‘Yutu’ rover – Jupiter Broadcasting https://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com Open Source Entertainment, on Demand. Mon, 22 Feb 2016 02:48:54 +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 ‘Yutu’ rover – 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.

Direct Download:

MP3 Audio | OGG Audio | Video | Torrent | YouTube

RSS Feeds:

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

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.

]]> Canadian Fossils & Yutu Rover | SciByte 120 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/51872/canadian-fossils-yutu-rover-scibyte-120/ Tue, 18 Feb 2014 20:54:30 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=51872 We take a look at a new Canadian fossil site, protecting spacecraft with cave pigment, a picture worth a billion stars, 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 […]

The post Canadian Fossils & Yutu Rover | SciByte 120 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

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We take a look at a new Canadian fossil site, protecting spacecraft with cave pigment, a picture worth a billion stars, 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:

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

Show Notes:

Amazing New Canadian Fossil Site

  • Scientists say that a new treasure trove of fossils chiseled out of a canyon in Canada\’s Kootenay National Park rivals the famous Burgess Shale, the best record of early life on Earth
  • Burgess Shale Fossil Quarry
  • The Burgess Shale refers to both a fossil find and a 505-million-year-old rock formation made of mud and clay
  • Burgess Shale fossil quarry, a UNESCO World Heritage site located in Yoho National Park, is in a glacier-carved cliff in the Canadian Rockies.
  • The fossils were discovered in 1909. Since then, several other fossil sites have been found in the Burgess Shale, but none as rich as the original.
  • The fossils are extraordinary because they preserve soft parts of ancient animals in exceptional detail, soft parts are less likely to be imprinted in stone than harder parts, like bones
  • More than 200 animal species have been identified at the 1909 fossil site
  • New Site
  • The new site is also in the Burgess Shale formation, and seems to rival the 1909 original in fossil diversity and preservation
  • In just two weeks, the research team collected more than 3,000 fossils representing 55 species, fifteen of those species are new to science.
  • There is a high possibility that they will eventually find more species here than at the original Yoho National Park site, and potentially more than from anywhere else in the world
  • The Fossils
  • The new fossils were spotted in a mountain cliff, in Marble Canyon, about 42 km [26 miles] southeast of the original Burgess Shale site
  • The newly discovered rocks are probably about 100,000 years younger than those at the first Burgess Shale site
  • Many of the fossils at the new site are better preserved than their quarry counterparts
  • The new fossils reveal the internal organs of several different arthropods, the most common type of animal in both the new and old Burgess Shale locations.
  • Retinas, corneas, neural tissue, guts and even a possible heart and liver were found and is the first time we\’re seeing these details
  • Species
  • About half of the 55 species discovered at Marble Canyon so far are also found at the original Burgess Shale site
  • Some of the original site\’s rare species are more abundant in the canyon
  • Some species at Marble Canyon are also found in China\’s Chengjiang fossil beds, which are 10 million years older than the Burgess Shale
  • Until now, researchers thought these Cambrian animals went extinct by the time the Burgess Shale formed.
  • Their discovery in Canada means that many Cambrian life forms were more widespread and longer-lived than previously thought
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube | Burgess Shale | Royal Ontario Museum
  • Gallery Amazing Cambrian Fossils from Canada\’s Marble Canyon | LiveScience
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • \’Mother Lode\’ of Fossils Discovered in Canada | Scientific American

