meteorite – Jupiter Broadcasting https://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com Open Source Entertainment, on Demand. Mon, 22 Feb 2016 02:46:55 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.5.3 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/cropped-favicon-32x32.png meteorite – Jupiter Broadcasting https://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com 32 32 Martian Life & Tetris | SciByte 122 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/52787/martian-life-tetris-scibyte-122/ Tue, 04 Mar 2014 21:38:11 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=52787 We take a look at possible evidence of Martian life, 3D printing a heart, Tetris, spacecraft updates, Curiosity news, and more!

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We take a look at possible evidence of Martian life, 3D printing a heart, Tetris, 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:

Evidence of Martian Life?

  • A team of scientists has found evidence of past water movement throughout a Martian meteorite, reviving debate in the scientific community over life on Mars.
  • The team reports that newly discovered different structures and compositional features within the larger Yamato meteorite suggest biological processes might have been at work on Mars hundreds of millions of years ago.
  • Mars On Earth?
  • Martian meteoritic material is distinguished from other meteorites and materials from Earth and the moon by the composition of the oxygen atoms within the silicate minerals and trapped Martian atmospheric gases
    • Robotic missions to Mars continue to shed light on the planet\’s history, the only samples from Mars available for study on Earth are Martian meteorites
  • On Earth, we can utilize multiple analytical techniques to take a more in-depth look into meteorites
  • In 1996, a group of scientists published an article in Science announcing the discovery of biogenic evidence in the Allan Hills 84001(ALH84001) meteorite.
  • The History of as Yamato 000593 (Y000593).
  • Scientists are now focused on structures deep within a 30-pound (13.7-kilogram) Martian meteorite known as Yamato 000593 (Y000593).
  • Analyses found that the rock was formed about 1.3 billion years ago from a lava flow on Mars
  • Around 12 million years ago, an impact occurred on Mars which ejected the meteorite from the surface of Mars.
  • The meteorite traveled through space until it fell in Antarctica about 50,000 years ago.
  • The rock was found on the Yamato Glacier in Antarctica by the Japanese Antarctic Research Expedition in 2000
  • Scientists are now focused on two distinctive sets of features associated with Martian-derived clay
  • Tunnel and Micro-Tunnel Structures
  • Tunnel and micro-tunnel structures that thread their way throughout Yamato 000593
  • The observed micro-tunnels display curved, undulating shapes consistent with bio-alteration textures observed in terrestrial basaltic glasses
  • These type of structures have previously been reported by researchers who study interactions of bacteria with basaltic materials on Earth
  • Nanometer- to-Micrometer-Sized Spherules
  • The second set of features consists of nanometer- to-micrometer-sized spherules
  • Similar spherical features have been previously seen in the Martian meteorite Nakhla that fell in 1911 in Egypt.
  • Composition measurements of the Y000593 spherules show that they are significantly enriched in carbon compared to the nearby surrounding iddingsite layers.
  • What This Might Mean
  • These two sets of features in Y000593, recovered from Antarctica after about 50,000 years residence time, are similar to features found in Nakhla, an observed fall collected shortly after landing.
  • Scientists cannot exclude the possibility that the carbon-rich regions in both sets of features may be the product of abiotic mechanisms
  • Textural and compositional similarities to features in terrestrial samples, which have been interpreted as biogenic, imply the intriguing possibility that the Martian features were formed by biotic activity.
    +The features are evidence of aqueous alterations as seen in the clay minerals, and the presence of carbonaceous matter associated with the clay phases which show that Mars has been a very active body in its past
  • It also reveals the presence of an active water reservoir that may also have a significant carbon component.
  • The nature and distribution of Martian carbon is one of the major goals of the Mars Exploration Program
  • What Now?
  • The small sizes of the carbonaceous features within the Yamato 000593 meteorite present major challenges to any analyses attempted by remote techniques on Mars
  • While these new features are no \”smoking gun,\” they are nonetheless interesting and show that further studies of these meteorites should continue
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Evidence of water in meteorite revives debate over life on Mars | Phys.org

—  NEWS BYTE —

3D Printed Model Heart Helps Save a Life

  • While heart surgery on a 14 month old is not unheard of, recently a surgeon was able to map out his surgical approach using a nearly exact model of the patients heart printed on a 3D printer.
  • Laying Out A Surgery Plan
  • The 14 month old infant was born with four congenital heart defects, doctors had known since before he was born that his heart had problems
  • Fixing them all would prove to be a challenge., when it came time to plan the surgery surgeons found each of them had different ideas on the best way to fix the heart
  • The ideal approach would involve the least amount of cutting and suturing—but that can be hard to plan using only conventional scanning techniques
  • 3D Printed Model
  • Researchers worked with radiologists to provide heart to data that could be used with a 3D printer.
  • They used CT scanning data, which seemed to a perfect match as CT scanning uses the same basic idea as 3D printing
  • CT scanning takes pictures of slices and puts them together on a computer screen to form a whole, and 3D printing is achieved by laying down one layer or \”slice\” of material at a time.
  • They decided to print the heart (in three pieces) at twice its normal size
  • It was also used a flexible type of plastic known as \”Ninja Flex\” instead of the often used ABS (used in LEGO bricks)
  • This allowed the surgeon to bend the finished heart in ways that resembled a real human heart.
  • The Surgery
  • Printing the heart took approximately 20 hours at a cost of roughly $600, it allowed for a single surgery and greatly reduced cutting and suturing, which ultimately led to a much quicker recovery
  • The surgery happened on Feb 10, and by all accounts is now doing just fine
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube | Doctors prepare for heart surgery with 3D printing | News On Here
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Doctor uses printed 3D heart to assist in infant heart surgery | MedicalXPress.com

