Planetary Resources – Jupiter Broadcasting https://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com Open Source Entertainment, on Demand. Mon, 22 Feb 2016 02:47:34 +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 Planetary Resources – Jupiter Broadcasting https://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com 32 32 Strange Exoplanet & Cancer Therapy | SciByte 98 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/39077/strange-exoplanet-cancer-therapy-scibyte-98/ Tue, 18 Jun 2013 20:44:46 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=39077 We take a look at a rule breaking exoplanet, non-toxic cancer therapy supplement, hidden antarctic mountains, a new astronaut class, and more!

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We take a look at a rule breaking exoplanet, non-toxic cancer therapy supplement, hidden antarctic mountains, a new astronaut class, story updates, Curiosity news, and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

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Book Pick:

Mysterious ExoPlanet

  • The gap in the cloud seen in the dust surrounding one star, probably arose when a planet under construction swept through the dust and debris in its orbit
  • This small planet (6 to 28 times Earth’s mass) if we can confirm it, shouldn’t be there according to conventional planet-forming theory
  • Current Formation Theories
  • Seeing such a gap follows what we think we know about planetary formation
  • You start with a cloud of debris and gas swirling around a star, then gradually the bits and pieces start colliding, sticking together and growing bigger into small rocks, bigger ones and eventually, planets or gas giant planet cores
  • If there is a planet and there is no dust larger than a grain of sand farther out, that would be a huge challenge to traditional planet formation models
  • How we Think it Should Have Formed vs. How it Appears
  • This planet is far from its star, TW Hydrae, about twice Pluto’s distance from the sun
  • TW Hydrae is a red dwarf star, which lies about 176 light-years from Earth in the constellation Hydra
  • Given that alien systems’ age, that world shouldn’t have formed so quickly.
  • Astronomers believe that Jupiter took about 10 million years to form at its distance away from the sun
  • This planet near TW Hydrae should take 200 times longer to form because the alien world is moving slower, and has less debris to pick up
  • TW Hydrae is only 55 percent as massive as our sun and is believed to be only 8 million years old.
  • What This Might Mean
  • Astronomers are seriously investigating other theories about how this potential planet can to be formed
  • If we can actually confirm that there’s a planet there, we can connect its characteristics to measurements of the gap properties
  • These observations will add to planet formation theories as to how you can actually form a planet very far out
  • One alternative brought up in the press release: perhaps part of the disc collapsed due to gravitational instability
  • If that is the case, a planet could come to be in only a few thousand years, instead of several million
  • Direct collapse” theory, though: astronomers believe it takes a bunch of matter that is one to two times more massive than Jupiter before a collapse can occur to form a planet
  • This world is no more than 28 times the mass of Earth, as best as we can figure and Jupiter itself is 318 times more massive than Earth
  • There are also intriguing results about the gap, the dust grains in this system, orbiting nearby the gap, are still smaller than the size of a grain of sand
  • Astronomers plan to use ALMA and the James Webb Space Telescope, which should launch in 2018, to get a better look
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Should This Alien World Even Exist? This Young Disk Could Challenge Planet-Formation Theories | UniverseToday.com

