Science & TechnologyS


Satellite

WISE satellite telescope to be reactivated as asteroid hunter

Deborah Netburn
LA Times
Thu, 22 Aug 2013 16:49 UTC
WISE
© NASA/JPL-CaltechThis artist's concept shows the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer in its orbit around Earth. The craft has been "hibernating" since completing an earlier mission
The space-based telescope known as WISE has been orbiting our planet in a hibernative state for the past two and a half years. But now, nap time is over.

WISE has some asteroid hunting to do.

This week, NASA announced it will reactivate the sleeping space telescope and put it back to work as an asteroid hunter, focused on finding potentially hazardous asteroids and other space rocks that could come uncomfortably close to our planet.

NASA hopes the sleeping infrared telescope still has enough juice in it to discover 150 previously unknown near-Earth objects, and to help scientists learn more about the shape and size of 2,000 others, the agency said in a statement.

It may even help the agency find the perfect asteroid to capture and land a spacecraft on, later this decade.

Comment: We wonder if they're panicked by the recent jump in the number of fireball meteor events and untracked NEOs apparently appearing out of nowhere?

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Comet

Cosmic turkey-shoot: Second comet dives into the Sun in one week!


SpaceWeather
Fri, 23 Aug 2013 13:35 UTC
Here we go again. Another comet is diving into the sun, the second one this week. Coronagraphs onboard the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) are monitoring the death plunge:

Sundiving Comet
© SpaceWeatherAnimated Image Here
The icy comet, which probably measures a few 10s of meters wide, is vaporizing furiously and is not expected to survive much longer.

Like the comet that came before it, this one is a member of the Kreutz family. Kreutz sungrazers are fragments from the breakup of a single giant comet many centuries ago. They get their name from 19th century German astronomer Heinrich Kreutz, who studied them in detail.

Because of their common parentage, sungrazers often come in clusters. After today's sungrazer evaporates, it wouldn't be surprising to find yet another in the offing. Stay tuned.
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Jupiter

Major volcanic eruption seen on Jupiter's moon Io

Nancy Atkinson
Universe Today
Fri, 23 Aug 2013 13:30 UTC
Io Eruption
© NASA/JPLVoyager 1 acquired this image of Io on March 4, 1971. An enormous volcanic explosion can be seen silhouetted against dark space over Io’s bright limb.
Recent observations of Jupiter's moon Io has revealed a massive volcanic eruption taking place 628,300,000 km (390,400,000 miles) from Earth. Io, the innermost of the four largest moons around Jupiter, is the most volcanically active object in the Solar System with about 240 active regions. But this new one definitely caught the eye of Dr. Imke de Pater, Professor of Astronomy and of Earth and Planetary Science at the University of California in Berkeley. She was using the Keck II telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii on August 15, 2013 when it immediately became apparent something big was happening at Io.

"When you are right at the telescope and see the data, this is something you can see immediately, especially with a big eruption like that," de Pater told Universe Today via phone.

de Pater said this eruption is one of the top 10 most powerful eruptions that have been seen on this moon. "It is a very energetic eruption that covers over a 30 square kilometer area," she said. "For Earth, that is big, and for Io it is very big too. It really is one of the biggest eruptions we have seen."
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Info

Neutrinos change flavors in Chinese experiment

Clara Moskowitz
LiveScience
Fri, 23 Aug 2013 08:34 UTC
Neutrinos
© Roy Kaltschmidt, Berkeley LabThe Daya Bay Neutrino Experiment is designed to provide new understanding of neutrino oscillations that can help answer some of the most mysterious questions about the universe. Shown here are the photomultiplier tubes in the Daya Bay detectors.
Strange particles called neutrinos have a habit of switching identities, changing from one flavor into another - a transformation that may help probe some of the fundamental mysteries of the universe.

Now researchers conducting an underground particle detector experiment in China have published their latest measurements of this shape-shifting, which is called neutrino oscillation, and report the most precise values known for certain parameters describing how it occurs.

Neutrinos come in three flavors - electron, muon and tau - which each exist as a mixture of three possible neutrino masses (though the actual value of these masses is currently unknown). Neutrinos may start as one flavor, say electron neutrinos, and then switch into muon or tau neutrinos as they travel through space.
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Info

Why redheads are at higher risk for melanoma

Rachael Rettner
LiveScience
Thu, 22 Aug 2013 12:12 UTC
Red Hair Genes
© Thaiview | ShutterstockThe redhead gene is recessive and can skip several generations.
The same genetic mutation that leads to red hair and fair skin may put redheads at risk for skin cancer, a new study suggests.

The results show mutations in a gene called MC1R - which cause red hair, fair skin and poor tanning ability - also set up skin cells for an increased risk of cancer upon exposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation.

The findings may explain, at least in part, why redheads are known to be at higher risk for melanoma, the deadliest type of skin cancer, the researchers said.