— NEWS BYTE —

Prehistoric Cave Pigment Protects ESA Solar Probe

  • Burnt bone charcoal, also used in prehistoric cave paintings, will be used by scientists in the titanium heat shield of European Space Agency\’s Solar Orbiter spacecraft.
  • ESA Solar Orbiter
  • The Solar Orbiter, due to launch in 2017, will carry a range of instruments in order to conduct high-resolution imaging of the Sun
  • It will orbit slightly more than a quarter of the distance to Earth, where the temperatures will be as high as 520* C [968* F]
  • The main body of the spacecraft takes cover behind a heat shield
  • The Shielding
  • \”To go on absorbing sunlight, then convert it into infrared to radiate back out to space, its surface material needs to maintain constant \’thermo-optical properties\’ – keep the same colour despite years of exposure to extreme ultraviolet radiation\” | Andrew Norman, a materials technology specialist
  • The shield cannot shed material or outgas vapour, because of the risk of contaminating Solar Orbiter\’s highly sensitive instruments
  • \”It also has to avoid any build-up of static charge in the solar wind because that might threaten a disruptive or even destructive discharge\” | Andrew Norman, a materials technology specialist
  • The engineers ruled out carbon fiber fabric, their first choice, as it is a light polymer.
  • The CoBlast Technique
  • One company makes titanium medical implants, they use the CoBlast technique that is best suited for reactive metals like titanium, aluminium and stainless steel, basically metals that have a surface of oxide layer.
  • They spray the metal surface with abrasive material to grit-blast this layer and also include a second \’dopant\’ material possessing whatever characteristics are needed
  • The simultaneous sprays takes the place of the oxide layer being stripped out,
  • The new layer gets bonded and effectively becomes a part of the metal. The company will apply \’Solar Black\’, to the outer titanium sheet of the probe\’s multi layered heatshield
  • Solar Black is a type of black calcium phosphate that is developed from burnt bone charcoal.
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • ESA\’s Solar Probe to be Protected Using Prehistoric Cave Pigment | ScienceWorldReport.com

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

Billion Star Map

  • A new European spacecraft tasked with mapping a billion stars in the night sky has beamed its first picture back to Earth.
  • Gaia Spacecraft
  • Gaia launched into space on Dec. 19 and it will spend five years studying the precise positions, motions and properties of 1 billion stars in the Milky Way
  • It will measure physical characteristics of the stars, including their brightness, temperature and chemical makeup, with the goal of creating the most accurate 3D map to date of our home galaxy
  • Gaia has two telescopes that can stare out at two different patches of the sky simultaneously that feed data to the camera
  • The camera, is the highest-resolution image sensor ever flown in space with about 1 billion pixels.
  • Gaia will measure an average of 2 million stars per hour, or about 50 gigabytes of data each day and will eventually compile more than million gigabytes of data (about 200,000 fully loaded DVDs)
  • Of Note
  • The first test image only covers an area less than 1 percent of Gaia\’s full field of view
  • Although it will be able to capture all one billion of its targets during its first six months in operation, the spacecraft will measure each of its stars an average of 70 times throughout the course of its five-year mission
  • Counting 1 star a second it would take around 31 years 8 months.
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube | Inside Gaia\’s billion-pixel camera | European Space Agency, ESA
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • ESA Science & Technology: Gaia
  • Europe\’s Billion-Star Mapping Spacecraft Snaps 1st Photo | Space.com