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

Controlling Cravings With Tetris

  • A recent study suggests that Tetris could actually help dieters reduce cravings
  • The Study
  • Researchers created two study groups: One that played Tetris for three minutes while the other group was told that the game was loading but they never received the chance to play
  • Participants were then asked to rate their cravings for cigarettes, food and alcohol based on the vividness, intrusiveness and strength of those cravings.
  • The Tetris group showed a 24 percent reduction in cravings following their activity with the game
  • The other group who did not get to play Tetris did not experience any craving reductions.
  • The Power of Tetris
  • \”Feeling in control is an important part of staying motivated, and playing Tetris can potentially help the individual to stay in control when cravings strike\” | Professors Jackie Andrade | University\’s Cognition Institute
  • Tetris is something a person can quickly access, and can replace the feeling of stress caused by the craving, and could be used while at work or home
  • Scientists are constantly looking for things to help fight against such cravings through healthy activities, like exercise
  • They label Tetris as a neutral activity that has a positive impact so it is a good alternative for now
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Could the Video-Game Tetris Curb Cravings for Food, Cigarettes and Alcohol? | ScienceWorldReport.com

—  VIEWER FEEDBACK —

Withdrawing 120 Nonsense Science Papers

  • Martin (lowfatty)
  • The publishers Springer and IEEE are removing more than 120 papers from their subscription services after a French researcher discovered that the works were computer-generated nonsense.
  • Publishers withdraw more than 120 gibberish papers : Nature News & Comment | Nature.com
  • Computer-Generated Papers
  • Over the past two years computer-generated papers have made it into more than 30 published conference proceedings between 2008 and 2013
  • Sixteen appeared in publications by Springer and more than 100 were published by the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE),
  • Among the works a paper published as a proceeding from the 2013 International Conference on Quality, Reliability, Risk, Maintenance, and Safety Engineering, held in Chengdu, China.
  • Most of the conferences took place in China, and most of the fake papers have authors with Chinese affiliations.
  • The authors of the paper, entitled ‘TIC: a methodology for the construction of e-commerce’, in the abstract that they “concentrate our efforts on disproving that spreadsheets can be made knowledge-based, empathic, and compact”.
  • One of the named authors replied that he does not know why he was a listed co-author on the paper and first learned of the article when conference organizers notified his university in December 2013
  • SCIgen
  • One way to automatically detect manuscripts composed by a piece of software called SCIgen, which randomly combines strings of words to produce fake computer-science papers
  • SCIgen was invented in 2005 by researchers to prove that conferences would accept meaningless papers — and, as they put it, “to maximize amusement”
  • A related program generates random physics manuscript titles on the satirical website arXiv vs. snarXiv.
  • SCIgen is free to download and use, and it is unclear how many people have done so, or for what purposes
  • SCIgen’s output has occasionally popped up at conferences, when researchers have submitted nonsense papers and then revealed the trick.
  • The papers are quite easy to spot,” says Labbé, who has built a website where users can test whether papers have been created using SCIgen.
  • Automatically identifying these papers involves searching for characteristic vocabulary generated by SCIgen
  • **History of Fake Papers
  • In April 2010, someone used SCIgen to generate 102 fake papers by a fictional author called Ike Antkare to show how easy it was to add these fake papers to the Google Scholar database
  • There is a long history of journalists and researchers getting spoof papers accepted in conferences or by journals to reveal weaknesses in academic quality controls

— SPACECRAFT UPDATE—

China\’s Yutu Lunar Rover

  • Last Time on SciByte …
  • sciByte 111 | Yutu Launch | Memories & International Spacecraft | December 3, 2013
  • SciByte 113 | Yutu Landing | Aquifers & Brain Plasticity | December 17, 2013
  • SciByte 115 | Yutu Wakes Up on Second Lunar Day | Sleep Apnea & Heart Defect Treatments | January 14, 2014
  • SciByte 120 | Canadian Fossils & Yutu Rover | February 18, 2014
  • Control Circuit Malfunction
  • “Yutu suffered a control circuit malfunction in its driving unit,” according to a newly published report on March 1 by the state owned Xinhua news agency.
  • A functioning control circuit is required to lower the rovers mast so the malfunction prevented Yutu from entering the second dormancy as planned
  • The panel driving unit also helps maneuver the panels into position to efficiently point to the sun to maximize the electrical output
  • They must be folded down into a warmed electronics box to shield them from the damaging effects of the Moon’s nightfall when temperatures plunge dramatically to below minus 180 Celsius, or minus 292 degrees Fahrenheit.
  • Lunar Day 3
  • The 140 kilogram rover was unable to move during Lunar Day 3 due to the mechanical glitches so only carried out fixed point observations during its third lunar day
  • It was able to complete some limited scientific observations. And fortunately the ground penetrating radar, panoramic and infrared imaging equipment all functioned normally.
  • Chinese space engineers engaged in troubleshooting to try and identify and rectify the technical problems in a race against time to find a solution before the start of Lunar Night 3.
  • Lunar Night 3 and the Future
  • The issue with the control circuit malfunction in its driving unit remains unresolved and a still threatens the outlook for Yutu’s future exploration.
  • Yutu and the companion Chang’e-3 lander have again gone into sleep mode during Lunar Night 3 on Feb. 22 and Feb 23 respectively, local Beijing time.
  • Yutu is now nearing its planned 3 month long life expectancy
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • China\’s Yutu Moon Rover Unable to Properly Maneuver Solar Panels | UniverseToday.com

