Archive for the ‘supernova’ Category
Habitable Planets & Chimps | SciByte 24
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We take a look at new extra-solar planet discoveries, chimps, supernova, Alzheimer’s, Mars, Cables, updates on New Horizons spacecraft and Voyager 1 and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.
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Extra-solar Planets
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- The low down
- Since Feb Kepler has located 1,094 planetary candidates, bringing to total to 2,326. So far, only 29 of these have been confirmed.
- Of the planet candidates, 207 are approximately Earth-size, 680 are super Earth-size, 1,181 are Neptune-size, 203 are Jupiter-size and 55 are larger than Jupiter
- Ten of these candidates are near-Earth-size and orbit in the habitable zone of their host star. Candidates require follow-up observations to verify they are actual planets.
- Previous research hinted at the existence of near-Earth-size planets in habitable zones, but clear confirmation proved elusive.
- It often takes years for a planet to orbit, and a number of observations are needed to confirm that a planet is there
- Two other small planets orbiting stars smaller and cooler than our sun recently were confirmed on the very edges of the habitable zone, with orbits more closely resembling those of Venus and Mars
- *– In the Goldilocks Zone!– *
- NASA’s Kepler Mission Confirms Its First Planet in Habitable Zone of Sun-like Star
- This is NOT the first planet seen in the habitable zone of another star, but it is the first confirmed one seen by Kepler, and the first world smaller than Neptune to be found in middle of its star’s habitable zone.
- The first transit was captured just three days after the spacecraft operationally ready
- Of the 54 habitable zone planet candidates reported in February 2011, Kepler–22b is the first to be confirmed.
- Kepler–22b is located 600 light-years away
- The planet is about 2.4 times the radius of Earth
- Its orbit of 290 days
- The planet’s host star belongs to the same class as our sun, although it is slightly smaller and cooler.
- If the greenhouse warming were similar on this planet, and has a surface, it would be about 70F/21C
- Scientists don’t yet know if Kepler–22b has a predominantly rocky, gaseous or liquid composition
- * Of Note*
- The transit detection method yields only a width and orbit time for planets, instead of a weight.
- Gravitational wobbles induced the star by the planet indicate only that Kepler 22b cannot weigh more than 36 times more than Earth, the world would weigh about 14 times as much as Earth if it is built the same way
- The mass of Kepler–22b could be calculated with the help of a new ground-based instrument in the Spanish Canary Islands that will begin observations next spring.
- The new telescope is capable of measuring with high precision a planet’s doppler velocity, scientists could calculate the mass and density
- *– Jupiter-size planets around massive stars– *
- Researchers surveyed about 300 stars using the Keck Observatory in Hawaii and instruments in Texas and Arizona
- They focused on stars that are at least 1.5 times more massive than our own sun just beyond the main stage of life , these stars balloon out to become what’s known as subgiant stars
- They found 18 new alien planets, all of them Jupiter-size gas giants , and they all orbit at least 0.7 times the span from Earth to the sun
- Not only do we find Jupiter-like planets more frequently around massive stars, but we find them in wider orbits
- * Of Note*
- The new finds lend support to one of two theories that attempt to explain the formation and evolution of planets
- One theory, called gravitational collapse, holds that planets form when big clouds of gas and dust in the disk spontaneously collapse into clumps that become planets
- According to this idea, stellar mass should have little impact on planet size, number and other characteristics
- Core accretion, posits that planets grow as gas and dust glom onto seed particles in a protoplanetary disk and depend strongly on the mass of the star
- It seems that stellar mass does in fact play an important role leading credence to the Core accretion theory
- Multimedia
- VIDEO : @ YouTube – NASA’s Kepler Mission Announces Latest Planetary Discovery
- VIDEO : @ YouTube – Kepler 22b: Earth-like planet discovered
- IMAGE : Closer to Finding an Earth @ NASA
- Infographic : Planets Large and Small Populate Our Galaxy @ Space.com
- IMAGE : Kepler–22b – Comfortably Circling within the Habitable Zone
- VIDEO : What does it take to find a planet 63 light years from Earth?
