Science & TechnologyS


Star

Milky Way's 'twin' discovered as astronomers find a supermassive black hole

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Lookalike: The centre of spiral galaxy, NGC 253, hosts a twin of Sagittarius A*, the bright radio source at the heart of our own Milky Way
It's enough to make TV's favourite physicist, Brian Cox, excited.

Astronomers have found that the centre of the galaxy nearest to our own hosts a twin of Sagittarius A*, the bright radio source that lies at the core of our Milky Way and which harbors a massive black hole.

Scientists studied the spectacular spiral galaxy, NGC 253, with Chile's Very Large Telescope (VLT) and NASA's Hubble Space Telescope when they made the find.

Andrea Ghez, professor of physics and astronomy at UCLA, who studied the stars and planets, told the Daily Galaxy website that through combining these observations they learnt the black hole was born billions of years ago, perhaps as very massive stars collapsed at the end of their life cycles and joined together to create a single, supermassive object.

Info

Is Homosexuality Based on a Brain Chemical?

Brain Regions
© DreamstimeThe brain chemical serotonin could be responsible for male-male attraction.

A male mouse's desire to mate with either a male or a female is determined by the brain chemical serotonin, scientists report in a new study. The finding demonstrates for the first time that a neurotransmitter governs sexual preference in mammals.

Serotonin is known to regulate sexual behaviors, such as erection, ejaculation and orgasm, in both mice and men. The compound generally dampens sexual activity; for instance, antidepressants that increase the amount of serotonin in the brain sometimes decrease sex drive.

Neuroscientist Yi Rao of Peking University and the National Institute of Biological Sciences in Beijing, and his collaborators have now shown that serotonin also underlies a male's decision to woo a female or another male. They published their results in the March 24 issue of the journal Nature.

Rao and his team genetically engineered male mice to lack either serotonin-producing neurons or a protein that is crucial for making serotonin in the brain. Both types of altered mouse couldn't make serotonin.

Telescope

Looking Up: Waiting for the Next Supernova

Supernova
© European Southern ObservatoryThis photo shows the newly discovered Supernova 1992C in the barred spiral galaxy NGC 3367. The supernova is the bright, star-like object in the lower left area (southeast of the centre of the galaxy), at the tip of a spiral arm. The 16.5-magnitude supernova was discovered by ESO astronomer Hans van Winckel on January 28, 1992.

One of these days we might see a supernova. It might seem more correct to say "one of these nights," but a star exploding in our galaxy as a supernova would easily be so bright it would be seen in a blue daytime sky, outshining any star or planet in the night sky.

We are long overdue. Supernovae are very rare, although astronomers say they should occur on the average every few hundred years. The last one seen in the Milky Way Galaxy was in 1680.

A supernova can become so bright - for a brief time- that the star outshines every star in the galaxy. The one in 1680 was not particularly brilliant as seen from Earth, but some have been- notably the great supernova of 1572 in Cassiopeia and another in the year 1054 in Taurus.

Several notable supernovae have been recorded through history, but none in our own galaxy since the early days of the telescope! Much of what we know today about these cosmic catastrophes come from observations of other galaxies.

Distant galaxies generally are so far away we cannot discern individual stars, although large professional observatories have photographed faint stars in nearer galaxies such as the great Andromeda Galaxy, visible to the unaided eye as a hazy patch.

While we wait for the next supernova in our home galaxy to dazzle our eyes, for both professional and amateur backyard-variety astronomers, it is a wonder to see a star within the faint smudge of a far away galaxy, where no star had been seen before.

Sun

Scientists' Research Warns Humanity May be Facing 'Vortex of Death'

Solar Cycle March
© cleveland.indymedia.org
Solar Cycle 24 has begun. NASA and other space agencies worldwide have been warning about it.

Professor Raymond Wheeler, from the University of Kansas, at first almost stumbled into the frightening data. The connection was initially discovered by noted Russian scientist Alexander Chizhevsky during 1915: solar storms trigger conflict, wars and death. A vortex of death.

Chizhevsky found after intense research that the rise and fall of solar activity - interacting with the earth's magnetic field - causes mass changes in human's perspective's, moods, emotions and behavioral patterns. All are affected by sunspots and solar flares.

Building upon the Russian scholar's research, Wheeler applied a numerically weighted ranking system during the 1930s to separate wars and even individual battles assessing them on length and severity.

He then correlated the impressive data he'd amassed with the 11-year sunspot cycle.

The results were revealing...and horrifying.