— NEWS BYTE —

Non-Toxic Cancer Therapy Supplement

  • A research team from the Hyperbaric Biomedical Research Laboratory at the University of South Florida has found that a combination of nontoxic dietary and hyperbaric oxygen therapies effectively increased survival time in a mouse model of aggressive metastatic cancer
  • The research shows the effects of combining two nontoxic adjuvant cancer therapies, the ketogenic diet and hyperbaric oxygen therapy, in a mouse model of late-stage, metastatic cancer
  • This study demonstrates potential cost-effective, nontoxic therapies to contribute to current cancer treatment regimens
  • The Study
  • Metastasis, the spreading of cancer from the primary tumor to distant spots, is responsible for over 90 percent of cancer-related deaths in humans
  • In the study, mice with advanced metastatic cancer were fed either a standard high carbohydrate diet or carbohydrate-restricted ketogenic diet
  • Mice on both diets also received hyperbaric oxygen therapy, which uses a special chamber to increase the amount of oxygen in the tissues
  • Ketogenic Diet
  • The ketogenic diet forces a physiological shift in substrate utilization from glucose to fatty acids and ketone bodies for energy
  • Normal healthy cells readily adapt to using ketone bodies for fuel, but cancer cells lack this metabolic flexibility, and thus become selectively vulnerable to reduced glucose availability
  • Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy
  • Solid tumors also have areas of low oxygen, which promotes tumor growth and metastatic spread
  • Hyperbaric oxygen therapy involves breathing 100 percent oxygen at elevated barometric pressure, saturating the tumors with oxygen
  • The Combination
  • When administered properly, both the ketogenic diet and hyperbaric oxygen therapy are non-toxic and may even protect healthy tissues while simultaneously damaging cancer cells
  • Both therapies slowed disease progression independently, animals receiving the combined ketogenic diet and hyperbaric oxygen therapy lived 78 percent longer than mice fed a standard high-carbohydrate diet
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube | Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy Talk| UCLA Health
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Nontoxic cancer therapy proves effective against metastatic cancer | MedicalXPress

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

Buried Antarctic Mountain

  • The British Antarctic Survey, Bedmap2 has used millions of new measurements of the frozen continent\’s surface elevation, ice thickness, and bedrock topography from a wide variety of sources collected over several decades
  • The original Bedmap relied mostly on ground-based measurements, which limited the scientists in terms of how much land they could cover
  • A NASA program called Operation IceBridge sends out airplanes that fly over the entire continent.
  • The airplanes part of Operation IceBridge are equipped with lasers that measure the surface mountains\’ heights and other features, as well as ice-penetrating radar that maps subglacial bedrock-\”giving [scientists] a more 3-D picture of the ice sheet itself
  • The new data has revealed several smaller features-both on Antarctica\’s surface and buried under the ice-that were missed in the previous Bedmap effort
  • Scientists want to know the shapes of mountains and rocks to model how fast ice will move across these features on its way to the ocean, where the ice can melt and contribute to sea level rise
  • Multimedia
  • IMAGE | Interactive Slider of Two Views
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Antarctic\’s Mountains Revealed By Sharpest Map Yet | NationalGeographic.com

New NASA Astronaut Class of 2013

  • The 2013 astronaut candidate class comes from the second largest number of applications NASA ever has received — more than 6,100
  • This group might be among the first to ride commercial spacecraft to the Space Station, or NASA says perhaps even missions to an asteroid or Mars
  • The new astronaut candidates will begin training at NASA\’s Johnson Space Center in Houston in August
  • The Astronauts
  • Josh A. Cassada, Ph. D | A former naval aviator is a physicist by training and currently is serving as co-founder and Chief Technology Officer for Quantum Opus
  • Victor J. Glover, Lt. Commander, U.S. Navy | An F/A-18 pilot and graduate of the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School currently serving as a Navy Legislative Fellow in the U.S. Congress
  • Tyler N. Hague, Lt. Colonel, U.S. Air Force | Currently is supporting the Department of Defense as Deputy Chief of the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization
  • Christina M. Hammock | Currently is serving as National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Station Chief in American Samoa
  • Nicole Aunapu Mannl, Major, U.S. Marine Corps | Is an F/A 18 pilot, currently serving as an Integrated Product Team Lead at the U.S. Naval Air Station, Patuxent River
  • Anne C. McClain; Major, U.S. Army | Is an OH-58 helicopter pilot, and a recent graduate of U.S. Naval Test Pilot School at Naval Air Station, Patuxent River
  • Jessica U. Meir, Ph.D. | Currently is an Assistant Professor of Anesthesia at Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston
  • Andrew R. Morgan, M.D, Major, U.S. Army | Has experience as an emergency physician and flight surgeon for the Army special operations community, and currently is completing a sports medicine fellowship
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube NASA Unveils 2013 Astronaut Class | VideoFromSpace
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • NASA Selects 2013 Astronaut Candidate Class | NASA.gov