— SPACECRAFT UPDATE—

China’s Lunar Yutu 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
  • The Malfunction
  • As night fell on Jan. 25, the rover entered its second two week long period of dormancy just as the rover “experienced a mechanical control abnormality,” according to a report by China’s official government newspaper, The People’s Daily.
  • The cause of the pre-hibernation malfunction may perhaps be traced back to a buildup of abrasive lunar dust, but no one knows at this time.
  • At that time experts were concerned that it might not be able to survive the extremely low temperatures during the lunar night
  • Each lunar day and night lasts for alternating periods of 14 Earth days
  • During each long night, the Moon’s temperatures plunge dramatically to below minus 180 Celsius, or minus 292 degrees Fahrenheit
  • Failure to Call Home
  • On Monday, Feb. 10, when daylight returned to the rovers Moon landing site at Mare Imbrium (Sea of Rains) at the start of what would have been Lunar Day 3 for the mission.
  • At the time it was thought that Yutu froze to death due to a pre-hibernation mechanical malfunction and failed to wake up and communicate with China’s mission controllers
  • The rover was reported to have been lost after it failed to communicate with Chinese mission controllers, and various media outlets around the world filed an obituary for the lunar rover after Xinhua reported its alleged death
  • The apparently unfortunate and sad breaking news was reported in an ultra brief dispatch by the English language version of Chinadaily – with the headline “Loss of lunar rover.”
  • Signals Found
  • On Feb. 12 amateur radio operators at UHF-satcom reported detection of a signal from Yutu.
  • On Feb 13 China\’s state news agency, Xinhua, reported that the rover had recovered from its previous non-responsive state and is now fully awake and able to receive signals | China\’s lunar program spokesman Pei Zhaoyu told Xinhua
  • On Feb 10th some nice signals were detected from the Lunar Lander but nothing from the Lunar Rover, at that time several news outlets report that the Rover has had a failure after its Lunar sleep, and that it was not expected to become alive again
  • The radio group UHF Satcom thought that it was thought possible to hear any command uplink signals and searched for the various downlink frequencies for signs of life from the \’dead\’ Lunar Lander
  • On Feb 12th there was no evidence that a communications session with the Lunar Lander was not progressing and nothing was heard
  • They did however reveal another huge signal, this time an uplink to the Lunar Rover – China was attempting to talk it back into life
  • Immediately the dual band converter was switched and to everyone\’s surprise, the Lunar Rover was in full chat mode, the Rover had survived and was not dead after all
  • On Feb 13 China\’s state news agency, Xinhua, reported that the rover had recovered from its previous non-responsive state and is now fully awake and able to receive signals | China\’s lunar program spokesman Pei Zhaoyu told Xinhua
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • China\’s Jade Rabbit Lunar Rover Comes Back to Life After Malfunction | ScienceWorldReport.com
  • UHF-Satcom.com – Chang\’e 3 & Yutu reception
  • Earth Bids China\’s Yutu Moon Rover Farewell Forever! | UniverseToday.com
  • China\’s Yutu Moon Rover Alive and Awake for 3rd Lunar Day of Exploration despite Malfunction | UniverseToday.com

— CURIOSITY UPDATE —

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

  • Feb 20, 1937 : 77 years ago : Car airplane : The first a successful automobile-airplane combination was complete and ready for testing.The first flight took place the next day, 21 Feb 1937. Built by the Westerman Arrowplane Corporation of Santa Monica, Cal., the vehicle was dubbed the Arrowbile, and claimed a top airspeed of 120 mph and 70 mph on a highway. Designed by aeroengineer Waldo Dean Waterman (1894-1976), it evolved from the prototype Arrowplane, a project to design a simple, easy to fly, low cost airplane. The Studebaker Corporation, which supplied the 100 hp engines, eventually took delivery of five Arrowbiles

Looking up this week

  • Keep an eye out for …
  • Wed, February 19 | after 11pm | Around the time the Moon rises in the in the E-SE you will be able to see Mars and Spica to its right
  • Thurs, February 20 | dawn | The waning Moon will be in the south with Saturn to its left. Off to their right are Mars and Spica
  • Planets
  • Venus | Is visible before and during dawn to the SE. It\’s at its brightest this week.
  • Mars | 10-11pm | Rises in the SE, with Spica 5-6* to its right. The two are their highest point about 1.5 hours before dawn with Spica now to the lower right
  • Jupiter | Is high southeast in early evening, crosses nearly overhead (for skywatchers at mid-northern latitudes) around 8 or 9 p.m. and sets in the West before dawn
  • Saturn | 12-1 am | Rises around midnight or 1 a.m. and is highest in the south at the beginning of dawn. By then it\’s far to the left of Mars and Spica
  • Morning / Evening
  • Morning | 1.5 hours pre dawn, Mars/Spica high in the S. Venus is rising in the SE with Jupiter setting in the W

  • Evening | Jupiter rises in the SE

  • Further Reading and Resources

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

The post Canadian Fossils & Yutu Rover | SciByte 120 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

]]> Memories & International Spacecraft | SciByte 111 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/47442/memories-international-spacecraft-scibyte-111/ Tue, 03 Dec 2013 21:16:20 +0000 https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/?p=47442 We take a look at how you remember things, 3D printing dinosaur bones, a SpaceX launch, India’s Mars Orbiter Mission, China’s lunar rover, and more!