Kepler Data Continues to Show New Exo-Planets

  • More Planets
  • The Kepler Space Telescope has been inactive since May of 2013, but the probe\’s data has led astronomers to discover 715 new planets
  • The 715 new planets are said to be distributed among 305 different star systems bringing the number of known planets beyond our solar system has increased to almost 1,700
  • The number of Earth-sized planets has increased by 400% and four of the newly discovered planets are about 2.5 times wider than Earth
  • Another four [Kepler 174d, Kepler 296f, Kepler 298d, and Kepler 309c] are also said to be located in a habitable zone where water may exist in liquid form
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • NASA Nearly Doubles Discovery of Known Planets Without Active Kepler Space Telescope | ScienceWorldReport.com

— CURIOSITY UPDATE —

  • NASA\’s Curiosity Mars rover has reached an area where orbital images had piqued researchers\’ interest in patches of ground with striations all oriented in a similar direction
  • The six wheeled rover paused during the planned Feb. 19 drive of 328 feet (100 meters) to capture the imagery, on Feb. 20 (Sol 549), she also completed her second 100 meter drive in reverse.
  • The foreground rocks are in an outcrop called \”Junda,\” which the rover passed during a drive of 328 feet (100 meters) on Feb. 19.
  • Engineers will now occasionally commanding Curiosity to drive backwards in a newly tested bid to minimize serious damage to the six 20 inch diameter wheels
  • Curiosity is well on the way to her next near term goal, which is a science waypoint, named Kimberly (formerly called KMS-9), which lies about half a mile ahead.
  • \”Kimberley,\” features ground with striations and is where researchers plan to suspend driving for a period of science investigations
  • Multimedia
  • Image Galleries at JPL and Curiosity Mulimedia
  • Social Media
  • Curiosity Rover @MarsCuriosity
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Curiosity Rover pauses mid-drive and captures Spectacular Martian Mountain Snapshot | UniverseToday.com
  • Mars Science Laboratory: NASA\’s Curiosity Mars Rover Views Striated Ground | mars.jpl.naga.gov

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

  • March 06, 1950 : 64 years ago : Silly Putty : Silly Putty was introduced as a toy by Peter Hodgson, a marketing consultant, who packaged one-ounce portions of the rubber-like material in plastic eggs. It could be stretched, rolled into a bouncing ball, or used to transfer colored ink from newsprint. The original discovery was made in 1943 by James Wright who combined silicone oil and boric acid at the laboratories of General Electric. He was researching methods of making synthetic rubber, but at the time no significant application existed for the material. However, it was passed around as a curiosity. Hodgson saw a sample and realized its potential simply for entertainment and coined its name for marketing it as a toy. Its popularity made him a millionaire

Looking up this week

  • Keep an eye out for …
  • Thurs, March 6 | ~hour after sunset | Aldebaran, an orange giant star, is to the upper left of the Moon and the Pleiades star cluster is to the Moon\’s upper right
  • Fri, Mar 7 | Tonight Aldebaran is below the Moon
  • Sat, Mar 8 | Dusk | The first-quarter Moon stands above Orion high in the south, with Jupiter to the upper left of the Moon
  • Planets
  • Venus | \”Morning Star\” | Before and during dawn Venus is in the SE
  • Mars | 10pm | Rises in the SE, with Spica 6* to its right. The two are their highest point around 3-4am with Spica now 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 before dawn
  • Saturn | 11pm-Midnight | Rises around 11 or and is highest in the south at the beginning of dawn. By then it\’s far to the left of Mars and Spica

DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME – Sunday, March 9

The post Martian Life & Tetris | SciByte 122 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

]]> HIV & SpaceX Troubles | SciByte 84 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/33016/hiv-spacex-troubles-scibyte-84/ Tue, 05 Mar 2013 22:17:22 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=33016 We look at a HIV-infected infant that is "Functionally Cured," a really old star, one big Antarctic meteorite, an update on a private Mars mission and more!

The post HIV & SpaceX Troubles | SciByte 84 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

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We take a look at a HIV-infected infant that is \”Functionally Cured,\” a really old star, one big Antarctic meteorite, renaming a NASA center, an update on a private Mars mission and the Dragon space station supply mission, Curiosity news, and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

Direct Download:

MP3 Audio | OGG Audio | Video | Torrent | YouTube

RSS Feeds:

MP3 Feed | OGG Feed | Video Feed | Torrent Feed | iTunes

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Show Notes:

\”Functional Cure\” in an HIV-Infected Infant

  • A team of researchers from Johns Hopkins Children\’s Center has described the first case of a so-called \”functional cure\” in an HIV-infected infant
  • The infant described in the report underwent remission of HIV infection after receiving antiretroviral therapy (ART) within 30 hours of birth
  • Natural Viral Suppression
  • Natural viral suppression without treatment is an exceedingly rare phenomenon observed in less than half a percent of HIV-infected adults
  • HIV experts have long sought a way to help all HIV patients achieve elite-controller status
  • \”Elite controllers,\” whose immune systems are able to rein in viral replication and keep the virus at clinically undetectable levels
  • Functionally Cured
  • \”Functionally cured,\” a condition that occurs when a patient achieves and maintains long-term viral remission without lifelong treatment and standard clinical tests fail to detect HIV replication in the blood
  • A functional cure occurs when viral presence is so minimal, it remains undetectable by standard clinical tests, yet discernible by ultrasensitive methods
  • Sterilizing Cure
  • A sterilizing cure-a complete eradication of all viral traces from the body
  • A single case of sterilizing cure has been reported so far in an HIV-positive man treated with a bone marrow transplant for leukemia.
  • The bone marrow cells came from a donor with a rare genetic mutation of the white blood cells that renders some people resistant to HIV
  • Such a complex treatment approach, however, HIV experts agree, is neither feasible nor practical for the 33 million people worldwide infected with HIV
  • Medical Details
  • The child described was born to an HIV-infected mother and received combination antiretroviral treatment beginning 30 hours after birth.
  • A series of tests showed progressively diminishing viral presence in the infant\’s blood, until it reached undetectable levels 29 days after birth
  • The infant remained on antivirals until 18 months of age, at which point the child was lost to follow-up for a while
  • Ten months after discontinuation of treatment, the child underwent repeated standard blood tests, none of which detected HIV presence in the blood
  • Test for HIV-specific antibodies-the standard clinical indicator of HIV infection-also remained negative
  • Antiviral Treatment
  • Investigators say the prompt administration of antiviral treatment likely led to this infant\’s cure by halting the formation of hard-to-treat viral reservoirs
  • Prompt antiviral therapy in newborns that begins within days of exposure may help infants clear the virus and achieve long-term remission without lifelong treatment by preventing such viral hideouts from forming in the first place
  • Dormant cells are responsible for re-igniting the infection in most HIV patients within weeks of stopping therapy
  • Researchers say they believe this is precisely what happened in the child described in the report
  • What This Means
  • Currently, high-risk newborns-those born to mothers with poorly controlled infections or whose mothers\’ HIV status is discovered around the time of delivery-receive a combination of antivirals at prophylactic doses to prevent infection for six weeks and start therapeutic doses if and once infection is diagnosed
  • This particular case may change the current practice because it highlights the curative potential of very early ART
  • Investigators caution they don\’t have enough data to recommend change right now to the current practice of treating high-risk infants
  • This infant\’s case provides the rationale to start proof-of-principle studies in all high-risk newborns
  • The next step is to find out if this is a highly unusual response to very early antiretroviral therapy or something we can actually replicate in other high-risk newborns
  • Researchers say preventing mother-to-child transmission remains the primary goal as they already have proven strategies that can prevent 98 percent of newborn infections by identifying and treating HIV-positive pregnant women
  • Multimedia
  • Image Scanning electromicrograph of an HIV-infected T cell. (Credit: NIAID) | ScienceDaily.com
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Researchers describe first \’functional HIV cure\’ in an infant | MedicalXpress
  • Synthesized compound flushes out latent HIV | MedicalXpress
  • Researchers Describe First \’Functional HIV Cure\’ in an Infant | ScienceDaily.com

— NEWS BYTE —

A Star That’s Almost as Old as the Universe

  • Results from a new study show that a metal-poor star located merely 190 light-years from the Sun is 14.46+-0.80 billion years old, which implies that the star is nearly as old as the Universe
  • Such metal-poor stars are important to astronomers because they set an independent lower limit for the age of the Universe and can be used to corroborate age estimates inferred by other means
  • Amount of Metal vs Age of Star
  • Metal-poor stars can be used to constrain the age of the Universe because metal-content is typically a proxy for age
  • Heavier metals are generally formed in supernova explosions, which pollute the surrounding interstellar medium.
  • Stars subsequently born from that medium are more enriched with metals than their predecessors with each successive generation becoming increasingly enriched
  • The reliability of the age determined is likewise contingent on accurately determining the sample’s metal content, and is likewise contingent on the availability of a reliable distance
  • Analyses of globular clusters and the Hubble constant yielded vastly different ages, by billions of years, for the Universe, the discrepant ages stemmed partly from uncertainties in the cosmic distance scale
  • HD 140283
  • HD 140283 exhibits less than 1% the iron content of the Sun, which provides an indication of its sizable age.
  • Based on the microwave background and the Hubble constant, it must have formed soon after the big bang
  • This star had been used previously to constrain the age of the Universe, but uncertainties tied to its estimated distance (at that time) made the age determination somewhat imprecise
  • Scientists were recently also to obtain a new and improved distance for HD 140283 using the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), namely via the trigonometric parallax approach
  • From that data the distance uncertainty for HD 140283 was significantly reduced by comparison to existing estimates, thus resulting in a more precise age estimate for the star
  • The age of HD 140283 does not conflict with the age of the Universe, 13.77 ± 0.06 billion years, within the errors
  • This study reaffirms that there are old stars roaming the solar neighborhood which can be used to constrain the age of the Universe
  • Multimedia
  • Image A new age estimate for the star HD 140283 implies that it was among the first few generations of stars created in the Universe | NASA, ESA, A. Felid (STScI) | UniverseToday.com
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Nearby Ancient Star is Almost as Old as the Universe | UniverseToday.com