@ DiscoveryNews - Social Media
- NASA Kepler @NASAKepler
- Caltech @caltech
- Further Reading / In the News
- Planets & Brains | SciByte 18
- Neutrinos & Tatooine | SciByte 17
- NASA’s Kepler Mission Confirms Its First Planet in Habitable Zone of Sun-like Star @ NASA
- Kepler Mission Page @ NASA
- Potentially Habitable Planet Is Christmas Present for Kepler Astronomers @ ScienceNOW
- Kepler Finds Its First Planet in the Habitable Zone @ Scientific American
- Kepler confirms first planet found in the habitable zone of a Sun-like star! @ DiscoverMagazine
- Kepler finds planet in the habitable zone @ AstronomyNOW Online
- Earthlike Planet Found Orbiting at Right Distance for Life @ National Geographic
- Kepler Confirms First Planet in Habitable Zone of Sun-Like Star @ UniverseToday
- Alien Planet Could Host Life @ Discovery News
- Planet found orbiting habitable zone of sun-like star @ Reuters
- Caltech-Led Team of Astronomers Finds 18 New Planets
- New Batch of Giant Alien Worlds Found @ DiscoveryNews
- Astronomers Discover 18 Huge New Alien Planets @ Space.com
Flinging Chimps

- The low down
- Chimps are the only other species besides humans that regularly throw things with a clear target in mind
- Researchers studying such behavior have come to the conclusion that throwing feces, or any object really, is actually a sign of high ordered behavior
- Watching chimps in action for several years and comparing their actions with scans of their brains to see if there were any correlations between those chimps that threw a lot and those that didn’t or whether they’re accuracy held any deeper meaning.
- Chimps that both threw more and were more likely to hit their targets showed heightened development in the motor cortex
- Better throwing chimps didn’t appear to posses any more physical prowess than other chimps
- Significance
- Language processing occurs in the left side, which also controls our right hands; and most people use their right hands to throw, as do chimpanzees.
- Such findings led the term to suggest that the ability to throw is, a precursor to speech development.
- Those chimps that could throw better appeared to be better communicators within their group
- Why did these chimps learn to throw in a captive context? The chimp learns is as a form of communication.
- Throwing stuff at someone else became a form of self expression
- * Of Note*
- While throwing at first might not seem demanding, coordinating it requires intensive, on-the-fly calculations.
- An equation for throwing a ball, for example, would include the distance to a target, the ball’s heaviness and the thrower’s strength. A moving target makes it even harder
- Social Media
- Emory University @EmoryUniversity
- Further Reading / In the News
- Researches find poop-throwing by chimps is a sign of intelligence @ PhysOrg.com
- Poop-Throwing Chimps Provide Hints of Human Origins @ WiredScience.com
- Philosophical Transactions
- Emory University
*— NEWS BYTE — *
Supernova warning signs?


- The low down
- A Ohio State University team was undertaking a survey of 25 galaxies for stars that brighten and dim in unusual ways
- Their goal was to find a star just before it ended its life
- One binary star system (consisting of both a blue and red star) located in M51 produced just the results they were looking for
- One star dropped amplitude just a short period of time before the other exploded
- It’s likely that they didn’t get any direct observations of the star that exploded – only its much brighter partner.
- The team speculates that as many as one supernova per year could emerge from their data set
- Significance
- The researchers saw one star in this particular binary system dim noticeably before the other one exploded in a supernova during the summer of 2011.
- The astronomers surmise the red star was the one that dimmed about 10% over the three-year period while the blue one blew its top
- It’s likely that they didn’t get any direct observations of the star before the supernova, only its much brighter partner.
- Their survey provides clues about how stars look and behave before they explode, allowing researchers to identify likely supernova candidates in advance.
- * Of Note*
- Researchers surmise the red star may have actually survived the supernova
- After the light from the explosion fades away, we should be able to see the companion that did not explode
- On the other hand …
- Maybe stars give off a clear signal of impending doom, maybe they don’t, so far we only have one instance.
- We’ll learn something new about dying stars no matter the outcome
- Social Media
- OhioState @OhioState
- Further Reading / In the News
- In a Star’s Final Days, Astronomers Hunt ‘Signal of Impending Doom’ @ ScienceDaily)
- Astronomers Closing in on Stars About to Explode @ Space.com
- In a star’s final days, astronomers hunt ‘signal of impending doom’ @ PhysOrg.com
- Supernova Candidate Stars May Signal “Impending Doom” @ UniverseToday
- Astronomers Closing in on Stars About to Explode @ LiveScience
- In a star’s final days, astronomers hunt “signal of impending doom” @ Astronomy
- Published in The Astrophysical Journal
- Principal Investigator Christopher S. Kochanek
- Co Author Krzystof Stanek
- Postdoctoral researcher Dorota Szczygiel
- Research team from Department of Astronomy – Ohio State University
- Ohio State
Alzheimer’s Research
- The low down
- One of the earliest known impairments caused by Alzheimer’s disease is the loss of sense of smell
- There is currently no effective treatment or cure for the disease
- Since the 1970s, loss of sense of smell has been identified as an early sign of this disease
- Smell loss can be caused by a number of ailments, exposures or injuries
- Significance
- Researchers at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine have confirmed that the protein, called amyloid beta, causes the loss of sense of smell
- Amyloid beta plaque accumulated first in parts of the brain associated with smell, well before accumulating in areas associated with cognition and coordination
- Just a tiny amount of amyloid beta – too little to be seen on today’s brain scans – start this process
- While losses in the olfactory system occurred, the rest of the mouse model brain, including the hippocampus, which is a center for memory, continued to act normally early in the disease stage
- Mice were given a synthetic liver x-receptor agonist, a drug that clears amyloid beta from the brain
- The sense of smell an be restored by removing a plaque-forming protein in a mouse model of the disease
- After two weeks on the drug, the mice could process smells normally
- After withdrawal of the drug for one week, impairments returned
- Team are now following-up on these discoveries to determine how amyloid spreads throughout the brain, to learn methods to slow disease progression
- * Of Note*
- We could use the sense of smell to determine if someone may get Alzheimer’s disease
- Use changes in sense of smell to begin treatments, instead of waiting until someone has issues learning and remembering
- We can also use smell to see if therapies are working
- Further Reading / In the News
- Reversing Early Sign of Alzheimer’s – Animal Experiment Successful, For A While @ Medical News Today
- Early sign of Alzheimer’s reversed in lab @ Medical Xpress
- Published in The Journal of Neuroscience
- Research by Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine
Martian Glaciers


- The low down
- High resolution stereo imaging from ESA’s Mars Express orbiter, we’re able to detect a feature called ‘lobate debris aprons’.
