteorite smashed through Oslo roof @ newsinenglish.no
• Norwegian Family Finds Meteorite Crashed Through Their Roof
• Fikk meteorittstein gjennom taket i kolonihagen @ vg.no

Directing lightning with lasers

• The low down
• New research has shown that brief bursts of intense laser light can redirect lightning
• Significance
• Researchers in France have successfully directed coaxed laboratory-generated lightning into striking the same place, not just twice, but over and over
• The researchers pulses of laser light, femtosecond (one quadrillionth of a second) long to create a virtual lightning rod out of a column of ionized gas
• It has also been confirmed with other experiments that a femtosecond laser could produce an ultra-short filaments of ionized gas that act like electrical guide
• Further studies revealed that these filaments could function over long distances, potentially greater than 164ft [50 m]
• The research team sent a laser beam skimming past a spherical electrode to an oppositely charged planar electrode
• The laser then stripped away the outer electrons from the atoms along its path
• The resulting plasma filament channeled an electrical discharge from the planar electrode to the spherical one
• The researchers then added a longer, pointed electrode to their experiment
• With no laser the discharge obeyed normal rules and always struck the taller, pointed electrode
• Then researchers used the later the discharge was redirected, following the filaments and striking the spherical electrode instead, even when they turned it on after the initial path of the discharge began to form
• Multimedia
• An illustration of how lightning occurs when two streamers meet. @ Wikipedia
• Further Reading / In the News
• Laser lightning rod: Guiding bursts of electricity with a flash of light @ physorg.com

*— TWO-BYTE NEWS — *

Encyclopaedia Britannica, in print no more

• The low down
• Encyclopaedia Britannica has been in print since it was first published in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1768.
• Significance
• It was announced on Tuesday, March 13, 2012 that after 244 years, the Encyclopaedia Britannica is going out of print, instead focusing on its online encyclopedia
• The President of Encyclopaedia Britannica said “This has to do with the fact that now Britannica sells its digital products to a large number of people.”
• The final hardcover encyclopedia set is available for sale at Britannica’s website for $1,395.
• * Of Note*
• The top year for the printed encyclopedia was 1990, when 120,000 sets were sold
• just six years later in 1996, that number fell to 40,000
• The company started exploring digital publishing in the 1970s.
• The first CD-ROM edition was published in 1989 and a version went online in 1994.
• They made the contents of the website available for one week
• Multimedia
• YouTube VIDEO : Totally Digital: The Encyclopaedia Britannica Now
• Social Media
• Encyclo. Britannica@Britannica
• Further Reading / In the News
• Last entry for Encyclopaedia Britannica book form

Skydiving at the orbital extreme

• The low down
• On March 15, 2012, Austria’s Felix Baumgartner jumped out of a space capsule as the Red Bull Stratos project moved forward into the manned flight stage in New Mexico.
• He jumped at 71,581 feet – 13.6 miles – and landed safely eight minutes and eight seconds later, he reached speeds of up to 364.4 mph and was in free fall for three minutes and 43 seconds
• The project is to see Baumgartner attempt a record-breaking freefall from 120,000 feet this summer where he’ll potentially become the first man to go supersonic without the support of a vehicle
• Baumgartner expects to be in free fall for five minutes, 35 seconds, and achieve Mach 1, or 690 mph. All told, the descent should take 15 to 20 minutes.
• Multimedia
• YouTube VIDEO : Felix Baumgartner’s Test Jump Teaser
• YouTube VIDEO :Jump testing in Roswell New Mexico – Red Bull Stratos
• YouTube VIDEO : The Capsule – Red Bull Stratos 2012
• Social Media
• Red Bull Stratos @RedBullStratos
• Further Reading / In the News
• Video: Watch Felix Baumgartner’s Test Jump @ universetoday.com
• Skydiver aims to jump from 23 miles, go supersonic (Update 2) @ physorg.com
• Capsule and skydiver ready for record-setting freefall @ physorg.com
• Skydiver Baumgartner Takes Test Jump from 21,000 Meters @ universetoday.com
• Video: Watch Felix Baumgartner’s Test Jump @ universetoday.com
• Capsule and Skydiver Ready for Record-Setting Freefall @ universetoday.com
• Infographic: The Anatomy of a Supersonic Freefall @ universetoday.com

*— Updates — *

Neutrinos loop back around again

• * Last time on SciByte*
• Neutrinos & Leap Year | SciByte 35 (Feb 28,2012)
• Neutrinos & Tatooine | SciByte 17 (Oct 18, 2011) – Faster than light Neutrinos
• Spacecraft Updates | SciByte 23 [November 30, 2011] – Faster than light Neutrinos : Update
• The low down
• Neutrinos do not go faster than light, according to fresh measurements of a test last year
• The new measurements were made by a team working independently
• Evidence is beginning to point towards the OPERA result being an artifact of the measurement
• Further Reading / In the News
• ‘Faster-than-light’ particles fade after cross-check @ physorg.com
• Neutrinos Obey The Speed Limit, After All @ universetoday.com

