From PopularScience:
Scientists must really dread the dentist -- they're always coming up with new solutions to help people avoid that cursed drill. The latest: a hormone gel that regenerates tooth cells in as little as a month. The gel, the first of its kind, could eliminate th
When Japan’s Hayabusa space probe returned home from a sever-year odyssey this month, we got to see the amazing video as it broke up in a brilliant flash in the atmosphere and deposited its sample container (hopefully containing asteroid material) in Australia. Three high school students from Massachusetts, however, got a much better view. They experienced it first hand, and helped make that video for the world to see, thanks to a little white lie told by their teacher.
Ron Dantowitz of Brookline, Massachusetts, gave the three a challenge: If you had to track an object entering the atmosphere at 27,000 miles per hour, how would you know where to look, how would you keep the camera trained on the careening object, and what could you learn about the temperatures the object encountered? After they worked on the project for half a year, Dantowitz let loose his secret—this was no hypothetical scenario. He and the three students got to fly on the DC-8 over Australia and help NASA film Hayabusa’s return.
“We had flown several practices, but when we took off for the real thing, I felt a surge of adrenaline,” says [James] Breitmeyer. “I was on the edge of my seat, anxious for our plane to arrive at the right place at the right time.”
“We got to the rendezvous area 30 minutes ahead of time,” says Dantowitz. “So we practiced the rendezvous to make sure everyone knew which stars to line the cameras up with to capture Hayabusa’s re-entry. By the time we finished the trial run, we had only 2 or 3 minutes to go” [NASA Science News].
The students also captured spectral images like this one, showing how Hayabusa and its sample return container reacted with the atmosphere.
Concerning the mission itself, scientists at Japan’s space agency JAXA are slowly prying open the container to find out whether their plucky explorer captured any samples from its visit to an asteroid.
The presence of a low-pressure gas inside the capsule has already been detected, the agency is reporting. The nature of the gas, and whether it’s of extraterrestrial origin, has not yet been determined. The opening of the capsule is expected to take a week or more, though JAXA has not stated whether this is due to prudence on the part of the scientists or simply being unable to pry the darn package open [Popular Science].
We hope they find something inside. It would be the first time a probe has brought back samples from an asteroid it visited. And Hayabusa’s return after a long and troubled journey has inspired the Japanese government to pledge the funds for a sequel, the Washington Post reports.
Related Content:
80beats: Japanese Probe Makes It Home. But Did It Collect Any Asteroid Dust?
80beats: Japan’s Damaged Asteroid Probe Could Limp Back to Earth in June
Bad Astronomy: Video of Hayabusa’s Return
Bad Astronomy: A Piece of Asteroid Falls To Earth In June, But in a Good Way
Image: NASA
From InformationWeek:
Shanghai plans to become the first city in China to scrap paper textbooks in favor of e-books and hopes to institute its plan within the next five years. The idea first came to light when the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission said it is already experi
1)What is the correct connections to the three connections(+24V,M,-24V)
a)The incoming connections(0-10V,0-24V)
b)The outgoing connections and what is expected(0-10V,4-2-mA)
2)Can the CT be connected directly to a PLC if the output is either 0-10V or 4-20mA.
From BusinessWeek:
President Barack Obama proposed today almost doubling the airwaves available for smartphones, laptop connections to the Internet and new wireless devices. Obama signed a memorandum that commits the U.S. to free up 500 megahertz of government and commercial spe
Astronomers have confirmed that an object in an image from 2008 — thought at the time to possibly be a direct image of a planet orbiting another star — is in fact a planet.
I’ll explain in a sec, but I want people to understand that this discovery is being touted as the first direct image of a planet around another star. It isn’t. Nor is it the first direct image of a planet orbiting a sun-like star. What this is is the first direct image of a planet orbiting a sun-like star taken using a ground-based telescope. While that may sound overly picky, it’s actually a significant achievement, and worth noting.
First, the planet picture:
This image, taken in 2008 by the Gemini North telescope in Hawaii, shows the star 1RXS J160929.1-210524 (I’ll call it 1RXS 1609) in the center, and the planet (1RXS 1609b) indicated by the red circle. As I wrote about this in 2008:
The image come from the monster 8 meter Gemini North telescope in Hawaii. The star is 1RSX J160929.1-210524 (for those taking notes at home) — it’s a K7 dwarf, a bit cooler and smaller than the Sun — and the planet is the blip circled at the upper left. It has no real name as yet — it hasn’t been confirmed yet; more on that in a sec — but if it’s a planet orbiting the star, it has a mass of about 8 times that of Jupiter.