- Lobate debris aprons could indeed signal the presence of ice – perhaps only 20 meter below the surface
- The gently rolling series of hills, at 30 to 50 deg N, have been probed by radar and are a normal feature for mountains found for those latitudes.
- Significance
- Scientist have surmised these low mountain ranges are not volcanic in origin, but created through tectonic forces and may conceal a copious supply of frozen water or glaciers.
- Nearby impact craters also show signs of recent glaciation
- Ridges formed inside these ancient holes from snowfall, and then slid down the slopes with time, it compacted to form a glacier structure
- * Of Note*
- One of the greatest needs future astronauts will face is water
- A one time, Mars’ polar axis was quite different than it is today, it created different climatic conditions and mid-latitude glaciers may have developed at different times over the last several hundred million years
- Earlier studies of the debris aprons show the material has slid down the mountain slopes with time – a feature shared with Earth’s glaciers
- This area on the red planet may yield large quantities of sub-surface ice
- Multimedia
- IMAGE : A wider contextual image of the region surrounding Phlegra Montes. @ ESA.int
- IMAGE : Flow patterns attributable to water are widely visible across the image. @ ESA.int
- IMAGE : Elevation data from the DTM is colour coded @ ESA.int
- IMAGE : Phlegra Montes is a range of gently curving mountains and ridges on Mars. @ ESA.int
- IMAGE : This perspective view has been calculated from the Digital Terrain Model derived from the stereo channels. @ ESA.int
- IMAGE : This second perspective view has been calculated from the Digital Terrain Model derived from the stereo channels. @ ESA.int
- IMAGE : The image combines data from the nadir channel and one stereo channel to produce this 3D image. @ ESA.int
- Social Media
- Twitter Account for [#ESA](https://twitter.com/#!/ESA)
- Further Reading / In the News
- Mountains and buried ice on Mars @ ESA
- Mars Express Reveals Possible Martian Glaciers @ UniverseToday
- Mountains and buried ice on Mars @ MarsToday.com
- European Space Agency @ ESA.int
- Mars Express Orbiter @ ESA.int
- Mars Express @ Wiki
Spandex Cables

- The low down
- Japanese company Asahi Kasei Fibers, originally designed the elastic cable material, called Roboden, for wiring the soft, flexible skin of humanoid robots.
- The new cable can stretch by a factor of 1.5
- The cable material is made of an outer elastic shell with spiraled internal wiring that unspirals when pulled.
- Multimedia
- VIDEO @ YouTube – Worlds First Elastic Electric/Data/USB Cables – Roboden #DigInfo
- Further Reading / In the News
- Spandex manufacturer makes elastic electrical cable (w/ video) @ PhysOrg](http://www.physorg.com/news/2011–12-spandex-elastic-electrical-cable-video.html)
- Stretchable Cables, Designed for Robots, Handy for Humans @ Wired.com](http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/12/stretchable-cables-designed-for-robots-handy-for-humans/)
New Horizons (Pluto spacecraft) – Update


- The low down
- New Horizons space craft was launch January 19, 2006
- Speeding toward Pluto at around 34,500 mph (55,500 km/hr).