— Updates —

ARKYD Telescope Upgrade Available

LEGO Curiosity Rover

— CURIOSITY UPDATE —

  • Answering Camera Questions
  • The team has received a lot of questions about the cameras on the rovers and are now trying to answer some of them
  • The Curiosity rover actually has 17 cameras on it, which is the most of any NASA planetary mission ever.
  • Many of the black and white images that come back from the rover are black and white, or gray scale, because that\’s all the rover really needs in order to detect rocks and other obstacles
  • Other cameras are color, such as the Mastcam imager, because the scientists use the color information to learn about the soil and the rocks
  • There are 1-megapixel black and white imagers for the engineering cameras and 2-megapixel color imagers for the science cameras
  • Camera Rundown
  • MARDI, or the Mars Descent Imager, took pictures as the rover was landing on Mars
  • MAHLI is the camera mounted on the end of the arm, and that takes close-up, high-resolution color photos
  • Hazard avoidance cameras, or the HazCams, there are four of these in the front and four in the back, and they\’re used to take pictures of the terrain near the wheels and nearby the rover
  • Mast Cameras, which are color imagers, which are used to do geology investigations
  • Navigation Cameras, which take pictures that are used to drive the rover
  • A remote microscopic imager, is part of the ChemCam laser instrument and is used to document the laser spots, that the rover makes on the surface
  • Video
  • In addition to the video taken when the rover was descending to the surface, the team has taken movies of the soil being shaken in the scoop
  • Since video files are pretty large and because they have a limited downlink each day, the scientists prefer to take still images of new targets
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube | Curiosity Rover Report (June 13, 2013): Curiosity\’s Cameras | JPLnews
  • Image Galleries at JPL and Curiosity Mulimedia
  • Social Media
  • Curiosity Rover @MarsCuriosity
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Video Transcript: Curiosity\’s Cameras | jpl.nasa.gov

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

  • June (18?), 240 BC : 2253 years ago : Eratosthenes : A Greek astronomer and mathematician, estimated the circumference of the earth. As the director of the great library of Alexandria, he read in a papyrus book that in Syene, approaching noon on the summer solstice, the longest day of the year, shadows of temple columns grew shorter. At noon, they were gone. The sun was directly overhead. However, a stick in Alexandria, far to the north, could cast a pronounced shadow. Thus, he realized that the surface of the Earth could not be flat. It must be curved. Not only that, but the greater the curvature, the greater the difference in the shadow lengths. By measurement on the ground and application of geometry, he calculated the circumference of the earth.

Looking up this week

The post Strange Exoplanet & Cancer Therapy | SciByte 98 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

]]> Mammoth Blood & Crowdsourced Telescope | SciByte 96 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/38226/mammoth-blood-crowdsourced-telescope-scibyte-96/ Mon, 03 Jun 2013 20:42:42 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=38226 We take a look at Woolly Mammoth blood, University Rover Challenge, conductive paint, crowdsourcing a telescope, frozen moss, and much more!

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We take a look at Woolly Mammoth blood, University Rover Challenge, conductive paint, crowdsourcing a telescope, frozen moss, viewer feedback, spacecraft updates, 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:

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Book Pick:

Woolly Mammoth Blood!?!?!?