The post Memories & International Spacecraft | SciByte 111 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

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We take a look at how you remember things, 3D printing dinosaur bones, a SpaceX launch, India’s Mars Orbiter Mission, China’s lunar rover, 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

Geocaching Memories

  • Using a video game in which people navigate through a virtual town delivering objects to specific locations, a team of neuroscientists have discovered how brain cells that encode spatial information form \”geotags\” for specific memories and are activated immediately before those memories are recalled.
  • The work shows how spatial information is incorporated into memories and why remembering an experience can quickly bring to mind other events that happened in the same place
  • The findings provide the first direct neural evidence for the idea that the human memory system tags memories with information about where and when they were formed
  • The Study
  • This study involved playing a simple video game on a bedside computer
  • The game in this experiment involved making deliveries to stores in a virtual city
  • The participants were first given a period where they were allowed to freely explore the city and learn the stores\’ locations
  • When the game began, participants were only instructed where their next stop was, without being told what they were delivering
  • After they reached their destination, the game would reveal the item that had been delivered, and then give the participant their next stop
  • After 13 deliveries, the screen went blank and participants were asked to remember and name as many of the items they had delivered in the order they came to mind
  • Brain Recordings
  • This allowed the researchers to correlate the neural activation associated with the formation of spatial memories (the locations of the stores) and the recall of episodic memories: (the list of items that had been delivered).
  • \”Having these patients play our games allows us to record every action they take in the game and to measure the responses of neurons both during spatial navigation and then later during verbal recall.\” Michael Kahana, professor of psychology in Penn\’s School of Arts and Sciences
  • By asking participants to recall the items they delivered instead of the stores they visited, the researchers could test whether their spatial memory systems were being activated
  • Neural Map
  • Using the brain recordings generated while the participants navigated the city, the researchers were able to develop a neural map that corresponded to the city\’s layout
  • As participants passed by a particular store, the researchers correlated their spatial memory of that location with the pattern of place cell activation recorded
  • With maps of place cell activations in hand, the researchers were able to cross- reference each participant\’s spatial memories as they accessed their episodic memories of the delivered items
  • Results
  • Given just the place cell activations of a participant the researchers could predict, with better than chance accuracy, the item he or she was recalling
  • While researchers cannot distinguish whether these spatial memories are actually helping the participants access their episodic memories, simply seeing that this place cell activation plays a role in the memory retrieval processes
  • Earlier neuroscience research had suggested the hippocampus has two distinct roles, tracking the location information for spatial memory, and recording events for episodic memory
  • This experiment provides further evidence that these roles are intertwined
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Memories Are ‘Geotagged’ With Spatial Information, Penn Researchers Say | University of Pennselvania News
  • Memories \’geotagged\’ with spatial information | ScienceDaily.com