- Passed Uranus’s orbit on 18 March 2011
- Significance
- On December 2, 2011, 2,143 days after launch New Horizons became the closest spacecraft ever to Pluto and will be for quite some time
- Previous record held by Voyager 1, which came within 983 million miles (1.58 billion km) of the dwarf planet on January 29, 1986
- * Of Note*
- New Horizons will pass by Pluto and its moons on July 14, 2015 (SciByte 212)
- Multimedia
- IMAGE : New Horizons Spacecraft
- IMAGE : Pluto from Earth
- Rough location in reference to Uranus and Pluto
- Social Media
- NewHorizons2015 @NewHorizons2015
- Further Reading / In the News
- NASA’s Pluto Probe Marks a New Milestone @ UniverseToday
- New Horizons Becomes Closest Spacecraft to Approach Pluto @ NewHorizons
- New Horizons @ NASA
- New Horizons Mission Page
- Where is New Horizons Now?
- NASA Pluto Probe Passes Orbit of Uranus @ Space.com
Voyager 1 – Update

- The low down
- Launched : Sep 05, 1977
- Speed : 10.5 mi/s [17 km/s]
- Significance
- NASA’s Voyager Hits New Region at Solar System Edge
- It has entered a new region between our solar system and interstellar space
- Voyager 1 is about 11 billion miles (18 billion kilometers) from the sun, it is not yet in interstellar space.
- The data do not reveal exactly when Voyager 1 will make it past the edge of the solar atmosphere into interstellar space, but suggest it will be in a few months to a few years.
- Social Media
- Voyager 1 @NASAVoyager1
- Further Reading / In the News
- Curiosity Rover | SciByte 22
- NASA’s Voyager Hits New Region at Solar System Edge @ JPL.NASA
SCIENCE CALENDER
Looking back
- Dec 11, 1911 – 100 years ago – Marie Curie’s second Nobel Prize : Marie Curie became the first person to be awarded a second Nobel prize. She had isolated radium by electrolyzing molten radium chloride. This second prize was for her individual achievements in Chemistry, whereas her first prize (1903) was a collaborative effort with her husband, Pierre, and Henri Becquerel in Physics for her contributions in the discovery of radium and polonium.
- *Dec 7–11 1972 – 39 years ago – Last moon mission *: On Dec 7th Apollo 17, the sixth and last U.S. moon mission, blasted off from Cape Canaveral. On Dec 11th astronauts Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt landed on the moon for a three-day exploration, while Ronald E. Evans remained in orbit. Flight Commander Eugene Cernan was the last man on the moon. Typically the backup crew for an Appolo mission was to serve as the main crew 3 missions later, but with Appolo 17 scheduled as the last Moon mission there was heavy pressure to put a geologist to the crew (Schmitt.)
- Dec 10, 1984 – 27 years ago – First Extrasolar Planet Discovery Announcement: The National Science Foundation reported the discovery of the first planet outside our solar system, orbiting a star 21 million light years from Earth. The object was found orbiting Van Biesbroeck 8, an extremely faint star about 21 light years from Earth. However, it seemed to abruptly vanish when later attempts to observe its gravitational pull on Van Biesbroeck 8 failed. It is currently unknown whether the object ever existed.
Looking up this week
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Keep an eye out for …
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Wednesday, Dec 7 : As darkness falls, Jupiter is to the upper right of the Moon.

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–Saturday Dec 10 – Total Eclipse of the Moon–
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The Moon is totally within the umbra of Earth’s shadow for 52 minutes. The partial stages before and after totality each last more than an hour.
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At the instant of greatest eclipse (14:32 UT) the Moon lies at the zenith in the Pacific Ocean near Guam.
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The exact hue (anything from bright orange to blood red is possible) depends on the unpredictable state of the atmosphere at the time of the eclipse. As Jack Horkheimer (1938–2010) of the Miami Space Transit Planetarium loved to say, “Only the shadow knows.”
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Timeline
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Partial Eclipse Begins – 4:45am PST / 12:45 GMT
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Total Eclipse Begins – 6:45am PST / 14:06 GMT
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Total Eclipse Maximum – 6:32am PST / 14:32 GMT
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Total Eclipse Ends – 6:14am PST / 14:57 GMT
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Partial Eclipse Ends – 8:17am PST / 16:17 GMT
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What you can see
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United States & Canada : The western United States and Canada will witness a total lunar eclipse. The action begins around 4:45am PST when the red shadow of Earth first falls across the lunar disk. By 6:05am PST, the Moon will be fully engulfed in red light.
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Europe : Seen as rising over eastern Europe
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Asia and Australia : Visible from all of Asia and Australia
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Austrailia and Japan : The eclipsed Moon hangs high in middle of the night
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South America & Antarctica : Not able to see the eclipse
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More on whats in the sky this week
Brains & Light | SciByte 21
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Hello everyone and welcome back to SciByte!
We take a look at memory, flexible brain implant, supernova’s, light absorption, a new space station crew, the latest news on Russia’s Phobos-Grunt mission and take another peek back into history and up in the sky this week.