The problem was, it might have been a background galaxy or another, fainter star. It’s happened before; I spent weeks working on a similar image from Hubble that turned out to be a background star (grrr). However, new images revealed the object is in fact orbiting the star, and is a planet. Here’s the proof:
On this plot, the separation of the star and object are shown on the y-axis, and time on the x. The star is very slowly moving across the sky as it orbits the center of our galaxy. If the object were a background star, moving at a different rate, the separation between it and the star would fall on or near the purple line, changing as they move separately. If the object were a planet, the separation wouldn’t change much at all as they traveled together across the sky. The observations of the object are shown as black dots, and fall pretty much right on the line marking it as a planet.
Cool!
Given these observations, and the distance of the star of about 500 light years, we know the planet 1RXS 1609b has about 8 times the mass of Jupiter, orbits the star 45 billion km (27 billion miles) from its star — 300 times the Earth-Sun distance — and has a temperature of 1500 C (2700° F). The star is a bit less massive than the Sun, and isn’t nearly hot enough to heat the planet to that temperature. The reason the planet is hot is because it’s young, only 5 million years old. It’s still cooling off from being formed, and in a few billion years will be very cold. But right now it’s warm enough to glow and be detected by us.
This discovery is a technological achievement because the star and planet are very close together in the sky, and difficult to separate. From the ground, the Earth’s atmosphere blurs the images and scatters the star’s light, making the planet extremely hard to see at all. Even more amazing is that they could get an actual spectrum of the planet and use that to determine its temperature; that’s even harder to do (like juggling is hard, but doing it on a unicycle even harder). So all in all, a truly remarkable event.
However, as I pointed out, it’s not being reported completely accurately.
First, it’s not the first exoplanet even seen directly. That distinction belongs to the planet 2M1207b, which orbits a brown dwarf about 230 light years away. Brown dwarfs are smaller and cooler than the Sun, and are not fusing hydrogen into helium in their cores, so some people don’t consider them to be real stars. So while the object seen is a planet, it’s not orbiting a sun-like star.
OK, but a planet already has been directly imaged orbiting the star Fomalhaut. That star is hotter and more massive than the Sun, but is far more sun-like than a brown dwarf. The first image of the planet Fomalhaut b was taken in 2004 using Hubble Space Telescope, and the second confirming image in 2006. It took two more years to make sure everything was correct, and the news announced in 2008. So while this was announced after the image of 1RXS 1609b was first taken in 2008, the first image of Fomalhaut b was taken in 2004, four years earlier.
So some people are saying this observation of 1RXS 1609b is the first direct image of a planet orbiting a sun-like star taken by a telescope on Earth (Hubble is orbiting in space). I’ll grant that. And while that may seem a bit nit picky, it’s actually pretty cool. Observing exoplanets from space is in some ways easier than from the ground, because there’s no air to screw up the image. It’s still incredibly hard, but easier. From the ground, though, there are techniques that improve the odds a lot. Still, these are very difficult observations and are a fantastic achievement.
I’ve seen this reported with inaccurate headlines all over the place, so please be aware that there are misleading and even exaggerated reports about this. But also keep in mind that despite the breathless hyperbole, this really is pretty cool news.
You have a 100-gallon commercial water heater. To provide for the expulsion of any overflow water due to the rare tripping of either the over-temperature relief valve, or the over-pressure relief valve (same 3/4" exit pipe), you have two choices.
1. Provide a floor drain with a trap, con
NASA Ames Research Center Helps Underserved School Receive Used Computers
"Times are tough, but none more so than for schools and their students. To promote equal opportunity for all children, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., recently helped Park Avenue Elementary School in the Yuba City Unified District, receive 24 used computers and servers for data storage. It was a perfect match. NASA had surplus computers and equipment that it wanted to give away, and Park Avenue Elementary School needed more computers for its 563 student population, which is 86 percent Hispanic."
Editor's note: Dennis Wingo and Ken Zin are part of the Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project (LOIRP) team. LOIRP make frequent use of old NASA computers and surplus hardware. It is through this experience that Dennis and Ken became familiar with all of the potentially useful equipment sitting around waiting for someone to think of something to use it for. They found a use for it.