— NEWS BYTE —

Printing Dinosaur Bones

  • During World War II, a bomb fell on the Museum of National History in Berlin\’s east wing, collapsing the basement where dinosaur fossils were stored
  • Most of the fossils that weren’t blasted to dust had had their labels burned, so no one could identify what the remaining concrete jackets held
    or where they had been dug up
  • Last Time on SciByte …
  • YouTube | Special SciByte Nov 19 | with Nikki and Heather | Mars Base
  • In a small roadside quarry west of Denver, the first Apatosaurus ajax muzzle ever found in morrison sandstone. The sandstone surrounding the fragile fossils was so hard that the paleontologists were afraid that trying to remove the rock would irreparably damage the bone.
  • 3D printing technology will allow paleontologists to see inside the block and even to 3D-print a perfect copy of the bones inside without having to remove them physically and still get the needed data
  • Layers of Confusing Identification
  • Bones from two separate expeditions had been housed in the same area
  • One expedition, in Tanzania, ran from 1909 to 1913 and brought back 235 tons of fossils, labeled with letters based on their locations.
  • The other fossils came from a 1909 discovery in Halberstadt, Germany. Those bones also used a letter-based label system based on individual animals
  • One Fossils Journey
  • The target fossil for the new study was a specimen that had been dug up from a German clay pit in the early 1900s
  • The object, still encased in much of the rock that had entombed it, had been slathered in concrete and then transported back to a museum in
    Berlin
  • A CT scan of one revealed that it held a vertebra from a Plateosaurus and by comparing the scans to sketches of the long-ago digs, the researchers determined that the vertebra came from the Halberstadt dig in Germany
  • The scans showed a fractured bone. Some of the cracks were no doubt from fossilization, but one crunched-up corner was likely the result of the bombing
  • To recreate the bone as it was before the bombing, the researchers took data from the CT scan and built a blueprint to 3D print the fossil
  • When the process was done the researchers were able to print the bone chip from the bombing damage, which fit into the rest of the vertebra like a puzzle piece.
  • 3D Printing Dinosaur Bones
  • Scientists have long used CT scans to peek inside fossil-bearing rocks, but the increasing use of 3D printers now enables them to make endless
    numbers of exact copies of those relics
  • The technique might even help museum folk speed up their analyses: By knowing what’s inside a lump of rock, researchers can determine which
    fossils are worth extracting, and which ones can wait
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • ScienceShot: Printing a Dinosaur | Science/AAAS
  • Dinosaur Bone Damaged in WWII Revealed with 3D Printing | LiveScience.com

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

SpaceX Launch

  • Thanksgiving Day Launch Aborted, What Happened
  • It fired its engines and was moments away from liftoff from Cape Canaveral when the commercial booster aborted the launch after computers detected the engines were too slow building up thrust.
  • The Falcon 9 pressurized its propellant tanks, switched to internal power and ignited its nine Merlin 1D first stage engines a few seconds before the appointed launch time
  • The Falcon 9\’s computer-controlled countdown sequencer recognized a problem and called off the launch
  • As engineers continued to study and resolve the problem, SpaceX elected to restart the countdown to preserve a chance to launch Thursday
  • Ultimately, however, SpaceX said they could not get comfortable with the issue in time and ordered another hold with less than a minute left in the day\’s second countdown.
  • The Mission
  • The Dec 3 liftoff at 5:41 p.m. EST (2241 GMT) marked SpaceX\’s first entry into the large commercial satellite market and its first launch into a geostationary transfer orbit needed for such a mission.
  • This also marks the first commercial launch from the this Florida
    launch pad and the first commercial flight from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in over five years
  • **The Future***
  • SpaceX has nearly 50 launches on manifest, of which over 60% are for commercial customers
  • Being able to launch into this new orbit will let SpaceX compete against Europe and Russia to haul large telecommunications satellites into orbit.
  • This launch also marks the second of three certification flights needed to certify the Falcon 9 to fly missions for the U.S. Air Force under the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program
  • When Falcon 9 is certified, SpaceX will be eligible to compete for all National Security Space (NSS) missions
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube | Launch of SpaceX Falcon 9\’s First Commercial Mission – SES-8 | SpaceVids.tv·
  • YouTube | SpaceX Falcon 9 / SES-8 Launch Abort After Engine Ignition On Thanksgiving Day |Matthew Travis
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • SpaceX Aborts Thanksgiving Rocket Launch Due to Engine Trouble | Space.com
  • SpaceX Successfully Completes First Mission to Geostationary Transfer Orbit | SpaceX
  • SpaceX Launches Falcon 9 Rocket On High-Stakes Commercial Satellite Mission | Space.com