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Star Wars: The Old Republic: Revan
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Previous picks in the Jupiter Broadcasting Store
Show Notes:
SciByte 20 Correction
- One letter can make a world of difference …
- Today’s power plants use fission to generate heat and do useful work. The creation of the first man-made fission reactor, known as Chicago Pile–1, achieved criticality on December 2, 1942. Fusion differs from the fission reactions used in current nuclear power plants for it occurs when light nuclei travelling at high speed combine, without radioactive waste as a byproduct.
Feedback
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The low down
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Ceres is also the largest Main Belt asteroid, comprising about a third of the mass of the asteroid belt
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Discovered on 1 January 1801 by Giuseppe Piazzi, it was the first asteroid to be identified
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surface is probably a mixture of water ice and various hydrated minerals such as carbonates and clays, and may even harbour an ocean of liquid water under its surface
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Significance
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International Astronomical Union (IAU) gathered at the second General Assembly on August 24, 2006 and voted on an official definition of planet
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There is now a new category of planets designated as “dwarf planets,” including Pluto, Charon (its moon), and Ceres
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* Of Note*
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Ceres was almost the 5th planet, but the definition to planet requires the orbit to be ‘cleared’
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The 2006 IAU decision that classified Ceres as a dwarf planet never addressed whether it is or is not an asteroid
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The IAU has never defined the word ‘asteroid’
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NASA continues to refer to Ceres as an asteroid, saying in a 2011 press announcement that “Dawn will orbit two of the largest asteroids in the Main Belt”,as do various academic textbooks
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Social Media
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NASA’s Dawn Mission @NASA_Dawn
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Further Reading / In the News
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Ceres and Pluto: Dwarf Planets as a New Way of Thinking about an Old Solar System @ NASA.gov
*— UPDATES — *
Phobos-Grunt Update
- The low down
- Phobos-Ground was Russia’s first interplanetary mission since a botched 1996 robotic mission to Mars, which failed when the probe crashed shortly after the launch due to an engine failure
- It successfully launched by a Zenit–2 booster rocket just after midnight Moscow time Wednesday , separated from the booster about 11 minutes later and was to fire its engines twice to set out on its path to the Red Planet, but never did
- Scientists had hoped that studies of Phobos’ surface could help solve the mystery of its origin and shed more light on the genesis of the solar system.
- About seven tons of nitrogen teroxide and hydrazine are on board
- Also a small amount of cobalt–57 onboard the spacecraft, which is intended as a gamma ray source for the probe’s soil spectrometers. Cobalt–57 has a half life of about 270 days / ~ 9 months
- Significance
- With conflicting news reports as to how long the Russians have before the spacecraft’s batteries run out, ranging from two days to two weeks, it hasn’t been the easiest to get an accurate picture of the situation
- encountered problems with either computer software or the propulsion system
- What should have happened is that two and a half hours after launch, the first burn should have put the spacecraft into an higher orbit around Earth, and a second burn should have occurred 126 minutes later, which would have sent it the spacecraft to Mars. Neither occurred
- * Of Note*
- Amateur astronomers were the first to spot the trouble when they detected that the spacecraft was stuck in an Earth orbit
- Phobos-Grunt is in a, so-called parking orbit, at about 1/2 the height of the Space Station and there is little danger of it colliding with other spacecraft or satellites
- The U.S. Space Surveillance Network is tracking without difficulty both the Phobos-Grunt spacecraft and its associated Zenit 2 second stage
- On Nov 11 NORAD was putting a Nov. 26 reentry date on Phobos-Grunt.