The Sun will not sit quietly

• * Last time on SciByte*
• Solar Storms & Higgs Boson | SciByte 37(Mar 13, 2012)
• More solar flares
• Sun unleashed a new solar flare March 13 from the same region that has been actively over the last week
• It was not headed towards the Earth
• Sounds of the Sun
• This sonification of the recent solar storm activity turns data from two spacecraft into sound
• Sonification is the process of translating information into sound. ( like in Geiger counters)
• Benefits of sonifying data. You can zip through days’ worth of information in an instant
• Multimedia
• YouTube VIDEO : Listening to Solar Storms
• Further Reading / In the News
• Listen to solar storm activity in new sonification video @ physorg.com
• Busy Sunspot Unleashes Another Strong Solar Flare @ space.com

SCIENCE CALENDER

Looking back

• March 26, 1859: 153 years ago : Vulcan Discovered? : In 1859, Lescarbault, a French medical doctor and amateur astronomer reported sighting a new planet in an orbit inside that of Mercury which he named Vulcan. He had seen a round black spot on the Sun with a transit time across the solar disk 4 hours 30 minutes. He sent this information and his calculations on the planet’s movements to Jean LeVerrier, France’s most famous astronomer. Le Verrier had already noticed that Mercury had deviated from its orbit. A gravitational pull from Vulcan would fit in nicely with what he was looking for. However, it was not consistently seen again and it is now believed to have been a “rogue asteroid” making a one-time pass close to the sun. [Or this is the non-prime universe and it was destroyed, que Bryan crying out in anguish]
• March 25, 1970: 42 years ago : Concorde Flew : In 1970, the prototype British-built airplane Concorde 002 made its first supersonic flight (700 mph; 1,127 kph). A few months earlier, the French prototype, Concorde 001, had broken the sound barrier on 1 Oct 1969. Mach 2 was achieved by Concorde 001 on 4 Nov 1970, and by Concorde 002, a few days later on 12 Nov 1970. The combined number of supersonic flights by the two aircraft reached 100 by January of the following year, 1971.

Looking up this week

• Keep an eye out for …

• March 22 : New Moon

• Fri, March 23 : Over the next few days, keep an eye out to the West for Venus, and Jupiter and a very thin crescent Moon

• March 26: Saturn will rise mid evening, close and to the left of Spica
  

• Further Reading and Resources

• More on whats in the sky this week

• Sky&Telescope

• SpaceWeather.com

• StarDate.org

• For the Southern hemisphere: SpaceInfo.com.au

• Constellations of the Southern Hemisphere : astronomyonline.org

• Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand : rasnz.org.nz

• AstronomyNow

• HeavensAbove

The post Meteorites & Lasers | SciByte 38 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/11271/near-earth-objects-scibyte-12/ Wed, 17 Aug 2011 19:35:03 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=11271 We take a look at Near Earth Object, what qualifies as a NEO, what dangers they actually pose and some of the impacts that had already occurred on the Earth.

The post Near Earth Objects | SciByte 12 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

]]>

This week on SciByte we take a look at Near Earth Object, what qualifies as a NEO, what dangers they actually pose and some of the impacts that had already occurred on the Earth. Plus we take a quick look at at the DAWN spacecraft that is currently orbiting the asteroid Vesta and has plans to visit the asteroid Ceres as well.

Direct Download Links: HD Video | Large Video | Mobile Video | WebM Video |MP3 Audio | YouTube

SciByte iTunes Feeds:	SciByte RSS Feeds:
HD Video iPad & Apple TV Video iPod Video MP3 Audio	HD Video RSS Large Video RSS Mobile Video RSS MP3 Audio RSS

Show Notes:

What is a Near Earth Object? NEO

• A Solar System object, like comets or asteroids, whose orbit brings them into close proximity, less than 1.3 AU, with the Earth.
• That’s 15,245.6 times the diameter of the Earth, or 508.2 times the distance from the center of the Earth to the center of the Moon.
  • 1.3 AU = 120,842,549.5 mi / 194,477,231.9 km
  • Astronomical unit (AU) : 92,955,807.3 mi / 149,597,870.7 km
  • Earth’s Diameter :7,926.4 mi / 12,756.3 km
  • Moon Orbit ~= 238,858.2 mi / 384,405 km
  • Moon Orbit ~= 30 Earth Diameters

Asteroids and Meteoroids and Meteorites … oh my!