— Updates —

Comet ISON

— SPACECRAFT UPDATE—

India’s Mars Orbiter Mission

China\’s First Lunar Rover

  • China successfully launched its first ever lunar rover bound for the Moon’s surface aboard a Long March rocket at 1:30 a.m. Beijing local time, Dec. 2, 2013 (12:30 p.m. EST, Dec. 1) from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China.
  • The name for the ‘Yutu’ rover – which translates as ‘Jack Rabbit’ – was chosen after a special naming contest involving a worldwide poll and voting to select the best name, ‘Yutu’ stems from a Chinese fairy tale, in which the goddess Chang’e flew off to the moon taking her little pet Jade rabbit with her.
  • Mission Plan
  • The Chang’e 3 lander will fire thrusters to enter lunar orbit on Dec. 6.
  • It is due to make a powered descent to the lunar surface on Dec. 14, firing thrusters at an altitude of 15 km (9 mi) for touchdown in a preselected area called the Bay of Rainbows or Sinus Iridum region.
  • The Rover
  • Jack Rabbit measures 150 cm, nearly 5 ft, high and weighs approximately 120 kg, 265 lb
  • The rover and lander are equipped with multiple cameras, spectrometers, an optical telescope, radar and other sensors to investigate the lunar surface and composition
  • The rover is expected to continue operating for at least three months
  • Of Note
  • The next step will be an unmanned lunar sample return mission, perhaps around 2020
  • If successful, the Chang’e 3 mission will mark the first soft landing on the Moon since the Soviet Union’s unmanned Luna 24 sample return vehicle landed nearly four decades ago back in 1976.
  • Multimedia
  • YouTube | Animation of Chang\’E-3 lunar probe | CCTV News
  • YouTube | China\’s Chang\’e-3 Lunar Probe Launch | CCTV America
  • Further Reading / In the News
  • Spectacular Liftoff Thrusts China\’s First Rover \’Yutu\’ to the Moon | UniverseToday.com

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

  • Dec 10, 1901: 112 years ago : First Nobel Prizes : At the first Nobel Prize Award Ceremony, the king of Sweden distributed the first Nobel Prizes, in accordance with the will of inventor Alfred Nobel. The day was the anniversary of Nobel\’s death. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences had decided on 10 Nov 1901 to award the first Nobel Prize in Physics to Wilhelm Röntgen for his discovery of X-rays and the first Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Jacobus H. van\’t Hoff for his work on rates of reaction, equilibrium and osmotic pressure. The first Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was given to Emil von Behring, for his work on serum therapy, particularly for its use in the treatment of diphtheria. His Nobel diploma was dated 30 Oct 1901, signed by staff at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm. Nobel Foundation | Wikipedia, First Prizes | Wikipedia

Looking up this week

  • Keep an eye out for …
  • Wed, Dec 4 | Twilight | The waxing crescent moon is to the far lower right of Venus
  • Thurs, Dec 5 | Twilight | Venus now sits about 7* to the lower left of the moon. [5* ~3 middle fingers held at arms length]
  • Fri, Dec 6 | The moon will be high above Venus in the SW
  • Sat, Dec 7 | Earliest sunset of the years. *Note, the longest night is Dec 21st, and the latest sunrise will be Jan 4th. Apparent solar time or true solar time is based on the apparent motion of the actual Sun. The length of a solar day varies through the year, and the accumulated effect produces seasonal deviations of up to 16 minutes from the mean.
  • Planets
  • Saturn | Dawn | Saturn is in the E-SE skies as it returns to view as its position in the sky gets farther from the sun
  • Venus | \”Evening Star\” | In the SW during and after dusk, no settin until about 1.5 hours after dark
  • Mars | Rising about 1am local it moves to the high E skies by dawn

  • Jupiter | ~7-8 pm local | Rises in the E-NE until it reaches its highest point ~2am

  • Further Reading and Resources

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

The post Memories & International Spacecraft | SciByte 111 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

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