“Peacekeeper” missiles are getting a new lease on life: as satellite launchers. Next week, NASA plans to launch the second of these decommissioned intercontinental ballistic missiles, renamed “Minotaur IV,” to deploy a trash-tracking satellite.
It’s nice to know that one relic will help NASA spot others–pieces of junk, like abandoned rocket stages left over from other space missions. As the IV in the new rocket’s name implies, the Peacekeeper isn’t the first retired missile to enter the Air Force’s very special recycling program. The first Minotaurs (pdf) incorporated stages from Minutemen missiles.
Barron Beneski is a representative of Orbital Sciences Corp., which holds the Air Force contract to transform the missiles into launch vehicles. Beneski told Discovery News:
“What is neat is that what was once a military weapons system is now a peaceful use of government assets. It’s the whole idea of turning ’swords into plowshares.’”
Other countries, notably Russia and China, have similar missile makeover programs. Unlike these countries, the United States does not offer the boosters for sale on the open market–only for government use.
“OSC (Orbital Sciences) can’t sell a Minotaur to Brazil,” Wayne Eleazer, a retired Air Force officer, told Discovery News. “That’s still not allowed.”
Related content:
Discoblog: Dang, What Was That? Astronomers Wonder What Just Whizzed by Earth
Discoblog: Killer Military Robots Gaining Independence
80beats: Laser-Bearing Jumbo Jet Shoots Down Its First Missile
80beats: Russia’s Flawed Intercontinental Missile Test Lights Up Norway’s Sky
Image: NASA/JPL
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
INDIANAPOLIS, IN (6/30/10) – Today, the Indiana Supreme Court issued its opinion in League v. Rokita regarding the Voter ID law in Indiana. Libertarian Party nominee for Secretary of State Mike Wherry supports this decision by the Court and applauds this protection against voter fraud.
Wherry explains, “The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality [...]
Washington, D.C. – The Commercial Spaceflight Federation welcomes President Obama’s new National Space Policy, which underscores the importance of commercial spaceflight for American economic growth and leadership in space.
Bretton Alexander, President of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, stated, “The National Space Policy reinforces the President’s new plan for NASA, particularly the use of commercial providers for transport of crew and cargo to the International Space Station. The National Space Policy recognizes the benefits of a robust commercial space industry and lays down a series of clear policies to enable further growth of this sector.”
Alexander added, “Importantly, the National Space Policy document states that government space systems will only be developed if there is no suitable commercial system that “is or will be available” [emphasis added], a strong declaration that the government will support and not compete with emerging commercial space services.”
The importance of promoting commercial spaceflight is heavily emphasized throughout the National Space Policy document, establishing as a guiding principle that “a robust and competitive commercial space sector is vital to continued progress in space.” The policy further states that the U.S. government will “promote a robust domestic commercial space industry, […] refrain from conducting United States Government space activities that preclude, discourage, or compete with U.S. commercial space activities, [… and] pursue potential opportunities for transferring routine, operational space functions to the commercial space sector where beneficial and cost-effective,” among other pro-commercial actions.
About the Commercial Spaceflight Federation
The mission of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation (CSF) is to promote the development of commercial human spaceflight, pursue ever-higher levels of safety, and share best practices and expertise throughout the industry. The Commercial Spaceflight Federation’s member companies, which include commercial spaceflight developers, operators, spaceports, suppliers, and service providers, are creating thousands of high-tech jobs nationwide, working to preserve American leadership in aerospace through technology innovation, and inspiring young people to pursue careers in science and engineering. For more information please visit http://www.commercialspaceflight.org or contact Executive Director John Gedmark at john@commercialspaceflight.org or at 202.349.1121.
# # #
Keith's note: It has been a week. Where is the NASA Wallops press release about the launch? Was the rocket recovered? Did students get their payloads back? What was the reaction of students to having this unique experience? There is nothing on the Wallops website except an old notice that is several weeks old. NASA Wallops PAO simply does not care. Nor does NASA's Education Office - since there is still no mention whatsoever on their website. What a great way to kick of the "Summer of Innovation": ignoring a NASA mission that actually put student experiments into space.
- NASA Continues To Ignore RockOn! Launch, earlier post
- Yet Another Stealth Launch at Wallops, earlier post
From SPACE.com:
An alien planet that is only eight times the mass of Jupiter has been confirmed orbiting a sun-like star - over 300 times farther from the star than Earth is from the sun.