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

Antarctic Meteorite Season Findings

Voting to rename NASA Dryden after Neil Armstrong

— SPACECRAFT UPDATE—

SpaceX – Dragon Space Station Resupply Mission Glitch

  • The Glitch
  • The problem cropped up immediately following Dragon\’s separation from the rocket upper stage, nine minutes into the flight.
  • Three of the four sets of thrusters on the company\’s unmanned Dragon capsule did not immediately kick in, delaying the release of the solar panels.
  • The problem may have been caused by a stuck valve or a line blockage
  • Dragon\’s twin solar wings swung open two hours later than planned, an hour later, the Dragon was raised with the thrusters to a safe altitude.
  • Working Towards the Solution
  • SpaceX worked to bring up the idled thrusters and keep the capsule on track
  • The Dragon is equipped with 18 thrusters, divided into four sets, and can maneuver adequately even with some unavailable.
  • The capsule is designed to return to Earth with just two good sets of thrusters and, in \”a super worst case situation,\” conceivably just one although it would be \”a bit of a wobbly trip.\”
  • If SpaceX and NASA had determined that more time was needed to gain confidence that Dragon could safely carry out an attempt the Dragon could have stayed in orbit for several additional months if needed
  • By late Saturday afternoon sufficient recovery work had been accomplished to warrant NASA, ISS and SpaceX managers to give the go-ahead for the Dragon to rendezvous with the station early Sunday morning, March 3.
  • Capture
  • The capsule was captured 5:31 am EST (1031 GMT) on Sunday, March 3
  • More than 1 ton of space station supplies aboard this Dragon, which included some much-needed equipment for air purifiers
  • It is scheduled to spend more than three weeks at the space station before being cut loose by the crew
  • Despite the one-day docking delay, the Dragon unberthing and parachute assisted return to Earth will still be the same day as originally planned on March 25.
  • History
  • This has been the first serious trouble to strike a Dragon in orbit, none of the four previous unmanned flights had any thruster issues
  • On the previous flight in October, one of nine first-stage engines on the Falcon rocket shut down too soon, on this flight it performed \”really perfectly\” and that the thruster problem was isolated to the Dragon
  • Future Re-Supply Missions
  • SpaceX plans to launch its next Dragon to the station in late fall.
  • SpaceX says it has 50 launches planned-both NASA missions and commercial flights-totaling about $4 billion in contracts
  • NASA also has a $1.9 billion resupply contract for the station with Orbital Sciences Corporation, which will launch the first test flight of its Antares rocket from a base in Virginia in the coming weeks
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube SpaceX Dragon Carrying NASA Cargo Arrives at International Space Station | NASATelevision
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • SpaceX\’s capsule arrives at ISS | phys.org
  • SpaceX\’s capsule nears ISS for rendezvous on Sunday (Update) | Phys.org
  • SpaceX Dragon Recovers from Frightening Propulsion System Failure – Sunday Docking Set | UniverseToday.com
  • SpaceX rocket launched, but problem with thrusters (Update 3)
  • SpaceX working to fix Dragon capsule\’s thrusters (Update 2) | phys.org
  • SpaceX company fixes Dragon capsule problem | phys.org
  • Dragon Spacecraft Glitch Was \’Frightening,\’ SpaceX Chief Elon Musk Says | Space.com

— UPDATES—

Russian Meteorite Chunk Found

Dennis Tito\’s Honeymoon Suite to Mars

— CURIOSITY UPDATE —

  • The \’Glitch\’
  • The spacecraft remained in communications at all scheduled communication windows on Wednesday, but it did not send recorded data, only current status information.
  • Status information revealed that the computer had not switched to the usual daily \”sleep\” mode when planned
  • On Thurs, Feb 28, the ground team for NASA\’s Mars rover Curiosity switched the rover to a redundant onboard computer in response to a memory issue on the computer that had been active
  • Flash Memory
  • The condition is related to a glitch in flash memory linked to the other, now-inactive, computer.
  • Diagnostic work in a testing simulation at JPL indicates the situation involved corrupted memory at an A-side memory location used for addressing memory files
  • It appears to have caused the computer to get stuck in an endless loop.
  • Protections and History
  • Curiosity has protections against such high-energy disruptions, but the problem was compounded by what appears to have been the location of the strike-in the directory, or \”table of contents,\” of the computer\’s memory
  • Similar problems were caused by high-energy solar and cosmic ray strikes on other space missions
  • Previous rovers experienced many so-called \”anomalies\” during the early part of their treks
  • Like many spacecraft Curiosity carries a pair of redundant main computers in order to have a backup available if one fails
  • Each of the computers, A-side and B-side, also has other redundant subsystems linked to just that computer
  • Operations
  • Curiosity is now operating on its B-side, as it did during part of the flight from Earth to Mars. It operated on its A-side from before the August 2012 landing through Wednesday.
  • Although scientific investigations by the rover were suspended the team hopes that Curiosity would resume science work in about a week.
  • While resuming operations on the B-side, they are also working to determine the best way to restore the A-side as a viable backup
  • What Happens Next
  • Even if the rover is fully operational again in a week, the amount of science it can perform is limited.
  • The sun comes between Mars and the Earth in early April, partially blocking the path for radio commands for an entire month
  • The Curiosity team had planned to send back science data from Mars during that period-called \”solar conjunction,\” but had decided not to send up any commands.
  • Multimedia
  • Image Galleries at JPL and Curiosity Mulimedia
  • Image This artist concept features NASA\’s Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover | mars.jpl.NASA.gov
  • Social Media
  • Curiosity Rover @MarsCuriosity
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Curiosity Rover Has Computer Problems | UniverseToday.com
  • Mars Rover Curiosity Has First Big Malfunction news.NationalGeographic.com
  • Mars Science Laboratory: Computer Swap on Curiosity Rover | mars.jpl.NASA.gov
  • Computer Swap on Curiosity Rover – NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory | jpl.nasa.gov

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

  • March 10, 1797: 216 years ago : Thomas Jefferson on paleontology : Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) presented a paper on the megalonyx to the American Philosophical Society. It was published as \”A Memoir on the Discovery of Certain Bones of a Quadruped of the Clawed Kind in the Western Parts of Virginia,\” Transactions of American Philosophical Society 4:255-256, along with an account by Caspar Wistar (1761-1818). This is arguably the first American publication in paleontology, but the only paleontology paper written by Jefferson. In 1822, this huge extinct sloth was named Megalonyx jeffersoni by a French naturalist. (Megalonyx Gr. large claw). It was a bear-sized ground sloth, over 2 meters tall, widespread in North America during the last Ice Age