  • The Wooly Mammoth
  • An expedition led by Russian scientists earlier this month uncovered the well-preserved carcass of a female mammoth on a remote island in the Arctic Ocean
  • The head of the expedition, said the animal died 10,000 to 15,000, at the age of around 60 some, making it the first time that an old female had been found
  • Wooly mammoths are thought to have died out around 10,000 years ago
  • Scientists think small groups of them lived longer in Alaska and on Russia\’s Wrangel Island off the Siberian coast.
  • The Claim on the Body Preservation
  • The lower part of the carcass was very well preserved as it ended up in a pool of water that later froze over
  • The upper part of the body including the back and the head are believed to have been eaten by predators
  • The team was surprised that the carcass was so well preserved that it still had blood and muscle tissue, and that when they broke the ice beneath the stomach, very dark blood flowed out
  • The muscle tissue is also said to be red, the colour of fresh meat
  • The temperature at the time of excavation was -7 to – 10 degrees Celsius [19.4 to 14 degrees Fahrenheit]
  • Because these temperatures are below freezing it may be assumed that the blood of mammoths had some cryoprotective properties
  • To Be Studied
  • If these claims are true, it will be the most well-preserved tissue found from a Woolly Mammoth
  • Mammoth specialists from South Korea, Russia and the United States are expected to study the remains which the Russian scientists are now keeping at an undisclosed northern location
  • \”Jurassic Park Prize\”
  • Scientists already have deciphered much of the genetic code of the woolly mammoth from balls of mammoth hair found frozen in the Siberian permafrost
  • The discovery gives researchers a really good chance of finding live cells which can help in cloning a mammoth
  • Last year the researchers signed a deal with cloning pioneer Hwang Woo-Suk of South Korea\’s Sooam Biotech Research Foundation, who in 2005 created the world\’s first cloned dog.
  • Those who succeed in recreating an extinct animal could claim a \”Jurassic Park prize\”, the concept of which is being developed by the X Prize Foundation
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube | Russians Find Mammoth Carcass With Liquid Blood | AssociatedPress
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Russian scientists make rare find of \’blood\’ in mammoth | Phys.org

— NEWS BYTE —

University Rover Challenge

  • What is the University Rover Challenge?
  • The competition is hosted by the Mars Society, a non-profit research organization dedicated to promoting the exploration and eventual settlement of Mars
  • The competition site is located at the society\’s Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS), a rocky barren landscape that\’s similar to Martian terrain
  • Each team was allowed to spend up to $15,000 on their rovers, which can weigh no more than 50 kilograms – about 110 lbs.
  • The URC is based on the assumption that the rovers are telerobots, which means they would be operated by astronauts on or orbiting Mars
  • Team members must guide their rovers via a remote connection, such as a computer in the back of a truck, as long as it\’s shielded so the team can\’t see their rovers
  • Teams compete in four challenges, which change year to year, designed to replicate the activities of NASA\’s rovers on Mars.
  • The Tasks for 2013
  • Teams will guide their rovers to collect the subsurface soil samples most likely to contain photosynthetic bacteria, lichen and other bits of living material
  • Deliver a series of packages, such as emergency supplies to \”astronauts\” (URC staff) in the field
  • Fix a dust-covered solar panel (without water, of course)
  • Navigate an obstacle course that will include climbing steep grades, getting over boulders and passing through PVC pipe gates, aimed to test each rover\’s maneuverability
  • The Teams
  • This year\’s teams represent universities and colleges in Canada, India, Poland and the United States
  • These include two-time returning champions Toronto\’s York University (2012 and 2009) and Oregon State (2010 and 2008)
  • Full list of entries for the 2013 URC
  • Winners
  • First Place with 493 out of 500 points (highest ever scored) | The Hyperion Team from Bialystok University of Technology, Poland
  • Second Place with 401 out of 500 points | Scorpio 3 team from Wroclaw University of Technology, Poland
  • Third Place with 350 out of 500 points | OSU Mars Rover Team from Oregon State University, USA
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube | Bialystok University of Technology – Hyperion Team
  • YouTube | Wroclaw University of Technology – Scorpio 3 Team
  • YouTube | University Rover Challenge Clips | Jeremy LeFevre
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • The Rocky Road to Building the Next Mars Rover | Space.com
  • Contest Challenges Students to Design Next Mars Rover | University Rover Challenge | Space.com
  • University Rover Challenge | MarsSociety.org