Read the whole article
From Popular Science - New Technology, Science News, The Future Now:
Cleaning up space junk, conducting climate research and forging international celestial harmony are the hallmarks of President Obama's new National Space Policy (PDF), unveiled Monday. Parts of the plan had been e
From Popular Science - New Technology, Science News, The Future Now:
When you think about it, it's ridiculous to spend the effort lugging around spare batteries, hand-cranked chargers, piezoelectric gadgets, and all the other half-baked solutions we depend on to resuscitate a dead
What is/are main difference(s) between those two? Would it be the number of protection applied and/or dangerous limits that might cause hazard?
BP can’t clean up its mess. Kevin Costner’s trying. But if you know how to clean up the leaking oil in the Gulf of Mexico, you could be a winner.
The X Prize Foundation says this week that it’s considering the creation of a multimillion-dollar prize for the solution to cleaning the BP oil spill. This is the same organization that put together awards of $10 million or more for private spacecraft and high mileage cars. The foundation’s Frances Beland announced the idea at an oil spill conference in Washington, D.C.
Beland said the foundation wanted to come up with a prize to find a solution to capping the well but found it was unable to obtain enough data to design such a challenge, so it opted to focus on the cleanup. “We’re going to launch a prize for cleanup, and we’re going to kick ass,” he said, to applause. Beland said 35,000 solutions to the Gulf crisis have been proposed to BP, the government and other organizations, including the X Prize Foundation [CNN].
Despite Beland’s high-flying rhetoric, many teams are finding little success in the other X Prize events that are ongoing. The Automotive X Prize, intend to reward cars that can exceed 100 miles per gallon, went through its knockout stage to narrow the competition before next month’s finals. Many of the entries fell by the wayside, unable to meet the milestones of at least 67 MPG or equivalent (MPGe) needed at this stage. (The “equivalent” business is necessary because many of the experimental vehicles use energy sources other than gasoline.)
The Knockout outcome was particularly disappointing for the West Philly team, a high-school group that garnered more and more attention as the contest progressed…. West Philly’s converted Ford Focus fell 3.5 points short of the required efficiency score of 67 MPGe, apparently due in part to a battery-charging snafu [MSNBC].
In addition, some of the car entries stretch the competition definition of being something you could sell to ordinary drivers. As DISCOVER saw when we visited the Shell Eco-Marathon, you can make cars that score way, way above 100 MPG if you sacrifice just about everything else in pursuit of that goal. The Auto X Prize cars are closer to what you might see on the road, but many of the designs are still a little out there.
And given the teams’ struggles to meet even 67 MPG while staying within the competition’s rules, there’s a chance that the winner will be… nobody.
“The prize money’s not won if you’re not successful,” said Eric Cahill, X Prize’s senior director. He added that it’s “entirely possible” that no competitor will achieve the target. “When the rules were first published, we received a lot of heat that this was too easy,” Mr. Cahill said. But as batteries overheated, sensors malfunctioned and cars struggled to cut through densely humid air, the target looks anything but easy [The New York Times].
Thinking back to the mess in the Gulf, we can’t help but reflect on that ever-growing list of 35,000 ideas for the cleanup: Hopefully at least one of them has what it takes.
Related Content:
DISCOVER: Should American Science Be More Like “American Idol”?
80beats: BP to Kevin Costner: We’ll Take 32 of Your Oil Clean-Up Machines
80beats: Lunar X Prize Competitor Hopes to Send a Rover Back to Tranquility Base
Discoblog: Shell Eco-Marathon: Meet the 1,000 MPG Cars of the Future
Image: Aptera
It’s a car… It’s a plane… It’s a car-plane. Last March, we described the maiden flight of Terrafugia’s new flying, driving machine, called the Transition. Now we’re one step closer to a Jetson’s reality: the Transition has just received FAA approval as a “light sport aircraft.”
Approval was not guaranteed, since the little guy is a bit husky, weighing more than the FAA’s “light sport aircraft” limit. As The Register reports, Terrafugia wanted to keep the plane in this classification to keep the vehicle available to more drivers/pilots.