Looking up this week

  • Keep an eye out for …

  • Mercury, Venus, Mars | Now hidden in the Sun\’s glare

  • Jupiter | High in the S-SW after sunset, moving to the W/SW later in the evening

  • Saturn | ~10-11 pm | Rises in the E-SE moving to high in the Southern skies by dawn

  • Where to Find Comet PanSTARRS

  • 10* is about the width of your fist held at arm\’s length.
  • This diagram is drawn for a viewer near 40* north latitude (Denver, New York, Madrid) 30 minutes after sunset.
  • If you\’re south of there, the comet will be a little higher above your horizon early in the month than shown here.
  • North of 40°, it will be a little lower early in March than shown here.
  • SkyandTelescope.com/panstarrs

Daylight Savings Time

The post HIV & SpaceX Troubles | SciByte 84 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

]]> Resolutions & Martian Meteorite | SciByte 76 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/29861/resolutions-martian-meteorite-scibyte-76/ Tue, 08 Jan 2013 22:25:41 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=29861 We take a look at my version of the best and the worst science stories 2012, the science behind a few new years resolutions, IQ scores debunked, and more!

The post Resolutions & Martian Meteorite | SciByte 76 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

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We take a look at my version of the best and the worst science stories 2012, the science behind a few new years resolutions, IQ scores, a Martian Meteorite, Curiosity news, and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

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“Best” and “Worst” of 2012

  • Retraction | Faster-Than-Light Neutrinos
  • Back in October 2011, CERN researchers timed the roughly 16,000 neutrinos and said that, on average, the neutrinos made the 450 mi [730 km], 2.43-millisecond trip roughly 60 nanoseconds faster than expected if they were traveling at light speed. (~ 0.0025% faster)
  • By February 2012 there were questions about wiring, GPS satellite timing, or missing suspected radiation should they have been FTL
  • The OPERA team later discovered that a loose fiber optic cable had introduced a delay in their timing system that explained the effect
  • A month later they measured the speed of neutrinos fired from CERN and found that they do indeed travel at light speed, as predicted
  • Some OPERA team members thought the whole episode had besmirched the collaboration’s reputation, and in March 2012, two of the team’s elected leaders lost a vote of no confidence and tendered their resignations.
  • Retraction | Hyung-In Moon
  • The Korean scientist Hyung-In Moon took the concept of scientific peer review to a whole new level by reviewing his own papers under various fake names
  • Peer review is a process in which scientific peers in the same field judge the merit of a submitted journal paper
  • The editors at a Medical Journal grew suspicious when four of his glowing reviews came back within 24 hours, when most reviewers take weeks or months to reply
  • Moon’s research, included a study on alcoholic liver disease and another on an anticancer plant substance
  • He admitted to falsifying data in some of his papers, and 35 of his papers were retracted in 2012
  • Retraction | Cell-phone Cancer links
  • Studies proposing a link between cellphone use and cancer often rely on weak statistics.
  • In 2008, scientists published a paper stating that cellphones in standby mode lowered the sperm count and caused other adverse changes in the testicles of rabbits
  • Although small and published in a rather obscure journal, the study made the news rounds.
  • In March 2012, the authors retracted the paper because the lead author didn’t get permission from his two co-authors
  • According to the retraction notice, there was a “lack of evidence to justify the accuracy of the data presented in the article.”
  • Retraction | Failure is Better?
  • Dutch social psychologist Diederik Stapel claimed that “failure sometimes feels better than success”
  • It now appears that his research is either mostly or completely fabricated
  • So far, 31 papers have been retracted
  • Another one of his studies that is now under suspicion found that meat eaters are more selfish and less social than vegetarians
  • My # 4 Story | Extremes
  • James Cameron is the first to go alone to Challenger Deep to almost 36,000 feet below sea level, during the Deep Sea Challenge.
  • The Mariana Trench,in the western Pacific Ocean, is deeper than Mount Everest is tall and only two other humans have ever visited it.
  • YouTube | Tiny sub used in James Cameron’s deep sea dive | CNN
  • Apollo 11 & James Cameron | SciByte 40 (April 3, 2012)
  • Felix Baumgartner jumped from a world record 128,100 ft [39,045 m] or just over 24 mi [39 km] and landed in eastern New Mexico on 14 October 2012
  • Baumgartner broke the speed of sound and the record for highest jump that had been set in 1960 by Col. Joe Kittinger
  • YouTube Felix Baumgartner’s supersonic freefall from 128k’ – Mission Highlights | redbull
  • Red Bull Stratos & SpaceX | SciByte 66 (October 9, 2012)
  • My # 3 Story | Dragon Spaceship
  • On 22 May 2012 SpaceX successfully launched the Dragon C2+ with almost 900 pounds of cargo to the international space station in its first official mission in October
  • The pressurized section carried 1,014 pounds [460 kg] of non-critical cargo to the ISS, which included food, water, clothing, cargo bags, computer hardware, the NanoRacks Module 9 (student experiments and scientific gear) and other miscellaneous cargo
  • The vehicle returned with 1,367 pounds [620 kg]
  • On 23 August 2012, NASA announced that SpaceX and their Falcon 9-Dragon system was certified to begin their cargo delivery
  • Their $1.6 billion contract calls for at least 12 resupply missions. The first of those flights was launched on October 7, 2012
  • Mission Highlights: SpaceX’s Dragon Makes History | spacexchannel
  • My # 2 Story | Curiosity Touchdown Confirmed
  • The first-of-it’s-kind landing process included a supersonic parachute and a sky crane that brought the rover to less than 1.5 mi [2.4 km] away from the center of the target landing area
  • Spirit and Opportunity, have found compelling evidence that liquid water once persisted on the surface of Mars
  • With Curiosity scientists hope to determine if other things necessary for life were also present, these building blocks include six elements necessary to all life on Earth: carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur.
  • It is also examining the history of the Martian atmosphere, an earlier thicker, wetter atmosphere may have provided better environmental conditions for supporting microbial life in Mars’ early history.
  • Mars Science Laboratory will study the rock and soil record in order to understand the geologic processes that created and modified the martian crust and surface through time. In particular, it would look for evidence of rocks that formed in the presence of water.
  • Curiosity has already found an ancient streambed where water flowed continuously for thousands of years long ago. It has also identified some simple organics on Mars, though researchers aren’t yet sure if the carbon within the molecules is native to the Red Planet.
  • YouTube | Curiosity Has Landed | JPLnews
  • My # 1 Story| Higgs-Boson
  • Scientists at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, said they used the Large Hadron Collider to detect a particle whose characteristics matched those of the Higgs boson.
  • The Higgs-Boson particle is part of the Higgs field, that is responsible for the mass of all the matter in the universe
  • While we know it is a Boson particle we are still waiting for more details on the characteristics of the particle to confirm it’s the Higgs-BOson
  • More results are expected in March 2013
  • YouTube : The Moment: CERN Scientist Announces Higgs Boson ‘God Particle’ Discovery | linktv
  • YouTube : Peter Higgs rection to the anoucement
  • YouTube : “Peter Higgs’ reaction on the day itself” / Peter Higgs, François Englert | Paul0de0Haas
  • YouTube : Higgs Boson Discovery announcement by Peter Higgs | MuonRay
  • YouTube : The Higgs Boson, Part I | minutephysics
  • YouTube : Higgs Boson ‘God Particle’ – What is it? BBC World News | mangstarrr
  • Social Media
  • DeepSea Challenge @DeepChallenge
  • Red Bull Stratos @RedBullStratos
  • Dragon Spaceship @DragonSpaceship
  • Curiosity Rover @MarsCuriosity
  • CERN @CERN
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • COTS–2 Press Kit
  • Mars Rover Landing Guru Makes ‘Best of 2012’ List | Space.com