- The head of Russia’s Federal Space Agency said on the 14th estimated that the Phobos-Grunt would fly until January, and to make it perform its mission it would still have time until the beginning of December
- Some of the reason for the change in date is that the spacecraft surprised everyone by maneuvering on its own, raising its orbit. Due to this, the estimated reentry date was moved back from late November to mid January
- the Mars departure window closes in early December
- One problem is that tracking stations are slow [that is, they cannot turn fast enough to track a fast-moving spacecraft on a low-Earth orbit] and Phobos-Grunt is on an unplanned trajectory, hence the communication session lasts for only 7 minutes
- It’s also possible their radio stations may be having a hard time broadcasting quietly enough not to harm the spacecraft
- Multimedia
- VIDEO : Will Phobos-Grunt fall to Earth @ Space.com
- The Phobos-Grunt mission profile @UniverseToday.com
- Social Media
- Twitter Results for [#PhobosGrunt](https://twitter.com/#!/search?q=%23PhobosGrunt)
- Further Reading / In the News
- Russia Races to Save Mars Moon Probe from Space Junk Fate @Space.com
- Trouble for the Phobos-Grunt Mission @UniverseToday
- Russian probe fails to set course to Mars – Roscosmos @ Rian.ru
- Russians desperately try to save Mars moon probe (Update) @PhysOrg.com
- Outlook Grim for Stranded Russian Mars Moon Probe @Space.com
- Chance of Russia Mars probe rescue ‘very small’ @PhysOrg.com
- Russia’s attempts to save Mars probe unsuccessful (Update) @Physorg.com
- Phobos-Grunt: a legal analysis of potential liability and options for mitigation @ The Space Review
- Cosmic Fail! Getting into Space Is Still Really, Really Hard @Space.com
- Russia Still Trying to Contact Stranded Mars Moon Probe @Space.com
- Phobos-Grunt status, launch plus six days @ The Planetary Society @ Planetary.org
- [Update on Phobos-Grunt: Might the LIFE Experiment be Recovered? @ UniverseToday.com]http://www.universetoday.com/90985/update-on-phobos-grunt-might-the-life-experiment-be-recovered/()
*— NEWS BYTE — *
Memory and your brain

- The low down
- Scientists have long studied people with memory deficits, but there haven’t been many studies on people with exceptional memories
- some real-life people can remember every day of their lives in detail
- Those superrememberers have more bulk in certain parts of their brains, possibly explaining the remarkable ability to recall minutiae from decades ago
- The reserachers fund 11 people who scored off the charts for autobiographical memory. These people could effortlessly remember, for instance, what they were doing on November 2, 1989, and could also tell you that it was a Thursday
- Significance
- Using brain scans, researchers found that people with supermemories had larger brain regions associated with memory, specifically a brain structure called the lentiform nucleus, a cone-shaped mass in the core of the brain, was bigger in people with exceptional memories
- Brain region involved in such incredible recall has been implicated in obsessive-compulsive disorder
- OCD and superior memory might have a common architecture in the brain
- The subjects haven’t been clinically evaluated for OCD, but LePort says that there are some similarities
- The ability to organize their memories by dates seems to relieve anxiety
- Though no genetic tests have been performed, some of the volunteers have reported that family members share extraordinary powers of recall
- The volunteers are now keeping detailed diaries, so that the scientists can test whether particular kinds of memories are better suited to recollection. People might be better at remembering emotional memories, for instance
- Social Media
- UC Irvine @UCIrvine
- Further Reading / In the News
- Society for Neurosciencce
- Exceptional memory linked to bulked-up parts of brain @ ScienceNews.com
- Enlarged Brain Parts Linked to Extraordinary Memory @TopNews.us
Flexible Brain Implant for Seizures

- The low down
- The brain contains billions of interconnected neurons that normally transmit electrical pulses
- During a seizure, these pulses occur in abnormal, synchronized, rapid-fire bursts that can cause convulsions, loss of consciousness and other symptoms
- Significance
- Researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health have developed a flexible brain implant that could one day be used to treat epileptic seizures
- In an animal model, the researchers saw spiral waves of brain activity not previously observed during a seizure
- Similar waves are known to ripple through cardiac muscle during a type of life-threatening heart rhythm called ventricular fibrillation.
- Someday, these flexible arrays could be used to pinpoint where seizures start in the brain and perhaps to shut them down
- A stimulating electrode array might one day be designed to suppress seizure activity, working like a pacemaker for the brain
- These flexible electrode arrays could significantly expand surgical options for patients with drug-resistant epilepsy
- the array could be rolled into a tube and delivered into the brain through a small hole rather than by opening the skull
- * Of Note*
- The implant is a type of electrode array that conforms to the brain’s surface – to take an unprecedented look at the brain activity underlying seizures
- is made of a pliable material that is only about one quarter the thickness of a human hair
- It contains 720 silicon nanomembrane transistors in a multiplexed 360-channel array, which allow for minimal wiring and dense packing of the electrodes
- The flexibility of the array allows it to conform to the brain’s complex shape, even reaching into grooves that are inaccessible to conventional arrays
- The researchers tested the flexible array on cats. Although mice and rats are used for most neuroscience research, cats have larger brains that are anatomically more like the human brain, with simplified folds and grooves
- Social Media
- The Society for Neuroscience (SfN) @SfNtweets
- Penn Medicine Media @PennMedMedia
- NIH for Health @NIHforHealth
- Further Reading / In the News
- Society for NeuroScience
- Nature Neuroscience
- National Institutes of Health
- Ultrathin flexible brain implant offers unique look at seizures @ MedicalXPress.com
- Flexible Brain Implant Could Treat Epilepsy @ DiscoveryNews.com
- Brain implant ‘could be used to treat epilepsy’ @ EpilepsyResearch.ork.uk
Did a supernova kick start our solar system?