[T]he plane-car was originally designed to fit within a weight limit of 1320 lb, meaning that it could qualify as a “light sport” aircraft. A US light sport pilot’s licence is significantly easier and cheaper to get than a normal private ticket, requiring only 20 hours logged, and red tape is lessened. [The Register]
But giving Transition road-worthy safety gear (like an air bag) meant adding on the pounds. The FAA has said that they’re willing to let a little extra weight slide, allowing the Transition 110-pounds worth of stretching room.
The vehicle can travel at 115 mph in the air and requires 1,700 feet to take off. When it folds up its wings (which it can do electronically), it can snuggle into a garage or a gas station. Though it does seem an exciting commuting option, Terafugia designed the Transition with pilots in mind, giving them the option to land and drive when flying conditions are too rough.
The two-seater Transition can use its front-wheel drive on roads at ordinary highway speeds, with wings folded, at a respectable 30 miles per gallon. Once it has arrived at a suitable take-off spot–an airport, or adequately sized piece of flat private land–it can fold down the wings, engage its rear-facing propellor, and take off. [The Telegraph]
So far, Terrafugia says 70 futuristic folks have pre-ordered the car, paying a refundable $10,000 deposit. The total price tag is $194,000.
Related content:
80beats: A Chitty Chitty Bang Bang For Everyone! New Flying Car Takes to the Sky
80beats: Swiss “Rocketman” Blasts Across the English Channel
DISCOVER: Dude, Where’s My Jetpack? asks why we don’t all have flying cars and ray guns yet
DISCOVER: Chasing the Jetsons wonders if we’ll ever have what they have
Discoblog: Back to the Future: The First Green Flying Car Is Ready for Takeoff
Image: Terrafugia
Ok, I'm now officially overwhelmed by the volume of response to the Washington Post piece and the American Academy paper. Over at DotEarth, for instance--and under the marvelous headline "Scientists From Mars Face Public From Venus"--Andy Revkin has solicited expert responses, and so we hear from Randy Olson, Matt Nisbet, Mike Hulme, John Horgan, Tom Bowman, Sheila Jasanoff, and Robert Brulle. They all have a lot to say. I like this from Nisbet:
The highlighted points of emphasis in the report have been the dominant focus of research in the field of science communication and science studies for the past 15 years and the basis for recent innovative projects such as the World Wide Views on Global Warming initiative. It is therefore deeply encouraging that these same points of emphasis emerged from the meetings convened by the American Academy. It’s a major sign that research in the field has contributed to a cultural shift in how leaders in U.S. science view public engagement. I agree, but I don't think the research alone has done this. I think that the timing was right for hard scientists to look across at social scientists and see what they had to say. Sheila Jasanoff of the Harvard Kennedy ...
The Copernican principle is a guiding foundation of cosmology. In short, it states that we are not in a privileged place in the Universe. A “random” observer will see the same Universe that we do. The cosmological standard model does satisfy this principle in space: at this moment, any other observer in the Universe should see the same Universe as we do (at large scales). Just like us, they see a smooth distribution of galaxies and a smooth CMB sky, with similar small anisotropies. However, we do live at a privileged time: in the history of the Universe, we just happen to be at the time when the dark energy density starts dominating over the dark matter density. This is known as the “coincidence” problem, and has been much discussed and agonized over. Here is a graphical description:
Today is very, very near where the two lines cross (redshift=0 is today; redshift=1,000 is where the CMB is generated; the Big Bang is at redshift=infinity). You can’t even see the crossing on the main plot; you need to go to the inset to see the incredibly rapid change at redshift=1. Last week at the Yukawa Institute workshop John Moffat was advocating calling the standard model “anti-Copernican” because of this fine-tuning. He has been wanting to take matters one step further: if we are willing to break the Copernican principle in time, why not seriously consider breaking it in space instead? More on this later.
The Copernican principle is one of those weird things in science that is a mix of science and aesthetics. It can’t be written down as an equation. And its application is often subject to the eye of the beholder. For example, the plot above looks like a problem because we’ve used redshift on the x-axis to represent time. There are physically motivated reasons to use this, as it relates to the size of the Universe, and is thus a proxy for many relevant physical processes. If instead we label time the way we normally measure it (as in, on your wristwatch, if you happened to have been around since the Big Bang), you get something that looks much more reasonable:
We’re no longer at a special time, and the coincidence problem vanishes. The Universe has been dark-energy dominated for billions of years, and we’re nowhere near the special crossing point. So which plot is right?