— NEWS BYTE —

New Years Resolutions | Dieting

  • The low down
  • Although cholesterol, blood pressure, triglycerides and blood sugar all improve with weight loss, with weight regain they all return to pre-diet levels and, in some cases, to even higher levels
  • Maintaining weight loss is just as important as losing weight
  • Even partial weight regain is associated with worsened diabetes and cardiovascular risk factors
  • Significance
  • More than 100 postmenopausal women took part in a five-month weight-loss program study and were continued to br monitor the women for a year
  • During the weight-loss program the women lost an average of 25 pounds
  • After a year, two-thirds of the women had regained at least four pounds, on average regaining about 70 percent of the weight they had lost
  • Women who regained 4.4 pounds or more in the year following the weight-loss intervention had several worsened cardiovascular and diabetes risk factors
  • Women who maintained their weight loss a year later managed to preserve most of the benefits
  • Of Note
  • This study highlights the importance of not just losing weight, but the need to develop effective and enduring strategies so that this weight loss can be successfully maintained long term
  • People should be focusing on being healthy, not skinny,
  • It is important to create strategies for reaching and maintaining a healthy weight throughout their lifetime
  • Start with simple changes such as swapping seltzer or soda, keeping a daily food record, adding a salad to lunch and substituting a second vegetable for half the starch at dinner
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Yo-yo dieting can hurt the heart, study finds | MedicalXPress.com

New Years Resolutions | Exercise

  • The low down
  • Olympic medallists live longer than the general population, regardless of country of origin, medal won, or type of sport played
  • However, those who engage in disciplines with high levels of physical contact, such as boxing, rugby and ice hockey, are at an increased risk of death in later life
  • Life Expectancy
  • Researchers compared life expectancy among 15,174 Olympic athletes who won medals between 1896 and 2010 with general population groups matched by country, sex, and age
  • All medallists lived an average of 2.8 years longer in eight out of the nine country groups studied.
  • Gold, silver and bronze medallists enjoyed roughly the same survival advantage, as did medallists in both endurance and mixed sports
  • Medallists in powersports had a smaller, but still significant, advantage over the general population.
  • While the study was not designed to determine why Olympic athletes live longer, possible explanations include genetic factors, physical activity, healthy lifestyle, and the wealth and status that come from international sporting glory
  • Intensity of Exercise
  • In a second study, researchers measured the effect of high intensity exercise on mortality later in life among former Olympic athletes
  • They tracked 9,889 athletes who took part in at least one Olympic Games between 1896 and 1936 and represented 43 disciplines requiring different levels of exercise intensity and physical contact
  • Two public health experts point out that people who do at least 150 minutes a week [~20min a day] of moderate to vigorous intensity physical activity also have a survival advantage compared with the inactive general population
  • They also found that athletes from sports with high cardiovascular intensity (such as cycling and rowing) or moderate cardiovascular intensity (such as gymnastics and tennis) had similar mortality rates compared with athletes from low cardiovascular intensity sports, such as golf or cricket
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Olympians live longer than general population… But cyclists no survival advantage over golfers | MedicalXPress