- The low down
- Scientists think the sun and surrounding planets were born from a churning disk of gas and dust, but what precisely caused the stuff to condense and form these bodies has been a mystery
- New computer simulations support the supernova scenario
- cold cloud of gas, and set it 15 light-years from an exploding supernova. Stun the cloud with the supernova’s shockwave. Incubate, and watch as the solar system begins to take shape
- Significance
- Understanding how the local solar neighborhood grew up is crucial for learning how other planetary systems are born
- Some clues to the solar systems origin appear in radioactive elements that were injected into and swam around the presolar cloud
- Today, they are embedded in objects such as asteroids, and are thought to mark the first solid bodies that emerged after the cloud’s collapse
- aluminum–26, has helped scientists determine that the solar system was born a little more than 4.5 billion years ago
- All of it appears to have enriched the cloud within roughly 20,000 years, much faster than most simulations can explain
- The team ruled out solar wind from a nearby star or enrichment occurring from within the cold cloud itself, because the key elements would have been delivered too slowly or in the wrong quantities
- approached the problem differently, by calculating in three dimensions rather than two, but also concluded that shocking the embryonic solar system would simultaneously trigger the cloud’s collapse and quickly inject the required radioactive elements
- Social Media
- Carnegie Institution @carnegiescience
- Further Reading / In the News
- Supernova may have kicked off solar system @ Science News
- Astrophysical Journal
- Carnegie Institution for Science
Nano shag-carpet absorbs light


- The low down
- Black paint only absorbs about 90 percent of the light that hits it
- in the cold dark of space, black paint takes on a silvery hue
- other nanomaterials and metamaterials that can absorb nearly all light in some wavelengths
- these require special fabrication processes to work in whichever wavelength researchers want
- Significance
- The new material is made of carbon nanotubes and can be grown on a variety of space-friendly substrates, from silicon to titanium to stainless steel
- absorbs an average 99 percent of all the ultraviolet, visible, infrared, and far-infrared light that hits it
- collecting and trapping light inside tiny gaps between the nanotubes, which are arranged in vertical fibrous strands
- * Of Note*
- It could also help scientists examine small spots in high-contrast areas, like planets orbiting other stars, and even look at the Earth, where weak light signals of interest to atmospheric scientists are washed out by the atmosphere’s reflectivity
- Social Media
- NASA Goddard @NASAGoddard
- Results for #SPIEDigitalLibrary](http://twitter.com/#!/search?q=%23SPIEDigitalLibrary)
- Further Reading / In the News
- New Super-Black Material Absorbs 99 Percent of All Light That Dares to Strike It @PopSci
- New ‘super-black’ material absorbs light across multiple wavelength bands @ PhysOrg.com
- NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
- SPIE Optics and Photonics
An ancient horse of a different color … or spots
- The low down
- Previous genetic studies had suggested that horses were either bay or black before domestication, and more elaborate patterns emerged as a result of breeding selection imposed by humans
- In new study published show that some prehistoric horses really did sport spots
- Significance
- A new analysis of DNA from the remains of 31 horses found in Europe and Siberia suggests that prehistoric horses came in bay, black and leopard-spotted at least 16,000 years ago
- Of the 31 horses studied, 18 were bay, seven were black and six carried genetic variants that produce a leopard spotting pattern
- Further Reading / In the News
- Prehistoric horses came in leopard print @ScienceNews.com
A new crew for the Space Station Arrives
- The low down
- A Russian rocket successfully lifted off from snowy Central Asia on Nov. 13, carrying a NASA astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts to the International Space Station
- Despite intense snowfall at the launch site, the winds remained calm, which enabled Russian controllers to proceed with the scheduled liftoff
- The temperature was about 24 F, roughly 6 inches (15 cm) of snow had accumulated on the ground at launch time and moderate wind gusts partially obscured the view.
- The spaceflyers are expected to arrive at the space station on Wednesday (Nov. 16) after a two day journey
- Significance
- NASA astronaut Dan Burbank and Russian cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Anatoly Ivanishin, they will be joined in December by the next trio to round out Expedition 30
- Burbank previously visited the space station in 2000 and 2006, on missions aboard the space shuttle Atlantis. This will be his first long-duration stint at the massive orbiting laboratory. Shkaplerov and Ivanishin are both conducting their first spaceflight.
- The station’s Expedition 29 crew, which currently consists of commander Mike Fossum of NASA, Japanese astronaut Satoshi Furukawa and Russian cosmonaut Sergei Volkov.