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

Conductive Paint

  • What Is It?
  • The substance allows the painting of \”liquid wiring\” on any surface, except for skin
  • Radio Shack stocks paint pens, which the inventors emphasized, is the first non-toxic electrically conductive paint available and it dries at room temperature
  • The inventors also say that they hope to appeal to a wide creative range of hobbyists, artists, and engineers for innovative ways to use their products
  • In addition the substance is child friendly, which opens the door to educational projects, including toys, and touch-sensitive paper drawings that play sounds
  • Applications
  • Generally split into two simple classifications, signaling and powering
  • Signaling could include using the Paint as a potentiometer while interfacing with a micro-controller, as a conduit in a larger circuit or as a capacitive sensor
  • Powering a device would include lighting LED\’s or driving small speakers
  • According to the company, Bare Paint has a surface resistivity of approximately 55 ohms/square at 50 microns layer thickness (human hair is ~100 microns)
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube | Bare Conductive Paint | Adafruit Industries
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • BareConductive.com
  • Conductive paint lands in pens and pots for creatives | Phys.org

Crowdsourced Telescope

  • A commercial asteroid-mining company aiming to launch a crowdfunded space telescope raised more than $200,000 on the first day of its campaign
  • Total raised by the morning of filming this show (June 3) $714,473
  • The Plan
  • Planetary Resources, a private venture aiming to mine near-Earth space rocks announced on May 29 that it would build and launch a space telescope for public use if it could raise at least $1 million in 33 days.
  • The telescope will be a twin copy of the Arkyd spacecraft the company is developing to detect, track and study asteroids in preparation for its mining mission
  • A test version of the spacecraft is set for its maiden trial flight in April 2014, while the crowdfunded model would launch in early 2015
  • What the Backers Get
  • Public backers would use it to study celestial objects of their choice, they also have the option of sponsoring research projects at schools, universities or museums that could use the instrument.
  • The telescope will also take self portraits that show the telescope in orbit, with a user-submitted photo displayed on the instrument\’s screen, a camera mounted on the hull of the spacecraft will snap the photo.
  • Where Does the Name \”ARYKD\” Come From?
  • To some Star Wars fans, it might sound familiar
  • In the start of the project while looking for a code name the idea was to make a derivation of Arakyd Industries from the Star Wars universe
  • According to the StarWars.wikia : \”Arakyd Industries was a major manufacturer of droids, heavy weapons, and starships, dating back to the days of the Galactic Republic\”
  • They made such things as the Viper probe droid model, which the Empire used to locate the Echo Base on the planet Hoth
  • The Viper probe droids themselves were based on earlier probe droids that were the first true probe droids to search planets and asteroids for valuable resources, such as metals to fuel the processing plants of industry
  • Other Random/Interesting Facts
  • The space shuttle had room for 1 Hubble Space Telescope in its payload bay, it could have fit 1,000 ARKYD Space Telescopes
  • Going at 5 mi/sec it will travel 8x faster than an SR-71 Blackbird flying at mach 3, that\’s going from San Francisco to Boston in 10 min
  • At those speeds it will have a few min each orbit to download information at DSL speeds, the primary/first ground station will be in Seattle
  • Once the mission is going it will take 150 \”selfies\” and make 15 astronomical observations per day
  • It will run off of only 50 W, the same amount as a standard household light … or 111 hamster wheels
  • ARYKD Dimensions
  • Weight : 15 kg / 33 lb
  • Height 200 mm / 7.8 in
  • Wingspan Deployed : 600 mm / 23.6 in
  • Peak Power : 50 W
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube | ARKYD: A Space Telescope for Everyone | PlanetaryResources
  • YouTube | Planetary Resources Announces ARKYD: A Space Telescope for Everyone | PlanetaryResources
  • YouTube | Planetary Resources Kickstarter Community Event with Star Trek\’s Brent Spiner (Lt. Cmdr Data) | PlanetaryResources
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Space Telescope Crowdfunding Project Raises $167,000 | Space.com
  • Asteroid Mining Company Puts Orbital Telescope On Kickstarter | Popular Science
  • Find out more on Kickstarter