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

IQ Score is Not All It’s Cracked Up to Be

  • The low down
  • After conducting the largest online intelligence study on record a research team has concluded that the notion of measuring one’s intelligence quotient or IQ by a singular, standardized test is highly misleading
  • Significance
  • The study, which included more than 100,000 participants Utilized an online study open to anyone, anywhere in the world
  • The researchers asked respondents to complete 12 cognitive tests tapping memory, reasoning, attention and planning abilities, as well as a survey about their background and lifestyle habits.
  • While the team expected a few hundred responses, thousands and thousands of people took part, including people of all ages, cultures and creeds from every corner of the world
  • The results showed that when a wide range of cognitive abilities are explored, the observed variations in performance can only be explained with at least three distinct components: short-term memory, reasoning and a verbal component
  • Of Note
  • Scientists used a brain scanning technique known as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), to show that these differences in cognitive ability map onto distinct circuits in the brain.
  • Intriguingly, people who regularly played computer games did perform significantly better in terms of both reasoning and short-term memory
  • Smokers performed poorly on the short-term memory and the verbal factors
  • People who frequently suffer from anxiety performed badly on the short-term memory factor in particular
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Researchers debunk the IQ myth | MedicalXPress.com

— Updates —

Martian Meteorite

  • The low down
  • A rare Martian meteorite recently found in Morocco contains minerals with 10 times more water than previously discovered Mars meteorites
  • The black, baseball-sized stone, which weighs less than 1 pound, is 2.1 billion years old, meaning it formed during what is known as the early Amazonian era in Mars’ geologic history.
  • Officially known as Northwest Africa (NWA) 7034, is the second-oldest of 110 named stones originating from Mars that have been retrieved on Earth
  • This discovery raises new questions about when and how long the planet most like Earth in the solar system had conditions suitable for life
  • Significance
  • Early Mars was believed to be warm and wet, but the planet lost most of its atmosphere and its surface water to become a cold, dry desert that appears today
  • The time from when our meteorite is from is maybe a transitional period in the climate, when Mars was losing its atmosphere, losing its water on the surface
  • The rock is relatively rich in water – about 6,000 parts per million – compared with typical Martian meteorites that contain about 200- to 300 parts per million
  • That’s 10 times more water than other Martian Meteorites
  • It is similar to basaltic rocks on Earth that form in volcanic eruptions
  • NWA 7034, nicknamed “Black Beauty,” also contains tiny bits of carbon, formed from geologic, not biological activity
  • Scientists don’t know why more meteorites like Black Beauty haven’t been found on Earth. + The period of time from which they originated may be relatively short, or most may not survive the trip through Earth’s atmosphere
  • Of Note
  • Because it was so different from other Martian meteorites it took several months to identify, otherwise it would have taken less than a day
  • After the initial battery of tests revealed the rock’s unique nature, meteorite hunters returned to the area where it was found to search for other similar stones
  • Four more pieces, all smaller than the original, have now been found
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Rare Water-Rich Mars Meteorite Discovered : Discovery News | news.discovery.com

– CURIOSITY UPDATE –

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

  • Jan 9, 1998 : 14 years ago : Cosmological Constant : Two teams of international collaborations of scientists announced the discovery that galaxies are accelerating, flying apart at ever faster speeds, by observing distant, ancient exploding stars. This observation – named as Science magazine’s “Breakthrough of the Year for 1998” – implies the existence of a mysterious, self-repelling property of space first proposed by Albert Einstein, which he called the cosmological constant. Researchers in England, France, Germany, and Sweden are among the members of the Supernova Cosmology Project based at Berkeley National Laboratory (headed by Saul Perlmutter) and the High-z Supernova Search Team based in Australia (led by Brian Schmidt).

Looking up this week

The post Resolutions & Martian Meteorite | SciByte 76 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

]]> Mining Asteroids & Shuttle Discovery | SciByte 44 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/19186/mining-asteroids-shuttle-discovery-scibyte-44/ Tue, 01 May 2012 22:59:56 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=19186 We take a look at mining asteroids, recovery from strokes, lefties, talking to yourself, solar cells, a review of some recent major media stories, and much more.

The post Mining Asteroids & Shuttle Discovery | SciByte 44 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

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

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Show Notes:

New Mining Resources



Credit: PlanetaryResources

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

— NEWS BYTE —

Recovery from Strokes

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

The competitive nature of lefties

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

Talking to yourself isn’t crazy

Liquid Solar cells

— THE NEWS IS CATCHING UP—

Nine Planet System

Planet in habitable zone

— VIEWER FEEDBACK —



Credit: [Arizona State University]

Spirals on Mars

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

SPACECRAFT UPDATE

The Shuttle Shuffle Continues



YouTube channel : daujla2

SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket

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

You may have seen

California Meteorite



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

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

SCIENCE CALENDER

Looking back

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

Looking up this week

  • Solar Activity

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

  • Keep an eye out for …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Saturn and Spica will sitting above the Moon

  • Further Reading and Resources

  • More on what’s in the sky this week

  • Sky&Telescope

  • SpaceWeather.com

  • StarDate.org

  • For the Southern hemisphere: SpaceInfo.com.au

  • Constellations of the Southern Hemisphere : astronomyonline.org

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

  • AstronomyNow

  • HeavensAbove

The post Mining Asteroids & Shuttle Discovery | SciByte 44 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

]]> Meteorites & Lasers | SciByte 38 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/18136/meteorites-lasers-scibyte-38/ Tue, 20 Mar 2012 21:43:26 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=18136 We take a look at more Lego’s into space and near space, Venus transit, a meteorite that crashed through a cabin, guiding lightning with lasers, and more!

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

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We take a look at more Lego’s into space and near space, Venus transit, a meteorite that crashed through a cabin, guiding lightning with lasers, updates on Encyclopedia Britannica, near-orbital skydiving, check in on the latest news on Neutrinos and solar storms and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

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Support the Show:

   

Show Notes:

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

*— Updates — *

Neutrinos loop back around again

The Sun will not sit quietly

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

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

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