• Asteroid : A relatively small, inactive, rocky body orbiting the Sun.
• Comet : A relatively small, at times active, object whose ices can vaporize in sunlight forming an atmosphere (coma) of dust and gas and, sometimes, a tail of dust and/or gas.
• Meteoroid : A small particle, conventionally below 32ft / 10m, from a comet or asteroid orbiting the Sun.
• Meteor : The light phenomena which results when a meteoroid enters the Earth’s atmosphere and vaporizes; a shooting star.
• Meteorite : A meteoroid that survives its passage through the Earth’s atmosphere and lands upon the Earth’s surface.

What was that thing I saw in the sky?

• It depends on when and what you saw …
• Meteors, often called shooting stars or fireballs, streak across the sky in a matter of seconds, can leave a faint ionization trail visible for minutes, and can be as bright as the Moon sometimes.
• Satellites in orbit around the Earth, are much slower moving and relatively constant in brightness. Just after sunset and before sunrise, are likely times to see them as this is the time when they are reflecting sunlight but it is still dark on the surface of the Earth. (Some satellites can flare up for a few seconds and become very bright when their solar panels reflect the sunlight.)

Asteroids / NEO’s Facts

• The mass of all the objects of the Main asteroid belt, lying between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, is about 4 percent of the mass of the Moon.
• Objects spend on average a few million years as NEOs before hitting the Sun, being ejected from the Solar System, or (for a small number of them) hitting a planet.

How Many Near-Earth Objects Have Been Discovered So Far?

• August 8, 2011 : 8,168 Near-Earth objects have been discovered.
  • 828 have a diameter of approximately 0.6mi / 1 km or larger
  • 1,243 have been classified as Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs).
  • NASA – How many NEO’s have been discovered?
    *Generally the hype from an object is more due to the ‘late discovery’ of an object. With some being discovered mere days before an encounter.

Potentially hazardous object

• An asteroid or comet with an orbit such that it has the potential to make close approaches, within 0.05 AU, to the Earth and a size large enough to cause significant regional damage in the event of impact.
• That’s 586.4 times the diameter of the Earth, or 19.5 times the distance from the center of the Earth to the center of the Moon.
  • Astronomical unit (AU) : 92,955,807.3 mi / 149,597,870.7 km
  • Earth’s Diameter : 7,926.4 mi / 12,756.3 km
  • Moon Orbit ~= 238,858.2 mi / 384,405 km</li>
<li>Moon Orbit ~= 30 Earth Diameters
• Diameter is at least 492ft / 150 m.
  • Would cause regional devastation to human settlements. No impact of this size has occurred during human history.
  • Such impacts would occur on average around once per 10,000 years.

How often does the Earth get a close encounter?

• Objects with diameters of 16-30 ft / 5-10 m impact the Earth’s atmosphere approximately once per year. These ordinarily explode in the upper atmosphere, and most or all of the solids are vaporized
  • These can produce as much energy as the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima
  • ~15,000 tonnes of TNT
  • Every 2000–3000 years NEAs produce explosions comparable to the one observed at Tunguska in 1908
• Objects with a diameter of one kilometer hit the Earth an average of twice every million year interval
• Large collisions with five kilometer objects happen approximately once every ten million years.

Impact Craters on Earth

• It was around the turn of the century that the idea that craters were due to impacts rather than volcanism.
• Grove Karl Gilbert : In 1892 Gilbert would be among the first to propose that the moon’s craters were caused by impact rather than volcanism
• Daniel Barringer : In 1903, mining engineer and businessman Daniel M. Barringer suggested that the crater had been produced by the impact of a large iron-metallic meteorite.
• It wasn’t until 1960 that we had definitive proof that there were actual impact craters on Earth.
• This was proved by Eugene Shoemaker, the same guy who co-discovered the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 that hit Jupiter in 1994, studying Meteor Crater in Arizona.
• The key discovery was the presence in the crater of the mineral stishovite, a rare form of silica found only where quartz-bearing rocks have been severely shocked by an instantaneous overpressure.
• Where are all the Earth impact we know about?

How do we categorize the danger level?

• Palermo Technical Impact Hazard Scale : a logarithmic scale used by astronomers to rate the potential hazard of impact of a near-earth object (NEO) and combines two types of data; probability of impact, and estimated kinetic yield, into a single “hazard” value.
  • A rating of 0 indicates a low hazard level
  • A rating of +2 would indicate the hazard is 100 times more likely
• Torino Scale : a method for categorizing the impact hazard associated with near-Earth objects (NEOs) such as asteroids and comets. It is intended as a tool for astronomers and the public to assess the seriousness of collision predictions, by combining probability statistics and known kinetic damage potentials into a single threat value.