Frozen Moss, Back to Life

  • Zombie Moss?
  • Scientists have recently found that even after hundreds of years buried under ice, mosses can regrow
  • The revived plants come from Canada’s Ellesmere Island, where the Teardrop Glacier has retreated since the end of a cold period in 1550 to 1850 known as the Little Ice Age
  • On recently exposed ground they found clumps of mosses that looked dead. But among the brown tangles, the team noticed a few green sprigs
  • The team took brown moss samples back to the lab and used radiocarbon dating to determine that they had lived about 400 years ago
  • Based on the glacier’s retreat rate, the researchers estimated the plants had been uncovered for less than two years.
  • The team then ground up some of the plants and gave them nutrients, water and light
  • From seven of 24 samples, a total of four moss species grew
  • The budding plants didn’t come from seeds or spores because in moss, any cell can be reset, almost like a stem cell, to grow a new plant
  • How long a moss cell can stay viable is “anyone’s guess,”
  • The findings suggest that the regenerated mosses may help repopulate ecosystems after glaciers retreat
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Mosses frozen in time come back to life | Life | Science News

— VIEWER FEEDBACK —

EyeSpy an Exoplanet!

  • The Hubby | Check This Out! | Exoplanet Directly Observed
  • A newly discovered gaseous planet has been directly photographed orbiting a star about 300 light-years from Earth
  • Only a few planets have been directly observed so far, and this world may be the least massive planet directly observed outside of the solar system
  • The Planet
  • The photo released by the European Southern Observatory (ESO) on June 3 depicts the suspected gas giant (called HD 95086 b) circling its young star (named HD 95086) in infrared light
  • The planet was discovered by ESO\’s Very Large Telescope in Chile. Based on the planet\’s brightness, scientists estimate that it is only about four or five times more massive than Jupiter
  • The planet orbits its star at about twice the distance from the sun to Neptune and about 56 times the distance between Earth and the sun, the blue circle in the photo represents the distance between the sun and Neptune.
  • The star is relatively young, at only 10 million to 17 million years old, making the formation of the exoplanet and the dusty disc surrounding the star potentially intriguing to researchers
  • Formation
  • The planet might have grown by assembling the rocks that form the solid core and then slowly accumulated gas from the environment to form the heavy atmosphere
  • It also might have started forming from a gaseous clump that arose from gravitational instabilities in the disc
  • Interactions between the planet and the disc itself or with other planets may have also moved the planet from where it was born
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Never-Before-Seen Alien Planet Imaged Directly in New Photo | Space.com

— SPACECRAFT UPDATE—

Lunar Gravity Map

  • Mascons
  • Mascons, or gravitational anomalies, were discovered on the moon in the 1960s, as NASA officials were planning for the Apollo moon missions, but the cause of these anomalies was unknown
  • By mapping the moon\’s gravity field, the Grail probes uncovered the locations of lunar mascons, and offered unprecedented views of the moon\’s interior structure
  • This enabled scientists to study two basins – one on the lunar nearside and one on the far side of the moon – to develop sophisticated computer models for how mascons form
  • New Ideas How They Formed
  • Billions of years ago, massive asteroids that collided with the moon left deep craters that reached into the mantle material that lies beneath the thin lunar crust
  • What had been unexplained until now was how these big impact sites could support extremely dense material, and how the gravity field in these basins could be in such disequilibrium
  • Mascon basins on the near side of the moon were partially filled in with ancient flows of dense lava, which seemed able to account for the mass excess and positive gravity anomalies
  • For some basins, however, the observed lava flows were too thin to explain the mass excess, some basins were even found that exhibited mascons but lacked lava infill altogether
  • The researchers determined that ancient asteroid impacts excavated large craters on the moon, causing surrounding lunar materials and rocks from the moon\’s mantle to melt and collapse inward
  • This melting caused the material to become denser and more concentrated than the strong lunar crust, which also slides down into the impact hole, eventually forms a curved but rigid barrier over the basin, holding the dense materials down
  • New models from this data gave the researchers a glimpse of how the moon\’s mascons formed in the aftermath of huge asteroid impacts
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Mystery of Moon\’s Lumpy Gravity Explained | Moon Missions | Space.com