"Our findings provide a possible molecular mechanism as to why red-haired individuals harboring MC1R mutations are much more susceptible to UV-induced skin damage than individuals with darker skin," study researcher Wenyi Wei, of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, said in a statement.
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Galaxy

A brighter method to determine surface gravity of distant stars


Phys.org
Thu, 22 Aug 2013 03:32 UTC
Gravity of distant stars
© R. Trampedach, JILA/CU Boulder, COSimulations of granulation patterns on the surface of the Sun, sub-giant and giant stars are shown. The scale of each simulation is proportional to the size of the blue image of earth next to it.
Astronomers have found a clever new way to slice and dice the flickering light from a distant star in a way that reveals the strength of gravity at its surface.

That is important because a star's surface gravity is one of the key properties that astronomers use to calculate a star's physical properties and assess its evolutionary state.

The new technique can also be used to significantly improve estimates of the sizes of the hundreds of exoplanets that have been discovered in the last 20 years. Current estimates have uncertainties ranging from 50 percent to 200 percent. Using the improved figures for the surface gravity of the host stars calculated by the new method should cut these uncertainties at least in half.

The technique was developed by a team of astronomers headed by Vanderbilt Professor of Physics and Astronomy Keivan Stassun and is described in the Aug. 22 issue of the journal Nature.
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Fish

Huge iron-rich plume discovered beneath Atlantic Ocean

Laura Poppick
Live Science
Thu, 22 Aug 2013 03:07 UTC
Hydrothermal vents
© Abigail Noble, Woods Hole Oceanographic InstitutionElevated iron concentrations appear as warm colors (red, orange, etc.) in this figure. The high iron concentrations appear for more than 1,000 kilometers, which suggests that hydrothermal vents serve as important iron sources.
A large plume of iron-rich water has been discovered emanating from hydrothermal vents in the southern Atlantic Ocean, significantly increasing estimated global concentrations of this vital marine nutrient.

Dissolved iron is often a limiting nutrient for phytoplankton, meaning that its distribution across the ocean often controls where phytoplankton blooms: Regions lacking in iron are generally devoid of this floating plant life.

Iron reaches plankton through a variety of sources, including hydrothermal vents - underwater volcanoes that spew hot, mineral-rich water from beneath the Earth's crust - as well as iron-rich dust that blows off large deserts, like Africa's Sahara.
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Info

Mom's genes may affect how fast you age

Laura Poppick
LiveScience
Wed, 21 Aug 2013 14:40 UTC
Mum's Genes
© Ilya Andriyanov | ShutterstockMutations in genes passed from mother to child may increase rates of aging later in life.
Eating well, sleeping well and exercising may help keep people young at heart, but mutated genes passed down from mothers may also predetermine aging rates, new research suggests.

Aging manifests itself in a variety of age-associated diseases as well as changes in physical appearance, and occurs at different rates in different people. Scientists have previously attributed aging to cell damage accumulated throughout life, but have not closely considered how aging rates might be inherited.

Now, a group of researchers based at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden and the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing in Germany have found that damaged DNA in the mitochondria - also known as the powerhouse of the cell, because this is where sugars break down into usable energy - partly control the rate of aging in experimental mice.

Mitochondrial DNA contains genes only from mothers. The researchers report their findings today (Aug. 21) in the journal Nature.
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Solar Flares

Electric universe: Sun-diving comet unleashes solar flare

Andrew Fazekas
The National Geographic
Tue, 20 Aug 2013 15:23 UTC
Image
© Spaceweather.comIn these time-lapse images from a sun-monitoring satellite, a massive cloud of charged particles is hurled off the sun this week only hours before a tiny comet makes a death dive towards the sun.
A tiny comet's spectacular death dive into the sun has been captured by cameras aboard NASA's SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) sun-monitoring satellite this week.Click here for the animation.

In the early hours of Tuesday, August 20, a comet estimated to be only a few tens of meters across made the kamikaze dive and did not seem to survive it's fiery encounter. (See also Comet Seen Vaporizing in Sun's Atmosphere - A First)

If you look at the lower right corner of the last few frames in the above movie, which was created from individual snapshots from SOHO, you can watch the icy interloper quickly vaporize while producing a thin-long trail behind it as it plunges into the sun.

Comment: Indeed, Lovejoy did what their theories say it shouldn't have done: the 'dirty snowball' didn't melt as it passed through one end of the sun and out the other side!

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Comet

Largest piece so far of Chelyabinsk meteorite found - scientists


Ria Novosti
Wed, 21 Aug 2013 15:04 UTC
Chelyabinsk meteorite
© Ria NovostiLargest Piece So Far of Chelyabinsk Meteorite Found – Scientists
Russian scientists have confirmed the authenticity of a 3.4-kilogram (7.5-pound) fragment of the Chelyabinsk meteorite - the largest piece found so far from the meteorite that hit the Urals region in February.

An unnamed resident of the Chelyabinsk region in Russia's Urals found the fragment near the village of Timiryazevsky and submitted it for analysis and authentication to Chelyabinsk State University.

"Yes, it is a meteorite. This is the largest [Chelyabinsk] fragment analyzed so far by scientists," Andrei Kocherov, an official from the university, told RIA Novosti.

The lucky owner was given an official certificate confirming the authenticity of the celestial fragment, Kocherov said.
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