NEO Asteroid 99942 : Apophis

• Diameter : 886 ft / 270 m
• 2.9 x height Statue of Liberty [ 306 ft / 93.47 m ]
• 2 x height of Pyramids of Giza [ 449.5 ft / 137 m ]
• Rotation : 30.4 h
• Mass [ 59,524,810,800 lb / 27,000,000,000 kg ]
• 4.5 x Great Pyramids of Giza : 13,227,735,700 lb / 6,000,000,000 kg
• 519 x RMS Titantic : 114,640,376 lb / 52,000,000 kg
• Caused a brief period of concern in December 2004 because initial observations indicated a small probability (up to 2.7%) that it would strike the Earth in 2029.
• Additional observations provided improved predictions that eliminated the possibility of an impact on Earth or the Moon in 2029
• However, a possibility remained that during the 2029 close encounter with Earth, Apophis would pass through a gravitational keyhole, a precise region in space no more than about a half-mile wide, that would set up a future impact on April 13, 2036.
• This possibility kept the asteroid at Level 1 on the Torino impact hazard scale until August 2006, when the probability that Apophis will pass through the keyhole was determined to be very small.
• Apophis broke the record for the highest level on the Torino Scale, being, for only a short time, a level 4, before it was lowered

NEO Asteroid 99942 : Apophis what DID NOT happen

• Apophis Path of Risk
• Energy Estimates were originally equivalent of 1480 megatons of TNT, but were later refined to estimate was 880 megatons, then revised to 510 megatons
  • Barringer Crater or the Tunguska event are estimated to be in the 3–10 megaton range
• Biggest hydrogen bomb ever exploded, the Tsar Bomba, was around 50 megatons
• Krakatoa was the equivalent of roughly 200 megatons
• Chicxulub impact has been estimated to have released about as much energy as 100,000,000 megatons
• It was estimated that the hypothetical impact of Apophis in countries such as Colombia and Venezuela, which are in the path of risk, could have more than 10 million casualties

DAWN Spacecraft (https://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/)

• Science Payload that includes : Camera’s, Visible and Infrared Spectrometer, Gamma Ray and Neutron Spectrometer (GraND), and Gravity Science
• Images of Vesta and Ceres in three colors and black and white
• Full surface with mapping spectrometer
• In three bands, 0.35 to 0.9 micron, 0.8 to 2.5 micron and 2.4 to 5.0 micron
• Neutron and gamma ray spectra to produce maps of the surface elemental composition of each asteroid
• Including the abundance of major rock-forming elements (O, Mg, Al, Si, Ca, Ti, and Fe), trace elements (Gd and Sm), long-lived radioactive elements (K, Th, and U), and light elements such as H, C, and N, which are the major constituents of ices.
• Radio tracking to determine mass, gravity field, principal axes, rotational axis and moments of inertia.

Other Spacecraft Missions to Comets & Asteroids

Near-Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR)
Deep Impact
Deep Space 1 (DS1)
STARDUST
Hayabusa (MUSES-C)
Rosetta
EPOXI
Stardust-NExT

Additional Research Material

Interactive : Impact Earth!
NASA : Near Earth Object Program
Meteor Crater / Barringer Crater
WIKI : East Antarctica Crater
WIKI : Near Earth Object
WIKI : List of impact craters on Earth
WIKI : Tunguska event
WIKI : Chicxulub crater
WIKI : Meteor Crater

Tracking Study’s or Groups

Asiago-DLR Asteroid Survey
Japan Spaceguard Association
Campo Imperatore Near-Earth Object Survey
Catalina Sky Survey
Lowell Observatory Near-Earth-Object Search
Space Watch
Near Earth Asteroid Tracking
The Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research

Social Media

Facebook : Asiago-DLR Asteroid Survey
Facebook : Campo Imperatore Near-Earth Object Survey
Facebook : Catalina Sky Survey
Facebook : Near Earth Asteroid Tracking
Facebook : The Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research
Twitter : Catalina Sky Survey

Related News Stories

NASA : Near Earth Object News
NASA : Asteroid 2005 YU55 to Approach Earth on November 8, 2011
NASA : 2010 TK7: The First Earth Trojan Asteroid
ScienceNews.com : Five days after being discovered, an interplanetary visitor whizzes past
National Geographic : Huge Impact Crater Found in Remote Congo (March 2011)
National Geographic : “Fresh” Crater Found in Egypt; Changes Impact Risk? (July 2010)
National Geographic : India Asteroid Killed Dinosaurs, Made Largest Crater? (Oct 2009)
Wired : Asteroid Impact Craters on Earth as Seen From Space (Aug 2009)
National Geographic : Huge Impact Crater Uncovered in Canadian Forest (Nov 2008)
National Geographic : Giant Meteor Fireball Explodes Over Northwest U.S. (Feb 2008)
National Geographic : Crater From 1908 Russian Space Impact Found, Team Says (Nov 2007)
National Geographic : Photo in the News: Mysterious Space Object Crashes Into House (Jan 2007)
National Geographic : Meteorite Impact Reformulated Earth’s Crust, Study Shows (Jan 2006)

The post Near Earth Objects | SciByte 12 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

]]>