When the 11-year solar cycle peaked, so did human unrest, uprisings, rebellions, revolutions and all-out wars between nations. It was almost as if the intense magnetic upswing directly affected the human brain and drove Mankind into deadly emotional tantrums and frenzied killing sprees.

Assaults skyrocket. Murders increase. And bloody wars and rebellions erupt with a fury across the face of the globe.

Wheeler's research revealed the pattern spanned human history as far back as 2,500 years.

Telescope

Suzaku Shows Clearest Picture Yet of Perseus Galaxy Cluster

X-ray observations made by the Suzaku observatory provide the clearest picture to date of the size, mass and chemical content of a nearby cluster of galaxies. The study also provides the first direct evidence that million-degree gas clouds are tightly gathered in the cluster's outskirts.

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© NASA/ISAS/DSS/A. Simionescu et al.; inset: NASA/CXC/A. Fabian et al.Suzaku explored faint X-ray emission of hot gas across two swaths of the Perseus Galaxy Cluster. The images, which record X-rays with energies between 700 and 7,000 electron volts in a combined exposure of three days, are shown in two false-color strips. Bluer colors indicate less intense X-ray emission. The dashed circle is 11.6 million light-years across and marks the so-called virial radius, where cold gas is now entering the cluster. Red circles indicate X-ray sources not associated with the cluster. Inset: An image of the cluster's bright central region taken by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory is shown to scale.
Suzaku is sponsored by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) with contributions from NASA and participation by the international scientific community. The findings will appear in the March 25 issue of the journal Science.

Galaxy clusters are millions of light-years across, and most of their normal matter comes in the form of hot X-ray-emitting gas that fills the space between the galaxies.

"Understanding the content of normal matter in galaxy clusters is a key element for using these objects to study the evolution of the universe," explained Adam Mantz, a co-author of the paper at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

Blackbox

Physicists create heaviest form of antimatter ever seen

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© STAR/RHICSmashing time
A newly created form of antimatter is the heaviest and most complex anti-thing ever seen. Anti-helium nuclei, each containing two anti-protons and two anti-neutrons, have been created and detected at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) in Upton, New York.

Anti-particles have the opposite electrical charge to ordinary matter particles (anti-neutrons, which are electrically neutral, are made up of antiquarks that have the opposite charge to their normal quark counterparts). They annihilate on contact with matter, making them notoriously tricky to find and work with. Until recently, the most complex unit of antimatter ever seen was the counterpart of the helium-3 nucleus, which contains two protons and one neutron.

But experiments at RHIC are changing that. RHIC collides heavy atomic nuclei such as lead and gold to form microscopic fireballs, where energy is so densely packed that many new particles can be created.

Last year RHIC announced the creation of a new variety of antimatter. Called the anti-hypertriton, it is made of one anti-proton, one anti-neutron and one unstable particle called an anti-lambda. The anti-hypertriton was then the heaviest antiparticle known, but the 18 nuclei of anti-helium-4 seen at RHIC now takes the record.

Info

NASA tests Mars space suit in Argentine Antarctica

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© Reuters/NASAArgentine aerospace engineer Pablo de Leon, a NASA team member, tests a space suit designed for possible use in Mars at Argentina's Marambio base in Antarctica. The NDX-1 space suit, designed by De Leon, endured frigid temperatures and winds of more than 47 mph (75 kph) as researchers tried out techniques for collecting soil samples on Mars.The $100,000 prototype suit, created with NASA funds, is made out of more than 350 materials, including tough honeycomb Kevlar and carbon fibers to reduce its weight without losing resistance.
A NASA team has tested a space suit in a setting with extreme conditions akin to some of those found on Mars -- an Argentine base in Antarctica -- for possible use on a visit to the Red Planet.

The NDX-1 space suit, designed by Argentine aerospace engineer Pablo de Leon, endured frigid temperatures and winds of more than 47 mph (75 kph) as researchers tried out techniques for collecting soil samples on Mars.

"This was the first time we took the suit to such an extreme, isolated environment so that if something went wrong we couldn't just go to the store" and buy a repair kit, De Leon told Reuters recently after returning from the one week expedition.

The $100,000 (61,331 pound) prototype suit, created with NASA funds, is made out of more than 350 materials, including tough honeycomb Kevlar and carbon fibres to reduce its weight without losing resistance.

During the "Mars in Marambio" mission, named after the Argentine air force base, a team of NASA scientists went on simulated spacewalks, operated drills and collected samples while wearing the gear.

De Leon himself wore the pressurized suit, which he said was bound to make anyone feel claustrophobic with its helmet and built-in headset for communicating with the outside world.