— CURIOSITY UPDATE —

  • Radiation Findings
  • Curiosity\’s Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD) is the first instrument to measure the radiation environment during a Mars cruise mission from inside a spacecraft that is similar to potential human exploration spacecraft
  • The findings,indicate radiation exposure for human explorers could exceed NASA\’s career limit for astronauts if current propulsion systems are used.
  • Forms of Radiation
  • GCR\’s. Galactic cosmic rays are particles caused by supernova explosions and other high-energy events outside the solar system.
  • SEP\’s. Solar energetic particles are associated with solar flares and coronal mass ejections from the sun
  • Radiation Exposure
  • NASA has established a three percent increased risk of fatal cancer as an acceptable career limit for its astronauts currently operating in low-Earth orbit
  • Only about three percent of the radiation dose was associated with solar particles because of a relatively quiet solar cycle and the shielding provided by the spacecraft
  • The radiation detected for the accumulated dose during the trip was about what you would get if you had a whole-body CT scan once every five or six days
  • Shielding
  • Current spacecraft shield much more effectively against SEPs than GCRs. To protect against the comparatively low energy of typical SEPs, astronauts might need to move into havens with extra shielding on a spacecraft or on the Martian surface, or employ other countermeasures
  • GCRs tend to be highly energetic, highly penetrating particles that are not stopped by the modest shielding provided by a typical spacecraft.
  • The Future
  • RAD data collected during Curiosity\’s science mission will continue to inform plans to protect astronauts as NASA designs future missions to Mars in the coming decades
  • Radiation
  • The MSL spacecraft structure (which includes the backshell and heat shield as well as the Curiosity rover and its descent stage) provided significant shielding from the deep space radiation environment
  • The spikes in radiation levels occurred in February, March and late May of 2012 because of large solar energetic particle events caused by solar activity
  • Multimedia
  • Image Galleries at JPL and Curiosity Mulimedia
  • Social Media
  • Curiosity Rover @MarsCuriosity
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Data From NASA Rover\’s Voyage To Mars Aids Planning | mars.jpl.nasa.gov+ Comparison of Some Radiation Exposures to Mars-Trip Level | mars.jpl.nasa.gov
  • Calculating Radiation Dose for Biological Tissue | mars.jpl.nasa.gov
  • Radiation Measurements During Trip From Earth to Mars | mars.jpl.nasa.gov

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

  • June 6, 1878 : 135 years ago : Liquid air : In 1878, liquid air obtained at a temperature of -192ºC was exhibited by Professor James Dewar at the Royal Institution, London. His work followed the small-scale production of liquid air by Raoul Pictet of Geneva (Dec 1877) and Cailletet of Paris (Jan 1878). In March 1893, Dewar produced solid air. He gave six well-illustrated Christmas Lectures on “Air: gaseous and liquid” at the Royal Institution between 28 Dec 1893 and 9 Jan 1894. (Some of the air in the room was liquefied in the presence of the audience, and remained so for some time, when enclosed in a vacuum jacket.) He demonstrated several physical properties of liquid air, and produced solid air at the Friday 19 Jan 1894 meeting of the Royal Institution

Looking up this week

The post Mammoth Blood & Crowdsourced Telescope | SciByte 96 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.

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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.

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