- Commander Fossum and his two crewmates have been living and working aboard the station since June. They are scheduled to return to Earth on Nov. 21. Before his departure, Fossum will hand over command of the station to Burbank, who will lead the station’s new Expedition 30 mission for the duration of his stay
- * Of Note*
- The Expedition 30 crew could also be present for the test flights of two robotic commercial vehicle during their stay at the station
- SpaceX’s Dragon capsule and Orbital Sciences’ Cygnus freighter are tentatively scheduled to carry out demonstration flights of their spacecraft in the new year
- The three newest station residents will remain at the massive orbiting complex until March 2012
- Multimedia
- Launch Video
- Russian Spacecraft Going to Space Station @YouTube.com
- Expedition 29 Crew Gets Final Approval for Launch @ YouTube.com
- Social Media
- NASA Astronauts @NASA_Astronauts
- Results for [#SpaceX](http://twitter.com/#%21/search?q=%23SpaceX)
- Further Reading / In the News
- New Space Station Crew Launches in Spectacular Snowy Display @ Space.com
- New Crewmembers to Arrive at Space Station Early Wednesday @ Space.com
- Soyuz Launches to Station amid Swirling Snowy Spectacular @ UniverseToday
- SpaceX’s Dragon capsule
- International Space Station
- NASA Astronauts
The last 14miles for the Endeavour
- The low down
- After travelling over 122 million miles the Space Shuttle Endeavour will make it’s final 14 miles from LAX to the California Science Center
- the options for moving a nearly six story, 180-thousand pound spacecraft, with a 78-foot wing span are limited
- The Randy’s Donuts sign was an absolute no, no to touch
- Further Reading / In the News
- How to Drive Space Shuttle Endeavour Down the Streets of Los Angeles @UniverseToday.com
SCIENCE CALENDER
Looking back this week
- Nov 22, 1809 : 202 years ago – The Pen : The first patent was issued in the U.S. for a metallic writing pen was issued to Peregrine Williamson a jeweller of Baltimore, Maryland. Williamson’s pens were made of steel rolled from wire, a sort of steel quill that would never need cutting to sharpen the nib. There are references to steel pens being used in Britain before this patent.
- Nov 19, 1872 : 139 years ago – Adding Machine : the first U.S. patent for an adding machine capable of printing totals and subtotals, called a “calculating machine,” was issued to E.D. Barbour of Boston, Mass. However, it was not practical. (No. 133,188)
- Nov 21, 1877 : 134 years ago – Edison’s phonograph : Thomas Edison announced his invention of his “talking machine” – the tin-foil cylinder recorder that preceeded the phonograph. The indented tin foil, however, would survive only a few playings. By the first public showing of a phonograph, which took place in New York City in early Feb 1878, its practical applications had not yet been realized.
- Nov 19, 1895 : 116 years ago – Paper Pencil : the first U.S. patent for a paper pencil was issued was issued to Fredrick E. Blaisdell of Philadelphia, Pa. (No. 549,952)
- Nov 17, 1970 : 41 years ago – Mouse Patent : a U.S. patent was issued for the computer mouse – an “X-Y Position Indicator for a Display System” (No. 3541541). The first mouse was a simple hollowed-out wooden block, with a single push button on top. Engelbart had designed this as a tool to select text, move it around, and otherwise manipulate it.
- Nov 16, 1972 : 39 years ago – Skylab III : Skylab III, carrying a crew of three astronauts, was launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on an 84-day mission that remained the longest American space flight for over two decades
- Nov 20, 1998 : 13 years ago – International Space Station : the first module of the International Space Station was launched on a Russian Proton rocket. It was followed two weeks later by the Unity connecting module from the U.S. The project, initiated by NASA in 1983, also involved Canada, Japan and the 11 members of the European Space Agency. After the Cold War, the Russians had been invited to participate, not merely as an exercise in international cooperation, but also to employ Russian scientists who might have otherwise sold their expertise to renegade countries.
Looking up this week


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Coronal Mass Ejections
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It ejected from the sun on Nov 11th
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Went past Mercury on Nov. 13th was predicted to hit Venus on the 14th. (above left)
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astronomers around the world have been monitoring a dark filament of magnetism sprawled more than 1,000,000 kilometers across the face of the sun
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On Nov. 14th the filament snapped and flung a fraction of itself into space and NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded the action (above right)
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Keep an eye out for …
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Thursday, Nov 17 : Leonid meteor shower will peak, but will be contending with the last-quarter moon so only a few “shooting stars” will shine through the lunar glow
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Friday, Nov 14 : Last-quarter Moon (exact at 10:09 a.m. EST). The Moon shines near Mars and Regulus this morning and tomorrow morning
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Saturday Nov. 19 : Mars is visible to the upper left of the Moon at first light this morning
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Saturday Nov. 19 : Venus is low in the southwest in the early evening with Mercury below it, although you may need binoculars to see it.
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Tuesday, Nov 22 : Look to the southeast at first light for Saturn and the star Spica near the crescent Moon. Spica, the brightest star of Virgo, is close to the left of the Moon, with fainter Saturn a little farther to the left of Spica.
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More on whats in the sky this week