Bizarro Earth

Could a Link Exist Between Super Moons and Erupting Volcanoes?

lava horizon
© Steve O'Meara
On Saturday March 19, 2011, astronomer Stephen James O'Meara watched the rare Super Moon closely. Scientifically termed a lunar perigee-syzygy; a new or full Moon (syzygy) that coincides with the Moon at its closest approach to Earth (perigee) in 18 years.

O'Meara, didn't set out in life to find a connection between the Moon and volcanic eruptions, but destiny set him on a path to do just that. Since 1610, when the great scientist Galileo was attacked and condemned for presenting a new theory of the Universe, based on his scholarly telescope observations - that the Earth and planets revolved around the Sun and not the other way around - new scientific ideas have been difficult, if not impossible, to prove to the prevailing scientific community.

O'Meara has been a rogue scientist his entire life. "As a teen I piloted my Dad's lobster boat in Boston under a bridge, and success was highly dependent on the height of the tides whether I'd make it or not. I was acutely aware of the tides at all times, their height and unimaginable strength; a wrong decision meant disaster. I was very, very aware of the Moon's gravitational affect on Earth tides at a very early age." said O'Meara.

Bomb

Looking inside the San Andreas

San Andreas Testing
© Don Bartletti / Los Angeles TimesGeologist Angel Olguin jams a seismic sensor in a shallow trough scraped in the desert floor near the Salton Sea. This and thousands of other sensors will record seismic waves from detonated explosives to "map" the San Andreas fault and other features of the Earth's crust below.

Scientists believe a new study of the San Andreas fault within the Salton Trough could change assumptions about the eventual Big One.

Reporting from the Salton Sea -- Three days after the earthquake and tsunami devastated northeastern Japan, Gary Fuis walked across the San Andreas fault under a moonlit sky. The desert was quiet. A breeze fanned through the creosote. To the west, he could see the Salton Sea, and to the east, the headlamps of the night crew taking up their positions.

In a little more than an hour, they would start detonating their explosives, generating seismic waves that would be recorded by seismometers buried throughout these sandy hills and positioned on the floor of the Salton Sea.

A geophysicist with the United States Geological Survey, Fuis is overseeing an ambitious project to create an underground image of one of the most seismically active and geologically complex regions of the country, a triangle of land extending from Palm Springs to the Mexico border.

This work, he believes, will change current assumptions about the earthquakes that originate here, especially the Big One expected on the San Andreas fault. For nearly three weeks his teams have worked night and day to cover hundreds of miles and position thousands of instruments.

Saturn

Cassini Finds Saturn Sends Mixed Signals

Saturn
© NASA/ESA/STScI/University of Leicester This unique image from NASA/ESA's Hubble Space Telescope from early 2009 features Saturn with the rings edge-on and both poles in view, offering a stunning double view of its fluttering auroras.

Like a petulant adolescent, Saturn is sending out mixed signals.

Recent data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft show that the variation in radio waves controlled by the planet's rotation is different in the northern and southern hemispheres. Moreover, the northern and southern rotational variations also appear to change with the Saturnian seasons, and the hemispheres have actually swapped rates. These two radio waves, converted to the human audio range, can be heard in a new video below.



"These data just go to show how weird Saturn is," said Don Gurnett, Cassini's radio and plasma wave science instrument team lead and professor of physics at the University of Iowa, Iowa City. "We thought we understood these radio wave patterns at gas giants, since Jupiter was so straightforward. Without Cassini's long stay, scientists wouldn't have understood that the radio emissions from Saturn are so different."

Saturn emits radio waves known as Saturn Kilometric Radiation, or SKR for short. To Cassini, they sound a bit like bursts of a spinning air raid siren, since the radio waves vary with each rotation of the planet. This kind of radio wave pattern had been previously used at Jupiter to measure the planet's rotation rate, but at Saturn, as is the case with teenagers, the situation turned out to be much more complicated.

When NASA's Voyager spacecraft visited Saturn in the early 1980s, the radiation emissions indicated the length of Saturn's day was about 10.66 hours. But as its clocking continued by a flyby of the joint ESA-NASA Ulysses spacecraft and Cassini, the radio burst varied by seconds to minutes. A paper in Geophysical Research Letters in 2009 analyzing Cassini data showed that the Saturn Kilometric Radiation was not even a solo, but a duet, with two singers out of sync. Radio waves emanating from near the north pole had a period of around 10.6 hours; radio waves near the south pole had a period of around 10.8 hours.